It gives the US a reason to militarily intervene in Mexico that they can use whenever they want. It acts as preemptive justification for invasion.
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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Exactly, Mexico knows how we did Afghanistan.
The US invaded on the argument that they were harboring terrorists intent to harm America.
It's pretty clear Trump knows that wartime Presidents have better approval, and like Putin, he's an expansionist and wants excuses to take other countries' land.
Terrorist / Terrorism seems to be a magic word in US law and policy.
If a country has organized crime in their country it's no big deal. If there are close ties between the rulers and the criminals, that's unfortunate.
But, if the criminals are now labelled as terrorists, then you get to go on the state sponsors of terrorism list, which comes with all kinds of sanctions and restrictions.
If you look at so-called "terrorist" organizations, there's almost always elements of "terrorist" activities, but also evidence of other random criminal activities, and often legitimate political activities too. Take Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA. Some of their funding came from fuel and drug smuggling. So, where you draw the line between a "terrorist" group and a criminal group is pretty arbitrary. I think most people would say that the Mexican cartels are primarily criminals though. While they do kill people in ways that are intended to send a message, the message is generally "don't mess with our profits" rather than some political ideal.
Every country has some corruption, definitely including the US. So, what happens if a Mexican politician was accepting bribes from Narcos and passing legislation favourable to them? When does that become the state sponsoring terrorism?
Putting the "terrorist" label on Mexican cartels seems like a prelude to doing things that violate Mexico's sovereignty. If the cartels are merely violent criminal organizations, it's a problem for Mexico's government. If they're "terrorists" then the US can lob missiles into Mexico, because it has a long-standing policy of violating the sovereignty of countries that "harbor" (i.e. contain) terrorists.
. So, what happens if a Mexican politician was accepting bribes from Narcos and passing legislation favourable to them? When does that become the state sponsoring terrorism?
US has a shaddy history, and near past. Nicaragua contras (freedom fighters???) funded through Columbia/Panama cocaine. Venezuela last election meddling funding Narco gangs to burn things, and previous election, declaring legitimate president to be the main drug lord of the country.
If there are close ties between the rulers and the criminals, that’s ~~unfortunate~~ admirable. FIFY
After the War on Terror was declared, it essentially meant that the executive branch could essentially go to war with any country if they call them terrorists without former approval from Congress.
Sounds unconstitutional
It is, but... you know.
A problem with the constitution is that the framers didn't expect items to be defined differently than today. No one really expected a mass deployment of troops that wouldn't be called a war.
Also, the framers didn't expect Congress to roll over as much as it has to the President.
More generally, the founders wrote the constitution as if every leader will act in good faith. That has proven to be a bad idea, but also how do you even account for that? Their idea was a system of checks and balances, but that failed to account for when one party has control over every branch, and for when one branch goes rogue and starts ignoring the other two branches, as we are seeing now with the executive.
IMO, limiting power (money in the case of a capitalistic society) is the only way. The founders had the right idea with the limitation of power, but they didn't take that idea to the economic side of things. Force all corporations to be worker owned coops and have a hard wealth cap of $50 million by taxing anything over at a rate of 100%.
Even without the war on terror, Congress gave the president the power to wage war for two weeks however they are fit. Congress is supposed to be notified and they can approve more time, but it's been violated multiple times with no consequences.
Civilian Casualties
- Afghanistan: Civilian deaths from U.S. military operations have been significant, with incidents such as the deaths of two detainees at Bagram in 2002 due to torture[2][4].
- Iraq: Civilian casualties peaked in 2006 with over 29,000 deaths. Between 2003 and 2024, civilian deaths fluctuated, with many unaccounted for due to the chaotic nature of war[7].
- Drone Strikes: U.S. drone strikes in countries like Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia have caused numerous civilian deaths, though exact numbers are debated[3][4].
Alleged War Crimes
- Torture: The use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" (e.g., waterboarding) at facilities like Guantanamo Bay and CIA black sites has been widely condemned as violations of the Geneva Conventions[2].
- Bagram Facility: Inhumane treatment and torture led to the deaths of two Afghan detainees in 2002. Military coroners ruled these homicides[2].
- Maiwand District Killings: A "Kill Team" of U.S. soldiers murdered Afghan civilians between 2009–2010 and collected body parts as trophies[2].
- Extraordinary Renditions: Suspected terrorists were transferred to third countries for interrogation under questionable conditions[2].
Citations: [1] [PDF] CASUALTY STATUS https://www.defense.gov/casualty.pdf [2] United States war crimes - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes [3] Civilians Killed & Wounded | Costs of War https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians [4] [PDF] Annual Report on Civilian Casualties in Connection with United ... https://media.defense.gov/2022/Sep/27/2003086234/-1/-1/1/ANNUAL-REPORT-ON-CIVILIAN-CASUALTIES-IN-CONNECTION-WITH-UNITED-STATES-MILITARY-OPERATIONS-IN-2021.PDF [5] - THE AUTHORITY TO PROSECUTE TERRORISTS UNDER THE ... https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-109shrg36934/html/CHRG-109shrg36934.htm [6] Currently listed entities https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/ntnl-scrt/cntr-trrrsm/lstd-ntts/crrnt-lstd-ntts-en.aspx [7] Civilian deaths in Iraq war 2003-2024 - Statista https://www.statista.com/statistics/269729/documented-civilian-deaths-in-iraq-war-since-2003/ [8] Global War on Terror | George W. Bush Library https://www.georgewbushlibrary.gov/research/topic-guides/global-war-terror
Mexico likely feels like the US declaring the cartels terrorist orgs will be a pretext to cross border military attacks/interventions/escapades (I'm not sure what the right word should be here).
