Phillip S. Smith, Writer Editor

Jaime Daremblum at The Weekly Standard uses math to prove that Mexico's drug war is getting results:

But despite the continuing violence--in a particularly vicious attack on September 2, 18 people were killed execution style at a Juárez drug-rehabilitation center--Calderón's efforts have not been in vain. A new report from the U.S. State Department observes that "more than 43,000 individuals connected with the major cartels were arrested between December 2006 and February 2009," including senior members of the cartels. Mexican authorities confiscated 4,220 weapons in 2006 and 9,500 a year later; all told, they have seized "more than 27,000 since the beginning of 2008." Since January 2007, they have also confiscated some 65 metric tons of cocaine, nearly 1,250 kilos of methamphetamine, and roughly 4.2 million kilos of marijuana. These achievements are not insignificant.

He's right. These achievements are significant indeed. They got 7,500 people killed last year.

Don't you understand that the exact activities you're rooting for are the reason people are dying? What is so complicated about this? It's a simple formula: more drug war = more death. It's perfectly incoherent to root for arrests and drug seizures, while simultaneously expressing hope that the violence will subside. It doesn't work that way. Anyone struggling with this concept should just pull up a chair and watch what happens next.

According to Esquire, it may be as many as 15,000. It's awfully hard to calculate with any certainty, but the author's point is to demonstrate that Mexico's frightening drug war death toll isn't the only one worth discussing. Americans are also paying a great price for our disastrous drug policy and it's time to take a closer look at how those numbers add up and how ending the drug war can bring them back down.

Predictably, Mark Kleiman has a problem with the article's pro-legalization angle and expresses his doubts about the 15,000 figure. My question for Kleiman is this: if that number is wrong, then what's the correct number? How should it be calculated? The bottom line here is that people are getting killed constantly in the war on drugs and we're trying to do something about it.

Kleiman hypocritically attacks both sides in the drug war debate for failing to use what he considers "factually and logically sound arguments," while simultaneously insisting – without any proof -- that legalization will create catastrophic spikes in drug use. He could be right, but we don’t really have any way to find out other than by doing exactly what he says we shouldn’t do. Personally, my gut instinct is that Kleiman is partially right, but that the benefits of reducing the collective harms of prohibition will decisively outweigh the new harms he anticipates. Again, there's only one way to find out.

Moreover, it's just crazy to accept the current body count based on the assumption that alternatives can't possibly work. LEAP's Neill Franklin nails this point:

But what about the argument that drugs will spread like wildfire if we don't keep bringing down the hammer?

"First, there's no concrete study to support such a belief — it's all completely speculation," Franklin insists. "So in my left hand I have all this speculation about what may happen to addiction rates, and then I look at my other hand and I see all these dead bodies that are actually fact, not speculation. And you're going to ask me to weigh the two? Second, if the addiction rate does go up, I'm going to have a lot of live addicts that I can cure. The direction we're going in now, I've got a lot of dead bodies."

Regardless of how legalization might impact addiction rates, it's just a fact that people are presently getting shot to death over drugs on a daily basis. If you think it has to be that way, you're wrong. People do not have to be murdered in the streets constantly. We can change that, we really can, and then we can do some more number crunching and decide if regulating drug sales is worth it or not.

by Bernd Debusmann Jr.

Mexican drug trafficking organizations make billions each year trafficking illegal drugs into the United States, profiting enormously from the prohibitionist drug policies of the US government. Since Mexican president Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006 and called the armed forces into the fight against the so-called cartels, prohibition-related violence has killed over 12,000 people, with a death toll of over 4,000 so far in 2009. The increasing militarization of the drug war and the arrest of several high- profile drug traffickers have failed to stem the flow of drugs -- or the violence -- whatsoever. The Merida initiative, which provides $1.4 billion over three years for the US to assist the Mexican government with training, equipment and intelligence, has so far failed to make a difference. Here are a few of the latest developments in Mexico's drug war:

Wednesday, July 29

- In Veracruz, gunmen set fire to the home of a police commander, killing him, his wife, and his four children ranging in ages from 6 to 15. Jesus Antonio Romero, 39, was deputy operations coordinator for the Veracruz-Boca del Rio area. Initial reports indicate that the fire began after the gunmen hurled grenades at the house.

