ANALYSIS – The answer is probably yes. They should be very afraid. Very afraid. If you weren't sure about voting for former President Donald Trump in November, look no further than the recent “exposé” in Rolling Stone.
The reliably lefty outlet claims that Trump is planning to covertly send U.S. special ops forces into Mexico to kill the leaders of drug cartels if he returns to the White House. (RELATED: Mexico's President Tells Americans To Brace For Unrelenting Flow Of Migrants – Unless This Happens)
Rolling Stone adds that Trump has yet to announce the full extent of his plans which involve covertly deploying – with or without the Mexican government's consent – special operations units tasked with taking out drug lords. And his thinking is based on the 2019 raid to kill ISIS terror chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
All this is according to three sources reportedly close to Trump.
Recall that fentanyl, often secretly mixed with medications and other drugs smuggled into our country by Mexican cartels kills over 100,000 Americans a year. These organized criminal cartels are also increasingly operating inside the U.S.
Openly attacking the cartels inside Mexico without Mexican government approval would be tricky diplomatically and could inflame Mexican anti-American nationalism. However, if done quietly and effectively, it could also bring relief to millions of innocent Mexicans who are suffering and dying as a result of the cartels and the corruption of their government. (RELATED: Mexico's Hosts Russian And Chinese Military Units In Independence Parade)
And Trump's no dummy. Hence the idea of it being COVERT. As the Daily Mail reported:
In the summer of 2020, the president asked him [Defense Secretary Mark Esper] twice if the armed forces could launch ‘missiles into Mexico to destroy the drug labs,' because the Mexican government did not have ‘control of their own country.'
Trump had a response when Esper pointed out the legal and diplomatic difficulty in firing on a friendly neighbor.
‘No one would know it was us,' Trump reportedly told him.
As The Telegraph has noted: “On the campaign trail ahead of November's presidential election, Mr Trump has already said he hopes to ‘make appropriate use of Special Forces, cyber warfare, and other overt and covert actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations.'”
One of the sources told Rolling Stone that the former president said that the U.S. government should have a “kill list of drug lords” to be captured or assassinated during his second term.
And thankfully, despite resistance from Mexico's socialist president, some U.S. political quarters and establishment U.S. defense officials, the idea of military action in Mexico appears to have growing appeal among Republican politicians, who would clearly back such action under a Trump presidency. (RELATED: Biden's Stunning Threat Forces Republicans To Pursue Impeachment)
Rolling Stone also reports:
What was once a fringe notion that senior Trump administration officials quickly moved to shut down has now become a mainstream GOP policy proposal, including among influential Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill and conservative think tanks.
And The Telegraph added:
Republican senators Lindsey Graham and John Neely Kennedy last year backed legislation that would “give the military the authority to go after these organisations wherever they exist”.
The proposal provoked an angry reaction from Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico's president, who denounced it as “an offence to the people of Mexico”.
“We are not going to permit any foreign government to intervene in our territory, much less that a government's armed forces intervene,” he said last March.
Meanwhile, General Mark Milley, the former chairman of the US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last year that invading Mexico was a bad idea.
“I wouldn't recommend anything be done without Mexico's support,” he said, insisting that tackling the cartel-fueled drug trade is a law enforcement – not a military – issue. I strongly disagree with Milley. But it wouldn't be the first time. (RELATED: Trump Plans Awesome Expansive Agenda For Second Term)
Still, Trump's campaign spokesman dismissed the latest news report of Trump's Mexico plans, according to the Daily Mail.
“This is nothing more than fake news from Rolling Stone who spoke with cowardly, un-named sources who either have no idea what they are talking about or are completely fabricating what will happen in a second Trump Administration,” said Steven Cheung.
Maybe so, or maybe Trump just wants it all to remain COVERT.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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