something perplexes me about talk of "winning the drug war". okay, we're at war with the cartels. let's characterize the enemy. the enemy:
- has no land, territory, or people that we can lay siege to. in fact, their civilian population is our civilian population!
- has more military funding than we do
- as a result, they have an endless supply of soldiers for all levels of their command hierarchy
- has less oversight requirements than our military (effectively zero)
- has no need for popular support
- has no need for large infrastructure, facilities, or anything really. if you take away some building of theirs with soldiers, vehicles and drugs, they will buy 10 more to replace what you took. they can continue to do this because for every dollar that you produce, as the state, to fund your war, they produce 3.
so you're fighting an insurgent war against everyone and they have more money / resources than you do. and you expect to win? hey, maybe if we took away their ability to make money and recruit people, then this starts to make sense...
- has no land, territory, or people that we can lay siege to. in fact, their civilian population is our civilian population!
- has more military funding than we do
- as a result, they have an endless supply of soldiers for all levels of their command hierarchy
- has less oversight requirements than our military (effectively zero)
- has no need for popular support
- has no need for large infrastructure, facilities, or anything really. if you take away some building of theirs with soldiers, vehicles and drugs, they will buy 10 more to replace what you took. they can continue to do this because for every dollar that you produce, as the state, to fund your war, they produce 3.
so you're fighting an insurgent war against everyone and they have more money / resources than you do. and you expect to win? hey, maybe if we took away their ability to make money and recruit people, then this starts to make sense...