Syria's Captagon Problem
"Methamphetamine Lite" was funding the regime.
So this just came out yesterday ….
Of course, those who were paying attention knew that Captagon/methamphetamine were funding things over a decade ago. You can’t make nitrogen fertilizer without the process leaking both stimulant drugs and explosives.
And if you were paying attention in Yemen you’d know they had a khat problem, an organic stimulant which was consuming 40% of their agricultural water.
Alcohol is forbidden for most Muslims. I say most, because the rules for Alawites seem to be different, according to friends from the region. Sitting down with Red Bull or some other energy drink fills the cultural niche that going for a beer with friends does in the west.
If you’ve read National Defense University’s Convergence you know how this works. The freedom fighters will develop taxable businesses, often illicit, and those will continue after the political issue is solved.
It also appears that the reverse is true. The United States declared war on the Mexican cartels, and they’re forming up into a resistance movement. They’ve got the network, the supply chains, and they’re already accustom to very high levels of violence. Even if the Mexican government puts the pressure on from their side, the demand will remain, and the risk premium will draw those willing to run the gauntlet.
The United States is staggering drunkenly, making policy choices, like tariffs, seemingly without a care as to what the actual effects might be. We will inevitably stumble … into violence, because a portion of the populace are already sold on the idea. The network that already moves drugs, guns, people, and stolen vehicles will easily adapt to insurgency level war goods.
And then cities on our southern border will start looking like what’s left of the cities on Syria’s northern border.