"Mormon Drug War"--some background (disclaimer: 7 years old and VICE news, and therefore gay)
video (this shit has been going on for a while) -- it is probably not random at all nor just targeting gringos for the sake of it
(incidentally, the
Mennonites in Canada were involved in trafficking drugs from Mexico)
The drug cartels have an inordinate amount of power and hold down physical control of parts of Mexico. The importance of this can't really be overstated. Drugs really have little to do with it as such anymore it's just a means of revenue for perpetuating statelike power within a state. Kidnapping is something that appeals as a terror tactic, and also for a profit motive.....which is one of the reasons that legalizing/decriminalizing drugs would not help the violence; the cartels, looking for other sources of income, would move on to kidnapping and people trafficking and other shit. And, fighting over a smaller piece of the pie, the violence would be WORSE! Indiscriminate violence like this is generally bad for business though especially on gringos so I would look for a deeper story than is generally being portrayed as to why these Mormons are involved. It would not be a good look for Obrador's still-new administration to allow
carto blanco (so to say) to the gringos to fuck shit up south of the border. Obrador's drug policy is shit because it is all about centralization, which is to say making corruption easier, instead of having the Army, Navy, FJP, etc all quasi-independently undertaking their own investigations which was still a shit-show but gathering eggs into one basket is asking for the fox to guard it.
He's also all about a more velvet-gloved approach and human rights and stuff so I don't imagine him wanting Trump involved, at all, and already I think has been undermining/scaling back some DEA ops, etc. Now, Trump could just pull his dick out, and do some airstrikes or something, which would be interesting. Certainly given what we do in MENA all the time it's not really unprecedented by any means, but doing it so close to home and to non-Muslims would be relatively unprecedented even though we have been undertaking quasi-military action as part of the drug war for a long time. I can imagine it happening and the fallout would be pretty epic. Tantamount to declaring Mexico a failed state on par with yemen or at least Pakistan's FATAs, though, that's pretty hardcore thing to do to our siesta-taking neighbors to the south. It's not necessarily not true and probably in all consistency makes sense, but you can imagine a lot of autistic screeching from one side and exceptional hooting from the other, without much honest discussion of the issues as such.
Air strikes or spec-ops insertions could do some damage to cartels but for every bit that's done to them more damage is really done to the legitimacy of Mexico, such as it is, that's the most important take for me.