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Comment by guerrilla | Hacker News Reader

I personally don't think that's the whole story. They're likely going to act against the cartels to take out cross-border drone capabilities and are preparing for S-A retaliation as well.

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A cartel using a SAM against a US civilian aircraft would massively solidify public opinion against them just like 9/11 or the Iran hostage crisis. The US has been trying to extent the "foreign terrorist" label and casus belli to drug activities forever to justify military operations (ex. the "arrest" of Maduro was for drugs, not oil/Cuba/political stuff). That would be a massive self-own on the cartels part. (And if it did happen, just like 9/11, it would be used as justification for anything even remotely immigration or drug related at every level.)

My understanding over the US/MX cartel relations is performing an invasion and “act of war” would solidify asylum status claims by Mexican residents and throw a wrench into the whole immigration scheme every administration plays.

But then again this time seems different, laws aren’t followed or upheld. Human rights are a fleeting staple.

Starting a war with Mexico would be a pretext for interning everyone of "Mexican" ethnicity, citizen or otherwise, as was done to Japanese nationals.

Its mincing words a bit, but an attack targeting drug cartel assets wouldn't necessarily be viewed as a war with Mexico. It could lead to that for sure, and the Mexican government could declare it an act of war, but we did just see the US literally invade a foreign country and arrest their sitting leader without war being declared on either side.

The US hasn't declared war since World War II.

I suspect Mexicans would view it as another Pancho Villa Expedition, which was also event where neither side declared war.

We declared war on drugs and on terror, maybe AIDs and Covid as well? Though you're right, we haven't declared war on another state since WWII despite being in multiple wars over that time.

I assumed when you wrote "war being declared" you meant in Constitutional sense which reserves to Congress the power to declare war.

Not in the metaphorical "war on poverty" sort of way.

FWIW, examples in addition to Maduro are Aguinaldo (Philippines), Noriega (Panama), Hussein (Iraq), and Aristide (Haiti).

(Technically speaking, the US didn't recognize Philippine independence so didn't consider Aguinaldo to be its president, but instead a rightful cession from the Kingdom of Spain due to the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Spanish–American War, where the US had made a formal declaration of war.)

(Also, the US says Aristide's departure was voluntary.)

Yet. It has certainly ratcheted up worldwide tensions, to put it mildly.

its a lot more expensive than the US properly controlling what weapons are leaving its borders.

rather than arming the cartels to fight against the mexican government, thr US could just... not

> A cartel using a SAM against a US civilian aircraft would massively solidify public opinion against them

In what world is public opinion not universally against the cartels? It's hard to take you seriously after that.

> In what world is public opinion not universally against the cartels? It's hard to take you seriously after that.

I think you’re getting tripped up by some specific wording and managing to miss the point the poster was making. The point should be taken seriously even if imprecisely articulated. While most folks are against the cartels, there’s a much wider range of belief on how much they warrant government or military intervention and to what degree we should be spending various resources on them. The historical state of play was(is?) that cartels are criminal organizations which are generally a policing matter that has escalated to specialized policing agencies and multinational networks of policing agencies. The marked escalation of the military into this is a more recent piece that is somewhat more controversial. One doesn’t have to be “in favor of the cartel” to ask questions about whether our military should be bombing boats or invading countries to ostensibly neutralize organizations that historically have been subject to policing operations.

To go back to the parallel… the public wasn’t in favor of Al Qaeda before 9/11 either, but there was a huge difference in the level of response the public was in favor of after. It turned from an intelligence monitoring level of response into an active military invasion of multiple countries.

The best part about bombing the boats is that the second strikes on them were war crimes, while the few survivors that were picked up... All ended up repatriated.

If they were all drug runners, why weren't they put on trial? Why was so much effort made to sink all the evidence? Why did an admiral resign, when told to do this?

Everybody involved, starting from the people pulling the trigger, to the people giving the orders should be getting a fair trial and a swift punishment for that little stint of piracy and murder.