- In Acapulco, the body of Juan Daniel Martinez, 48, a newscaster for W radio, was found beaten, gagged and partially buried. Martinez covered a wide range of topics, including crime. Mexico is the most dangerous country in the world for journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. At least 10 were killed in 2008. In a separate incident Wednesday, a federal agent who had been investigating the November killing of Armando Rodriguez -- another journalist -- was killed at his home in Ciudad Juarez.

Friday, July 31

- Six people were killed in Ciudad Juarez when six heavily armed gunmen burst into a pool-hall and opened fire. Five men and a woman were killed, while two others were seriously wounded.

- In total, at least 26 people were killed in drug-related violence in a 24-hour period. Among them were a police commander in Aguascalientes, two municipal police officers in Michoacan, and a city official in Mexico City. In Ciudad Juarez, the body of a suspected kidnapper was found with his head, hands, and feet cut off.

Monday, August 3

- In Chihuahua, three members of a Mennonite community were killed after being involved in a car accident with gunmen fleeing police. The four gunmen were killed instantly, and police at the scene recovered automatic weapons and grenades. Elsewhere across Mexico, four drug-related killings were reported in Guanajuato, Sinaloa and Guerrero. In Zacatecas, a firefight ensued after a botched kidnapping of three brothers.

Thursday, August 6

- Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has delayed the release of a report needed to free some $100 million in military aid to the Mexican government. Leahy cited human rights and accountability concerns. "The Congress provides 85% of the aid without conditions, but there needs to be evidence that the military is accountable to the rule of law. Those requirements have not been met, so it is premature to send the report to Congress," he said. Leahy went on to say that "as long as the demand for drugs in the United States and the flow of guns to Mexico continue at these levels, it will be difficult to neutralize the cartels."

Friday, August 7

- At least 25 people were killed in drug-related violence across the Mexican states of Hidalgo and Chihuahua, In Hidalgo, at least twelve people were killed in a gun battle between cartel gunmen and police, three of them police. The firefight began when police encountered three trucks with heavily armed men transporting three kilos of cocaine and $99,000. At least 13 people were killed in Chihuahua, with eight of those deaths occurring in Ciudad Juarez.

Saturday, August 8

- In Tijuana, Mexican police arrested a top Tijuana cartel official, nicknamed "El Jimmy." Manuel Ivanovich Zambrano is the third most wanted man on the DEA's Tijuana cartel list, and is thought to be part of a new generation of drug traffickers operating in the area under the command of Fernando Sanchez Arellano, also known as "El Ingeniero" (The Engineer).

Sunday, August 9

- In Monterrey, a Mexican lawyer who represented drug traffickers and had suffered at least four previous attempts on her life, was shot dead. Silvia Raquenel Villanueva, 55,was reportedly shot dead by three gunmen as she shopped on a city street in broad daylight.

Monday, August 10

- Federal police arrested a drug cartel member suspected of plotting to kill President Calderon, according to Ramon Pequeno, the head of Mexico's federal anti-drug unit. Dimas Diaz-the alleged chief financial operator of the Pacific cartel- was arrested on Sunday (August 9) in Culiacan, Sinaloa. The assassination plot is thought to be in retaliation to a 2007 drug bust in which 26 tons of cocaine arriving from Colombia were seized in the port city of Manzanillo.

- According to the AP, US oil refineries have bought millions of dollars worth of oil illegally siphoned from Mexican pipelines and smuggled into the United States, sometimes by drug trafficking organizations. At least one American oil executive has pleaded guilty to conspiracy in a case that involved some $2 million in smuggled oil. In at least one instance, the Zetas organization is known to have used false import documents to smuggle loads of oil to American refineries. Earlier in the year, 149 bank accounts related to the Zetas side-business in oil were frozen.

