Does Calling Drug Cartels ‘Terrorists’ Help?

Mexican soldiers stand guard near burning vehicles on a street during an operation to arrest Ovidio Guzman, accused of leading a faction of the notorious Sinaloa cartel, in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, Mexico, on Jan. 5, 2023. Juan Carlos Cruz/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

Some people may be surprised to learn that the word “terrorism” is not that old. Oh sure, we had the Reign of Terror in France in the late 1790s, but the common use of the concept really only dates to the middle of the 19th century. On top of that, terrorism has taken off much more since 9/11, and is especially associated with Islamist extremists (although they are by far not the only groups).

Concomitant with that was the ill-planned “war on terror,” another product of the al-Qaeda attacks in New York and Washington in September 2001. This phrase was modelled on similar efforts: the war on drugs, the war on poverty, and so on. What has become quite clear, however, is that these “wars” have not turned out so well. Poverty is still rampant worldwide and is rising even in pockets in the West. The war on drugs has been an abject failure, as the recent surge in fentanyl use has demonstrated.

Now, thanks to U.S. President Trump, we have a mixture of the war on drugs and the war on terrorism in that he has decided to designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. What are the implications of making such a move?

Before debating the advisability of this change in nomenclature, it is important to underscore just how bad these cartels have been. Let us start in Mexico itself. According to one estimate, there have been more than 30,000 deaths EACH YEAR due to the actions of these groups in Mexico since 2018. In addition, there have been untold kidnappings, “disappearances,” and other forms of violence. The government has been largely ineffective in dealing with this social scourge. Last month, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico stated bluntly that the country had “failed” in its approach and that as a consequence it is “not safe.”

It is quite clear, as a result, that the actions which have been taken have not worked. The impact of this lack of success in eliminating the cartels, of which there are many, on the use of drugs in the United States and Canada is therefore very large. Both nations are struggling to deal with this issue.

One can assume, then, that the failure is one of the main reasons for Trump’s decision. He apparently believes that by recasting the cartels as terrorists the situation will improve.

I disagree.

The first problem is that there has been a counterproductive growth in the types of violence—or even opposition to regimes—now referred to as terrorism. Russia just jailed three of the deceased Alexei Navalny’s lawyers on charges of “terrorism.” China has done the same with the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, where a handful of actual Islamist extremists have been used to justify the incarceration of an entire people under the charge of terrorism. Other countries, such as Nigeria, refer to common bandits as “terrorists.”

To push back against this shift, we must recall that terrorism is by definition tied to an underlying ideology (political, religious, or other). That is what differentiates it from other forms of violence. Cartels are not motivated by ideology but rather by profit. They are not trying to change society in the same way ISIS did in Iraq and Syria in the mid-2010s. They intimidate, kidnap, and kill to terrorize local communities to allow them to move drugs and make money.

Calling this terrorism has resource implications as well. In Canada for instance, the main counter-terrorism bodies are CSIS (at the intelligence level) and the RCMP (at the law enforcement level). If we were to follow suit and designate the Sinaloa cartel, for instance, as a terrorist organization, it would require that both agencies move resources (human and financial) to include the wherewithal to investigate these actors as part of the counter-terrorism mandate. Both are going flat out looking at terrorist threats emanating from jihadis, the far right, and the far left (although not enough on the latter to my knowledge). This is robbing Peter to pay Paul.

So, while our tactics on drug cartels need an adjustment, as they are not producing the necessary results, we do not need to resort to terrorism classification. We already have the tools at our disposal (law enforcement, the military, etc.), although not enough, to deal with it. Let’s get to it!

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.