[echoangle]

> justified retaliation

I don’t see how it would be justified. Do you think the cartels are in the right here?

[JasonADrury]

> Do you think the cartels are in the right here?

Of course not, none of the sides are at all in the right here. But from the cartels perspective, they're almost certainly in the right.

Drug cartels are entirely the result of poor policies, and the blame for all the harms caused by them rests primarily on the shoulders of those perpetuating those policies. Surely the politicians that vote for laws that directly enable drug cartels to exist in the first place must be worse than the leaders of any individual drug cartel?

Any kind of serious analysis of who's more right would end up being a work at the scale of Rising Up and Rising Down, that's probably best avoided.

If we oversimplify cartels into innocent businessmen just looking to sell drugs, with governments being the ones that introduced violence into the equation in their effort to stop them? Surely it must be the cartels

If we oversimplify cartels into evil criminals just looking to wield power over other human beings, with governments just trying to liberate people from cartel tyranny? Surely it must be the governments

[echoangle]

> But from the cartels perspective, they're almost certainly in the right.

Sure, but so is basically everyone. ISIS is in the right and justified then, too.

[roger110]

Drug cartels are entirely the result of poor policies, one of which is that the Mexican government has not been punishing the cartels. Maybe they're fixing that.

[djohnston]

He probably sees them as marginalised POC bravely feeding their families under the thumb of American imperialism.