Florida Governor Ron Desantis said on Wednesday night that he would send the military into Mexico to fight drug cartels on “day one” of his presidency if he wins the 2024 presidential election.
At the Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee, DeSantis was asked if he would support sending in US special forces to take out fentanyl labs and other drug cartel operations. “Yes, and I will do it on day one,” he replied.
“We have to reestablish the rule of law and we have to defend our people. The president of the United States has got to use all available powers as commander in chief to protect our country,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis claimed cartels are “killing tens of thousands of our fellow citizens” and said he would treat them as “foreign terrorist organizations.”
Taking military action across the border would dramatically expand the decades-old failed war on drugs, but the idea of invading or bombing Mexico in response to the large number of overdoses in the US is becoming increasingly popular among Republicans. Other 2024 hopefuls have called for military action against cartels, including the frontrunner, former President Trump.
Earlier this year, Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John Kennedy (R-LA) introduced a bill to designate Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, which has a total of six cosponsors. Graham said the purpose of the legislation was to “set the stage” for military intervention in Mexico.
Another bill introduced by Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) would authorize the president to use military force against “those responsible for trafficking fentanyl or a fentanyl-related substance into the United States or carrying out other related activities that cause regional destabilization in the Western Hemisphere.” The Crenshaw legislation has received 21 cosponsors.
We smashed Panama with the stated purpose of combating drugs, the amount of drugs coming through Panama increased after our invasion.
That’s a lot of dead people to increase drug sales, of course the drugs were just an excuse, but it doesn’t change the fact that it didn’t stop anything, not there or here.
A nation full of addicts doesn’t stop being a nation full of addicts, just because the supply is cut off. Even if you could do it, it wouldn’t help save lives. When the USSR fell they didn’t have the money to import drugs, they made them instead and it was far worse than when the heroin and coke were coming in. In fact it was one of the worst things you can imagine happening to people, worse than the flesh eating crap going around Philly (caused by another intervention). Ever seen pictures of people who got hit by blister agent or other biological weapons, that’s what it looked like. Like a bioweapon hit Moscow.
Sadly, DeSatin isn’t’ the only one talking about this moronic idea.
Well … Americans have a lust for drugs to escape reality. The drugs will flow as long as there is a demand.
People have been getting high off substances for thousands of years; it has nothing to do with Americans. Getting high is a natural urge, even some non-humans do it, like birds eating fermented berries to get drunk. Read The Natural Mind by Dr. Martin Weil for details.
Andrew Weill, but yes.
Sorry, read it about 50 years ago.
DeSantis number one lie. He won’t be sending anybody to Mexico. The only thing we can do is to send trainers/advisors and equipment and intel sharing.
De santis belongs in germany circa 1933. He’d fit right in…
Your is a truly dumb comment.
Desantis speaks nothing but of hate, racism, violence, war, etc. So he’d be a perfect fit there and then. So jr, you know not of what you spout but i’m sure that is your MO and has been for a very long time. If stupidity and ignorance were bliss you must be a very very happy fellow..
LOL Your comments are filled with rage and hate. Look inward child ….
I agree. However, DeSantis is potentially a dangerous demagogue who should never become our President.
My test for “Germany 1933” is always: “where is his or her SA?”, because Hitler would not have become Germany’s Chancellor without the SA.
I’m neither a Trump fan nor a Biden fan, but I am a Floridian, and I’d rather have either of them in the White House than DeSantis. He’s just an opportunistic careerist thug who always looks for an authoritarian card to play. Basically Biden with an “R” next to his name, and at least Biden’s the senile devil we know.
Not that I’d vote FOR any of the three of them.
They’re all evil and it wouldn’t matter much which is president. But you don’t have to worry, DeSantis doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of beating Trump. Now if the establishment can prevent Trump from running by charging him with bogus crap like they’ve done, it might create an opening for DeSantis, but that would be his only chance.