But these people all act like there is no such thing as consequences.

>But these people all act like there is no such thing as consequences.

Are there?

There could be. Don't settle for anything less.

It is, of course. What they mean, I assume, is that it would reach a tipping point where intervention would be more broadly supported. Virtually everyone is willing to say "that's bad" with regards to something happening somewhere, it is far less agreed upon that the US should intervene in that bad thing. An effective tipping point is probably something on the order of "we feel attacked".

Much of the world was against Saddam Hussein, but it took the wholesale invention of an Iraqi nuclear program to justify and get authorization for deposing him through international military action. Iraq didn't attack us, though in attacking an oil partner they might as well have, but the public certainly didn't feel attacked until someone dreamed up the prospect of Iraq nuking Israel, Europe, and/or us.

In that case, the justification was a prerequisite to Congress authorizing a war without losing elections, and then selling it to the US's allies so we wouldn't have to send quite as many troops and thus lose elections. This administration demonstrably doesn't care about justification, authorization, alliances, or elections. So why bother? If they're going to stage an arbitrary Venezuela-like military operation in Mexico because of "cartels", they wouldn't wait for a civilian mass-death event, or for Congress, or regional allies, or public opinion. They didn't wait for any of that in Venezuela.

TBQH this just felt like a cheap and easy way for them to perpetuate the idea that we're always at war with terrorists. Now they're "narcoterrorists", but they're still "terrorists". And this administration might not like obstacles like authorization and due process, but it loves cheap, easy terrorists.

Regarding the justification given to the US, it was not just WMDs, from the US public's perspective. Large portions of the US population believed that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for 9/11 and the US repeatedly framed things that way.

There were plenty of people that were not against Pablo Escobar as he spent a lot of money back in his home town. Once the violence escalated, like when they took down a civilian flight, even that support waned. So I can see where GP is saying similar that by the time cartels get to the point of shooting down civilian aircraft even those that did support them would consider that the final straw.

The world where Americans buy billions in illegal drugs every year and turn a blind eye to cartels. "My dealer is nice"

The cartel can recreate 9/11 and people will still buy drugs.

There's still a difference between the opinions on cartels and the opinion on an invasion and bombing of groups hopefully-related-to-cartels during another years long not-war.

> In what world is public opinion not universally against the cartels? It's hard to take you seriously after that.

They definitely care about not ratting the cage with the US - they don't harm US federal agents, or take US hostages, and the last incident of Americans being killed in Mexico by cartel-affiliated gunmen in a case of mistaken identity - it was the cartel who handed the perps over and apologised[0]

[0] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/09/us/mexico-matamoros-ameri...

I don't mean that many people actively support them (in the US, my understand is in some areas they do have local support in Mexico, but anyway), but rather that this is not the forefront of most peoples minds, nor would people necessarily support any conceivable action against them. Moreover, many would criticize efforts against them as "failed war on drugs" and see it primarily in that lens absent any clear attack on US civilians not involved in the trade.

I take it you don’t know much about the Troubles, then. The SAM missiles would be saved for returning ICE Air flights, not Delta.

What cross-border drone capabilities, drug deliveries? People are talking like the cartels are conducting Ukraine-style drone warfare and blowing up Americans on the regular. Let's stick to a factual baseline here.

Well, turns out I was right, so I can't help you there if you didn't understand what I said.

Right about what? You're just flattering yourself without any substance.

My original comment turned out to be accurate. I'm not sure what you don't understand.

What does that even mean? Cartels can buy those DJI drones from China by the container load.

Russia and Ukraine can't stop drones. Does the US have a secret weapon?

> Does the US have a secret weapon?

It sounds like that's what was being tested requiring the NOTAM. We just don't know if it did or didn't work. It could have failed so badly they decided to just shut it down, or it could have worked so successfully they decided no more testing was needed.

> Russia and Ukraine can't stop drones. Does the US have a secret weapon?

That does actually seem to be what they are saying now, yes.

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