What If Department...

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Highspeed
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Re: What If Department...

Post by Highspeed »

Aesop wrote: When they asked John D. Rockefeller, world's first billionaire, how much money was enough, his reply was "Just a little bit more."
Where's the money ?

You are a cartel boss, you already have more cash than you could ever spend. You have the gold plated AK's, the diamond rings, the Ferrari's and the hot Latino bitches who look like Salma Hayek. Money is rolling in. Lots of competitors want to kill you, but what the fuck, that is the nature of the business you are in.

So why would you decide to go to war with the USA ? Even with Obummer in charge you'll be hunted down like a rabid dog and lose everything you worked for.
All my life I been in the dog house
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That just the way the dice roll
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Aglifter
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Re: What If Department...

Post by Aglifter »

Exactly - there's no upside. As it is, the cartels can come close to running MX - they pretty much can, so long as they don't interfere w. the major conglomerates.

What might induce them to fight - and what would be very beneficial, would be offering a mechanism for them to move their cash into the conventional economy.

Cash is, astoundingly, worthless to them. That capital will demand an outlet. But, that's more likely to come in terms of changing something in some small Latin country/the Mexican government, than in attacking the US.

No one wants to be a drug kingpin, only to have to hide in a cave.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our Fortunes, & our sacred Honor

A gentleman unarmed is undressed.

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kapikui
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Re: What If Department...

Post by kapikui »

Given the current administration and their track record of defending Americans under attack, I suspect any soldiers involved in defending US land would have to disobey orders to stand down, or even PROTECT the poor misunderstood rightful owners of the land coming in to reclaim it, or somesuch. Things would get very ugly very quickly, and any military involved would have to act and make such decisions based on mostly false information coming from above.
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evan price
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Re: What If Department...

Post by evan price »

Aesop wrote:
evan price wrote:So what are you asking for aesop?
I thought I was pretty clear about what I was asking in the initial post. Especially #4 with reference to your follow-ons.

We know we've got a turd sandwich with a side order of fecal fries. Anybody who chooses to live in a border region does so knowing that it is the first place that will be hit if things go really bad. Things are already bad. The DC 'tards will keep making it worse.

So again, what do you want to get out of this? Ideas for retreat zones?
1. Washington has made it their business to allow a passive invasion of our country to serve their own interests
2. The people that really count are being kept in the dark and crippled by not being allowed to do their jobs
3. The people who live in the area have dealt with a constant trespass of their property and theft of services and real property for decades
4. Unless and until some state governor decides that he is going to face down DC this will not stop.
5. There's going to be the usual peace-love-happiness types who will wail about leaving women & children to die in the desert, and asking how it is humane to machine-gun unarmed illegal immigrants....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S06nIz4scvI
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Aesop
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Re: What If Department...

Post by Aesop »

Highspeed wrote:
Aesop wrote: When they asked John D. Rockefeller, world's first billionaire, how much money was enough, his reply was "Just a little bit more."
Where's the money ?

You are a cartel boss, you already have more cash than you could ever spend. You have the gold plated AK's, the diamond rings, the Ferrari's and the hot Latino bitches who look like Salma Hayek. Money is rolling in. Lots of competitors want to kill you, but what the fuck, that is the nature of the business you are in.

So why would you decide to go to war with the USA ? Even with Obummer in charge you'll be hunted down like a rabid dog and lose everything you worked for.
You're looking at this like it's a conventional actual war.
They won't be trying to take Washington, or raise anyone's flag, per se.
Chaos itself would be the object, here exactly as it is down there.
They get a 1000-mile open rip in the border, enforcement goes to zero, and any response helps them.
Plus another 10-30M people flood north.

This is true especially if you're the third- or fourth-largest cartel boss, and you want to be Numero Uno.

They get to piggyback on the inevitable squeals for reconquista from the leftist idiots, the US isn't going to nuke Mexico, round Hispanics up and put them in camps, and we just tried to enforce our will in two countries, and we've seen how that works out.
If we someday (under some other president than the current one) treat it like a war, the border here becomes an armed camp, which isn't liable to sit well with folks, but it also means we won't be mucking around in the rest of S. and Central America to mess with their operations either.
(And if you think seeing us get kicked in the nuts would upset any government south of Texas to the South Pole, I have a bridge for sale, cheap.)
If we don't treat it like a war, the border region here becomes the same cesspit of corruption, beheadings, and the rest that describes Juarez, TJ, and Nuevo Laredo every day in the last 10 years.

