Yesterday, I wrote about two American tourists who were kidnapped and killed by a drug cartel in Matamoros, Mexico. I pointed out that if it hadn’t been for the drug war, those two people would be alive today. That’s because drug prohibition gives rise to violent drug cartels. No drug war would mean no drug cartels, which would mean no drug-war killings.
Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, drug-war proponents just don’t get it. In response to the killings in Matamoros, Republican members of Congress are calling for another extreme crackdown in the war on drugs. Flailing away after decades of failing to eradicate drugs and drug cartels with their beloved drug war, they are now doubling down by calling for the U.S. military to be sent into Mexico to wage war against the Mexican drug cartels.
South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is planning to introduce legislation to authorize the U.S. military to attack the Mexican drug cartels. His Republican counterpart in Congress James Comer is suggesting the same thing, exclaiming that the Mexican government has failed to eradicate the cartels.
What planet are these guys living on? Don’t they know that the Mexican military has been waging war against the drug cartels for more than 10 years? And don’t they know that the result is more than 100,000 dead or disappeared Mexicans?
Yes, two dead Americans is a horrific thing. But what about 100,000 Mexicans?
The more the Mexican military cracked down during the past 10 years, the greater the number of deaths and disappearances. Whenever the the military captured or killed some top drug lord, his cartel cohorts would respond by killing untold numbers of innocent people. Moreover, scores of people were killed in the crossfire between the cartels and the military.
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I highly recommend watching the Netflix series Narcos. It revolves around the famous drug lord Pablo Escobar in Columbia. The more the Columbian military cracked down on Escobar’s operation, the more innocent people he would kill. Moreover, innocent people would be killed in the periodic crossfire between Escobar’s forces and the government’s forces. It was a horrific spiral of deadly violence. In fact, according to the series, at one point the government made a deal with Escobar in which he agreed to stop killing people in return for being free to construct and manage his own private jail in which he was incarcerated.
Despite the massive violence that comes with the drug war here in the United States, Americans have been spared the massive drug-war violence in Mexico. But if the U.S. military begins directly waging war against the Mexican drug cartels, Americans living on the U.S. side of the border might start getting prepared for some very nasty cross-border raids in retaliation. Remember: the drug war attracts very unsavory types who place no value on the lives of innocent people.
There is good reason why the American people have long prohibited the military from engaging in domestic law enforcement. The military mindset is one of war, which means killing, death, and destruction. The police mentality is completely different — its mindset is one of law enforcement, not war.
Hypocritically, long ago the U.S. persuaded Mexico to employ its military to enforce drug laws. The result, not surprisingly, has been massive death, violence, and destruction.
Don’t be surprised to see drug-war proponents also calling on the U.S. military to enforce drug laws here in the United States. But bringing the U.S. military into the war on drugs in Mexico and here in the United States will just bring even more death, violence, and destruction, not to mention corruption in the form of bribes.
To bring an immediate end to the drug cartels and all the death, violence, destruction, and corruption that come with them, there is but one solution: end drug prohibition by legalizing drugs. As our ancestors learned after ending alcohol Prohibition, that is the only way to restore liberty, peace, and harmony in both Mexico and the United States.