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Comment by ChumpGPT | Hacker News Reader

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I remember seeing a vice video where a cartel soldier said that every level of government in Mexico is paid with cartel money.

Who is giving the cartel that money?

The entire world. The drug trade is global and the USA is a huge market, perhaps the biggest.

Also worth reminding people that the whole point of money laundering is to keep the operations going without having to keep big secrets or make anyone unnecessary complicit. It's not about corruption, shady business, or legislation. Those are all lies told to get normal people to believe even uglier lies. No, it can all be completely reformed, swamp drained, and regularly audited to be squeaky clean and still the money and drugs will continue to flow unimpeded. This is outside the scope of individual governments. Even if the USA and Mexico cooperated perfectly, the money is already clean before it hits their domestic banks and the smuggling is less about avoiding getting caught and more about overwhelming the system. This is why it's called a "war" on drugs.

Americans. But it’s more like the head-end of Americans paying cartels for drugs and in order to pacify the ass-end from complaining they, in collusion with Mexico, have to make it “look like” they are doing something about it.

Excuse me. Are you suggesting that rich individuals are subsidizing the importation of illegal drugs that are consumed by average Americans?

… you know the CIA imported and sold drugs in the USA?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_traf...

The world drug trade.

I don't know whose opinion I value less on the matter, a random soldier or Vice.

Except it came out a few years ago Fox was on the payroll. We know it’s gone all the way to the presidency.

This is a direct consequence of US government policy:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/dec/08/mexico-war-on-d...

I picked a story from 2016, so you can read with the benefit of hindsight, but it’s been the same story since the 1970’s (and arguably since the tail end of the prohibition days, when the US made the Mexican government choose between destabilizing itself or not having anesthesia for its hospitals).

Since the US’s continuous morally-reprehensible actions created and then propped up Mexico’s narco-state for about a century, and people keep voting in the US politicians that perpetuate the cycle, I can only assume things are working as intended.

> This is a direct consequence of US government policy

Which policy do you mean? Not legalizing drugs? Because the US is no exception in that regard.

The US forced countries to criminalize the export of drugs to the US, even though though no country (the US included) has the resources necessary to enforce those laws.

The result is shadow economies, then corruption and finally narco states. This profits corrupt actors in the US government, so they perpetuate the cycle.

There are basically two sides in the war on drugs: almost everyone (non-users, users, small-time producers), and para-military syndicates that control distribution, enforcement agencies, and government policies.

If you read the article I linked, and also the one this thread is about, it is clear that the US decided to back one of the cartels with military aid and support in the local election. That caused a transfer of power that left 100,000’s dead, including the 43 students that were murdered by US-backed Mexican government officials.

> The US forced countries to criminalize the export of drugs to the US

Are such laws outliers? In how many countries is the manufacture and/or export of drugs (to any country) legal?

You're right, prohibition funds organized crime all over the world.

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