Ron Paul Liberty Report - Weekly Update --- Fight Another 'Terror War' Against Drug Cartels? There's a Better Way
Aired: 2019-12-03
Duration: 04:10


=== Why Another War on Drugs? (03:23) ===

[00:00:03]  Hello everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the weekly report.
[00:00:07]  Fight another terror war against drug cartels?
[00:00:11]  There's a better way.
[00:00:13]  The 50-year U.S. war on drugs has been a total failure, with hundreds of billions of dollars flushed down the drain and our civil liberties whittled away fighting a war that cannot be won.
[00:00:27]  The 20-year war on drugs has likewise been a gigantic U.S. government disaster.
[00:00:33]  Hundreds of billions of dollars wasted, civil liberties scorched, and a world far more dangerous than when this was a launched war after 9-11.
[00:00:43]  So what to do about two of the greatest policy failures in U.S. history?
[00:00:49]  According to President Trump and many in Washington, the answer is to combine them.
[00:00:54]  Last week, Trump declared that in light of an attack last month on U.S. tourists in Mexico, he would be designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
[00:01:07]  Asked if he would send in drones to attack targets in Mexico, he responded, I don't want to say what I'm going to do, but they will be designated.
[00:01:17]  The Mexican president was quick to pour cold water on the idea of U.S. drones taking out Mexican targets, responding to Trump's threats, saying, cooperation, yes, interventionism, no.
[00:01:33]  Trump is not alone in drawing the wrong conclusions from the increasing violence coming from the drug cartels south of the border.
[00:01:41]  A group of U.S. senators sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging that the U.S. slap sanctions on the drug cartels in response to the killing of Americans.
[00:01:53]  Do these senators really believe that facing U.S. sanctions, these drug cartels will close down and move into legitimate activities?
[00:02:03]  Sanctions don't work against countries, and they sure wouldn't work against drug cartels.
[00:02:09]  A recent editorial in the Conservative Federalist publication urges President Trump to launch unilateral, no-permission special forces raids into Mexico, like the U.S. did into Pakistan to fight ISIS and al-Qaeda.
[00:02:25]  I'm sure the military-industrial complex loves this idea.
[00:02:30]  Another big war to keep Washington rich at the expenses of the rest of us.
[00:02:34]  And the 2001 authorization for the use of military force can even be throttled out to fight the brand new terror war.
[00:02:43]  Perhaps unintentionally, however, this sudden push to look at the Mexican drug cartels that we did ISIS and al-Qaeda does make sense.
[00:02:53]  After all, the rise of the drug cartels and the rise of the terror cartels have both been due to bad U.S. policy.
[00:03:02]  It was the U.S. invasion of Iraq based in neocon lies that led to the creation of ISIS and expansion of al-Qaeda in the Middle East, and it was the U.S. war on drugs that led to the rise of the drug cartels in Mexico.
[00:03:18]  Here's another suggestion.
[00:03:20]  Maybe instead of doing the same things that do not work, we might look at the actual cause of the problems.

=== Rise of Drug Cartels (00:43) ===

[00:03:26]  The U.S. war on drugs makes drug enormously profitable to Mexican suppliers eager to satisfy a ravenous U.S. market.
[00:03:36]  A study last year by the Cato Institute found that with the steady decriminalization and legalization of marijuana across the United States, the average U.S. Border Patrol agent sees 78% less marijuana in fiscal year 2018 than in fiscal year 2013.
[00:03:56]  Instead of declaring war on Mexico, perhaps the answer to the drug cartel problem is to take away their incentive by ending the war on drugs.
[00:04:07]  Why not try something that actually works?