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Comment by irthomasthomas | Hacker News Reader

as someone who vacations regularly throughout mexico (tijuana, rosarito, mexico city, chihuahua and baja amongst the destinations) i find these sorts of comments silly at best.

there is no "mexican civil war" there was the Cristero, the reform, and the revolutionary war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Civil_War

while organized criminal homicides are rising, it is nowhere near sixty-thousand. it has never been close.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_drug_war#Casualties

the civilian casualties of the Syrian civil war numbered nearly 230,000 which is nearly quadruple your assessment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Syrian_civil...

From your second link:

> 227,413 civilians had been killed between March 2011 and June 2022.

That's about 20k a year (assuming an even distribution across the entire conflict, which is probably a bad assumption.)

From your first link, there were 33k organized crime related murders in Mexico in 2021.

Probably both of these should be adjusted per capita (Mexico has ~6x the population of Syria), but in absolute numbers they seem to be in the same ballpark.

Gave you an upvote as your sources mostly confirm that Mexico is the worst war zone in the world. I may have the figures off, but, in 2016, at the height of the Syrian war, Mexico was second place to Syria[0]. Problem is, Mexico aren't counting missing people, and there A TON of missing persons, hundreds of thousands of them.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/11/mexico-deadly-...

The first line in your link says: It is often not clear what deaths are part of the Mexican drug war versus general criminal homicides, and different sources give different estimates. Which should be a clue that the actual casualties are very plausibly higher than those officially attributed to organized crime.

The total Mexican murder rate listed Wikipedia is 36,579/year. Given Mexico once had a fairly low murder rate, attributing much of this to organized crime seems plausible. Not 60k/year but the violence has gone up and down. Moreover, the "rate of disappearance" is substantial and I believe disappearances aren't counted as official murders of any sort.

And my point would be that all this is unknown. Given the cartels have corrupted and subverted local authorities and that their murders are kept as secret as they can manage, glib certainty about the extent of cartel murders seems unwarranted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

As someone who lives in Mexico since over a decade ago, and well outside the tourist bubbles, I'd say that your personal view of the situation is ridiculously rose-tinted. The violence isn't plainly visible as it's been in Syria, for example, but it's very real and vastly destructive. Not to mention the amount of homicide that goes unreported and the disappearances that likewise don't get reported. Furthermore, your own sources actually do more to back up the argument you're rejecting than to prove your own claim.

And a lot of that violence spills over the border into the US. Bloody cartel murders, extortion, and such are common in the southwest US and beyond. The Mexican government and politicians are all somewhere in between being controlled by the cartels and too scared to do anything about them. That is casus belli, legal grounds for war, by any reasonable understanding of international law.

And a lot of that violence spills over the border into the US. Bloody cartel murders, extortion, and such are common in the southwest US and beyond.

One might imagine that but one would do well to actually investigate whether it's true.

I visited El Paso, Texas a few years ago. It has one of the lower murder rates for cities of it's size in the US. It's directly across the border from Cuida Juerez, a city with one of the highest murder rates in the Western Hemisphere.

It's actually quite remarkable how contained the horrible violence in Mexico is.

12th lowest here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

> That is casus belli, legal grounds for war, by any reasonable understanding of international law.

Perhaps. But anything the US Military could do about it would only make the problem even worse. It being a legal reason for war is irrelevant because it isn't a rational reason for war.

I don't know. Commando raids on cartel leadership sound good to me. Assassin drones too. Just start taking these people out. Put the fear of God in them.

> Just start taking these people out. Put the fear of God in them.

Cartels have been doing this to cartels the entire time. They inflict violence on each other far more brutal than the American military would dare. They've flayed family members of their rivals alive to "put the fear of God in them". More of the same isn't going to solve anything.

It's not more of the same. It's the cartels vs. the NSA's intelligence gathering apparatus, the US military's precision assassin drones, etc. Cartels don't have those at their disposal.

Are you sure the United states cares enough about drugs? The Sacklers are still free and wealthy. The war on drug keeps the prison industry and slave supply rolling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_traffi...