Unfortunately, he rather fits in the USA, circa 2020s … a blowhard in an ill-fitting suit is pretty much what we can hope for.
i would rather presume that the best america can produce is more substantional than outhouse refuse but it seems that is the time we live in as we handle our ‘perfect storm ‘ edification as a species. Butttt.
Just secure the border would be a good start for President de Santis.
Yes, doing the impossible would be a “good start,” in an East Germany kind of way.
Seriously? You think Ron de Santis wants to create a Communist Security State? Are you stoned already this morning Knapp?
DeSantis wants to stop the smuggling of deadly medications from Mexico into our country. He completely ignores the lessons from Prohibition.
During Prohibition the beer-magnate Bush dabbled with importing hard liquor beverages from England via Canada into the US. He was never caught.
After Prohibition ended he met the press. The journalists asked him “Mr. Bush, why did you do that”? Bush gave the classic answer: “You wanted it. I provided it”.
That, in this pungent sentence, tells us why DeSantis’ idea will fail.
Fentanyl is a synthetic drug. If China and Mexico really are responsible for bringing most of it into the US, I suspect that cutting them off would only prevent them from competing with domestic producers.
I just had hernia surgery 5 weeks ago. The surgical staff was giving that horrendous s#it to me. From where did they get it ? 😉
Fentanyl was invented for extreme pain that other opiates couldn’t control, mainly for end-of-life cancer patients. But in our money-dominated society, drug companies soon got doctors to push this on everyone. Have a headache? Take fentanyl! The concept wasn’t bad, it’s how it’s being grossly overused.
F-ing idiot.. Thank God Guantanamo Ron doesn’t stand a chance.
Hopefully, none of your friends or family members dies a painful and prolonged death from an overdose of illegal drugs. If a nation’s borders are not secure, soon enough, there is no nation.
You mean like the 330 native nations that were here when your illegal ancestors showed up here and stole it fair and square?
LOL Of course you are a lunatic Leftist raging at the moon about things you cannot understand. You are filled with hate. Grow up or go away ….
Let’s talk about aboriginal Americans child. Where would you like to start?
Hey: NO FIGHTING HERE.
This guy is a vile troll. I hope he gets banned.
You must be new here. Learn some manners.
I’ve been here longer than I’ve seen your posts. I don’t tolerate trolls. If you don’t support what a site stands for and just make disruptive comments, you’re a troll and have no business there.
On top of that, look at HIS insulting comments.
What is a troll if not someone who cannot tolerate the contrary opinions of others and whose comments encourage anger, discord, and enmity?
And secure borders aren’t going to stop drug use or drug availability. You said yourself that the demand is there. It’s not Mexico’s fault.
Well if they or I were to die from an overdose of illegal drugs, it would be our own fault. If we were to drink ourselves to death, it wouldn’t be the fault of the liquor store, it would be our own fault too.
But.. I’m all about secure borders. I totally agree with you on that.
Making drugs illegal is both immoral and idiotic. It’s clear that people like you can’t learn anything. In this instance, you didn’t learn anything from all the awful problems that Prohibition caused. People who have substance abuse problems should be able to get treatment, but it’s not the government’s place to be a nanny state and tell adults what they can or can’t put into their own bodies.
I can’t wait for the future invasion of Canada. /s
Me either! We’ve got to have the Canadiens winning Stanley Cups again.
So, let’s see … we invade our peaceful and friendly neighbor because we can’t control our border and because our people lamentably have a strong desire for narcotics. Is that the gist of it?
I’d rather see the military go after the Sacklers.
🙂
That’s against their religion … as the muscled arm of Wallstreet, they’d only fight for the Sacklers …
Your brain is warped pal. And how would you feel if Mexico started sending it’s forces into the United States? War? That’s that I thought.
May be the wrong approach.
As long as there is demand there will be supply.
There are camps for illegals. Why not camps for druggies?
