Matt Mayer, the president of Opportunity Ohio and national security expert, spoke exclusively with The Ohio Star about his support for President Trump’s call for “war” on the drug cartels following news of a group of nine Americans were killed Monday.
“This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth,” the president tweeted.
This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth. We merely await a call from your great new president!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2019
“We’ve gone to war for far fewer reasons…if the estimates are even half of what they expect, that’s 250,000 Americans dying because the Mexican cartels are shipping heroin and fentanyl across the border and the Mexican government can’t do much about it,” Mayer said.
“This is all part and parcel of how we secure America. We’ve got a porous border on the south part of the country and you’ve got a country that can barely or not contain what I consider to be a terrorist organization. We’ve got to do something more than just talk or put up walls. People are dying and we have a responsibility to stop that.”
Authorities in Mexico’s state of Sonora said the group of Americans was “ambushed by a group of people.” The victims belong to the Lebaron Family, who have lived along the Mexican border for decades after splitting from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after the church outlawed polygamy, according to NPR. Currently, Mexican authorities are investigating whether the Lebarons were targeted or in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Five additional children survived and were taken to the hospital, according to U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Christopher Landau.
Mayer, who is a former senior official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, agreed with the President that we need to fight against the cartels.
“Ideally, as our fight is not with the Mexican government, its military or its people, which try to weaken the cartels, we would try to partner with those entities against the cartels, much as we partnered with the South Vietnamese government and military against the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese Army,” he wrote in 2017 – comments he reiterated to The Ohio Star.
Meyer said America should come in and help Mexico if it asks. The national security expert believes if the Marines and Army are sent into Mexico, cartels will be eviscerated.
“This killing of nine, this family of Americans, is just, to me, that’s just not acceptable. And Mexico doesn’t have control over this so we’ve got to help Mexico secure it’s country so we can have security here.”
.@realDonaldTrump calls for exact kind of war against Mexican cartels https://t.co/FTfZKAVsUY that I suggested needed to occur two years ago in @usnews https://t.co/g2bb1Pd0F7
— Matt A. Mayer (@ohiomatt) November 5, 2019
Mayer suggested this kind of intervention in an article in U.S. News and World Report in 2017. In his article, Mayer shared data that by 2027 nearly 500,000 Americans could die from opioids and fentanyl. Of all the heroin, an opioid, that enters the United States, reportedly 90% to 94% comes through Mexico.
“We’ve gone to war for far fewer reasons…if the estimates are even half of what they expect, that’s 250,000 Americans dying because the Mexican cartels are shipping heroin and fentanyl across the border and the Mexican government can’t do much about it,” Mayer explained.
“This is all part and parcel of how we secure America. We’ve got a porous border on the south part of the country and you’ve got a country that can barely or not contain what I consider to be a terrorist organization. We’ve got to do something more than just talk or put up walls. People are dying and we have a responsibility to stop that.”
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Beth Lear is a reporter at The Ohio Star. Follow Beth on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Matt Mayer” by Heartland.org.
