Enough half measures
It is a simple fact of war that the longer it continues, the more people die. Our southern neighbors have long been in a civil war, though the “rules-based liberal order” has never been fond of calling a spade a spade.
War has been waged on the Mexican people with little effort against it by America, which has settled for a war on drugs.
Drugs are made, moved by, consumed and sold by people. It is those who peddle these substances that ought to be held accountable.
Donald Trump has declared the Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations. This step is welcome and begs the question of why it was not done sooner.
The Mexican cartels, like the Columbian narcos before them, are simply highly organized criminals with no political agenda other than money and power.
They may complain of government corruption in Mexico, yet the cartels are instrumental in that corruption, perpetuating it through intimidation and murder of any who oppose them. This cannot be allowed to go on.
American intervention in Latin America has a spotty record at best in its genuine care for the well-being of our neighbors. Still, this particular war is a war for the souls of many who live under an oppression more heinous and arbitrary than hitherto has been seen on earth.
The governments of Latin America, even in their most effective form, are not free of corruption and human rights abuses. El Salvador, often touted as the gold standard of a national rally against crime, has engaged in arbitrary imprisonment.
There are many reports of innocent people being locked up simply because a police officer did not like them. While I applaud the crime reduction, the endemic corruption withinLatin America cannot be solved without American intervention.
To that end, it appears necessary to me that beyond a stronger border, it is the duty of the United States in our self-appointed role as leader of the hemisphere to spare no expense in our destruction of the cartels.
If this means special forces attacking compounds of drug leaders, it must be so. If this means a U.S. military presence in rural Mexico, it must be so. If this means bombing known haciendas of Cartel Bosses, that also must occur.
It is also in the United States’ interest that this should be done. A prosperous western hemisphere under U.S. supervision could end global criminal networks. The Chinese triads and Russian mob have many drug and human trafficking operations that have poured across our border into what regrettably is one of the largest vice markets in the world.
Drugs other than Fentanyl have come across the border, namely Krokodil and Meth. Furthermore, there are more slaves in the world today than at the height of the transatlantic slave trade, many of whom are children.
It was once the mission of the British Navy to eradicate the slave trade, and if you were a taxpayer in the UK until 2015, you paid for that noble cause. If we, as Americans, have indeed taken the role of Britain in this modern world, I can think of no higher calling than this legacy.
The mission to war that I call for entails much violence.Even many conservatives today protest that it is no business of ours what happens outside of our borders; it is not worth American lives to end the largest slave and narcotics industry ever seen on earth.
To this, I say, whether wanted or not, America is the leader of the free world with all of its failings and successes. Additionally, freedom from slavery and vice is a cause we have fought for before, from Tripoli to Texas. Those great deeds are recorded in the marine hymn and our “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
This war is not a war for dominance or regime change, nor of toppling one dictator for another. It is a war that we, as Americans, are in desperate need of for our credibility and integrity as a nation.
The final verse of the “Battle Hymn” reads, “As [Christ] died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.” Arrests and plea deals are not what we need, but a war for those who are in most desperate need of freedom.
Santiago McMunn is a senior history major.