In 1916, with Europe embroiled in armed hostilities, President Woodrow Wilson won reelection on the slogan “He kept us out of war.” In 2024, President Joe Biden could offer a similar message: “He kept us out of war with Mexico.”
If Biden loses, that war may not be long in coming. In the first Republican presidential debate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was asked if he would send U.S. special forces across the border to carry out attacks on drug cartels. He replied, “Yes, and I will do it on day one.”
Pharmaceutical tycoon Vivek Ramaswamy is equally eager, promising “to use our military to annihilate Mexican drug cartels south of our border if necessary.” Former Vice President Mike Pence said his administration would “hunt down and destroy the cartels that are claiming lives in the United States of America.” As president, Donald Trump wanted to launch missiles against Mexican drug labs, according to his defense secretary, Mark Esper. And the GOP front-runner reportedly has asked aides to draft “battle plans” for an attack on Mexico.
In 2009, Boston University international relations scholar Andrew Bacevich said we were trying to achieve impossible goals in Afghanistan. “Anyone suggesting that the United States possesses the wisdom and the wherewithal to solve the problem of Mexican drug trafficking, to endow Mexico with competent security forces, and to reform the Mexican school system (while protecting the rights of Mexican women) would be dismissed as a lunatic,” he wrote. “Meanwhile, those who promote such programs for Afghanistan, ignoring questions of cost and ignoring as well the corruption and ineffectiveness that pervade our own institutions, are treated like sages.”
Bacevich was right about Afghanistan. But today, lunacy is ascendant. Politicians and commentators on the right would have us believe that the biggest problems we have with Mexico can be solved with overwhelming military force.
Those paying attention in Chicago are familiar with the problems. In the past year, the city has had to cope with more than 13,500 asylum-seekers, most of whom came across our southern border and were bused here by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican. Each year, Illinois suffers thousands of overdose deaths involving opioids, including fentanyl smuggled from Mexico.
But the migration crisis and the fentanyl plague grow out of deep dysfunction not just in Mexico but also in countries in Central and South America and beyond. Anyone who thinks the U.S. can transform those societies to suit our needs is divorced from reality. Anyone who thinks an invasion of Mexico would work out well has forgotten our experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti, where failure has been the norm.
There has always been unauthorized immigration across the southern border, and given the insurmountable challenge of securing a 2,000-mile stretch of land, there always will be. Societal breakdown from Venezuela to Guatemala has pushed desperate people to do anything necessary to find a safe haven. If the U.S. were to invade Mexico, it would undoubtedly create even more refugees trying to escape the carnage and hardship that would ensue.
For decades, Mexican drug cartels have been able to transport their products northward to meet the steady demand of American consumers. Fentanyl is easy to make and even easier to smuggle because it is highly potent in tiny doses. How effective is military force against drug trafficking? The U.S. deployed tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan — yet opium production quadrupled during our time there.
The Mexico hawks apparently learned nothing from past U.S. military ventures that were advertised as small, low-risk operations but ended in debacles. In 1983, 241 American military personnel in Lebanon died in a truck-bomb attack on their barracks. In 1993, 18 American soldiers died and 73 were wounded in a vicious firefight in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.
In each case, the president quickly decided to get out and stay out. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton learned the same painful lesson: Starting a war is easy. What comes next rarely is.
DeSantis said that when his administration catches drug smugglers, “we’re going to leave them stone cold dead at the border.” His charming fantasy rests on a grossly inaccurate notion of the fentanyl trade. In the vast majority of drug seizures at ports of entry, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the smugglers are as American as Clint Eastwood. I have news for this Harvard Law School graduate: A president can’t order the summary execution of U.S. citizens or foreigners for alleged crimes.
It’s tempting to think that all the bravado is just political theater by guys from Republicans striving to show how tough they are. But many a supposedly tough guy has let his mouth get him into a fight he couldn’t win.
Steve Chapman was a member of the Tribune Editorial Board from 1981 to 2021. His columns, exclusive to the Tribune, appear the first Thursday of every month. He can be reached at stephenjchapman@icloud.com.
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