ENEMIES DOMESTIC

The ugly side of the war on drugs was shoved smack-dab in the
nation's face in April when the Peruvian air force, acting with
U.S.-provided intelligence, shot down a plane packed with
missionaries -- presumably under the impression that the pontoon
craft was hauling coca, not Christians.

A report detailing the "whys" and "hows" of the shoot-down that
killed missionary Roni Bowers and her baby, Charity, is set for
release late in July, according to a nameless U.S. State Department
official, cited in the June 20 Miami Herald.

"We need to make sure," said the official in a great example of the
duh-speak that infects government "that every possible safeguard is
in place to prevent the accidental loss of civilian life as a result
of the anti-drug program in the Andes."

You think?

Too bad the State Department wasn't so keen on safety before bullets
riddled the plane and ripped through the bodies of Roni, Charity and
the pilot -- who, by the grace of God, still managed to live and land
the craft. A lot of good that report will do Roni's widower and
motherless son, who had to watch wife and mother, daughter and sister
be shot through while they sat in the plane unable to prevent the
loss of their loved ones.

Especially tragic is the fact that anyone could have seen this coming.

When President Bill Clinton ordered the U.S. to resume shoot-down
participation in March 1995, after a 10-month lull in the
radar-sharing program, there were Jeremiahs warning about dangers
involved.

"I don't think we should be doing it," said radar operator John
Fowler, quoted in a September '95 AP story. "I'm a Christian man. I'm
a believer. How can I as a believer work toward an end which deals
with killing people?" And Fowler had a pretty tragic rabbit to pull
from the evidence hat.

In a case very similar to Bowers', while enforcing the northern Iraq
no-fly zone in April 1994, two U.S. fighter planes blew a pair of
U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters out of the sky. Twenty-six people
were killed. "An investigation found that a radar plane failed to
warn the fighters of the choppers' presence," according to AP.

Drug warriors didn't listen to the naysayers or pay attention to the
newspapers, however, as advice to the contrary was canned and
memories of the downed Black Hawks ignored. When there's a war to be
won, tragedies are an accepted fact -- a common sentiment among drug
warriors.

"It's a shame what happened," said House Intelligence Committee
Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., about the Bowers shoot-down, "but this
is a war and, unfortunately, there are casualties."

Enough sympathy in that quote to melt your heart, right? This is the
same sort of crock-peddling position sported by a number of pro-drug
war congressmen.

"While not excusing or minimizing the tragedy," said Rep. Benjamin
Gilman, R-N.Y., who along with Goss was quoted in the June 20 Miami
Herald, "we must bear in mind that nearly 16,000 Americans lose their
lives each year from the use and sale of illicit drugs, many of which
originate in the Andean region."

Goss and Gilman's take is that Americans are dying, and we've got to
fight back. What are a few missionaries, when the lives of thousands
of U.S. citizens are at stake? "[T]his is a war and, unfortunately,
there are casualties."

Trouble is, both of these congressmen are hovering three feet above
ground in the same pipedream.

Goss is wrong -- it's not a war, it's a policy, one that makes drugs
illegal. It is that policy that contributes to Gilman's "16,000
Americans" who die from the "use and sale of illicit drugs." It's the
illegality that creates the problems.

Sure, some Americans are going to keel over from overcoking. This is
really no different from alcoholics drinking themselves to death, a
fact of life with which most of us can deal without calling for the
resurrection of the 18th Amendment. The real killer is drug-related
crime, a problem particular not to drugs, but to their illegality.

The illegality of drugs artificially inflates their prices, in many
cases out-pricing users from the market -- at least in terms of
legally acquired funds. Not able to procure enough money by methods
that keep the angels smiling, some drug users turn to crime to
generate the necessary greenbacks. All in all, however, these are
mostly property crimes, which do not particularly endanger human life.

A study reported in 1995 by the New York Times found that sellers --
not cash-strapped users -- are the gun-packers of the drug market.
And for obvious reasons. While the prices of drugs are driven
sky-high by their illegality, so is police protection eliminated for
the "businessmen" involved. To protect his property, a drug seller is
forced to go armed, since he's all the protection he's going to get.

"This is an important study," said criminologist Alfred Blumstein,
"because it suggests we should rethink the presumption that the
pharmacological effect of drugs makes people violent and do crazy
things."

It's not the dope, it's the law.

Because the trade is illegal, lacking any legal protection, the trade
is subject to violence. The people who thrive in the drug market are
those with, as the Cato Institute's David Boaz once put it, a
"comparative advantage in violence." Why? When Pfizer has a problem
with a client or competitor, it calls the lawyers. But for those
dealing in an illegal trade, it is only a law firm like Smith &
Wesson that will belly up to the bar of justice.

As such, the very things drug warriors fight to stop are exacerbated
and encouraged by the war on drugs. And, as I pointed out Monday, so
is the ever-heightening disrespect for life, liberty and property by
government officials prosecuting the war. With the spiral of crime
and death increasing as the thumbscrews are tightened, the response
is simply to tighten some more.

W.C. Fields had a pertinent observation about this sort of
dog-back-to-his-vomit repetition: If at first you don't succeed, try,
try, again," he said, "and then give up. Don't be a damn fool about
it."

Too late.

As we pursue a policy ensnared by the metaphor of war, we continue to
justify the deaths of complete innocents like Roni and Charity Bowers
along with the deaths of our freedoms. Necessary casualties, we say.
And the more we justify those casualties by perpetuating the war, the
more we hike up the damage toll -- damage that is doing irreparable
harm to the Constitution and our liberties which we've fought hard
over the years to keep and protect.

Helping preserve those liberties is part of the job description of
our congressmen and state representatives. In this role as protector,
politicians swear an oath to defend the Constitution against all
enemies foreign and domestic.

As is becoming increasingly clear, however, the real enemies are not
drug lords foreign, they are drug warriors domestic -- those who seek
to eradicate the flow of narcotics both in and outside of the country
with any method or means, however brutal, shortsighted, stupid and
irresponsible.

Joel Miller is the commentary editor of WorldNetDaily. His publishing
company, MenschWerks, recently published "God Gave Wine" by Kenneth
L. Gentry Jr.