Former US AG Barr Urges Washington to Approach Mexican Drug Cartels Like Daesh

14:01 GMT, 24 July 2022
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Oleg Burunov
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Late last year, the US government announced that more than 100,000 people had died of drug overdoses in the country between April 2020 and April 2021, a new record high. The data showed that there were more overdose deaths from the illegal synthetic opioid fentanyl than such fatalities from all drugs in 2016.
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Former US Attorney General (AG) William Barr has argued that “Mexico is well on its way to being a failed narco-state,” which is why America should adjust its approach to the Mexican drug cartels accordingly and not hesitate to treat them like Daesh*.

In an interview with the conservative media outlet Newsmax, Barr said that the US “[has been] relegated to working through Mexico to try to deal with the cartels,” something that the 72­ year-old claimed is “a losing proposition.”

The top prosecutor under former President Donald Trump added that he doesn't believe the Mexican government is "serious enough" in tackling the drug crisis and that “they have to be forced and pushed into action” with the US.
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“We have to be more active against the cartels. In my mind, we have to approach the cartels more like ISIS [Daesh] and less like the mafia,” Barr insisted.
He claimed that the individualized prosecution against cartels is ineffective, as they are “effectively” acting like “terrorist organizations.”

“The idea of a case-by-case prosecution down there to stop these organizations would be like going after, you know, ISIS and Syria on the same basis. They are increasingly building their connections with terrorists. Their paramilitary can take on the Mexican military and they have so much money they can corrupt any system, the justice system in Mexico,” according to the former US attorney general.

He asserted that “even a normal everyday murder has about a four percent chance of getting caught and prosecuted” in Mexico, which he said is “a dysfunctional system." That’s why Washington “cannot have these cartels operating” on the US border, where they are “poisoning” the country, Barr added.
The 72-year-old argued that the Mexican cartels are bringing in methamphetamines and other drugs with fentanyl to poison Americans, who “don't even know what's in the drugs.”

Denouncing the Biden administration's response to the cartels, the former AG pointed out that Washington had “essentially abandoned the border to them.”

Last week, it was revealed that the US has so far recorded more migrant stops along the Mexico border in Fiscal 2022 than in any accounting year in the 20-year history of the Department of Homeland Security. In all, 207,416 migrant encounters were recorded in June, and six of the migrants were on the terrorist watch-list, according to US Customs and Border Protection.
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In a separate development in late 2021, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that the country set another record for drug overdose deaths last year with at least 107,000 fatalities.
The figure indicates a 15% jump from the previous record in 2020, and means that there is roughly one overdose death in the country every 5 minutes. While drugs like opioid painkillers, other opioids and heroin cause many deaths, fentanyl is the leading killer, causing 71,000 deaths last year, a 23% jump from the year before, according to CDC.
*Daesh (ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State), a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries
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