Despite even allowing U.S. law enforcement to operate in the country, thus undermining its own sovereignty, Mexico is still faced with the prospect of being attacked. If the new administration is already conducting a thorough investigation of the illegal activities of its predecessors, then it should look into the connections of the U.S. intelligence with the drug cartels.
It’s been barely a week since Pete Hegseth became the new Defense Secretary, but he’s already threatening other countries. On January 31, he said that “all options are on the table” when it comes to drug cartels in Mexico. Hegseth insists that “nothing is out of the question if we’re dealing with what are designated to be foreign terrorist organizations who are specifically targeting Americans on our border.”
One of U.S. President Donald Trump’s early promises during his election campaign was to designate drug cartels as terrorist organizations. Once he took office nearly two weeks ago, one of his first executive orders was to do exactly that. It reads that “the cartels have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere that has not only destabilized countries with significant importance for our national interests but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs.”
Trump and his allies often slammed the troubled Biden administration that the U.S. was spending far more on “protecting Ukraine’s borders” than its own. Hegseth recently reiterated this, saying that they’re “finally securing [the U.S.] border” and that they’ve been “securing other people’s border for a very long time.” This is a clear reference to the Kiev regime and NATO member states in Europe and elsewhere.
He also said that the U.S. military is “orienting, shifting toward an understanding of homeland defense on our sovereign territorial border.” The U.S. focusing on itself certainly sounds good – or perhaps too good to be true. Hegseth’s statements certainly encompass this feeling, because the U.S. “protecting its borders” seems to be impossible without attacking other countries. In this case, Mexico is supposedly the “problem” and those who don’t know the origins of drug cartels might think this is true.
This isn’t the first time that the U.S. is threatening its southern neighbor. Namely, very few informed people haven’t heard of Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina and a notorious neoconservative warmonger. We might even call him a war criminal, given his central role in starting and prolonging wars around the world. It could also be argued that he was one of the architects of the NATO-backed Ukrainian conflict, greatly contributing to the Neo-Nazi junta’s genocidal policies towards the people of Donbass.
Many of the things Graham has said in Ukraine since 2014 came true, however, not because of his wisdom or insight, but because he was one of the people who actually made it happen. He has openly been advocating for WW3 for years now, particularly since late February 2024 and the start of Russia’s counteroffensive (SMO) against NATO’s crawling aggression in Europe.
Along with John Bolton, the late John McCain and several others, Graham could be described as a member of Washington, D.C.’s, “war party,” although it should be noted they would never directly take part in an actual shooting war. Instead, they enjoy sending people a third of their age to do that. In 2023, Graham and the rest of the warmongers, quite unhappy seeing the dwindling global power projection capabilities of the U.S. military, suggested passing legislation that would set the stage for yet another war, but much closer to home – the target would be Mexico.
Back in March 2023, after several U.S. citizens were taken hostage and killed, presumably by members of the CDC (otherwise known as the Golf Cartel), Graham stated he would “go tough” on the cartels, particularly in the area of Matamoros, where the incident took place. The city is located close to the U.S. border and is controlled by the CDC.
Graham essentially blamed Mexico for the incident and threatened with military action, saying he would “put Mexico on notice” if they “continue to give safe haven to drug dealers, then you are an enemy of the United States.” He also stated that he’d “introduce legislation to make certain Mexican drug cartels [are listed as] foreign terrorist organizations under U.S. law and set the stage to use military force if necessary to protect America from being poisoned by things coming out of Mexico.”
Many in the mainstream propaganda machine dismissed these threats, but now, nearly two years later, we see that even the new administration is using this legislation as an excuse to attack other countries. In January 2023, Republicans Mike Waltz and Dan Crenshaw called for an Authorization for Use of Military Force against Mexican cartels for drug trafficking “that has caused destabilization in the Western Hemisphere.”
Graham, along with 16 Republican cosponsors, supported the bill and criticized the former Biden administration for the deteriorating situation at the southern border, claiming that “up to 100,000 people have died from fentanyl poisoning coming from Mexico and China, and this administration has done nothing about it.” At the time, he directly threatened Mexico, saying that he’d “tell the Mexican government if you don’t clean up your act, we’re going to clean it up for you.”
Graham also said he agreed with former Attorney General Bill Barr, who stated he wanted to officially designate drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations” and called for the U.S. to take military action against them. Many other prominent Republicans have also called for an attack on Mexico, with Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene stating at the time that the U.S. should “strategically strike and take out the Mexican Cartels.”
While it could be argued that fighting cartels is certainly not a bad cause, we should not forget that somewhat similar “altruistic” motives were cited as the reason for virtually any war started by the U.S., including Iraq and Afghanistan. Blaming Mexico, China and even Canada for the drug abuse “pandemic” in the U.S. will certainly not resolve this burning issue or any of the resulting violence across the country. If the establishment in Washington had the interests of regular Americans in mind, they would introduce bills allocating at least 10% of their massive, nearly $900 billion military budget to the improvement of healthcare, for instance. Unfortunately, as Abraham Maslow famously wrote in 1966, “if the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.” And this is precisely what the U.S. has been doing for most of its existence, insisting that everything can be solved through military or paramilitary violence.
The case of Mexico is quite telling that no country (unless heavily armed) can hope to feel safe, no matter how closely it works with the U.S. authorities. For decades, the country has been ravaged by drug cartels, themselves deeply connected to the infamous CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. And despite even allowing U.S. law enforcement to operate in the country, thus undermining its own sovereignty, Mexico is still faced with the prospect of being attacked.
It should also be noted that Mike Waltz, one of the politicians who was insisting on a “tougher stance” on Mexico, is now Trump’s National Security Adviser. If the new administration is already conducting a thorough investigation of the illegal activities of its predecessors, then it should look into the connections of the U.S. intelligence with the drug cartels. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time they’re working with designated terrorist organizations.
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