Letters of mark and reprisal vs cartels

Bounties on citizens of another country. What could go wrong? How about we simply stop supplying them with American guns?

 

Lol.

Hey, I noticed that Elmo Musk's teenage employee put your kids on the cartel member list, based on some unkind posting on X.

Good luck with that, buddy. What could go wrong?

 

So the plan here is to authorize private citizens to go to Mexico, in violation of countless laws, get into massive gun fights with cartels (who have private armies), likely killing huge numbers of civilians (likely sparking gun fights with the Mexican government), with the promise of paying them a percentage of a small percentage of their assets, and hope that they happily hand over the objects that are worth most of the value (their inventory of illegal drugs and guns). Because that is totally what privateers did (they totally didn't engage in outright piracy all the time, no sir).

People are dumb.

 

Why so angry? I simply suggested an easier path to weaken cartels is disrupting their gun pipeline from the US vs creating a wackadoodle bounty program. Studies show 80-90%of weapons in Mexico come from the US.

 

The source of their power has always been the number of ARs that they can stick into their employees' hands, not the fancy weapons. And the supply chains from the gun stores to the Mexican cartels are just as sophisticated as the drug supply chains (they are generally run by former drug smugglers that realized that gun running is a job that is less likely to get you picked up than drug running).

 

Whoa, put some cream in your coffee, buddy!

There's absolutely no question that Mexican drug cartels get a huge amount of weapons from the US. As do Haitian gangs. And criminals all over our hemisphere.

Cuz, ya know that makes us all safer and.... "muh rights! "

 

I do not think that the government of Mexico will take very well to US mercenaries operating independently within their country.

 

What if Mexico puts a bounty on American citizens who sell guns that end up in a Mexican cartel’s hands? Or Americans who support the cartels by buying drugs that fund them? Seems like a pretty bad idea but that makes it a great MAGA idea.

 

The way to beat them is financial warfare.

 

Sure, this idea might be incredibly stupid, but, on the bright side, theoretically, when the Mexican Cartels, whatever mercenaries that we can come up with, and the Mexican government all start shooting at each other, we could have a literal Mexican standoff.

 

Straight out of the old Russia / Wagner Group playbook. Let's not become Russia under Trump, kay?

 

Not buying their drugs is a good start.

 

Gee, I wonder if the guy who made most of his money licensing his name to money laundering real estate properties would really want to go after the massive, Russian-led money laundering scheme.

 

You mean like this?
Treasury Targets Fentanyl Traffickers and Other Key Contributors to U.S. Opioid Crisis
Feds freeze La Linea’s assets, expose ties to Jalisco cartel | Border Report

 

Is this real life? Good grief.

 

Because he's a crank. It's his natural state. Notice - in true MAGA form - how he never addresses the point, but just flows into comfortable MAGA moron rhetoric.

 

Sorta like the python hunters in south Florida? I like it.

 

Or you may have to pick a winner you can live with. This is the hard choice nobody wants to face but is probably the only realistic solution, IMO. We also need to forge a new relationship with Mexico, but it's clear we are a long way from that. IDK, maybe Trump can antagonize them into something positive, but I doubt it will be lasting. And that's just looking at the potential positives. The potential negatives here - or any kind of unilateral action - are off the charts. Especially when you realize how important this relationship is for both countries for the next century. It's basically the key to success for both. Get it right and we thrive. Get it wrong and we piss all that potential down the drain.