Increasing Violence in Mexico is Not a Sign of Progress in the Drug War

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.