DEAR LETTERS EDITOR:

The Bush Administration just mailed a check for $43 million of your tax
dollars to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. 1. As a libertarian, I
believe there should be zero "foreign aid," i.e. zero foreign government
subsidies. 2. Funding these religious fanatics is telling the world, "You
can eliminate the Rule of Law. You can employ democratic mobocracy to
destroy the religious artifacts of others and render women not just
dependent on men, but subhuman. You can demonize others for their religious
or a religious beliefs. You can do all this and more -and get paid for it
if only you'll support our War on Drugs." Anyone with a rational mind or
who has studied prohibition history knows that the only thing that will
stop the supply is a lack of demand. This is almost as bad as funding the
cause of the problem: Republican fundamentalists and their insane drug
prohibition. Were it not for what remains of the Rule of Law in the U.S.A.,
they would also destroy the free expression of others, religious or
otherwise (art, pornography) and subjugate women.

Bill Holmes
Carlsbad, California