PERUVIAN TRAGEDY

The War Against Drugs Injures Innocent And Guilty Alike

The shooting deaths of U.S. missionary Veronica Bowers and her 7-month-old
daughter, Charity, are reminders that the good guys may be
indistinguishable from the bad guys in the guerilla war on drugs.

The good guys, the crew of a Peruvian air force fighter jet, reportedly
shot down the Cessna 185 without first identifying the plane.

The other good guys, the three-member American crew of the CIA surveillance
plane that first spotted the Cessna, requested that the fighter jet
identify the plane before shooting it down. Identification is the first
step in a four-step identify-intercept-disable-shoot protocol that is
supposed to be standard procedure in the joint U.S.-Peru anti-drug effort.

But, as in every battle, there are soldiers fighting the war on drugs who
are willing to break the rules in order to obliterate the bad guys.

In this case, they made a deadly mistake. Instead of shooting fleeing drug
runners, they shot down a missionary plane identifiable by a dove painted
on its fuselage. Only the skill of the pilot, and luck, allowed the pontoon
plane to crash land in the Amazon instead of the jungle treetops.

As in all warfare, the death of innocent bystanders is predictable. An
Israeli doctor is killed by a suicide bomb, a Palestinian boy by bullets as
he attempts to hide in the arms of his father.

There is, however, a difference between the war on drugs and the wars being
waged in the Middle East, in Africa and in Yugoslavia. This war is a direct
result of the inability of the United States to curb drug consumption at home.

Policy changes can, and should, be made in the way the war is fought,
including grounding of joint surveillance missions. But peace won't be
possible until politicians focus resources on domestic programs that
address the core problem of drug use in the United States.