[ifsothen]

It's not "jingo rhetoric." Many of the government leaders south of the border are literally in cahoots with the cartels to commit thousands of murders a year, either directly or through peddling fentanyl, in the US. The rest of them have decided to go along with it out of fear. That is an act of war. The US should respond wisely and carefully, but people should remember these are literally ongoing acts of war committed against us. And what you propose the cartels would respond with is unlikely to work and would only elicit the directed ire of the US at the particular groups that ordered it, so would not be a rational move.

We are spending billions of dollars and killing many Russian soldiers and civilians to fight Putin, but Mexico is responsible for more American deaths and mayhem than Putin ever dream of.

[chasd00]

a war with Mexico (or any significant military intervention) means 1000x more people stream over the Southern border compared to now.

[MichaelCollins]

And the practicalities of a war would necessitate an effort to stop that, to prevent the spread of enemy combatants behind the front line. Even if you search everybody passing through the border for weapons.. ...it's America. They can get weapons here.

The inevitable result is a massive human rights disaster, that makes the present status quo look like paradise.

[ifsothen]

It's would actually be really easy to completely close the border if there was the political will for it. The US spends way more money on frivolous things every year than it would take to fully militarily fortify the entire border.

[soperj]

In this sense, Americans funding the cartels through drug buying is also an act of war.