Friend, Neighbor, Military Target

"The White House used the ceremony to announce a bigger deal: Trump's designation of the synthetic opioid fentanyl as a "weapon of mass destruction." The illegal fentanyl tablets sold on American streets are made primarily in clandestine laboratories in Mexico and smuggled across the U.S. border by Mexican trafficking organizations. Now the Trump administration was comparing the drug to a nuclear or chemical threat aimed at the United States."

"Fentanyl's record of mass destruction is not in doubt. U.S. health data show that the drug caused about 400,000 fatal overdoses during the past decade, the deadliest mass-addiction crisis in U.S. history. But in calling fentanyl a "weapon," Trump appeared to further endorse the once-fringe view that Mexico's drug cartels are not profit-seeking Mafias but terrorist organizations, analogous to groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, and therefore worthy of a military response."

"The first 13 recipients of the Pentagon's new Mexican Border Defense Medal squeezed into the Oval Office last week, standing at attention around the Resolute Desk. The awards, issued to soldiers and Marines assisting President Donald Trump's border crackdown, were replicas of military medals given out more than 100 years ago, when American warships shelled the port of Veracruz and General John J. Pershing led U.S. troops into Chihuahua."

The first 13 recipients of the Pentagon's Mexican Border Defense Medal gathered in the Oval Office; the awards were replicas of medals from U.S. military interventions in Veracruz and Chihuahua over 100 years ago. The White House announced the designation of fentanyl as a 'weapon of mass destruction,' linking clandestine Mexican labs and trafficking organizations to mass overdose deaths in the United States. U.S. health data attribute about 400,000 fatal overdoses to fentanyl during the past decade. The designation reframes Mexican drug cartels as potential terrorist actors and supports threats of military measures, including air strikes and foreign terrorist organization labels.

Read at The Atlantic