IN ANY WAR, THINGS TEND TO GET UGLY

As Long As We Just Fight Drug Supply And Ignore Demand, We Will Fail.

It's Called "Collateral Damage," Or, Sometimes, "Friendly Fire." In A War,
Innocent People Get Killed Simply Because They Are In The Wrong Place At
The Wrong Time. It's No One's "Fault" In The Conventional Sense Of That
Word. There Are People Who Are Responsible -- But No One To Blame.

That's Pretty Much How The U.S. Describes The Fate Of Veronica Bowers, 35,
An American Missionary, And Her 7-Month-Old Daughter, Charity, Killed Last
Week When Their Small Plane Was Mistaken For A Drug Carrier And Shot Down
By The Peruvian Air Force.

America Was Very Much Involved In This Incident. The U.S. Gives About $48
Million A Year To Peru To Fight Drug Trafficking, A Small Part Of $1.8
Billion We Spend On That Effort In Latin America. We Identify Potential
Drug-Carrying Planes For Peru Officials, Who Send Out Interceptors To Force
A Landing Or -- More Than Two Dozen Times Now -- Shoot A Plane Down.

But Instead Of Accepting Our Role, American Officials Seem Intent On
Placing All The Blame On Peru. White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer Said The
U.S. Crew Of A Cia-Operated Surveillance Aircraft Tracking The Missionary
Plane "Did Its Best To Make Certain That All The Rules Were Followed." But
The Pilot Of The Peruvian Plane, We Say, Simply "Shot First And Asked
Questions Later." Hey, We Tried, Honest, But They Screwed Up.

Peru's Action Has Given Drug Traffickers Pause -- Not Being Stupid, They
Don't Want To Be Shot Down. Drug Trafficking From Peru Has Been Cut -- But,
Mostly, Moved To Colombia.

So It Will Always Be As Long As The United States Thinks The Drug Crisis Is
Mainly A Supply Problem. We Can Make It More Difficult In One Country Or
Two, But The Money Is Just Too Great -- There Are Plenty Of Suppliers In
Other Countries Who Will Be More Than Willing To Step In.

The Drug Crisis Is Not A Supply Problem -- It Is A Demand Problem. There
Are Legitimate Debates About How To Curb That Demand -- Everything From
Education And Counseling To Draconian Sentences For The Users. But Until We
Are Equally Prepared To Tackle The Demand Side, Continuing To Battle The
Supply Side Will Just Waste Billions Of Dollars And Imperil Countless Lives.

It's A Losing Fight We Seem Only Too Happy To Continue, Whatever The Cost.

Seven Years Ago, The U.S. Stopped Assisting Peru In Its Aggressive
Shootdown Policy, Precisely Because Officials Feared Americans Would Be
Blamed For Incidents Such As This One. That Didn't Please Members Of
Congress -- From Both Sides Of The Aisle -- Who Didn't Want To Be Seen As
Soft On Drugs. So They Passed Legislation Giving Americans Immunity For
Such Accidents, And The Assistance Resumed.

Congress Can Grant Legal Immunity, But It Can't Ignore Moral Culpability,
Including Its Own. If We're Going To Use This Pretty Little Metaphor -- The
War On Drugs! -- To Get People Energized And Committed To The Cause, We
Can't Stop Using It When The Unpleasant Truth Appears. In War, Ugly Things
Happen, Not All Of Them Planned.