International Mexico threaten legal actions against U.S gunmakers if Mexican drug cartels are designated as "terrorist organizations"

[Rational Poster]

No one talks about it NOW, as a contributing factor to the mass arming of cartels who pose a legitimate threat to civil society.

I mean, you're just completely wrong.

It involved 2,000 guns between 2006 and 2011, and about half were recovered. The operations did not contribute to the "mass arming of cartels"

Cartels purchase or smuggle between 200,000-500,000 guns per year.

 

[Hog-train]

Ehh not sure where you getting that from or how thats even a reality when our opiod crisis had NOTHING to do with imports

China siezed 26 tons of drugs within the country, last year

China Drug Situation Report 2023_Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States of America

The biggest difference is they have extensive programs to treat addiction /cause and have been using them since their opiod crisis in the 50s

We tend to want blame others for our own problems and not seriously address them or implement pointless scapegoats. ie tarriffs

Well I'm Korean and that shit is hard to get there and the punishment is really severe just using them. Maybe it's different in other Asian countries.

 

[avenue94]

They terrorize their communities, literally hanging dismembered bodies of their victims from overpasses to intimidate the locals.

Much like islamic terrorist groups, they films themselves torturing and killing people and post the videos online again to spread terror.

Buddy they just cut off the head of a mayor who won the elections against a cartel picked candidate, then they put the head on the top of a pickup truck for everyone to see.

That's terrorism101.

What's their political goal and how do they threaten the US national security?

No one talks about it NOW, as a contributing factor to the mass arming of cartels who pose a legitimate threat to civil society.

Because most guns that went into Mexico have nothing to do with that program. Drop in the bucket.

 

[panamaican]

The argument is probably a valid one. If cartels are terrorist organizations, per US definition, then it makes sense to look at everyone involved in supplying them with their tools of terror and bringing the weight of the law against them.

For example -- if we know that a car dealer is knowingly supplying a criminal organization with vehicles for the purpose of committing crimes then we have a legal foundation to attach that dealer to the subsequent crimes. Lot of legal hoops to jump through but there is a foundation there.

Hence supplying weapons to a terrorist organization probably should carry similar scrutiny.

And Mexico should consider this approach from a sovereign perspective. Cartels are criminal organizations. But they are also Mexican citizens. If the US is designating Mexican citizens as "terrorists" just because they're also criminals then that's a big leap in terms of how much influence we think we have over internal affairs in Mexico. Every sovereign state is going to feel a need to assert a limitation on that.

 

[Rod1]

What's their political goal and how do they threaten the US national security?

What's the political goal of killing a politician that wasn't in their pockets? what do you think that goal was buddy.

 

[avenue94]

What's the political goal of killing a politician that wasn't in their pockets? what do you think that goal was buddy.

The same as any criminal bribing a crooked official. Killing a good cop or prosecutor because isn't really a political goal in my book, I'm expecting something broader to align with the State Department guidelines. But these definitions and the designation has always been massaged.

 

[Rod1]

The same as any criminal bribing a crooked official.

Yup, but instead of bribing they are using terrorism.

Killing a good cop or prosecutor because isn't really a political goal in my book, I'm expecting something broader to align with the State Department guidelines. But these definitions and the designation has always been massaged.

In the US, terrorism is defined as the unlawful use of violence to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or government. Terrorism can be domestic or international.

Public executions made in order to intimidate, that fits Cartels to a dime.

 

[avenue94]

Yup, but instead of bribing they are using terrorism.

What's your definition of terrorism?

Because killing a cop or candidate because they are a threat to your group of criminals isn't terrorism. It only crosses into terror if the primary target of the attack isn't the victim. That's why I mentioned genocide earlier, the distinguishing mark for both genocide and terrorism isn't the act or crime, it's the motive.

In the US, terrorism is defined as the unlawful use of violence to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or government. Terrorism can be domestic or international.

