BLAME GAME

How Could Peruvians Blast Missionary Plane?

The Peruvian government, in full macho no-apology mode, maintained Monday
that its pilot was within his rights to open fire on a small plane last Friday.

One shot killed missionary Veronica "Roni" Bowers, 35, and her infant
daughter, Charity. Another wrecked the legs of pilot Kevin Donaldson, who
avoided crashing into jungle and put his plane down on the Amazon River
within reach of rescue. Jim Bowers and his 6-year-old son, Cory, survived
the shooting and crash uninjured.

They all were victims of the long, brutal, expensive, futile war on drugs
mounted by the United States over several decades.

Truth is first, always and everywhere the casualty of war. The lies about
this particular incident flow freely.

The missionary plane, flying a normal route according to a fully executed
flight plan, was marked as suspicious by the crew of a U.S. surveillance
plane. U.S. personnel on the plane insist they urged the Peruvians not to
take action until and unless suspicion could be fully confirmed. The
Peruvian Air Force denies hearing any such protest. Peruvian officials deny
as well that Donaldson had filed a flight plan, notwithstanding all
evidence to the contrary.

President Bush, a full-throated advocate of escalating the war on drugs,
looked shocked when he commented on the incident. Speaking from Quebec,
where he was attending the hemisphere trade meeting, he said surveillance
flights had been suspended "until we get to the bottom of the situation, to
fully understand all the facts, to understand what went wrong in this
terrible tragedy."

Bush can be expected to back away from that promise. Keeping it would mean
a full reconsideration of the drug war. That would reach down to the
fundamental premises on which the drug war has been built and extend right
up to the latest major push to put huge U.S. military resources into Colombia.

A careful review isn't likely to happen in an administration that loves to
strut and look tough about upgrading and defending the nation's cultural
piety. It will not be demanded by Congress, most of whose members -- in
both parties -- climbed political ladders of drug bashing.

The missionary's family isn't demanding explanation and retribution. Her
mother, Gloria Luttig, said on national television Monday morning, "I have
no animosity in my heart for anybody." Her father, John Luttig, said, "Our
daughter is in heaven (and) ... this is God's plan."

The zealots of the drug war can be expected to make the most of that when
Bush asks them how in the world it became U.S. policy to have allies shoot
down small, unarmed planes based on errant suspicion.