Republicans continue pushing the idea of using military force to confront purported problems at and around the southern border of the United States — serious, real-world issues like the distribution of fentanyl and dangerous conditions for migrants that leaders on the Right have tried to use to declare an “invasion” underway. (There is no such thing.)
The idea of military action was raised again in a recent hearing of the House Oversight Committee by Congressman Michael Waltz, a Florida Republican, who compared the activities of groups responsible for the distribution of fentanyl to terror organizations like al Qaeda and ISIS.
“If this were al Qaeda and ISIS killing 100,000 Americans a year — more than we lost in Vietnam in ten years by pumping in and smuggling in chemicals, would you oppose using military resources to take down al Qaeda and ISIS?” Waltz asked witness David J. Bier, who was there as a Democratic witness. The number that Waltz cited refers evidently to domestic deaths from overdoses, which involve but are not limited to fentanyl. Bier noted as a general matter that he was, in fact, opposed to the tactics of the so-called war on terror that Waltz was referencing. “If we bomb Mexico, it will make the problem way worse,” Bier added.
The idea of taking military action that by evident necessity would implicate Mexican territory in the name of curtailing the drug trade and related problems has come from Republicans like Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. “The second step that we will be engaging in is give the military the authority to go after these organizations wherever they exist,” the South Carolina Senator said in 2023 of a proposal he pushed.
During the Oversight hearing where Waltz and Bier were in discussion, the panel’s top Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.) ripped the GOP for sticking so closely to what he characterized as partisan theater above more substantive opportunities for the bipartisan action necessary to make progress.