I think they use incursion :
1. an invasion or attack, especially a sudden or brief one.
Perhaps “operations”
Of the special variety?
There are a lot of good answers already but I want to add that this changes the situation for any Hispanic people swept up by ICE. If officials feel like they can connect a person to the cartels in any way whatsoever, that individual can now be accused of being a terrorist. This changes the legal process they face, and that's not good news for them. It'll be easier to send the person to Gitmo. It'll be harder to fight for that person's freedom. They'll likely be tortured, and anything they say can be used as pretense for further aggression by the Trump administration, both domestically and foreign.
Dang... I didn't think of them using this as a way to further chase down deportees...
If US declares a group in a country to be terrorists US entitles itself to bomb them, and do whatever else seems entitleable.
It's a pretext for invasion. Just like invading Afganistan was to intervene in order to get Al-Queda. Or invading Iraq was about getting the Taliban... etc... etc... etc...
If America wants a war with someone for oil/economic pressure/etc... (really whatever reason they choose to make up) they simply say that there are terrorists there.
I'm calling it now and saying that in two weeks he declares the Quebec Sovereignty movement a terrorist organization for reasons...
Quebec
Yeah if our reality could stop resembling Infinite Jest, that would be great. I can't stand that stupid fucking book and how accurately it predicts our increasingly insane circumstances
I've honestly never made it through the whole thing.
Tried to, back in the day. It's one of those things that's expected of you if you want to be a proper turtleneck wearing, pretentious literati as a university student. (I was a douche, okay...I admit it...it's the same reason I fought my way through War and Peace and Foucault's Pendulum) But I'm much better now.
(and yes...I had the soul patch and everything)
Foucault’s Pendulum is fucking awesome though? It might be his best book since Name of the Rose.
I read War and Peace on an iphone. It gave a strange sense of achievement to read 57 “pages” in 15 minutes. Each page was most of a paragraph.
I haven't bothered with David Foster Wallace yet.
It might be his best book since Name of the Rose
My personal favourite is The Island of the Day Before. Though I haven't read either in years and it might be nostalgia because that was my first introduction to Eco.
Same, except i wasnt a lit major, just a guy who was going through the phase of "this is what intelligent people look like" while trying to educate myself. I was convinced DFW was the voice of our generation, heralding in a new era of consciousness.
The book is conceptually pretty cool, like it is really well written and he draws together so many disparate elements to make kind of a coherent narrative.
But the idea of making a book impossible to read on purpose is a funny joke, especially one that so many aspiring intelligentsia gush over. I can appreciate a good shaggy dog as much as the next guy, but IJ is just so far beyond the pale.
A book should be challenging because the concepts are unique and well considered, and it draws from lots of historic and philosophical research; not because the author decided to intentionally break the flow of the narrative to make you flip to the not-optional appendix to read 32 pages of made up synopsis about a character's avant-garde filmography.
Best review of it I read was:
"DFW is a perfect example of what happens when people think they are above editing."
Hah! Good one
They will bomb something for the first time and it will “happen” to be an American business owned by dual Canadian/US citizens.
They want to do what Russia did to Ukraine. Invade with a false pretense.
Or what they did in the 2000s
It could be a problem as when we declared war on terror decades ago it is fairly vague and unclear on who or where could be invaded. Label them a terrorist org and boom justification to send US troops to Mexico. Given how the US government is now I am deeply concerned. I was against the war on terror then too, yes we got some bad guys but it still does not seem worth all the civilian deaths it takes. We would have needed permanent occupation in Afghanistan too to keep a democratic rule there. Once it ended to me it seems like it was kinda all for nothing.
Correcte if I'm wrong, but didn't the CIA actually make the drug cartels that are in Mexico with the whole war on drugs thing a while back?
Drug prohibition is awesome for governments because it means permission to bypass the laws. CIA has definitely funded operations through drugs, and have significant responsibility in crack epidemic. I'm unaware of direct links to Mexican cartels though.
I think the CIA has used them pretty extensively, but I don't think they set them up directly
What the US did is force Mexico to join in on the drug war. We threatened to block all pharmaceuticals to Mexico if they didn't ban marijuana, which they really didn't want to do
It may allow American forces to (more easily?) go down there and run their own operations, potentially refusing to cooperate with Mexican authorities and potentially messing up their own plans and just overall making things muddier and trickier, especially if they rely on sting operations that work better with fewer things going on to provide suspicion or otherwise serve as confounding factors.
With that said, I would imagine that cartels are international terrorist orgs, so I'm not necessarily arguing for or against one side; I'm just trying to imagine why the Mexican gov might dislike it. I could be wrong.
Isn't Sheinbaum alledgedly associated with the cartels?
I've never seen anything about her in particular. I think this ProPublica investigation is the most in-depth reporting on the relationship between cartels and her political party. They basically allege that cartels paid millions to buy Mexico's 'hugs, not bullets' policy.
Anyone from Mexico here? How do you feel about it?
Como la mierda. Not to be fucked up, but I think it was a matter of time, also Mexico has plenty of lithium deposits that just got discovered in the last 2 years, so go figure.
No es bueno
Cheeto doesn't want to start eats but it's not his fault, as these terrorist organizations wanted to overthrow the US government or something like that so you see, they have no option but to invade Mexico. Since these cartels also operate in Canada, yeah, no option, they just gave to go in and take over. They're doing the right thing, really!