- In another exclusive report, an AP investigation concluded that US law enforcement officers who are working along the US-Mexican border are being charged with criminal corruption in record numbers. The investigation found that over 80 US law enforcement personnel have been convicted on corruption-related charges since 2007.

- During his visit to Mexico, President Obama applauded Mexico's anti-drug efforts. "I have great confidence in President Calderon's administration," he said. For his part, President Calderon expressed concerns about the delay in US financial aid to the Mexican government and security forces.

Total reported body count for the last two weeks: 266

Total reported body count for the year: 4,213

Read last issue's Mexico drug war report here.)

In a report on the latest massacre of federal police in Mexico, the Los Angeles Times points out that the Mexican people seem to be losing faith in President Calderon's escalated campaign against the cartels:

"We cannot, we should not, we will not take one step backward in this matter," Calderon said Tuesday.

Mexicans seem skeptical. In a new poll, more than half of respondents said they believe the government is losing the war. Only 28% said it is winning, according to the survey, published Tuesday in the daily Milenio newspaper.

That frustration is becoming a big problem for Calderon:

MEXICO CITY - President Felipe Calderon suffered a setback in midterm elections yesterday when the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party unseated his party as the largest force in Mexico’s fractured Congress in a vote that turned on the global economic crisis and the government’s crackdown on drug traffickers. [Boston Globe]

And it's only going to get worse. Calderon's crackdown has produced the opposite of its intended effect, which is exactly what one should always expect from aggressive tactics in the war on drugs. Violence and corruption will only continue to escalate and Calderon will inevitably be fighting for re-election amidst daily episodes of horrific street violence brought about by his own policies.

Calderon's predecessor Vicente Fox is now advocating discussion about legalizing drugs and it's probably just a matter of time before that debate becomes the central question in Mexican politics.

Via NORML's Russ Belville, CBS's Bob Schieffer asked President Obama about the drug war violence in Mexico and got this surprising response:

President Obama:  Well, what’s happened is that President Calderon I think has been very bold and rightly has decided that it’s gotten carried away. The drug cartels have too much power, are undermining and corrupting huge segments of Mexican society. And so he has taken them on in the same way that when, you know, Elliot Ness took on Al Capone back during Prohibition, oftentimes that causes even more violence. And we’re seeing that flare up.

I honestly cannot believe the president is looking towards alcohol prohibition for a little perspective on our present predicament. Everyone knows that story. Elliot Ness didn't defeat those cartels. Legalization defeated them.

Mexico and its wave of prohibition-related violence were front and center in Washington this week as the Obama administration unveiled its "comprehensive response and commitment" to US-Mexico borde

Gun control doesn't work to stop crime. Just look at places that have very strict gun regulation. Like ... Mexico.

When lawmakers in Washington managed to tear themselves away from the AIG bonus scandal, much of their attention this week was focused on Mexico.

Does Felipe Calderon even know what he's doing?

MEXICO CITY (AFP) — President Felipe Calderon Friday acknowledged the country's drug war is bloodier and tougher than he thought when he first took office in 2006, but vowed to eradicate the "cancer" that is consuming Mexico.

Really? That's odd because this has gone exactly as I expected and I haven’t been to Mexico in 20 years. He's the president. Why is he struggling to understand the basic dimensions of his own drug war?

If he admits that he didn't know it would get this bad, one wonders what else he doesn’t know. There were 6,000 people killed in Mexico's drug war last year alone and things appear to be getting worse, not better. Even Calderon's updated assessment may be proven horribly naïve.  

How much longer can the leaders of the drug war continue feigning surprise when their policies fail?

Pete Guither and Dave Borden already mentioned it, but I just can’t get enough of this quote from the Wall Street Journal:

"If the drug effort were failing there would be no violence," a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. There is violence "because these guys are flailing. We're taking these guys out. The worst thing you could do is stop now."

So let me get this straight. According to the U.S. government:

No violence = drug war is failing
Intense violence = drug war is going well

So when do we win the drug war then? When everyone’s dead?

