The death of El Mencho at the hands of the Mexican military reached me in San Francisco as I was packing for my flight to Leon.

We’ve had enough cartel leaders captured and killed to know what follows.

Roads get blocked, buses and cars get torched, OXXO stores go up in flames.

It is the same thing every time. Which made me wonder two things:

1. Why doesn’t the government anticipate the cartel response and preemptively shut them down?
2.  Why OXXO stores?

I suspect the whole take-out-the-bad-guy and watch them burn an OXXO or two has been ritualized over the decades. I imagine the back-channel negotiation sounds like this: “We kill your guy, and you can torch some stuff. Show you are still the boss. Have you considered OXXO stores? There are tons of them.”

The whole thing becomes a one- or two-day outburst. The government gets its quarry, the cartel gets to vent, and the media gets its photos and videos of burning cars and buses. Win, win, win.

The alternative would be open warfare or guerrilla skirmishes that could last for weeks. And believe me, the tourism industry and resorts, largely financed by the cartels, do not want that.

Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes was a big deal, the most violent and ruthless leader in all of Mexico. When his Jalisco New Generation moves into new territory, it always comes with a bloody message. They borrowed the concept from the U.S. – shock and awe. The body count is high and feels indiscriminate.

JNG has spread through much of Mexico, so it is no surprise that there were at least 85 roadblocks reported by Sunday evening. By Monday, 30 cartel members were dead, as were 25 National Guard soldiers, and one civilian.

Importantly, the military was able to track down a close associate of El Mencho, his chief financial officer, who was coordinating the protests. He, too, was killed. On Sunday. That’s quick work for any country.

That may explain why things were rather quiet on Monday.

By the time I got to Oakland International on Sunday evening, flights to Guadalajara were back on the board, albeit delayed. There were no cancellations to other Mexican cities that I could see.

There were certainly no-shows. My Volaris flight was less than one-third full.

The airport in Leon was filled with people coming and going when we arrived at 5 a.m. I walked around as my driver waited fruitlessly for what turned out to be some of the no-shows. What I didn’t see was a military presence. No local police officers or private security agents, either. 

Kind of surprising since Leon is now considered New Generation turf.

Neither were there military details posted along the 90-minute drive to San Miguel de Allende. My driver, who can shuttle to the airports in Leon and Queretaro as many as four times in a day, said that Sunday was business as usual.

None of the half-dozen OXXO stores we passed were burned up, although I heard rumors that one was torched in downtown Leon. 

In San Miguel de Allende, a lot of places were closed on Sunday, including the main mall. A curfew was in effect on Sunday. A fire at an older mall was thwarted and quickly extinguished. Bus lines didn’t run. Schools and banks were closed on Monday.

Tuesday came in the most normal way. I walked Moppet, the Belizean philosopher dog. Ran into two friends having coffee at the Italian bakery, stopped to listen to musician Frad as she busked in front of another bakery, and later encountered two old friends in Wolf’s Gym, where I am preparing for my fall French Camino.

Afterward, I walked up to Comer, the major grocery store in SMA. The only thing unusual to report is that I was able to walk right up to a register and check out, without waiting. Trust me, at Comer, that is huge.

From Comer, the Uber driver said that business has been a little slow, but this was a Tuesday. He lives in Celaya but drives in San Miguel because – though smaller – we have more tourists and gringos and tip better.

There are a few things that struck me about this event. 

1. There were an extraordinary number of fake AI-generated videos and images distributed with alarming speed – faster than the truth.
2. Cars and buses on fire generate massive amounts of smoke and make great news photographs. But they are, in the end, only buses and cars.
3. From what I can find, one civilian died in all this. ICE has killed more people in the U.S.
4. Mexico is taking care of its business. El Mencho was a vicious character. If the U.S. supplied intel, then bravo. But it needs to respect Mexican autonomy and territory.
5. The last time a cartel this powerful was knocked down, it splintered into smaller groups and formed alliances with other cartels, which grew stronger.
6. These cartels have distribution networks in all 50 states. Is ICE taking them down? I haven’t heard of any drug rings being broken up in the past six months.
7. The cartels get their guns from the U.S. The U.S. gets its drugs from the cartels. Maybe the administration is looking at the wrong “porous border” when it goes after immigrants and refugees.
8. Nothing much happened in San Miguel de Allende, but that does not mean we get off scot free.

JNG has been locked in a turf war with our local cartel, Santa Rosa de Lima, and from what I’ve been told, they now have footholds in Guanajuato, Celaya, and Leon.

It feels like we are being encircled. Like we’re next.

There have been cartel killings and dismemberments in the outer colonias, and bodies found on the outskirts of SMA. More than we care to openly acknowledge. Tourism, and all.

Santa Rosa has been around for a long time. They are entrenched. They are also entrenched, I’m told, maybe five blocks from where I live.

But I could not tell you in eight years that I have ever seen a cartel guy. Not surprisingly, they look just like all the other guys. That should give the U.S pause, if it decides to “invade” Mexico to take out cartels.

Almost all wars since Vietnam have been fought by people who look just like civilians. And they never end well for the uniformed troops.

In nearly eight years here, I have not once felt threatened, in danger, or concerned. There is crime. I know people who have been robbed at roadblocks and on the streets here. I know of stores and restaurants that closed rather than continue to pay protection money.

I just hope the U.S. gives Mexico a fighting chance. Eliminating the cartels through military action is going to be violent, bloody, and damned scary, especially if you are a tourist sunbathing out in front of a beachside resort when the hammer comes down.

What U.S. reporters might look at is the burgeoning middle class that is making its presence known all across Mexico. Other countries are investing billions in manufacturing, assembly, and distribution facilities all across Mexico. There are jobs, jobs, jobs. In the past, the choice may have been a bleak one, between cleaning resorts and cartels. No more.

I met a young woman recently at her parents’ tiny restaurant here in Colonia San Antonio. She had been a design engineer for Rolls-Royce in nearby Queretaro. Now she is an insurance executive and is helping her parents grow their business. The educated young have choices unheard of 10 years ago.

Prosperity may be the best weapon Mexico can wield against the cartels.

That, and the United States getting a grip on its drug use and weapons manufacturing.