Has Rubio Unleashed a Total Drug War in Mexico?

Feb. 24—With President Donald Trump focused on events in Southwest Asia and in the Ukraine, his incompetent Secretary of State Marco Rubio, demanding that Mexico take action against its powerful drug cartels, may have unleashed a violent total war between the cartels and the government of Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum, which could place tens of thousands of American tourists, residents, and business owners in the line of deadly fire.

Security and intelligence sources warn that neither Mexican security and military nor American forces are prepared to deal with the violence unleashed by yesterday's botched attempt by Mexican forces to capture Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, 59, founder and leader of the violent and powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel, who was killed in the raid, which took place about 150 miles south of Guadalajara. One source reported that when the capture failed, the operation turned into an "extermination." The wounded cartel leader was officially reported to have died en route to medical treatment in Mexico City.

The Shift in Strategy

The plan was likely to snatch "El Mencho" and turn him over to the Americans for prosecution, said a security source. "This would have then taken some of the pressure off Mexico being applied by Rubio, the would-be Viceroy of the Americas," said the source. "By keeping him alive, it offered the prospect of mitigating the response to the raid by his and other cartels, but with his death all bets are off. The cartels taken as a whole are a powerful paramilitary force inside Mexico and are capable of waging sustained warfare against the Mexican government, its economy, and on Americans."

Security expert David Saucedo told CNN that the drug lord’s killing could lead to “total war against the Mexican state.”

“This didn’t seem to be just an operation to capture ‘El Mencho,’ but to exterminate him, to use lethal force to bring him down,” Saucedo told CNN. “In the criminal underworld, such actions are not simply overlooked. The reaction is what we’re seeing now: narco-terrorism, blockades, and fires in grocery stores across Mexico."

Impact on Tourism and Security Readiness

Mexico is the U.S.'s largest trading partner, as well as its largest tourist destination. That huge tourist trade makes money—huge amounts of money—for the cartels as well. For years now, there has been what amounts to a defacto truce that has limited government actions against the cartels, while, for the most part, keeping cartel operations—especially violent crime—away from popular tourist destinations, including Guadalajara, Cancun, and Cabo.

The security sources say that with El Mencho's extermination, the truce is over and that they expect strikes in the tourist zones, which could target Americans. These could severely limit tourist traffic during the coming Spring Break tourist season, where millions of college-age tourists flood the country.

Unprepared Forces and Calls for Intervention

The fact that Mexican security forces appeared unready for the waves of violence that swept through more than 20 of Mexico's states after the news of El Mencho's elimination indicates that the people running this, which included some Americans working with the Mexicans, had no idea what they were doing, said a source with decades of experience in the region. "You can't just suddenly decide to get tough with the cartels and not make preparations for the consequences," said the source. "You can get a lot of people killed that way." So far there have been about 100 people killed across Mexico in the violence.

Rubio and company also have another objective in mind. They want to bring in the Marines, so to speak, and have American troops based in Mexico fight this new round in the war on drugs. This would amount, say several sources, to a virtual invasion and occupation of Mexico and has been strongly opposed by the Mexican government. But if the violence should escalate out of control in the days and weeks ahead, Scheinbaum may have no choice but to ask for American aid, even if she still resists the basing idea.

"Somebody wanted to seriously bring this to a head quickly," said one source. "Staging such a raid on the edge of Spring Break." As this is written, there are reports of new waves of violence, spreading into the resort areas of the Yucatan peninsula, including in Tulum, Playa del Carmen, and Cancun.