A WAR ON RIGHTS

As Arianna Huffington rightly points out in her May 9 column, "Kicking down
doors all over America," the same politicians who shudder at the
storm-trooper tactics used to seize Elian Gonzalez have created a drug-war
machine that visits far worse official violence against suspects. How can
Rudolph Giuliani object to Elian's treatment after defending the cops who
killed Patrick Dorismond (the New Yorker who got shot for "just saying no
to drugs")?

Drug war violence is everywhere. Just recently, police in Durham, N.C.,
brutalized two elderly citizens based on a bogus drug warrant. Recently in
Minnesota's Twin Cities, allegations arose concerning a paralyzed man who
was thrown from his bed and kicked repeatedly by police during a cocaine
raid in which no drugs were found. Police are rarely held accountable for
these atrocities.

Numerous lawmakers, cops, prosecutors and judges, the key players in the
drug war, are guilty of crimes against the basic rights of Americans. They
have constructed a drug bogeyman, and, in exchange for our birthright of
freedom, they offer protection from this phantom. It's a raw deal.

Paul M. Bischke, St. Paul, Minn.