Yeah, and the desertion rate is high. Not as high as the corruption rate in the Policia, but there's a reason lots of cartel members have good equipment and know how to fight. Join the Army, finish training, then run away with gear. Happens a lot. I don't want our tax dollars paying for equipment that is just going to end up in Cartel hands anyway.

Well its mainly because Kino linked to a set of mines that are set to go off at (at maximum) 15 days. That and for the most part I am pretty sure the cartels (as mentioned above) would simply drive something clean through it (if they are rich enough to rob military bases maybe even military grade tech) and then smuggle a huge amount of people across.

And yeah, its a great idea dying for a cause when that cause is helping a nation that has invaded you multiple times.

I see... well that leaves the whole military access thing. Or maybe there just isn't enough supplied. Or, more likely, there's too much corruption on Mexicos side, and there's nothing being done about solving it. How influential are the gangs in Mexican politics? Do they overtly support certain people? Have there been assassinations? Are the politicians afraid or in the cartels pockets?

If so, American funds, weapons and even training may end up going to the cartels instead!

EDIT: Ninjas answering my own questions...

edited 16th Feb '11 3:26:09 PM by GameChainsaw

^

All of the above. It's pretty rotten there, we have some Mexican Tropers, I wish the one from Monterey would get on.

There is also the fact that the stuff the cartels are doing (murder, political assassination etc) are all stuff that America has done in Mexico and South America in the past.

Now the problem is trying to convince people who remember those days as to why exactly they should listen to you, when you basically just appear as another gang.

I think "Because if we were still doing it, you'd be dead already" is a convincing reason...

Yeah it's a shame we can't roll in and smoke those cartel bastards. They'd be a lot less smug when a bunch of M1 Abrams roll up.

Or if we don't want to be so overt, send in the damn SEALs to start picking off high ranking cartel members.

edited 16th Feb '11 3:34:50 PM by MarkVonLewis

Not when the cartel will kill your family as well. And because the Cartels can do it faster than the CIA and with more horrific acts of retaliation if you try and do anything then they will remain a greater theat to upset than the US.

Because then the Mexican government starts grabbing your interests, stops even pretending to hold back the Cartels and shifts to no longer being inside your orbit.

edited 16th Feb '11 3:38:34 PM by JosefBugman

^^Shh, you might tip off Chavez.

^All the more reason to go after the cartels.

edited 16th Feb '11 3:35:39 PM by Kino

Greater threat? Those cartel dicks ain't got MOABs, son.

Granted we can't just drop them willy-nilly, but still...

Well if we'd kick off the shackles and actually try for once...

We could conduct a pretty damn good terror campaign against the cartels, we know where the lions share of their resources in Mexico are. 60 days and a small task force of good troops, and we could cause some pretty severe damage to the cartels, and then leave and hope the Mexican Government can step it up and win.

They probably won't though, and the cartels would just step it up in revenge, but part of me kind of hopes for that so we'll quit sitting around with our thumbs up our asses and go full tilt on them. If the Cartels got too overt on the US itself, we would just tell the Mexican Government that their problem is becoming our problem, and that we're going to handle it regardless of if they like it or not.

edited 16th Feb '11 3:41:06 PM by Barkey

Say.....go after them like we went after the Taliban after 9/11.

Would you use them on a country where it could kill lots of civillians? And threatening people with larger misslies means precisly dick when you aren't (and shouldn't) be considering killing all of their family members as well. Cartels don't need high tech solutions, they just need to send you severed digits in the post.

Or we could borrow a Gurkha regiment from the British.

Let's see how the cartels deal with THEM.

They would kill them, because they outnumber them, have more political clout and more local popularity.

<MOD HAT ON>

This thread stopped being ON-TOPIC on the first page. It stopped being a conversation not long afterwards. Now, do you want the thread name changed, and if so, to what; or do you want it locked down?

If you don't want it locked, start conversing and stop arguing.

<Mod Hat OFF>

You could probably change it to "The problem with Mexico" or something.

Or illegal immigration and the root cause of it.

Which seems to be a large part fleeing the cartel's crap.

War on Drug Umm, never mind.

America vs drug cartels?

edited 16th Feb '11 3:57:40 PM by Kino

Barkey@ Buddy, I might not be American, but Sweden face the same issues you do, but with the Russian mob rather than Mexican drug lords. We have the loosest immigration laws of the Scandinavian countries, so they ship a lot of illegal immigrants here. So yeah, I DO understand the issue.

Well perhaps your nation feels one way about it that ours does not.

Most of the folks I know where I live tend to feel the same way as me on this, that they want a solution.

edited 16th Feb '11 4:03:49 PM by Barkey

Ooh, Russian Mob, man that's rough.

If fiction is to be believed, the Russian mob's a nasty bunch.

Solutions take time if they are going to last. Otherwise the only thing you're going to get is a patch up job.

The UK is having a similar problem, I have a friend who lives in London who is pissed because the Government keeps paying peoples housing when they immigrate.

Says there's a really nice neighborhood near his where a family from Somalia moved in, he had no clue how they managed to pay for the place, turns out it's the government paying the like 8000 euro a month rent for the place.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, and y'all wonder why you have that one reactionary crazy racist party, because you didn't find a solution. :P