President Calderon's epic drug war escalation is rapidly becoming an unprecedented exhibit in the absolute futility of everything drug prohibition stands for. The harder you fight, the more you lose, and that realization is increasingly beginning to sink in:

There are now sustained calls in Mexico for a change in tactics, even from allies within Calderón's political party, who say the deployment of 45,000 soldiers to fight the cartels is a flawed plan that relies too heavily on the blunt force of the military to stem soaring violence and lawlessness. [Washington Post]

No kidding. How are soldiers supposed to "stem soaring violence" when their deployment is causing it? Violence is what soldiers do for a living.

U.S. officials said they now believe Mexico faces a longer and bloodier campaign than anticipated and is likely to require more American aid.

They didn't anticipate this. Seriously. Anyone who's surprised by this outcome has no business working on international drug policy, let alone allocating American tax dollars towards programs that do the exact opposite of what they think.

U.S. and Mexican government officials say the military strategy, while difficult, is working.

What does that even mean? You said you were trying to reduce violence and you increased it. Unless your goal is to eventually kill everyone in Mexico, it's not working.

"This battle is a full frontal assault," Monte Alejandro Rubido, Calderon's senior adviser on drug policy on Mexico's National Security Council, said in an interview. "There are no alternatives."

Yes there are. And the only rational and humane choice you have is to begin discussing them now before thousands more lives are needlessly lost. There is only so much the Mexican people can tolerate and it's really just a matter of time before the war has to be stopped. This plan didn't work last year and it won’t start working next year.

It's not hard to understand the reluctance of so many who bear responsibility for this to admit that they've been wrong all along. The countless lives lost and destroyed are not something anyone wants on their conscience and the human mind is a powerful tool for shielding desperate people from uncomfortable truths. Still, the battlefield that smolders before us is obviously here to stay as long as we continue down the hopeless path our governments have chosen for us. As long as this has gone on, it nonetheless stands to reason that it cannot continue forever.

It is vastly nobler to admit failure in the name of progress than to continue it out of fear and shame.