Mexican cartels have been operating in America for decades. Their operatives, smuggling people and drugs over the border, have long trespassed on American rancher’s lands, cutting fences, littering, raping women, shooting livestock and pets and occasionally shooting at Americans, though that’s been relatively rare. It’s bad for business. At least it used to be bad for business:

Graphic: Texas Land Commissioner Screenshot, Public Domain.

An improvised explosive device (IED) killed a Texas rancher near the state’s border with Mexico, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said Tuesday.

The IED represents a growing threat posed by cartel activity along the state’s southern border, Miller explained in a press release.

NewsNation reported the IED killed the rancher, 74-year-old Antonio Céspedes Saldierna, and another man, Horacio Lopez Peña, earlier this month. Ninfa Griselda Ortega, Peña’s wife, sustained injuries and has been hospitalized, according to the outlet.

The device reportedly exploded when Saldierna ran over it. NewsNation said authorities suspect the explosive was set by a cartel. Miller urged Texas ranchers, farmers and agricultural workers who travel to Mexico or operate near the border to exercise “extreme caution.”

With American troops on the border, and Donald Trump in the White House, this is likely a particularly stupid move by the cartels and their protectors in Mexico, like 

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum [who] is proposing changes to the Mexican constitution in order to protect the Cartels from the designation as terrorists by the United States.

Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday she will propose constitutional reforms aimed at protecting Mexico’s sovereignty after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration designated six Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

The U.S. designations have stirred worry in Mexico that it could be a preliminary step toward U.S. military intervention on Mexican territory in pursuit of the cartels, something Mexico sharply rejects.

“The Mexican people will not accept under any circumstances interventions, interference or any other act from abroad that could be harmful to the integrity, independence and sovereignty of the nation,” Sheinbaum said.

On Thursday, the designation of eight Latin America-based criminal organizations was published in the U.S. Federal Register, carrying out a Jan. 20 executive order by Trump. The U.S. hopes the designation, something usually reserved for terrorist groups with political rather than economic objectives, will increase pressure on the groups.

Yeah, about that…

Donald Trump is no war monger, but he will surely use military force to protect Americans on American soil. Cartel planted IEDs killing Americans qualifies.

For the moment, Sheinbaum, though turning over some cartel thugs seems to be aligning herself and Mexico with the Cartels. Actually, she’s probably just doing the bidding of her Cartel masters who are really the power in Mexico. One cartel thugs is easily replaced by another.

What does a POTUS do when the supposed head of state of a foreign nation isn’t actually in charge? OK, so Biden wasn’t--different circumstances. How does diplomacy work when criminal gangs are the puppet masters? It doesn’t, leaving us with bad choices, the least bad of which is wiping out the gangs to give the more-or-less-elected government a chance to reassert control.

Will that make a difference in a nation where corruption from top to bottom is the daily reality? Unlikely, but with Mexico on our southern border, we have two immediate choices: accept Mexican criminals killing our citizens on our soil, in which case their depredations will only become more brazen and deadly, or wipe out the Mexican cartels.

We wiped out ISIS in weeks. Biden’s handlers let them reconstitute, so we’ll likely have to do it again which will be good practice. We can do the same to the cartels, who we have finally and properly labeled terrorist organizations. Obliterating brazen and openly operating terrorist organizations just across the border will be far less difficult for our military than doing it in foreign lands. The logistics will be simpler.

I wonder if that accurate labeling was merely rhetorical and legal preparation for wiping them out?

Those doubting the value and utility of the Second Amendment are going to be learning otherwise from residents of our border states in the days to come.

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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.