Earlier U.S. efforts, including in Mexico and Colombia, did little to cut drug production. Gil Barndollar of Defense Priorities wrote about his time in Afghanistan. His unit “engaged in erratic, futile attempts to interrupt opium-poppy cultivation. Partnered with Afghanistan’s version of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, my company wasted days fruitlessly searching motorcycles at checkpoints on dusty village trails, finding no drugs. On one occasion, I was ordered to confiscate farmers’ wooden poppy scorers, simple finger-mounted tools used to harvest opium; at a cost of maybe a penny a piece, they were immediately replaced. U.S. planes bombed 200 Afghan drug labs during the occupation. Yet opium production skyrocketed—Afghanistan produced more than 80 percent of the global supply of the drug in the last years of the war.”
In contrast, Mexico is next door. Barndollar observed: “Any unilateral U.S. military action in Mexico would risk the collapse of a neighboring country of 130 million people. It could unleash civil war and a humanitarian crisis that would dwarf those in Iraq and Syria. This carnage would not be confined to Mexico. Some of America’s largest and wealthiest cities are a few hours’ drive from the border.” Imagine a human tsunami racing toward the border.
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