The Gulf Cartel abducted four United States citizens last Friday in Matamoros, Mexico in the state of Tamaulipas. Two were found alive and returned to the United States while the other two were murdered. One of the four was in Mexico for a medical procedure and the other three were along for support.

Matamoros is on the Rio Grande river across from Brownsville, Texas, and is a major industrial city with plants that assemble car parts for Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, BMW, and Mercedes Benz. It’s also the site of a major offshore drilling project. Matamoros holds two festivals every year, Charros Day and Sombrero Festival with its U.S. neighbor, Brownsville. Tamaulipas is also one of the six Mexican states the U.S. State Department advises citizens against visiting due to the threat of violence and kidnapping.

The four friends traveled from South Carolina and were attacked as soon as they crossed the border into Mexico. Their vehicle was fired upon and then each of them was placed into the back of a pickup truck and driven to an unknown location. They were later found abandoned inside a “wooden house.” An innocent Mexican bystander was shot and killed during the attack. Some Mexican investigators believe the four U.S. citizens were mistaken for Haitian drug dealers that were enemies of the Gulf Cartel. Other Mexican investigators disagree. We may find out the origin of COVID-19 before we find out the true details of this attack.

Note: I do not refer to U.S. citizens as “Americans” in stories like this because even though it’s widely accepted and used by the media, I find it arrogant because America covers every nation between Canada and Chile, thus Mexicans are just as much American as people born and raised in the United States. You can actually argue that they’re more American but we’ll save that for another day. And, yes. I know people in other nations throughout the Americas often refer to the United States as “America,” but I’m not.

The attack is horrible and we should confront the issue of drug cartels, but it shouldn’t be politicized by Republicans. And just like with the train derailment, they’re blaming Biden more than they’re blaming the perpetrators.

Do you know how I know Republicans are politicizing this? Because Republican Senator Roger Marshall said, “What happened in Mexico yesterday was a tragedy and a symptom of a larger problem stemming from the culture supported by our national leadership. The drug cartels have taken full advantage of the culture of lawlessness Joe Biden has created by leaving our southern border wide open, promoting cashless bail, defunding the police, turning his back on violent riots, and denying the fentanyl crisis is created by his policies”

There’s a lot of bullshit to unpack in the statement from the senator who’s only trying to increase his profile. There are people in Kansas who don’t know who Roger Marshall is.

But the borders are not open. If they were, nobody would have to sneak in. We wouldn’t be finding dead refugees in the back of smugglers’ trucks. There wouldn’t even be a human smuggling industry if the borders were open.

Joe Biden has not enacted cashless bail. That would be up to states and local municipalities.

The fentanyl crisis began long before Joe Biden became president.

The Gulf Cartel was in business long before Joe Biden became president. The Gulf Cartel was formed in the 1930s. Another fun fact is that the Gulf Cartel is based in Mexico, not the United States. Next thing you know, Republicans will blame him for Russia illegally invading Ukraine. Oh, wait.

I don’t recall Biden turning his back on violent riots. The only people I remember turning their backs on violent riots are Republicans, Marshall’s people. It’s Republicans who keep claiming the insurrection at the Capitol was just a peaceful tour group. Have you watched Tucker this week?

And finally, Joe Biden has come out strongly against defunding the police. During the State of the Union address last month, President Biden said, “We should all agree: The answer is not to defund the police. It’s to fund the police.”

Senator Roger Marshall is a liar.

They are using these arguments to designate cartels as terrorist organizations. There’s currently a bill in Congress titled the “Drug Cartel Terrorist Designation Act.”

Drug cartels are not nice. They’re the bad guys. This is not a defense of drug cartels but labeling them as terrorist organizations is a horrible and stupid idea. I’m not against this because I’m afraid of offending Mexico or drug cartels.

Jeffrey F. Addicott, of the St. Mary’s University School of Law, wrote way back in 2012, “If Mexican drug cartels are labeled by American officials as ‘terrorists,’ many would immediately assume that the correct rule of law that the United States might employ would be the law of war and not domestic or international criminal law. While this assumption is certainly not correct, confusion often consumes rational argument. This factor would put unnecessary strains on any bilateral relationships that America is building with Mexico.”

Addicott states that if Mexican drug cartels are to be designated as terrorist organizations, then that designation needs to come from Mexico.

Al Qaida is a terrorist organization. When they attacked us on our soil, we invaded Afghanistan. If we label Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations, does that mean we will invade Mexico? We’ve pushed Mexico around enough, proven by the fact that Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Oklahoma, Kansas, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming are all U.S. states.

Solving the Fentanyl crisis will take a lot more than just dropping bombs on Mexico. We need law, not war to solve this crisis. If the idea of designating drug cartels in Mexico as terrorists didn’t include partisan attacks on the president of the United States, maybe the idea would be worth listening to. It’s also hurt by the fact Marjorie Taylor Greene is a big fan of it.

Republican proposals should never be taken seriously when they’re based on lies. Unfortunately, all Republican proposals are based on lies.

But, if Republicans are so eager to designate violent fucks as terrorists, then they can start with those who attacked our Capitol, like the Proud Boys, Oathkeepers, the Three Percenters, MAGA, and other assorted white nationalist groups. They can designate Qanon as a terrorist organization for encouraging stupid morons to attack pizza parlors they think are being used to sex traffic babies (“the Sex Traffic Babies” would make a great punk band name.) They can designate Fox News as a terrorist organization since its top-rated show is also the most popular with white supremacists (Tucker). And finally, they can designate the National Rifle Association as a terrorist organization for promoting the widespread distribution of assault weapons.

Come to think of it, since they don’t want to do anything about white nationalist insurrections or school shootings, the Republican Party should be designated as a terrorist organization.

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