Better yet, camps for people who think they’re entitled to stick other people in camps.
Ever hear of jail/prison? They’re filled with people who didn’t infringe on any other people’s rights.
Plenty of drug offenses there.
Yeah, proportionally against POC.
Why not actual help?
LOL the CIA , DEA , FBI , MI5/6 ect ect have been helping the cartels from day one , i have read at least 5 books on how they where helped by the us agencies / Brits .
Yes! See the movie Sicario if they haven’t censored it.
“DeSantis Pledges to Send Military Into Mexico to Fight Cartels on ‘Day One’ – The idea of bombing or invading Mexico is becoming increasingly popular among Republicans”
Can’t win against Afghanistan, Can’t win in Ukraine, but maybe against drug cartels America can win. Unfortunately, civilian deaths would be too high.
Pretty soon they’ll convince brain-dead Amerikkkans that it’s OK to bomb places in the U.S. How anyone could go along with this crap is beyond me, and it gets worse every day. As to Mexico, how about just legalizing drugs like former president Vincente Fox said to do?
It serms that a prospect of ANY war is popular with Republicans. This is beyond childish. Nobody is forcibg our people at gun point to pay for and use drugs, Cartels are the priliduct ofbour war on drugs., Can w sort it out? Republicsans are just very unlucky. Eith so many issues crying to be addresses by a mature. conservative republicans we have a field of candidates itching to start a war. Any war, anywhere.
With Republicans? Republicans are the only ones in Congress voting against sending more money to Ukraine for the U.S. proxy war there. Both parties are equally part of the military/intelligence/industrial complex, and the Republicans are no worse than the Democrats on this issue, depends which war you’re talking about.
You make the common mistake of thinking Leftists use rationality, logic or just plain common sense to reason through things ….. well …. they don’t. The first rule of every Collectivist is NEVER TAKE RESPONSIBILITY NOR BE ACCOUNTABLE for things you think, say or do! It’s why the far-Left are stuck in perpetual adolescence.
There are very, very few Constitutional Conservatives who support Liberty via Natural Rights in these United States. Most of our fellow citizens are Collectivists, Populists or they support America’s Corporate Oligarchy (think Neo-Liberals mistakenly called “Neo-cons”).
As you correctly point out in your response, the monstrosity we call the Federal Government functions as a UniParty of corruption and malfeasance. Joe Biden – the worst President in American history – is the poster boy …. the geriatric nut-case of America’s failed Republic.
I don’t support colonizers. The only legitimate nations on Turtle Island are the Native ones.
You also make the common mistake of thinking that Democrats are leftists, or the far left as you put it. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no substantial left in the U.S. Republicans are far right, and Democrats are center/right.
You’re also wrong about collectivists. If you live collectively, you absolutely have to take responsibility for your actions, because you all depend on each other, far more so than in our individualist society. I agree that many on the so-called left think that only the big bad corporations and their rich owners are the problem (they are the biggest problem, but far from the only one), and I’ve argued with these people whenever they claim that. The vast majority of Americans are not collectivists, and the people you think are in fact are not.
Finally, Ronald Reagan was by far the worst president in my lifetime. They’ve all been bad and I can’t stand Biden, but to say he’s worse than Reagan is ridiculous.
Fair or not, the moment you use the term “collectivist” all Randian hell breaks loose.
The Democratic misleaders in our government are for the proxy war in Ukraine, some of the Republicans in our government are for that war and some of them are against it. Trump and DeSantis may be against the war in Ukraine but want a war with Mexico. Biden is against a war with Mexico but is for the proxy war he helped start in Ukraine.
I don’t know where Chris Christie stands on the wars.
Republicans want a war with China. This could end up being more dangerous than the current proxy war with Russia. But either way, both the Democrats and the Republicans are very dangerous psychopaths who could easily cause WWIII and end life on Earth, or at least the vast majority of it, while poisoning the Earth with radioactivity forever.
