Taking on the Cartels

Border Czar Tom Homan has vowed to wipe Mexican drug cartels “off the face of the earth.”

I think it’s about time that this became policy. However, I wish he wouldn’t use clichés like this. To my ear, it sounds hyperbolic, and it’s just going to make these guys puff out their chests, stick out their chins, and act all defiant-like. It’s not going to scare them a bit, and I want them to be scared. I’m more of a fan of Teddy Roosevelt’s phrase, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Were I in his shoes, I would simply say, “We’re going to hit them, and it’s going to hurt.”

Minor point. Anyway, just what does Homan mean? I guess I wouldn’t want him to give away any plans — saying nothing is off the table is good enough for me — but I do sometimes wonder about the particulars. Like, we send the Marines to the border, and I wonder what their rules of engagement are. You really can’t shoot at these aliens when they start coming over the border. I mean, nobody wants to hurt women and kids, right? If the coyotes and their charges thought we’d really do that, they’d simply grab the Hamas Terrorism Playbook and apply Chapter 5: How to Use Women and Children as Human Shields When You’re a Gutless Coward. So what do a few thousand troops do?

When they come over, do the troops shove them back over the line (again and again until we or they pass out from exertion?) Do they lock arms and block the aliens from passing through, like in Red Rover? Do they wait until they come over and then zip-tie them up, put them on a bus to the airport, and fly them back over? I really have no idea, but either way, it seems to me they’re going to need a lot more troops to cover a 1700-mile border. And as a sidebar, I’m not sure why we are trying to stuff these people into C-17s and fly them back to Colombia, Venezuela, or wherever they come from. They should just be going back to Mexico City since the Mexicans are the guys who have been letting them pass through their country and into ours for years. And since 2019, it’s been US policy, if not law, for “asylum seekers” to file for asylum in the first safe country that they come to. So, if Mexico doesn’t consider itself to be a safe country it probably needs to let the rest of the world know that. 

By the by, it costs you and me about $25,000 (2013 dollars so it’s more now) to keep a C-17 in the air for an hour. Just assuming that it takes an hour to get from southern Texas to Mexico City and an hour to fly back, that’s well over $50,000. It’s been demonstrated that you can pack about 850 people into one of those, but those are Joe Biden’s Afghanistan PanicButton numbers, and I doubt that the military would do that in this situation. What I’ve seen so far in their few attempts to do this is that the passenger count is around 100. So, at least $500 per alien, I guess, if my remedial math is any good. Multiply that by hundreds of thousands of deportees, though, and we’re on the hook for lots of tax dollars. Seems to me you could go on Priceline or something and get a one way ticket on a commercial flight for about $125. This would be a lot less expensive and would also circumvent some of these countries’ refusal to give landing rights to military aircraft. Don’t charter planes full of illegals; those countries will just add them to the military flight prohibition because we know some of them don’t want these aliens back. Just load up commercial flights along with some regular passengers and wave goodbye.

Trump Signs Executive Orders to Secure the Southern Border, End the Illegal Influx

BUH-BYE: Lines of Shackled Illegals Seen Boarding Military Aircraft for One-Way Trips Home

So, on to the cartels. Are we going to use military presence as a symbol of deterrence? (Is anybody afraid of us anymore?) Are we going to do the UN Two Step or some other quasi-legalistic approach to lodge a protest? This is a different scenario than the “What are we going to do with the border crossers” question. This is about jumping up and down on the cartels with both feet. The notion mirrors closely the premise of the 1994 Clancy thriller “Clear and Present Danger.” In that movie, US special forces went after Colombian dope cartels on their home territory, blowing up bad stuff and killing bad guys. The effort did not have Congressional approval, so the minute their cover became vulnerable, the plug was pulled. 

In this case, though, it’s not clear what Homan’s goal is since wiping them from the face of the earth is probably just frustration bluster. Still, though, he aims to do something, and I’m going to presume that he is focusing on the Mexican cartels since we share a common border. So rather than go into Mexico covertly, or maybe with the blessing and cooperation of that government, I would think his efforts will be spent at the border. The troops are already coming to it, and no doubt more will follow. Especially if the cartels are going to start trading bullets with the U.S. Border Patrol. In that case, I hope that Homan is authorized not just to shoot back over the border, but actually go over it and step on them. Tit for Tats aren’t something that will stop people like this, I say from my layman’s point of view, because it’s clear that these people will do anything to get their product in here. I can’t help but think treating them like another army, and beating them like another army, is what it will take to cut them apart. 

Going over the border into a “sovereign” country with tanks, troops, and airplanes is fraught with bad optics at the least, but that just has to be countered with good optics at the most. Yanqui Imperialism bad optics. Killing Dope Dealing Fentanyl Terrorists and Sex Trafficking Narco-Pimps better optics. If the Mexican government takes umbrage at such an incursion, then maybe it needs to get its own military in the game so that we get out of the game. 

What if Trump asks Congress to declare war on the cartels. He’s already declared them to be terrorist organizations, but I’m not sure if a declaration of war applies here. Maybe it should. If the Japanese earned themselves one for killing 3,000 of us at Pearl Harbor, maybe the cartels deserve one for killing 100,000 of us every year. This will certainly prompt the Nancy Pelosis in Congress to cry, “Isn’t there a Spark of Jesus in these people, too?”  Yeah….So? But none of this Coast-Guard-heave-to-and-prepare-to-be-boarded-go-to-the-US-for-trial stuff. We just blow up their tunnels, bomb their rallying points, shoot down their airplanes, destroy their boats, and sink their submarines. We did it to the Germans; we can do it to them. 

Gee, they’ve certainly invited the abuse. It would be rude not to accept.