Public executions made in order to intimidate, that fits Cartels to a dime.

That's a better example and one I'd acknowledge as being enough, albeit very narrow compared to most other terror groups on the list.

 

[panamaican]

What's your definition of terrorism?

Because killing a cop or candidate because they are a threat to your group of criminals isn't terrorism. It only crosses into terror if the primary target of the attack isn't the victim. That's why I mentioned genocide earlier, the distinguishing mark for both genocide and terrorism isn't the act or crime, it's the motive.

That's a better example and one I'd acknowledge as being enough, albeit very narrow compared to most other terror groups on the list.

His definition is incomplete. Per the FBI, the purpose of the intimidation is to "...further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature."

Preventing prosecution or criminal investigation or even snitching might be the goal of the intimidation but it probably isn't the same thing as an ideological goal.

 

[Beechwood]

Mexico -- Friend, Enemy, Neutral, or Something Else?

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/01/31/mexico_--_friend_enemy_neutral_or_something_else_152289.html

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

What's their political goal

To spread terror

 

[avenue94]

His definition is incomplete. Per the FBI, the purpose of the intimidation is to "...further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature."

Preventing prosecution or criminal investigation or even snitching might be the goal of the intimidation but it probably isn't the same thing as an ideological goal.

Yeah, the closet example on the US list is FARC, and they were/are much more politically minded and in open insurrection than the Mexican cartels.

I think people have this idea that terrorism and genocide are a tier of crime above, and they really aren't, they're just legal definitions that were created in the last century. Still useful, but much more pedantic than anything else.

 

[avenue94]

To spread terror

That's not a political goal, or one that would rise to the US definitions of terrorism.

 

[panamaican]

Yeah, the closet example on the US list is FARC, and they were/are much more politically minded and in open insurrection than the Mexican cartels.

I think people have this idea that terrorism and genocide are a tier of crime above, and they really aren't, they're just legal definitions that were created in the last century. Still useful, but much more pedantic than anything else.

People probably respond to the implication of the labels without ever wondering about the specificity of it.

I don't think it's pedantic though. I do think delineation between certain types of behaviors are necessary if we're going to apply appropriate punishments.

 

[avenue94]

People probably respond to the implication of the labels without ever wondering about the specificity of it.

I don't think it's pedantic though. I do think delineation between certain types of behaviors are necessary if we're going to apply appropriate punishments.

Yeah, I pedantic isn't really the right word. Maybe technical or something like that.

And yeah, without getting too far afield, the labels are really only as effective as the legal teeth behind them, which can vary wildly.

I don't really think it's a matter of punishment because for most of the crimes in question, they'd be life in prison or capital punishment, regardless of the motivation.

 

[Cool Hand Luke]

Mexico -- Friend, Enemy, Neutral, or Something Else?

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/01/31/mexico_--_friend_enemy_neutral_or_something_else_152289.html

My wife is Mexican so all of those.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

That's not a political goal, or one that would rise to the US definitions of terrorism.

Ok bud

 

[avenue94]

Ok bud

Terrorism requires an ideological component. Dealing drugs or illicit money isn't one. Feel free to post the legal definitions you think the cartels meet.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

Terrorism requires an ideological component. Dealing drugs or illicit money isn't one. Feel free to post the legal definitions you think the cartels meet.

Cartels are warring factions in Mexico. They are fighting over territory which is as much a political struggle as it is a financial one.

I've long said on this forum that while I'm anti-war across the board, I think it makes more sense for America to go to war with cartels than it does for them to go to war with Islamic terrorists halfway across the globe.

I'd rather they didn't go to war with anyone, but the cartels pose a far more serious, clear and present threat to the people of the United States of America than some terrorists in Iraq.

Fentanyl kills more Americans in a year than twenty five 9/11's.

 

[Fox by the Sea]

i dunno man, i'd love to see some specops stomping the fuck out of some cartels.
that's ASMR.