“Thousands of police and soldiers swarmed into slums in Jamaica’s capital Tuesday in search of an alleged drug kingpin wanted by the United States, trading gunfire with masked supporters of the fugitive,” the Washington Post reports. “At least 30 people, mostly civilians, have been reported killed since the battle erupted Sunday.” Later reports put the number of deaths at 44. And for what?

[Christopher] Coke, who allegedly assumed leadership of the “Shadow Posse” from his father, was accused in a U.S. indictment in August of heading an international trafficking ring that sells marijuana and crack cocaine in the New York area and elsewhere.

So he’s accused of selling pot and coke to willing buyers. I’m sure he and his colleagues have engaged in violence along the way, but that’s an inevitable part of illegal businesses. And to capture a drug dealer, we’ve spent nine months pressuring a friendly government, and “thousands of police and soldiers” have been dispatched, with 44 deaths and counting. This policy is insane.

And it seems to confirm the point of this Newsweek column by Conor Friedersdorf, which I read a few hours earlier:

Forced to name the “craziest” policy favored by American politicians, I’d say the multibillion-dollar war on drugs, which no one thinks is winnable. Asked about the most “extreme,” I’d cite the invasion of Iraq, a war of choice that has cost many billions of dollars and countless innocent lives. The “kookiest” policy is arguably farm subsidies for corn, sugar, and tobacco—products that people ought to consume less, not more.

These are contentious judgments. I hardly expect the news media to denigrate the policies I’ve named, nor do I expect their Republican and Democratic supporters to be labeled crazy, kooky, or extreme. These disparaging descriptors are never applied to America’s policy establishment, even when it is proved ruinously wrong, whereas politicians who don’t fit the mainstream Democratic or Republican mode, such as libertarians, are mocked almost reflexively in these terms, if they are covered at all.

Friedersdorf goes on to declare that Rand Paul’s views on the gold standard and his doubts about the Civil Rights Act are “wacky.” (Without refighting the civil rights argument, I’ll note that some economists would disagree with Friedersdorf about the gold standard.) But, he concludes, “crazy, kooky, extreme actions are perpetrated by establishment centrists far more often than by marginalized libertarians.” Look no further than Jamaica.