The same trumpist who promoted state-mandatory transvaginal ultrasound examinations for women also wants to bomb Mexico, as Trump’s Agenda 47 proposes full military force.
It's no accident that Trump and MAGA are tanking the border deal at the same time that they're telegraphing plans for a second term organized around full blown ethnonationalist savagery. A border deal threatens that project.
Because we all know how successful the war on drugs was almost as successful as the global war on terror. And then there’s Trump’s Wall. Ken Cuccinelli, author of 2022’s It’s time to wage war on transnational drug cartels, knows Democrats only have ‘unserious’ policy analysts.
The President should expand operations as necessary and in coordination with the Mexican government to the extent it is willing to be a partner in the effort. The goal is to crush cartel networks with full military force in as rapid a fashion as possible. This means expanding the role beyond Special Forces, targeted strikes, and intelligence operations to include elements of the Marines, Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard.
americarenewing.com/...
On the presidential campaign trail and on the G.O.P. debate stage in California last week, nearly every Republican candidate has been advocating versions of a plan to send U.S. Special Operations troops into Mexican territory to kill or capture drug cartel members and destroy their labs and distribution centers.
As he campaigns for a second White House term, Trump has been asking policy advisers for a range of military options aimed at taking on Mexican drug cartels, including strikes that are not sanctioned by Mexico’s government, according to two sources familiar with the situation.
“‘Attacking Mexico,’ or whatever you’d like to call it, is something that President Trump has said he wants ‘battle plans’ drawn for,” says one of the sources. “He’s complained about missed opportunities of his first term, and there are a lot of people around him who want fewer missed opportunities in a second Trump presidency.”
Trump lieutenants have briefed him on several options that include unilateral military strikes and troop deployments on a sovereign U.S. partner and neighbor, the sources say. One such proposal that Trump has been briefed on this year is an October white paper from the Center for Renewing America, an increasingly influential think tank staffed largely by Trumpist wonks, MAGA loyalists, and veterans of his administration.
www.rollingstone.com/...
The first time Donald Trump talked privately about shooting missiles into Mexico to take out drug labs, as far as his former aides can recall, was in early 2020.
And the first time those comments became public was when his second defense secretary, Mark T. Esper, wrote in his memoir that Mr. Trump had raised it with him and asked if the United States could make it look as if some other country was responsible. Mr. Esper portrayed the idea as ludicrous.
Yet instead of condemning the idea, some Republicans publicly welcomed word that Mr. Trump had wanted to use military force against the drug cartels on Mexican soil — and without the consent of Mexico’s government. Mr. Trump’s notion of a military intervention south of the border has swiftly evolved from an Oval Office fantasy to something approaching Republican Party doctrine.
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On Capitol Hill, Republican lawmakers have drafted a broad authorization for the use of military force against cartels — echoing the war powers Congress gave former President George W. Bush before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. They have also pushed for designating Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations — a related idea Mr. Trump flirted with as president but backed off after Mexico hotly objected. Now, if Mr. Trump returns to the White House in 2025, he has vowed to push for the designations and to deploy Special Operations troops and naval forces to, as he put it, declare war on the cartels.
The Republican Party’s attraction to seeking a military solution to the drug problem is a reminder that the G.O.P. — despite its populist shift toward anti-interventionism in the Trump years and the growth of a faction that opposes arming Ukraine against Russia’s invasion — still reaches for armed force to address some complex and intractable problems. Mr. Trump himself has been something of a walking contradiction when it comes to the use of force abroad, alternately wanting to pull back U.S. involvement overseas and threatening to drop bombs on enemies such as Iran.
www.nytimes.com/...