Common? That's some outrageous hyperbole. Claims about casus belli against Mexico, America's largest trading partner? Now you've indicted your own intellectual capabilities.

It’s not hyperbole if you’re at all familiar with Mexican-American history. The US has invaded Mexico before for almost this exact same reason.

I guess Iraq worked so well, the US wants to occupy Mexico? Again?

If the US actually started using its military to hit these guys, what would stop them from sending a thousand guys into a large chemical or nuclear plant and creating a disaster that wiped out a city, or more? I find this sort of jingo rhetoric disturbing because the US has never faced an enemy with thousands of troops inside the US and the funding of a nation state. I can imagine an idiot like Trump actually starting something like this up.

> If the US actually started using its military to hit these guys, what would stop them from sending a thousand guys into a large chemical or nuclear plant and creating a disaster that wiped out a city, or more?

I mean, yes, they could, but would they? What would be the realistic result of such an action? Would the US then stop and go “Well, I guess we’ll have to stop antagonizing the cartels.”. I would guess that such a thing would instead be a Pearl Harbor moment, and I think the cartels know this, too. The cartels don’t want to act out your personal nightmare scenario; they want to do things to make the US stop bothering the cartels. Instead of mindlessly scare-mongering, figure out what that action would be, and ask yourself if a war with the cartels is worth it. It might or might not be, but be realistic about it.

I'm talking about if the US already was at war with them and hitting them hard. I don't see what would restrain them at that point.

Military actions have purposes, which do not include acting out your nightmare scenarios and being as horrible as possible. There’s a reason regular armies don’t do that kind of thing; it does not aid their purpose. And I don’t see how such an action could ever aid the cartels.

War is not a game where each side gradually loses their “restraint”. Instead, each side carefully considers each possible action and its consequences, and then does whatever action seems to lead to the best end result.

Hold on amigo, have you seen how cartels operate? They actually do just do as horrible of a thing as possible, just because the top people want to be monsters and show their enemies they can slaughter them. They hang their gutted enemies off bridges, or decimate a whole neighborhood, or you name it. I think you assume they would play by your rules in a war. They might just decide to erase Houston so they can watch those people die in a gas cloud.

> They actually do just do as horrible of a thing as possible

Yes, the do that when their enemies are individual people, since that tactic works on those. I doubt the same tactics would work on armies or nation states.

> so they can watch those people die in a gas cloud.

You still seem to think that the cartels do things merely for their own cruel amusement. I, on the other hand, believe that cruel amusement is luxury which they allow themselves only as long as it works.

> You still seem to think that the cartels do things merely for their own cruel amusement. I, on the other hand, believe that cruel amusement is luxury which they allow themselves only as long as it works.

I agree with you on this. I also think it would absolutely work, just like it works in Mexico. I also think it would be the first choice of people accustomed to it working.

> I also think it would absolutely work, just like it works in Mexico.

I feel that the U.S. Army would not respond favorably to terrorism.

> I also think it would be the first choice of people accustomed to it working.

Well, that may be true; they might be stupid enough to do that. I couldn’t really say; I’m just a random person on the internet without any special knowledge of their psychology.

> I would guess that such a thing would instead be a Pearl Harbor moment, and I think the cartels know this, too.

What else might that war teach us?

There are 10 million Mexican-Americans by birth in America, and 37 million by ancestry. If America went to war with Mexico, I fear there would be efforts to intern Mexican-Americans as Japanese-Americans once were.

Such a war is a horrible idea for everybody. It would create conditions in Mexico and America that are far worse than the present status quo.

Interning 47M people out of 333M, especially when those 47M represent a large portion of younger, working age people, does not seem like it would go well.

Certainly not, it would be a disaster.

Are you saying that Mexican immigrants and descendants in the US would be loyal to the Mexican government?

No. I am describing what would happen: the American government wrongfully persecuting Mexican-Americans, as it once wrongfully persecuted Japanese-Americans.

This is not a description of what I think should happen, which is this: American and Mexico should not go to war, because it would inevitably lead to a human rights disaster.

The same thing that prevents any enemy from sending a thousand guys to any other sensitive site - men with guns (and intel and air support and armor).

