US Attorney General Pam Bondi, on August 25, claimed that public officials throughout Central America are paid by narcotraffickers for a protected transportation gateway to the United States. Bondi’s mention of the “airbridge,” notably through Honduras and Guatemala, did not come out of nowhere. It primed the US public for intervention in Central America and ominously in Venezuela, the origin hub for much of the contraband.
The Chavista regime has been a brutal socialist dictatorship for more than a decade now. However, talk of drug cartels captivates the imagination of Americans—with Breaking Bad scenes coming to mind—and the Chavistas’ participation in narcotrafficking has earned them the Soles Cartel moniker.
As US Army Colonel Joshua Potter explained at the 2017 Western Hemisphere Security Forum, “the [Drug Enforcement Administration] have been absolute champions at putting bad people away … because everybody hates drugs.… We have found that it is so much easier to get a successful prosecution in a drug case than in a money-laundering case or in a terrorism case or anything else.” Just look at what happened to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández.
If Americans cared about tyranny near their borders, they would be chomping at the bit for regime changes in Cuba and Nicaragua. They are not. US voters have a strong noninterventionist streak that is an annoyance to neoconservatives who wish to impose US military power abroad, especially in the Middle East.
Most neocons likely do not care about the drug war and realize it is a fool’s errand. However, they need ideological ammunition against the paleoconservatives who see any further conflicts abroad as neither affordable nor in US interests. One wonders how an America-first agenda includes rescuing other countries from self-inflicted misery.
Even if a cartel leader or whole cartel quits the job or gets imprisoned, that just leaves a vacuum for others to pick up the business. Colombian academic Daniel Raisbeck notes that narcotics are astronomically profitable because there is no taxation or regulation, and there is bottomless demand.
Basic economics also shows that the harder law enforcement cracks down on drug suppliers, the more brutal and lucrative the supply becomes. That profitability fuels an unwinnable arms race that has brought us to the present moment. The US government is showing off that it is bombing ships in the Caribbean. However, the feds are literally staring down a massive cartel armed with Venezuela’s sovereign military, hardened guerrilla fighters of the FARC dissidents and National Liberation Army (ELN), and a network of anti-US regimes, terrorists, and criminals such as Cuba, Iran, Hezbollah, and Tren de Aragua.
This drug-war-fueled colossal enemy fits the bill as a boogeyman to get the electorate’s blood flowing, to strike fear into our hearts and justify a burgeoning military-industrial complex. However, going into battle with the Soles Cartel would humble US forces, since the well-funded enemy is decentralized and unconventional. So long as the demand is strong and supply is restrained, that funding will remain in place, and confronting suppliers will be a game of Whac-A-Mole.
A thoughtful, realistic drug policy would curb demand and make supplies less lucrative and more transparent, and I write this as someone who cannot stand drugs and never drinks alcohol. President Barack Obama admitted to taking cocaine, and presidential candidate Kamala Harris admitted to smoking marijuana, so enforcing drug prohibition has become a farce. Americans need to take personal responsibility with how they approach drugs, and appropriate regulation would best be left to the local level.
Drug liberalization, especially if applied beyond just the United States, would pull the rug out from underneath cartel suppliers by inserting competition and removing exorbitant profits. It would also be a peaceful bargaining chip towards a return to democracy in Venezuela. We can oppose the tyranny and socialist folly of the Chavista regime without escalating a foolish drug war that has empowered the enemy and added to never-ending fiscal deficits at home.