This sounds awfully eerie because it brings back thoughts of how the Japanese people were treated in the US during WW2.
It’s not obvious to me that DeSantis could win the nomination for President, that he could beat Biden, or that he could win reelection as Governor in Florida. So, hopefully, he won’t have many chances to start a war with Mexico.
He has absolutely no chance of beating Trump. If the establishment continues its BS and keeps Trump from running, that would be his only chance.
But that said, who cares? These people are all horrible, doesn’t really matter which one wins. RFK, Jr. is the only mainstream politician running for president who isn’t totally awful, and he has some terrible positions, like his support of Israel. Dr. Cornell West (Green Party) is the only one worth voting for, and he stands about as much chance as DeSantis does against Trump.
He can also attack the gun manufacturers in America. Here is where they get the guns.
Now that would be fun! I’d pay to see a video of that.
It seems to me that DeSantis, Crenshaw, Graham and others that are advocating for another war, a miitary war on Drug Cartels, have not figured out what the root cause of the drug problem is in America. Why are American youth and adults turning to drugs in the first place? We’ve had decades of drug education in our schoools and in the media. If there was no demand for drugs, the Cartels would be put out of business.
Good comment. I suspect the tap root problem lies within America’s highly-urbanized, emasculated / de-feminized and non-productive culture. Drugs and suicide offer an escape to the banality, boredom and pointlessness of industrialized society. Have you ever met a stoner who did not think they were the smartest and most misunderstood person in the country? No … of course not, no one has.
But, why?
The civilized social structure fragments, divides and alienates its many members. Human beings simply did not evolve to be surrounded by hordes of strangers in a filthy, noisy, non-productive habitat dwelling mostly indoors! Worse, all urbanized societies – past and present – create a hierarchy of wealth, influence, privilege and power while living far beyond their means. It’s why EVERY civilized society (as a whole) is / will be deeply in debt ecologically, financially and spiritually. Its not for nothing the most highly civilized members of Western culture are also the least spiritual people (spiritual meaning an acknowledgement to the mystery of being). The spiritless have reduced life to the the workings of a machine. which is laughable if you think it.
Actually, drug and alcohol related deaths (per capita) are highest in rural areas in the US. It’s the 21st century. Family farms and manufacturing (2 of the former pillars of rural/small town life in the US) largely no longer exist. Rural Americans, generally, have very few educational, employment, or cultural opportunities. That’s why small towns keep shrinking while getting older and angrier. Your comment about stoners is funny and betrays your naivete. I can only assume you don’t know very many.
Whether what you wrote is true or false, Henry’s points are quite correct. Civilization is a major problem on the planet, and the vast majority of the harms it causes are not suffered by humans. Humans focus on all the wrong things and disregard the right ones, hence the situation we’re in.
Well, Jeff, while I agree civilization is a conundrum, to say “humans focus on all the wrong things and disregard the right ones” is a tad arrogant. You can’t make lemonade without lemons.
Lemonade and lemons are irrelevant here. There’s nothing arrogant about my comment; instead, your reaction is human supremacist, aka anthropocentric.
Read the outline by clicking on the link below, and tell me where you disagree. I’m not going to get into a detailed argument on this site, far too much for here.
https://rewilding.org/fixing-humans-by-expanding-our-consciousness/
Jeff, if you believe you can pass judgement on humanity without arrogance, I’ll leave it to you. Nonetheless, you and I are humans (or, perhaps I presume too much). Trying to set the clock to a point where humans are other than human is ambitious but more than I can imagine possible in my mortal lifetime.
It’s not about passing judgment, you’re projecting. It’s about humans fulfilling our only legitimate role here and refraining from killing and destroying. If that’s what you mean by “arrogant,” then yeah, I’m the most arrogant MFer on the planet.
And BTW, this is a long term goal. I never said it could be accomplished in our lifetimes or even 1,000 years from now. Nevertheless, it’s what needs to be done.
