The war on drugs has failed. Is the war on cartels as terrorists the US solution?

I watched a documentary about the cartels in Mexico. The Battle of Culiacán – Heirs of the Drug Trade (HBO)Basically, it's about the cartels of Sinaloa, which is a state in the northwest of the country, near the border with the United States (California), where the largest drug cartels are concentrated. Especially those commanded by El Chapo, Joaquim Guzmán, and also his local opponent, Mayo Zambaba.

El Chapo was arrested, escaped twice, became a legend, but he was apprehended in a joint operation with the DEA and extradited to the United States. There has always been great controversy surrounding the involvement of a rival cartel and whether there was an agreement with the United States regarding his extradition, as one of Mayo's sons testified against El Chapo, who received a life sentence plus an additional 30 years after his death – believe it or not, that was the verdict of the US justice system.

The HBO documentary (a striking US perspective, but still worth watching) depicts the so-called "Battle of Culiacán," the capital of Sinaloa. It begins with the first tragic event in October 2019, when the second generation of the Chapos cartel—their sons, one of whom is named Ovidio, a poetic name derived from the Roman poet—takes control. Ovidio Guzmán becomes the DEA's main target.

Ovid takes command of the network of laboratories to create the Fentanyl, which is the deadliest drug and has become an epidemic in the United States, reaching 107 deaths in 2022. Because of this leadership, Ovidio becomes a prime target for the DEA, the United States' anti-drug agency, which had already arrested the father and now wanted to arrest the son, in an attempt to provide an internal response to the opioid crisis, which, in 25 years, has killed more than 1 million people.

In 2018, during an operation at the beginning of López Obrador's government, the army managed to arrest Ovidio, but the cartel reorganized, surrounded the city, and they were forced to return the prisoner due to threats of killing more than 200 people, and hundreds of hostages, in addition to those who had already been killed. There was an agreement, it's not known exactly, with or without the president's participation, but the army was humiliated because it was an intervention by the army along with the local police, and they were humiliated by the drug traffickers and, there, mainly by the sicarios, gunmen hired to shoot.

It was a "civil war" within the city of Culiacán, which became known as the Culiacanazo. Later, during a very strong clash between the diplomacy of the United States and Mexico, many accusations were made: the United States accused the Obrador government of being complicit with drug trafficking, even going so far as to finance articles by a journalist claiming that Obrador had received money from drug trafficking during his 2006 election campaign—something that was never proven because it never actually reached him, but it was a form of pressure from the United States government.

It's important to note the US tactic of classifying cartels as terrorist organizations, which would give them the right to intervene in countries to "combat terrorism." This is largely due to the appeal of the ill-fated "war on drugs," which has failed miserably – a former CIA analyst literally says: "The DEA is cool, good cops, but they don't understand politics. They think arresting leaders would dismantle the cartels and then the trafficking; but the violence only increased."

It is worth noting that the US government made agreements directly with states and not directly with the Mexican government (would they do that with the government of Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo?), maintaining a tense relationship, even with the Obrador government facilitating Ovidio's extradition in an unbelievable legal maneuver – instead of contacting his lawyers, they notified the prisoner that he would be extradited, and within 12 hours they sent him to the US.

The widespread violence in Mexico stems from the war between cartels, the corruption of public officials, and the fear surrounding them, as they threaten their families. This largely explains the state of permanent crisis, the number of deaths and disappearances, and the lack of investigations that has taken over the country, which shares a vast border with the US, the country that holds the "market" for drugs, and also supplies sophisticated weaponry to the cartels.

There is a risk of Mexicanization What about the state of public security in Brazil due to criminal factions? Could the US intervene in the same way they do in Mexico? In US policy of confrontation, there are no major differences between Democrats and Republicans; many of these laws and proposals came from Obama and Biden, and are now being implemented by Trump.

Let's wait and see what happens in the next chapters.