AIDING AND ABETTING

TO THE EDITOR: I agree with the comment by Robert Novak ("Monday
Morning Quarterbacks," Dec. 17) that the war against terrorism must be
linked to the war on drugs. He states that the Drug Enforcement
Administration has the nation's best intelligence operations, and I
don't doubt it. What he and so many others continually fail to realize
is that it's this great intelligence operation, largely aimed at our
own citizens, that's allowed much of terrorism to occur.

In over 70 years of warring against drugs, the only measurable result
has been the huge increase in the price of drugs and the resultant
huge profits of the traffickers. Drugs are more easily obtained than
when the war started, and the huge profits finance countless insurgent
and terrorist organizations around the world. If the DEA is the best
intelligence organization we have, would it not make sense to redirect
it to fight terrorism instead of guaranteeing that terrorist
organizations have the financing they need to wage terror here and
around the world?

The drug war costs taxpayers billions every year. The drug war is the
United States' excuse to put our military or paramilitary agents in
many countries, which fosters ill will with foreign populations. The
drug war inflates drug profits worldwide. The drug war has not stopped
drug use. The drug wars should stop.

Larry Brittain, Guthrie