We have all the guns anyone would need on this side of the border. They have 20,000,000 potential recruits and allies, not counting the legal immigrants already here, and we have no way to tell the ones that'd side with them from the ones that'd side with us.

The upside benefit for them is they get style points, quadruple their market share and profits, and change the world map for generations to come.

Exactly in the same way the richest Arabs in Saudi Arabi are the moneybags funding Al Qaeda and jihad (and always have been), including the troglodytes currently running rampant across Iraq, the richest cartel members, and hordes of hungry wannabees would pay for this, and be on us like piranha 2 seconds after anyone showed we could be had.
And we can be.
(People who get rich don't want the world to be like America. They just want to stay rich. If they got rich killing people and selling drugs, they want to be able to kill more people and sell more drugs. Look at the entire Middle East, Russia, China, Mexico, anywhere. And their underlings who aren't rich yet, want that even more so. Look at the grief we get from Soros, Buffett, Gates, Bloomberg, half the Senate, most of Hollywood, and so on right effing here. They don't want Bedford Falls, they want Potterville. At gunpoint if necessary.)

The only thing that's kept this from happening is their respect for a little black line on a map.
The second they realize they don't have to stay inside that box, the world changes.
I think what's happening in Iraq is going to give them ideas.

World maps, like traffic lights and stripes, only work when everyone stays on the proper side of the lines and obeys the rules.
Ask Ukraine. Kuwait. Any part of the former Yugoslavia. Lebanon. Ad infinitum.
Neither maps nor painted lines have magical powers to coerce behavior, and I think sooner or later, the folks in the south are going to reach the conclusion that they should ignore the line, and give it a try on their terms. The cartels would eat American law enforcement for breakfast and spit them out. And the only prospect that would appeal to the government would be the opportunity to try out martial law and massive draconian population control. Whether they'd actually ever try to restore the status quo ante is a highly dubious prospect.

And I promise you, five minutes after San Diego, Vegas, Phoenix, etc. became their city, there'd be a phalanx of local politicians on TV on both sides of the new line counseling folks to calm down and adjust to the new order of things, because they weren't such bad people deep down, and we should just lighten up and give peace a chance.
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
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Highspeed
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Re: What If Department...

Post by Highspeed »

I'm still unconvinced, but you are making a good case none the less.
All my life I been in the dog house
I guess that just where I belong
That just the way the dice roll
Do my dog house song
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Cybrludite
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Re: What If Department...

Post by Cybrludite »

::shrugs:: My ancestors on either side of Hadrian's Wall had some charming Medieval and Early Modern traditions regarding cross-border banditry and discouraging the same. I suspect the cartel jefes would find the game a lot less fun when it's their casas that are going up in flames and their associates getting Quigley-ed.
"If it ain't the Devil's Music, you ain't doin' it right." - Chris Thomas King

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Aglifter
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Re: What If Department...

Post by Aglifter »

Mexicans are people, Aesop. They aren't exactly looking to sign up w the cartels - especially given how many if them have been kidnapped/tortured/killed etc by them.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our Fortunes, & our sacred Honor

A gentleman unarmed is undressed.

Collects of 1903/08 Colt Pocket Auto
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Jericho941
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Re: What If Department...

Post by Jericho941 »

It'd last roughly five minutes longer than an A-10's flight time from D-M.
Aesop
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Re: What If Department...

Post by Aesop »

Aglifter wrote:Mexicans are people, Aesop. They aren't exactly looking to sign up w the cartels - especially given how many if them have been kidnapped/tortured/killed etc by them.
The evidence of the entire failed state of Mexico argues against that proposition.
Jericho941 wrote:It'd last roughly five minutes longer than an A-10's flight time from D-M.
Fair enough.
How much of Phoenix are you willing to destroy in order to save it?
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
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