I suspected contrarian POVs. OF course, they are welcome. Where did I write that contemporary rural society is faring better than contemporary urban society? It’s just the problems are far more intense within large cities. And, nearly all of the problems in rural / frontier America today spilled out of the cities … “agri-business” paid from urban-based corporations; most synthesized illegal drugs flow in from urban areas; the dregs of urban society move to country towns to live on welfare, etc. etc.
Clearly, you are an urbanite. Yes? We own two cattle ranches, one in southeastern Wyoming and another in Colorado. Both of our properties are surrounded by family farms in every direction. While it’s true the countryside emptied out following WWII and many small towns died, those that survived are vibrant by rural town standards. Perhaps, get out of your concrete canyon and come see for yourself.
Henry, where did I write that you wrote that “contemporary rural society is faring better than contemporary urban society?” Lol. I was born and raised on a farm in Western Minnesota in the late 70s-early 80s. Both of my parents were 3rd generation farmers. However, like many others we lost our family farm to the bank in the mid-80s, so my folks packed us up and moved to the gleaming boomtown of Phoenix, AZ where I spent the 2nd half of my childhood. I get that “family farms” still exist. However, as a matter of scale, they’ve been replaced by corporate farms. I’ve spent most of my adult life in cities. But, more out of convenience/necessity than choice. I hate living in the city (and frankly, don’t like humans all that much). But, now that I’m at a point where I can live just about anywhere I want, I’m about ready to get out. I’d gladly accept an invitation to visit yer spread if you extend one. Ha! I think the problem is capitalism. For reference, if I had to name persons/people I consider fellow travelers, they’d be the likes of Edward Abbey, Karl Hess, and the Hopi.
I’ve lived in cities, but by preference I’m a rural guy. I grew up on a farm and then in a small town. I’ve lived in mid-sized cities (St. Louis being the largest) and visited bigger ones (New York, LA, etc.). Nothing against them, they’re just not really for me. Right now, I live “in the country” but a few miles from a city of 100k. I’d like to get another 20 miles out. Give me a trailer on a few wooded acres (with enough horizon exposure for solar panels somewhere on the property), and I’d only go to town when I absolutely had to.
I totally agree with your second paragraph and am also vehemently opposed to industrial society, civilization, and agriculture. Humans went down the wrong path thousands of years ago when they moved away from living naturally and started using agriculture. We should focus on expanding our consciousness, wisdom and empathy, not on unnaturally and very harmfully manipulating the physical/natural world. See my book outline here: https://rewilding.org/fixing-humans-by-expanding-our-consciousness/
Uh huh. What could go wrong, right?
Right. Invade Mexico to fight drug smuggling gangs. Good news for our domestic biker gangs, who can bring fentanyl production home where it belongs. USA! USA!
From what I can see, the war on drugs, like the war on terror, are sophist excuses designed to give overreaching Presidents an excuse to do anything they wish in other countries. The post by “boxovvapor” illustrates this. We didn’t invade Panama to combat drugs. We did it to assure everyone in Panama that WE control the canal.
Reagan and maybe Bush even said publicly that it was about the Canal. I distinctly remember Reagan saying it on TV.
You are not suggesting the US government lies to its citizens are you? LOL
day late, dollar short, border’s open, they’re movin’ in, apparently already infiltrated USCIS/USBP/USMC, probably the Army, buying AZ and CA state govt. Lots of naked ambition and human energy to the south, legal or otherwise. Old fat out-of-touch ignorant white americans can’t hope to compete with that so lock up your stuff learn spanish keep eyes open, head down…things are gonna get interesting…
Americans have been speaking Spanish since before the Declaration of Independence (which was published in Spanish, as well as in English, French, German, and Dutch).
The border’s always been open, and the border will always be open. Thank God.
A day late and a dollar short to do something evil? Interesting comment, to put it very diplomatically.