Peter Guither routinely dissects drug war illogic in the public discourse over at the Drug WarRant blog. Last week he highlighted some illustratively blind comments in the Wall Street Journal by an unnamed senior US official who actually argued that increased violence in Mexico is a sign of progress in the drug war:

U.S. law-enforcement officials -- as well as some of their counterparts in Mexico -- say the explosion in violence indicates progress in the war on drugs as organizations under pressure are clashing.

"If the drug effort were failing there would be no violence," a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. There is violence "because these guys are flailing. We're taking these guys out. The worst thing you could do is stop now."

The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb followed up:

The cops wanted a new metric by which to judge their success -- one that would not penalize them for an increased murder rate that necessarily follows from doing their job, i.e. eliminating a major drug trafficker.

Pete pointed out that Goldfarb and the official are "confusing success in an action with success in policy." Sure, we can take out any given drug trafficking organization if we try hard enough, but if the result is that different traffickers supply the same amount of drugs to people, while tearing the country apart at greater and greater levels with their fighting, it's poor strategy. And since people are dying in the Mexican drug wars at a rapid pace -- 8,000 have been killed in the past two years since President Calderón ratcheted things up by sending in the military -- I'd say yes, we absolutely should stop it, ASAP. If we're going to be at all logical about things, that is.

They’re even doing their own diplomacy:

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico – Mexico's warring cartels are negotiating a truce that, if it holds, could end one of the bloodiest eras since the 1910-20 Mexican Revolution, according to a U.S. official and experts familiar with the talks.

A peace agreement would be the second in two years and, like the last one, its chances of surviving are slim, the U.S. official said.

"In the end, greed prevails over reason," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. [Dallas Morning News]

Actually, it was the drug war that prevailed over reason. We were all watching when Calderón declared war on the cartels and…wait for it…a huge bloody war broke out! Why is anyone acting confused or surprised by what happened? It’s all perfectly clear. If you throw rocks at a beehive, expect swarms of angry bees.

The fact that they’re negotiating their own peace agreements does not reflect well on the decades-long war that was supposed to disrupt the drug industry. They’ve become a second government that even controls its own territories:

Already, the violence is crippling regions and cities, some of them on the border with Texas. Some top U.S. officials and analysts describe these cities, including Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso, as "failed cities," in which cartels, not city or police officials, have control. [Dallas Morning News]

Amazingly, the U.S. and Mexican governments actually believe we should continue the policies that produced this outcome.

Someone help me understand what Mexico’s U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza is thinking:

"Calderón must, and will, keep the pressure on the cartels, but look, let's not be naïve – there will be more violence, more blood, and, yes, things will get worse before they get better. That's the nature of the battle," Garza said. "The more pressure the cartels feel, the more they'll lash out like cornered animals." [Dallas Morning News]

This is correct except for the part about how Calderón has to do this (no, he doesn't) and the part about how things will get better (no, they won't). We’ve heard all this a thousand times before and it just gets sillier every time. The bottom line is that cracking down on the cartels either works or it doesn’t. It makes no sense to say that aggressive drug war policies will create violence in the short term, and then eventually that same approach will begin reducing bloodshed. That’s not logical.

The drug war causes violence. Just admit it. Stop pretending that it’s going to produce the opposite result at some point in the future. It isn’t going to.

Immortalized by the hit HBO series "The Wire," Baltimore's Eastern District is one tough neighborhood in one of the country's toughest towns.

The harder we push back against Mexican drug cartels, the more violence we’ll begin see within our own borders. Just look what’s happening in Pheonix:

A CBS News investigation has discovered that as of last weekend, there have been 266 reported kidnappings and 300 home invasions this year alone. Sources say the real figures could run as much as three times higher because so many go unreported.

"It wasn't uncommon to have a new kidnapping case coming into our offices on a daily basis," Burgett said.

Law-enforcement sources say the kidnappings signal the brutal expansion of the raging Mexican drug wars spilling across the border.
…
Now CBS News has learned enforcer gangs just south of the Mexican border have added military-grade hand grenades to their arsenal - something special agent Jose Wall expects to see in Phoenix any day.
…
It's not just hand grenades, kidnappings and home invasions that have law enforcement on edge. They say it's only a matter of time before innocent civilians are caught in the crossfire. [CBS News]

It’s really just amazing that this can continue to escalate before our eyes without provoking a widespread, spontaneous revelation that something is fundamentally wrong with our drug strategy. How much more obvious could it be? The harder we push the worse it gets. That’s how this works. It’s the only outcome the drug war formula ever produces.

