HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATED

Your story "U.S. plane aided Peru jets' attack on missionaries"
caught my attention (Times, April 22). I am left with a big question,
the possible answers to which are unsavory.

If the practice of shooting down unarmed civilian planes was deemed a
violation of international and U.S. law by the Justice Department and
the Pentagon, why are we still killing people?

Is it because we don't mind if innocent Peruvians are killed?
President Bush is "upset by the fact that two American citizens lost
their lives." Obviously, previous executions by fighter jets in Peru
and who knows what other countries have been acceptable, as long as
the untried suspects were not American.

Is it because the United States feels it can abrogate international
treaties at will, especially when teamed with questionably democratic
regimes that will play along for a few billion in aid?

Or is it because the war on drugs has never been effective? And the
authorities who are frustrated by fighting and losing for so many
years have shown a steadily increasing trend toward violation of
human rights in the name of this "war"? If this is a war, shouldn't
Bush just shake his head and regret the "collateral damage" and keep
the shootings going?

Lucky for us the Chinese didn't say they thought our spy plane was a
drug-runner. Then they could have just shot it down without all the
fuss.