Pubdate: Mon, 20 Aug 2001
Source: Roanoke Times (VA)
Copyright: 2001 Roanoke Times
Contact:  http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/368
Author: Curtis E. Douglas

RAISE THE WHITE FLAG IN THE DRUG WAR

Now that we all have had the opportunity to see the murder of civilians by 
the Peruvian Air Force (with CIA assistance), how many more innocent people 
must die before you see that the drug war is a dismal failure? Maybe it 
isn't the quantity of the collateral damage you need, but the quality.

How close does the next victim need to be to you for a personal re- 
examination of the true cost of Prohibition II (Prohibition I being an 
easily acknowledged failure)? If it were your brother or sister, mother or 
father, then would you care enough to speak out?

Maybe that is what is required since you don't seem to care that the drug 
war is also a war on the U.S. Constitution. It apparently doesn't matter 
that our liberties are rapidly being eroded in the name of "security."

Sadly, for most people, liberty, freedom and our U.S. Constitution are only 
abstractions, but it's frightening to see that the murder of innocents in 
the name of the drug war is also just an abstraction.

In the words of Edmund Burke (1729-1797), "The only thing necessary for 
evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

Curtis E. Douglas
Eggleston
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MAP posted-by: Beth