The only thing we’ll get in exchange for the hundreds of millions we’re pouring into the Mexican drug war is more violence within our own borders. Nothing short of a full reversal in our strategy can prevent that result. And since Obama has pledged to continue this madness, we can be reasonably sure this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

The human rights group Amnesty International harshly criticized Colombia in a 94-page

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A troubling alert from the FBI:

The FBI is warning that one of Mexico´s most brutal drug cartels is attempting to violently regain control of drug trafficking routes in the United States and has been ordered to engage law enforcement officers to protect their operations, according to an intelligence report obtained by The Washington Times.

Los Zetas, the enforcer of Mexico´s infamous Gulf Cartel, is reinforcing its ranks and stockpiling weapons in safe houses in the U.S. in response to recent crackdowns in the U.S. and Mexico against drug traffickers, said the FBI San Antonio Field Office's Joint Assessment Bulletin. The bulletin was dated Oct. 17 and was sent to law enforcement officials in the Texas region. [Washington Times]

As difficult as it is to imagine Mexico-level drug trade violence within our borders, it’s a much more likely outcome than, say, winning the drug war. The harder we push, the more bloodshed and disorder awaits us. And just as intolerable levels of violence have invigorated the drug war debate in Mexico, there is no doubt that increased casualties here at home would draw yet more attention to the role of prohibition in funding and sustaining violent organized crime. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

Everywhere you look, it is just so obvious that the drug war is making Mexico’s problems worse, not better:

A record number of Mexicans are fleeing to Canada, claiming their own country cannot keep them safe as it struggles to contain a grisly narcotics war that is spilling into nightclubs and restaurants.

There are currently 9,070 Mexican refugee claimants waiting to have their cases heard, the largest number yet from one country since the Immigration and Refugee Board was established in 1989.
…
The brutality is intense: human heads lobbed into discos; bound men found asphyxiated in cars; shootouts in shopping centres in the middle of the day. In September, grenades were lobbed at a public celebration of Independence Day in Morelia, a colonial town about 240 kilometres west of Mexico City, prompting some to call it "narco-terrorism" as the victims were civilians. [Globe and Mail]

How much more of this can the Mexican people withstand? The number of refugees may soon grow exponentially as it becomes increasingly clear that there is no plan to stop the violence, or rather, that the plan currently in effect is exactly what’s causing the problem. As bad as things already are, the potential for greater bloodshed and disorder is virtually limitless and it seems we’re now marching forth into a true test of wills as the drug war faithful must behold and somehow defend the unfathomable disaster they’ve created.

It stands to reason that there exists a threshold beyond which the insanity of the drug war cannot be sustained. This has to stop somehow, because it really is as bad as the drug war’s critics have long maintained. I believe we may be witnessing the emergence of a tipping point at which the totality of drug war destabilization, festering for decades, has now exploded all over the map. Calderon can’t turn back without admitting the drug war’s failure, nor can he push forward without placing in great jeopardy the very foundations of the society he’s sworn to defend.

We are witnessing the deadly consequences of a failed international drug strategy. The virus of prohibition that entered the sociopolitical bloodstream decades ago is now shutting down vital organs and inflicting damage that won’t soon heal. It cannot be allowed to continue as it has for so long. This must end and although legalization isn’t a magical or perfect solution, it is at least something that can be tested and manipulated to maximize benefits and minimize harm.

Already, the most apocalyptic visions of drug legalization’s legacy pale in comparison to the nightmare of prohibition that smolders right in front of us. It may soon become very difficult for our opponents to continue presenting reform as the dangerous, frightening approach to the drug problem.

UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) executive director Antonio Maria Costa used the occasion of the October 8 meeting of Ministers Responsible for Public Safety in Mexico City to again blame the d