MISPLACED PRIORITIES

In last Thursday's edition of The News-Enterprise, there was an
article about a man who was caught attempting to sell 50
shoulder-fired missiles to an undercover FBI official posing as a
terrorist that was going to use one of them to shoot down a jetliner
in the United States. This same man was allegedly recorded as saying
"Osama bin Laden did a good thing" and "straightened them all out."
This man has several charges against him, including attempting to
provide material support and resources to terrorists and acting as an
arms broker without a license. The article went on to say that the
maximum prison sentence for the most serious charge against this man
is 15 years.

On Wednesday of the same week, there was an article in The
News-Enterprise about a man that was caught allegedly manufacturing
methamphetamine. There were several charges against this individual,
including the possession of anhydrous ammonia in an unsafe container,
one of the ingredients used to manufacture methamphetamines. This
charge alone was stated as carrying a maximum sentence of 40 years.

This is a perfect example of how this country's misled criminal
justice system targets its own citizens for such heinous crimes as
attempting to get high while applying only a slap on the wrist for
individuals that mean to kill a large portion of it's own people. The
fact that no one ever even seems to realize this is happening, or
worse, realizes this but is too lazy to stand up and say or do
anything about it is to me a very sad fact about our society.

This war waged on the American public by its own government costs
billions of dollars a years that could be put toward fighting
terrorism on every level. The sad truth is that it is more profitable
to arrest someone attempting to sell or manufacture drugs and seize
their money and property than it is to stop a terrorist.

I'm not trying to imply that making or selling drugs is something that
should not be punished. I'm simply pointing out the priority of a
system that rewards itself by incarcerating people that generally
speaking do not have the resources to fight an increasingly unfair
system of prosecution.

None of this is going to change until people start to realize the war
is actually against them, or can easily be used against them and vote
accordingly.

Ralph Shaffer

Radcliff