Bill Barr Calls for US Military Intervention Against Drug Cartels

Bill Barr Calls for US Military Intervention Against Drug Cartels

(RepublicanReport.org) – Former US Attorney General William Barr is urging swift action against the cartels to blame for the devastation as the drug crisis in the US has reached tragic levels. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the number of people dying of overdoses has skyrocketed. In 2021, more than 100,000 Americans died as a result.

A recent op-ed from Barr, published in The Wall Street Journal, notes this number exceeds the number of American troops killed in the worst year of fighting in World War II.

The former US Attorney General thinks this figure doesn’t accurately capture the scope of the harm done by the cartels. Barr mentioned that a 2017 research put the yearly cost of America’s drug problem at above $1 trillion, or 5% of gross domestic product (GDP), every year.

Barr noted that violent street gangs control the local retail sale and distribution of these illegal substances. According to the Drug Enforcement Agency Mexican transnational criminal organizations provide the majority of the heroin, methamphetamines, cocaine, and fentanyl imported into the nation. Trump’s AG believes that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico is the cartel’s primary facilitator since the Mexican government seemingly frequently yields to the cartels’ overwhelming authority.

Barr claimed the Mexican President is reluctant to take steps that would threaten the cartels. The former AG noted López Obrador protects them by repeatedly claiming Mexican sovereignty to prevent the United States from acting decisively.

Barr emphasized that recently introduced legislation would provide President Joe Biden the right to employ the US military to wage war against the drug cartels. The former AG claimed the battle should take place on the southern side of the border.

Barr also mentioned that when the US and Colombian governments teamed together to destroy the two most powerful cartels in the world in the early 1990s, the Medellín and Cali cartels, it required aggressive and decisive action to be successful. According to Barr, then-President Bill Clinton’s decision scaled up US vigilance in dismantling cartels on their native soil. Now, the former AG is calling for similar action, hoping it will have similar results.

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