I THINK WE'RE ABOUT TO INVADE MEXICO (OR ARE WE?) (updated)

I'm leaving this post in place with updates, despite the fact that I seem to have guessed wrong. Or maybe I didn't?

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WTF?

The Federal Aviation Administration is closing the airspace around El Paso International Airport in Texas for 10 days, grounding all flights to and from the airport.

A notice posted on the FAA’s website said the temporary flight restrictions were for “special security reasons,” but did not provide additional details. The closure does not include Mexican airspace.

There are also FAA restrictions in New Orleans and, as El Paso Matters notes, in "a large patch of southern New Mexico west of Santa Teresa."

We didn't even close down air traffic for this long after 9/11. Flights began taking off again on September 13.

I think we're going to war, folks.

Here's an NBC story from November:

The Trump administration has begun detailed planning for a new mission to send American troops and intelligence officers into Mexico to target drug cartels, according to two U.S. officials and two former senior U.S. officials familiar with the effort.

The early stages of training for the potential mission, which would include ground operations inside Mexico, has already begun, the two current U.S. officials said. But a deployment to Mexico is not imminent, the two U.S. officials and one of the former U.S. officials said....

Under the new mission being planned, U.S. troops in Mexico would mainly use drone strikes to hit drug labs and cartel members and leaders, the two current U.S. officials and two former U.S. officials said. Some of the drones that special forces would use require operators to be on the ground to use them effectively and safely, the officials said....

Unlike in Venezuela, the mission being planned for Mexico is not designed to undermine the country’s government, the two current and two former U.S. officials said.

This won't work -- nothing we've done in the so-called War on Drugs for the past 55 years has worked -- but it will probably give Trump a poll bump.

Pressure from Europe prevented Toddler Trump from playing toy soldiers in Greenland -- he has to do something to have fun, right?

So brace youselves, folks. I think this is what's coming.

UPDATE: How will an assault on Mexico poll? The idea of military action against Mexico was fairly popular in September 2023:

About half of Americans support sending U.S. military personnel into Mexico to fight drug cartels, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll, though there is less backing for sending troops without Mexico's approval....

According to the seven-day Reuters/Ipsos poll, which closed on Thursday, 52% of respondents said they supported "sending U.S. military personnel to Mexico to fight against drug cartels," while 26% were opposed and the remainder were unsure. Republicans were supportive by a 64% to 28% margin; Democrats were narrowly opposed, 47% to 44%.

When asked if the United States should do so without the permission of the Mexican government, however, the numbers changed dramatically. Some 59% of poll respondents opposed unilateral action, while 29% were supportive. Fifty-one percent of Republicans opposed unilateral action, compared to 40% who supported it.

But now -- and this is probably tied to Trump's general unpopularity -- it's much less popular. According to a Politico poll conducted last month, only 32% of Trump 2024 voters support military action against Mexico. That number will go up, obviously, when it happens. But overall, 59% of poll respondents oppose military action against Mexico and only 19% support it. Opponents include 49% of Trump 2024 voters.

And according to a Quinnipiac poll published last month:

Voters 57 - 37 percent would oppose the United States taking military action to attack suspected illegal drug facilities in Mexico, if this meant acting without the permission of the Mexican government.

I think support for this action will increase once it happens, but it will be a quick sugar rush for the GOP, and it's unlikely to last. When Trump uses the military, he never follows through. He likes to do a quick strike and then walk away -- planning for "the day after" is, I guess, for haters and losers. Assuming this attack happens, many Americans might forget Trump did it by summer, and it could be mostly forgotten by Election Day.

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UPDATE: WTF, again?

The Federal Aviation Administration lifted the closure of airspace around El Paso International Airport on Wednesday morning—an abrupt shift after previously grounding flights to the Texas airport for 10 days over what Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said was a “cartel drone incursion.”

In response to a drone incursion, that rank amateur Sean Duffy was going to close down air traffic for a week and a half? For longer than we shut it down after 9/11?

Or was the shutdown based on a test? The New York Times says:

Another person familiar with the situation had described the cause of the shutdown as a test of anti-drone technology. It is unclear if the closure was directly related to the presence of drones or how the technology was deployed.

Maybe this is the true story -- the members of Trump's cabinet generally knows nothing about their subject areas, and think it's unmanly to actually learn things. So Duffy or a subordinate might have genuinely thought a ten-day shutdown was an appropriate response to an incursion that I'm sure isn't unprecedented.

Or maybe we were going to war and it never occurred to these morons that shutting down a major airport for a week and a half would be a news story, so they didn't realize that the Mexican cartels would be tipped off. Who knows?