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Bad News.. continued
When the Senate begins to question Walters, many will also discover "Body Count," the harshly doctrinaire book he co-authored with Bennett and DiIulio in 1997, an effort for which the British phrase "over the top" seems particularly apt.
Peru's unique contribution to the strategy of interdiction had been to use military jets to shoot down small planes suspected of ferrying coca paste to Colombian labs; like most interdiction strategies, its "success" merely forced traffickers to use
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other tactics, so-- like all interdiction techniques ever devised-- it must be judged a strategic failure.
The discovery that not only is it still being used, but had resulted in the killing of a young mother and her infant daughter and was initiated at the behest a US spy plane could not have come at a worse time for our drug warriors.
As the Peruvian story unfolds with the all-too predictable efforts of the two governments to point fingers at each other, it seems to be striking a chord with a public already far more disenchanted by the drug war
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than bureaucrats and politicians realize.
The missionary plane was shot down only a week ago; the story may yet blow over quickly, but by underscoring the futility and destructive nature of the new drug czar's favorite 'drug control' strategy, it has guaranteed the policy he represents will receive considerable hostile scrutiny in the weeks to come.
Indeed, addiction itself seemed politically correct in many circles, and often went undistinguished from revolutionary exuberance. Some of the best and brightest natural leaders of that generation had become addicted to the strong drugs that had come to symbolize their rugged independence.
They gradually realized they were in a prison of their own making, and by the mid-1970's, the groups began to fill with disheartened rebels, the walking wounded of the protest movement who had flown too close to the flame, too many times.
I was present for the social unrest of the 1960's and I attended recovery group meetings during the 1970's. I saw the counterculture turn out in good numbers, seeking identity, purpose, and salvation from addiction.
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