FPOB, you can't impose cultural change like that without occupying the country which we lack the money and manpower to do, thank goodness.

We are also crooked so we don't have an integrity surplus of our own...


In theory we could slow drug trafficking by a large degree is to seal the borders, banning immigration and searching everything coming in.

Its politically impossible on both the Left and Right and too expensive.

The other option, also politically impossible is to just legalize it and allow liquor stores to sell whatever.

This would reduce violence and maybe use as well but again not gonna happen.

you ever get the feeling that you've been gently walked down the length of a Hegelian plank?

Closing the borders is impractical, though they could be more regulated. An enlarged and reorganized Border Patrol, National Guard deployments along the border to supplament them, and increased Coast Guard patrols on the Pacific, Carribean, and Gulf of Mexico. And legalizing drugs will never happen. The only alternative is to provide military, economic, and social aid to the Mexican government and people. Think of a cross of Plan Colombia and the military aid sent to Israel during the Yom Kippur War. This is the only viable alterative, considering that this drug war could (hell, it already is practically) spread to the border reagions of the US.

well... you can always close the border with our good friend Mr. ATOMIC ENERGY, or his new pal KINETIC ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT

www.chymist.com/The%20Plan%20to%20Nuke%20Panama.pdf
http://videosift.com/video/Operation-Plowshare-Let-s-use-nukes-for-civil-engineering
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare
http://voices.yahoo.com/nuclear-weapons-may-already-obsolete-5255529.html

and when you're done, you'd have a really nice radioactive canal going from the gulf coast to baja

I don't quite see what OP's point is. If it is finding an use for the US contingent, getting rid of more or less deprecated equipment and overall just getting something to throw public money at, yes, it is a rather good idea. >>13960's approach seems the most reasonable on those topics.
A parallel internal operation would be necessary aswell. Reinforcing the border can only do so much, the cartels are at least operating business in the US soil already and terrorism is cheap as ever.
But that's mostly to show some work and rather clumsily isolate the US from the situation.

Now, an intervention intending to really bring peace into Mexico wouldn't be mostly militar at all. First there'd be much work to do on cleaning corruption from Mexico's military/government, cutting bank accounts(then punishing the responsible for covering them, which is as impracticable as legalizing drugs) and whatnot before any military operation becomes viable.
Then, organizing such intervention would be complicated. Mexico's policial and military forces seem to be completely demoralized or just completely dissolved in some areas, a joint force would be definitely necessary, if only to provide numbers.
On dismantling the cartels themselves I have no idea, big numbers and superior equipment can't really do much agains't modern guerrillas.
At least restoring safety to the civilians and preventing attacks on infrastructure, in short, giving conditions to the state regenerate itself, is crucial. But easier said than done, and any further dissertation would require knowledge in what networks are there to be disrupted, how would one do that and its effects, which I don't have.
All that while working on the border and internally to avoid retaliation on US soil, which is a lot easier than it is for middle eastern groups.

So, tl;dr reinforcing Mexico's military, focus on preventing state failure and hoping for breakthroughs on how to deal with such groups(which I don't believe the US has perfected enough), but only after a thorough cleanup.

Meh, fuck the mexicans. I live in a city in cali full of em. Perhaps it's 70% mexican and only a small percentage of that actually respect this country .

"Let's warm up the NUKES..."

>2012
>any solution to the war on drugs other then legalization and regulation.
Shiggidy Diggidy Doo Wop

>2012
>any solution to the war on drugs other then legalization and regulation.
Shiggidy Diggidy Doo Wop

The US won't invade mexico for one simple reason: Mexico hasn't got any (substantial amount of) oil.