In any case that was a war against a hardened, experienced, determined enemy fighting for its freedom from any form of colonial occupation, both as a formal military and as an insurgent force in South Vietnam.
I scarcely think the Mexican population would rise up in defense of the cartels here.
The problem is you can't just target the cartels, the cartels are made up of random Mexican people. There is an almost guarantee that any significant US strikes would be 90%+ civilian casualties.
A non-aligned population will look out for their own interests and are aware that the attention of the US is temporary but the cuadillismo that lead to cartels are a durable cultural artifact.
The Battle of Culiacán, also known locally as the Culiacanazo and Black
Thursday, was a failed attempt to capture Ovidio Guzmán López, son of Sinaloa
Cartel kingpin Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, who was wanted in the United States
for drug trafficking.
Around 700 cartel gunmen began to attack civilian, government and military
targets around the city, despite orders from Ovidio sent at security forces'
request. Massive towers of smoke could be seen rising from burning cars and
vehicles. The cartels were well-equipped, with improvised armored vehicles,
bulletproof vests, .50 caliber (12.7 mm) rifles, rocket launchers, grenade
launchers and heavy machine guns.
They'd probably quickly stop cheering as their own homes and families were destroyed as collateral damage, which is what would happen if the "full force of the US military" were deployed against the cartels.
The destruction of cartels would involve careful policing and corruption controls, the best American administrations have been bad at this. The worst... can barely put its pants on much less dismantle foreign organized crime. You can't shoot a missile at a cartel and poof it's just gone.
I don't really think you thought through that one. It sounds like what your saying is that the Vietnamese won and thats the outcome that matters. It does matter but that isn't the issue - it is the cost that everyone is talking about: the amount of destruction that was brought upon the country and people was terrible.
Millions of dead Vietnamese.
In any case that was a war against a hardened, experienced, determined enemy fighting for its freedom from any form of colonial occupation, both as a formal military and as an insurgent force in South Vietnam.
I scarcely think the Mexican population would rise up in defense of the cartels here.
The problem is you can't just target the cartels, the cartels are made up of random Mexican people. There is an almost guarantee that any significant US strikes would be 90%+ civilian casualties.
A non-aligned population will look out for their own interests and are aware that the attention of the US is temporary but the cuadillismo that lead to cartels are a durable cultural artifact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Culiac%C3%A1n
I think a lot of people would be cheering on the destruction of the cartels.
They'd probably quickly stop cheering as their own homes and families were destroyed as collateral damage, which is what would happen if the "full force of the US military" were deployed against the cartels.
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We were briefly greeted as liberators in Iraq too.
The destruction of cartels would involve careful policing and corruption controls, the best American administrations have been bad at this. The worst... can barely put its pants on much less dismantle foreign organized crime. You can't shoot a missile at a cartel and poof it's just gone.
It was never used, there.
Pretty badly for both sides
I don't really think you thought through that one. It sounds like what your saying is that the Vietnamese won and thats the outcome that matters. It does matter but that isn't the issue - it is the cost that everyone is talking about: the amount of destruction that was brought upon the country and people was terrible.