The Civil War was the last war fought on American soil. Increasingly it would appear that there a new deadly one may be fought there again soon:
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An escalating arms race among Mexico's drug cartels casts doubt on whether Mexico or the U.S. can stop the flow of weaponry, despite renewed vows last week from presidents of both countries.
Stockpiles captured by Mexican soldiers show that warring traffickers are now obtaining military-grade weaponry such as grenades, launchers, machine guns, mortars and anti-tank rockets.
Some drug gangs have even sought explosive material that some experts worry could be used in car bombs and improvised explosive devices of the kind used in Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers found 14 sticks of TNT among an arsenal of hundreds of rifles and grenades seized in November from a house in Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas....
One of the most worrisome weapons yet was seized this week just south of Nogales, Ariz.: a powerful gun mounted on the back of an SUV and protected by athick metal shield. Police said it belonged to one of the Beltran Leyva drug gangs.
Mexican and U.S. authorities disagree on just what type of gun it was. Federal police coordinator Gen. Rodolfo Cruz maintains it was .50-caliber anti-air craft machine gun. ATF, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said it was an unmodified .50-caliber semiautomatic rifle made by TNW, a U.S. firearms manufacturer.
ATF investigators traced the gun -- along with seven others seized at a house in Sonora state on Monday -- to suppliers in the United States, said Bill Newell, special agent in charge of the ATF in Arizona and New Mexico.
While crudely built, the truck-mounted rifle would give traffickers a powerful advantage against lightly armed police, Newell said: A gunman could protect a whole convoy with sweeping fire while protected by the metal shield.
''Imagine being a two- or three-man police team at a rural checkpoint and these guys roll up with this thing,'' Newell said. ''You'd be slightly intimidated, wouldn't you?''
As long as everyone keeps one or more loaded handguns around their house, everything will turn out just fine.
So as long as the drug dealers are the only ones armed it'll be all good, right? :rolleyes"
Oh no, that's not what I mean. A nice bloody war should have as much arms as possible on both sides! Your assumption that this war will need to be fought house to house by private citizens rather than by the FBI, DEA, police forces, National Guard or Military may in fact become true. I predict then that rocket launchers, hand grenades and automatic weapons will be the next de rigeur outfit for the seriously rugged individualistic sportman of tomorrow. In that case Al Capone's Chicago will look like child's play.
Oh no, that's not what I mean. A nice bloody war should have as much arms as possible on both sides! Your assumption that this war will need to be fought house to house by private citizens rather than by the FBI, DEA, police forces, National Guard or Military may in fact become true. I predict then that rocket launchers, hand grenades and automatic weapons will be the next de rigeur outfit for the seriously rugged individualistic sportman of tomorrow. In that case Al Capone's Chicago will look like child's play.
Factor in all people who happen to appear to be hispanic, but have nothing to do with trafficking.
It will be treacherous for all.
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The Civil War was the last war fought on American soil.
Are you claiming that the War on Terror is not a real war?? If it's not a real war, then all of the actions that the government is taking to execute under the doctrine of war powers are illegal. Wow.
Are you claiming that the War on Terror is not a real war?? If it's not a real war, then all of the actions that the government is taking to execute under the doctrine of war powers are illegal. Wow.
The War on Terror is hyperbole, like The War on Drugs or The War on Poverty. The sad thing about WoT is that the last administration got treat it like a real war, not just the rhetorical device of a politician.
I would suspect, insofar as drug runner types tend not to be religious crazies bent on getting to the Great Hereafter, whilst taking as many folks with them as possible, that you aren't going to see anything similar to terrorist attacks. You are going to see turf wars, and some incidental crimes, but for the most part, these dewds want to move product and get rich, not die. Too many civs get killed and they are going to attract more of what is to them the wrong kind of attention.
O/H
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Actually I'm a bit more worried about something like another energy spike leading to shootouts at the pump rather than something constructive and cooperative like a moon-race style effort to develop and deploy alternatives (that "big government" again).
There's a certain rugged individualism that might've been functional once when the challenge was clearing and farming 160 acres and keeping external human threats away, but would prove highly dysfunctional in cases where success depends on major cooperation and building a whole that's much greater than the sum of the parts.
One thing for sure: Any internal strife in the U.S. would be absolutely devastating, as it'd destroy confidence-in-stability that has been such a draw for foreign investors. If countries like China or Japan suddenly head for the exits then that'd dig a hole that'd take 40-50 years to get out of, if ever.
I fail to see any corellation between the cartels getting "military-grade weaponry such as grenades, launchers, machine guns, mortars and anti-tank rockets" and US laws wrt non-military semi-automatic handguns. Neither, it seems, does the author:
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Even as the governments try to choke off the U.S. weapons supply, the gangs are clearly trying to expand their arsenals beyond the assault rifles and semi-automatics they can get in the United States.
These and other, much heavier weapons are readily available on the global black market, particularly from stockpiles left over from Central America's civil wars.
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The War on Terror is hyperbole, like The War on Drugs or The War on Poverty. The sad thing about WoT is that the last administration got treat it like a real war, not just the rhetorical device of a politician.
I don't think that 9/11 was the rhetorical device of a politician. It was an act of war committed on American soil.
The War on Terror is hyperbole, like The War on Drugs or The War on Poverty. The sad thing about WoT is that the last administration got treat it like a real war, not just the rhetorical device of a politician.
I don't think that 9/11 was the rhetorical device of a politician. It was an act of war committed on American soil.
Apples and Oranges; the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 are not the same thing as the broad reaction to "terrorism" that followed them.
Even if we accept (for the sake of argument) that private individuals (rather than a nation state) can commit an "act of war" then the resulting war was between the US and the specific organization which attacked it (Al Qaeda) and not "terrorism" in general.
The "War on Terror" was a much broader response than just to Al Qaeda, and it combines two(*) literal wars with more generalized security measures, law enforcement operations and governmental policies. Indeed, given the lack of an Al Qaeda/Iraq connection, conflating the literal-but-unrelated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into a "war on terror" is itself a rhetorical device.
(* or three, if we accept the notion of being "at war" with Al Qaeda separately from the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan and followon operations there.)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Klm is Dead - Long Live KLM
The Civil War was the last war fought on American soil.
Setting aside the whole discussion of whether 9/11 was an act of war, the attack on Pearl Harbor clearly was. (Hawaii was a U.S. territory at the time.)
I was also about to claim that the Spanish-American War took place on American soil but I looked it up and that isn't technically correct: we acquired Puerto Rico and Guam as a result of winning the war - they were under Spanish control prior to that.
...Not that any of this has to do with Mexican drug cartels...