Occasionally the cartel and Texas guard do exchange fire.

You think that if a thousand cartel guys showed up at a nuke plant with the intention of melting it down that armor and airstrikes would help matters? I think that would just help them actually.

The Mexican cartels are notably wary of messing with U.S police agents and police/military/border security agencies. There are isolated cases of very foolish sicarios or smaller, more irresponsible organized crime cells playing at threats against U.S border agents or at U.S agents inside Mexico but it's rare and often discouraged brutally by the larger cartels. The simple reason why is they know that with the U.S government, the subversion they regularly practice with pathetically corrupt Mexican authorities works much, much less and goes completely out the window if a U.S police agent dies by their hands. The U.S government strongly underscored this with the cartels by spending decades and God knows how much money diligently pursuing every last person they could find who had any connection to the Kike Camarena murder. The lesson hasn't been forgotten by the bigger cartel bosses, even today.

Do you think a thousand people will make it that far? Intelligence services will detect and stop them before they reach such a size.

This isn’t something the government hopes doesn’t happen: it’s something they actively work hard at everyday to ensure doesn’t happen.

I absolutely do think they could. They operate vast smuggling networks in the US right now with near impunity, as one proof of this capability. Also, US intelligence is pretty bad when it counts. It didn't catch 9-11 or the fall of Afghanistan or the Soviet Union. Why would it detect a raid on a nuke plant?

...Yes. If you kill the people attacking the sensitive site, they will be unable to attack the sensitive site on account of being dead.

A thousand man force is a battalion. The cartels have no real armor and no air support. No heavy weapons. No training.

The US Army fields 31 brigades. A brigade is 5 battalions.

For every cartel member in your theoretical force, there are ~149 trained, armed, active duty service members in deployable condition for combat roles.

That doesn't include artillery, sustainment, the US Airforce or the US Navy. I am also not including guard teams which are another 27 brigades.

Your theoretical cartel force would also have to go through the Texas State Guard (1,700 people) and US Border Patrol.

It's not "jingo rhetoric." Many of the government leaders south of the border are literally in cahoots with the cartels to commit thousands of murders a year, either directly or through peddling fentanyl, in the US. The rest of them have decided to go along with it out of fear. That is an act of war. The US should respond wisely and carefully, but people should remember these are literally ongoing acts of war committed against us. And what you propose the cartels would respond with is unlikely to work and would only elicit the directed ire of the US at the particular groups that ordered it, so would not be a rational move.

We are spending billions of dollars and killing many Russian soldiers and civilians to fight Putin, but Mexico is responsible for more American deaths and mayhem than Putin ever dream of.

a war with Mexico (or any significant military intervention) means 1000x more people stream over the Southern border compared to now.

And the practicalities of a war would necessitate an effort to stop that, to prevent the spread of enemy combatants behind the front line. Even if you search everybody passing through the border for weapons.. ...it's America. They can get weapons here.

The inevitable result is a massive human rights disaster, that makes the present status quo look like paradise.

It's would actually be really easy to completely close the border if there was the political will for it. The US spends way more money on frivolous things every year than it would take to fully militarily fortify the entire border.

In this sense, Americans funding the cartels through drug buying is also an act of war.

And it's rotten to the core. Just ask the DEA about why they returned the former Mexican Secretary of Defense with apologies for the inconvenience.[0]

[0]https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/18/americas/mexican-defense-secr...

isn't MX the country where four dozen activist college students were murdered, many years later a senior, acting Federal attorney was arrested for the covering up the investigation? (edit)

It was 43 and a reporter that recently released updated information about that attorney and a local mayor who was involved was killed hours after publication just last month.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/mexic...

It's also the place where bloggers are routinely killed for blogging about crime. Also, any new law enforcement agent announcing they're going to do something about crime is murdered within 24hrs or so.

"Editor's note: Because of concerns over their ongoing safety in Mexico, the name of the reporter who wrote this story is not listed." https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/11/29/mexica...

You are probably referring to this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Iguala_mass_kidnapping There is also a Netflix docuseries about this, it's called The 43. If you search for "Ayotzinapa" you can find out more.

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