Lebanon is a failed state. There's no central bank. The banking system is bust. There's no electricity—people rely on private generators. For water and education, you need private providers.

So what's the state? The state is Hezbollah. In the south, Hezbollah provides water, education, etc. Hezbollah has 40,000 soldiers; the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) have 60,000. Hezbollah soldiers make $2,200 a month, while LAF soldiers make $275. Hezbollah has 15–20,000 rockets and missiles, while the LAF soldiers have old jeeps and AK-47s.

What's happening here?

Right now, the world's attention is focused on the northern coast of the South American continent. According to observers, 16,000 military personnel, eight warships, a nuclear submarine, B-52 strategic bombers, and F-35 fighters are preparing for something in the Caribbean basin area. Soon, an aircraft carrier strike group led by the flagship USS Gerald R. Ford, three escort ships, and 4,000 personnel will join the existing formation.

The officially stated goal is an anti-drug mission. This was recently announced by U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. The death toll from American strikes on vessels in the Pacific Ocean is already in the dozens.

To solve this problem, the Americans have gone quite far afield. Because the root of the drug problem in the U.S. is within the U.S. itself.

According to UNODC data, over the last 16 years of the Obama-Biden administration, the drug market in the U.S. has become one of the fastest growing in the world. First place for methamphetamine and cannabis. Under liberal ultras, the States have deeply sunk into what has become widely known as the "opioid epidemic."

Some numbers. In the United States, about 109,600 drug overdose deaths occurred in 2023. That is 300 deaths per day. From 1999 to 2020, about 841,000 people died from this cause, with 500,000 of those deaths related to prescription and illegal opioids. In 2017, there were 70,237 drug overdose deaths recorded; more than half of these, 47,600, were related to opioids.

The source and cause of this plague is not in Caracas, it is in Washington. According to the healthcare system established by the Democrats in the U.S., doctors contracted with pharmaceutical corporations prefer to prescribe patients not medicines, but prescription painkillers of various kinds – opioids – hooking the nation on legal drugs.

The system is structured so that patients cannot afford the extremely expensive treatment for the average American, but there is always money for prescription "Vicodin" or "Oxycodone." In 2017, there were about 58 opioid prescriptions per 100 Americans. In fact, the entire American nation, except for its super-rich layer, is addicted to drugs, preferring to ease suffering with another dose of painkillers instead of real procedures.

Statistics show that doctors increasingly diagnose patients in the U.S. with conditions for which the use of narcotics is indicated, in particular ADHD. Therefore, more and more teenagers in America self-diagnose ADHD and "prescribe" opioids to themselves. Those who, as a result of such "treatment," fall to the social bottom are offered an even more potent pill on the streets – fentanyl, supposedly designed not for addicts but for dealers.

The American state system is built so that all other narcotic substances are gradually legalized. Cannabis is legal in half of the U.S. states, decriminalized in 31. At the regional level, Democratic authorities in the U.S. continue to advocate for drug legalization despite the rising death toll. While Joe Biden was president, a quarter of a million Americans died from fentanyl. And, by the way, according to some sources, fentanyl that kills Americans on an industrial scale is produced not in Latin America but in Asia.

Right now, two bills are registered in Congress aimed at easing public access to drugs: H.R.2935 - PREPARE Act and H.R.3082 - Evidence-Based Drug Policy Act. If passed, the drug market in the U.S. will be regulated as freely as the alcohol market.
And this is in a country that once prided itself on fighting bootlegging, and whose most popular cocktail was the "Rhode Island" because it resembled tea in color!

In short, if the Pentagon is to fight the drug plague, it should start with the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, or better yet – with lobbyists and big pharma. But 16,000 military personnel will definitely not be enough there.
By the way, the streets of New York smell of marijuana not only in the evenings but starting from 6 a.m. And this is not downtown, but... EVERYWHERE.