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In his post here: https://www.shrewdm.com/MB?pid=569754607

albaby1 said,
We use the Mexico analogy from time to time, but it's impossible to imagine the U.S. tolerating a military group taking over northern Baja California and lobbing rockets into San Diego and just letting that continue.

I don't want to hijack the Israel thread, so wanted to reply in a new thread.

The thing is, we do tolerate a paramilitary group (two, actually) sending lethal packages across our border daily. These packages kill 70,000 people a year and have been doing so for a decade.

60 Minutes covered this in their first episode of the new season a week ago. Here's the piece. While the transcript is fine, watching the video gives you more of the emotional impact.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-fentanyl-drug-cris...

What is in these packages? Fentanyl, usually dressed up and hiding in pills that look like other common, and significantly less deadly, drugs.

How do they get across the border? Mainly in passenger cars. Cars that border patrol officers have about a minute to decide whether or not to search more closely.

Who is carrying the drugs? 2/3 of those arrested for smuggling fentanyl are American citizens.

How much is getting across? I suspect no one really knows for sure. CBP would only say that they intercepted 27,000 pounds of fentanyl in fiscal year 2023.

Who is making and shipping the fentanyl? The Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels.


Circling back to albaby's comment. We are under attack from Mexico. Putting it into context, on a percentage basis, the US is losing the equivalent of almost two October 7 Hamas attacks each year.

We don't need to imagine a military group taking over northern Baja and lobbing lethal attacks on San Diego. That is exactly what is happening. Exactly. Except the attacks don't all go off in San Diego. The lethal packages come in through San Diego, but get distributed across the country, where they go off one overdose at a time.

And we can't get a border bill passed because some whack job politicians want to make political hay out of it - distracting us with fear of illegal aliens when the real problem is US citizens working for the cartels. In the meantime, Mexico does little or nothing to reign in these cartels.

--Peter

I have to disagree. It's more akin to bootlegging during prohibition than an attack. Americans are willing participants in the movement, sale, and use of fentanyl. That is completely dissimilar to bombing pizza parlors, buses, and firing unguided rockets into San Diego. If the latter were happening, the US would likely invade Baja and kill everything that even looks like a militia, and if Mexico doesn't like it...tough noogies.

The status-quo casualties may be in some way comparable, but the means of those casualties are very different.

The thing is, we do tolerate a paramilitary group (two, actually) sending lethal packages across our border daily.

Sure, but as 1pg pointed out, there's a qualitative difference between smuggling in drugs that certain Americans choose to willfully consume vs. lobbing missiles that kill Americans. While the former might be metaphorically an "attack," it's not literally an attack in the same way that firing rockets into the country is.

We would absolutely level Baja California if there was an entrenched non-state military organization that was constantly launching missiles into San Diego - regardless of whether they were especially effective or not. There's no way the American electorate would put up with 'tolerating' those kinds of strikes for years and years. We'd invade tout suite - and I expect we would be rather ruthless in our efforts to destroy the attacking organization. And if we weren't able to destroy the organization quickly, we'd have no qualms about occupying Baja for as long as it took to root them out - with very little regard for the civil liberties of the native Bajan population compared to the twin objectives of eliminating the attacks and maintaining the safety of our forces.

Americans are willing participants in the movement, sale, and use of fentanyl.

So capitalistic and entrepreneurial motivations make the killing of 70,000 US residents annually OK?

Apparently Hezbollah shared responsibility in the pager attack because they were willing participants in the movement, sale, and use of pagers?

In both cases, a potentially lethal package was inserted into an otherwise benign item.

In the 60 minutes piece, it's quite clear that the fentanyl is disguised as other medicines. Once the drugs get dispersed out in the population, people think they are buying and selling and using something other than fentanyl.

Yes, rocket attacks look very different. But whether its rockets or oxy laced with fentanyl, people of a foreign nation are deliberately killing residents of a neighboring country. It's just that one makes money while doing the killing.

--Peter

And if we weren't able to destroy the organization quickly, we'd have no qualms about occupying Baja for as long as it took to root them out - with very little regard for the civil liberties of the native Bajan population compared to the twin objectives of eliminating the attacks and maintaining the safety of our forces.

I spent a huge number of hours in the lines at TJ and Otay, fending off the vendors, trying to catch a few z's on the way home from surf trips or my granmothers in Jalisco.

Surf trips, we usually got waved through by a sympathetic guard who saw our soggy wetsuits. Every once in a while we'd get diverted to the first inspection when it was just me and the wife and no surfboards coming home from grandmas. They'd always nail us for a bottle of tequila or something.

But I always wondered what would happen if the Chinese established a shipping port and a Chinese law authority as they have done elsewhere,
and THEN missiles starting landing in Chula Vista or god forbid, La Jolla.

Imagine a missile landing in Petco Park during the Padres playoffs.

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