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KulakRevolt  1yr ago (open.substack.com)   2639 thread views

Reaper Drones over Houston: A War in Mexico Would Mean War in America

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Take I wrote on increasing calls in Republican and bi-partisan spaces for a Military intervention into Mexico against the Cartels, and why this would inevitably lead to armed conflict within America itself, along with a possible death spiral of instability in the wider North American region.

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Republicans who want to invade Mexico must be functionally retarded. Mexico is fine, GDP per capita is inching up (very slowly) on the macro level, same way it has since 1980. Mexicans are now rich enough that most no longer even want to move to the US (vast majority of migrants are Central Americans).

It’s hard to say for certain whether the cartels are actually “more powerful” than they have been at other times in the last 20 years (and every strategy the US has told Mexico to implement which eg. Peña Nieto followed to the letter failed), the point is they’re a feature of Central American life and there’s no particular need to go Rambo on them.

America’s drug problem has very little to nothing to do with Mexico (just like it has very little to do with the Sacklers). It has everything to do with mountains of cheap fentanyl flowing in from China, which will make its way to West Virginia even if every cartel is permanently destroyed.

Or, take it from the DEA directly earlier this year:

China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail and express consignment operations environment, as well as the main source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States

I actually agree with @RandomRanger that a full-scale Maoist purge of drug dealers and users could work in the US. But such a policy would have nothing to do with Mexico and could be accomplished without any change to border policy or military action beyond American soil.

I assume you're looking at this report? If so, it goes on to paint a slightly different picture.

  1. Those "related substances" are precursors, some (most?) of which are going to Mexico for synthesis
  2. China's regulatory regime was starting to crack down on the market
  3. Crackdowns have pushed manufacturers to countries like India
  4. Oh, and this is pre-COVID

This is compatible with the cartels being essential to the process. Because there are no numbers, I can't prove it. I would be interested to see whether China was successful in slowing down the flow of precursors.

You're right, I took the quote from an article that claimed that quote was from earlier this year. The drugs are produced in Mexico from Chinese precursors, sure, it's unclear why they couldn't be produced elsewhere using the same Chinese precursors if production in Mexico became too challenging. The vast majority of US imports aren't inspected, as ever.

Here's a more recent quote from DEA Administrator Milgram from last month:

In response to a question on China’s role alongside the US in preventing fentanyl from being produced, Milgram said: “We have had recent conversations with Chinese authorities, both in Beijing and in Washington, talking about improving law enforcement cooperation.

“For about the past year, we have not had the cooperation that we want to have. And, of course, we have offices in the People’s Republic of China and all over Asia. We have 334 offices around the world. So the recent conversations, I think, are very important, and now we have to see if we can turn this into law enforcement cooperation,” she added.

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