TIME FOR TRUCE IN WARS WE CAN'T WIN

Now that America is fighting a real war, do you think we could come to our
senses about America's two phony wars?

I'm talking about Star Wars and the War on Drugs.

The world is a scary place and no democratic society likes being told that
that there's no easy answer for its fears.

The public doesn't have much use for politicians who, like Jimmy Carter,
lecture them about personal responsibility, sacrifice and the complex and
uncomfortable truths of life at the top of the world.

No, the political marketplace rewards leaders who declare war on drugs and
promise to shield the country against the threat of nuclear missiles.

I understand all this. I understand the politicians all feel they need
something important to do. But now that bombs are falling and soldiers are
leaving home, don't the pols have better things to do than to waste our
time and money on this kind of inanity?

Of course, Star Wars makes plenty of sense to defense contractors. The
industry has already digested about $60 billion of spending on missile
defense and it was counting on George W. Bush to push that total to at
least $200 billion.

Here's my question: Would we be any safer with Star Wars? The critics in
Congress and across Europe answer: "No way." For starters, they point out
that the technology is still unproven. The truth is, we haven't shown Star
Wars works. Further, even if we could build a workable missile shield our
enemies -- from Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden -- don't have the
capacity to build a missile that would threaten us.

As if those aren't reasons enough, Mr. Bush's missile shield program makes
Russia and China, our new allies in the war against terrorism, nervous. We
now need Russia and China a lot more than we did before Sept. 11.

The day before the terrorists attacked, Sen. Joseph Biden, Senate Foreign
Relations Committee chairman, leveled this prophetic attack against the
program:

"We'll have diverted all that money to address the least likely threat,
while the real threats come into this country in the hold of a ship or the
belly of a plane or are smuggled into a city in the middle of the night in
a vial in a backpack."

What else is there to say?

In the harsh light of life after Sept. 11, the War on Drugs doesn't fare
much better.

Like Star Wars, the drug war is not only a waste of money, it's probably
done more harm than good to the country's long-term interests.

First, consider our campaign to destroy the coca crop. One unintended
consequence of that effort has been the pressure that it put on suppliers
to organize and consolidate.

Instead of a bunch of farmers, we've created a new enemy of criminal
capitalists with the money and the military resources to corrupt and
control local government.

Okay, so you don't care what happens in Bolivia, Mexico and Colombia. The
bigger point is that the campaign makes no sense economically.

Peter Andreas, a political scientist at Brown University, explains that
even if we were able to triple the leaf price of coca, it has been
estimated that the retail price of cocaine would only increase by maybe 1
percent.

Hardly enough to dampen demand on the streets of our cities.

The point, Andreas says, is that "it's highly inefficent to focus at the
point of production . . . It's extremely cheap to grow coca."

None of this is new. Nor is it news that all the drug raids and the
mandatory sentencing laws have failed to curb drug use in this country.
Yet, the "war grinds on," says Andreas, who co-authored the book Drug War
Politics -- The Price of Denial.

"The country derives some kind of symbolic value from keeping the campaign
going," Andreas says.

"Politicians know it will look good to be tough on drugs," he says.

Andreas doesn't hold out much hope that's going to change. He's more
optimistic that Congress will figure out the folly of Star Wars.

He may be right. But I think he underestimates how consuming this war on
terrorism is going to be. For the next several years, I don't think either
Congress or the president is only going to have much else on their minds.

So maybe, with time, the two phony wars will sort of fade away like old
soldiers. And then Congress will find the courage to just say no.