WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. and Peruvian investigators are exploring whether a series of errors, rather than a single blunder, led to the mistaken downing of an American missionaries' plane over Peru, one of the investigators says. The investigator also hinted at evidence the Peruvian military jet likely fired a required warning shot before downing the single-engine Cessna it suspected was carrying drugs. One of the missionaries and her child were killed in the April 20 incident. " There were several contributing factors that tragically conspired" leading up to the fatal attack, said the investigator. [continues 630 words]
WASHINGTON -- President Bush is expected to name Representative Asa Hutchinson, an Arkansas Republican with a long interest in drug issues, as the new head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, officials said. Mr. Hutchinson, 50, who was one of the House managers in the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, is a former United States attorney in Arkansas who once prosecuted Mr. Clinton's brother, Roger, on drug charges. Mr. Hutchinson's appointment has not been announced by the White House, but officials said it was expected soon. If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Hutchinson would succeed the acting agency head, Donnie R. Marshall. [continues 493 words]
Since last November's elections, it has seemed like the forces arguing for a shift in American drug policy from punishment to treatment were gaining significant ground. The notoriously harsh three-strikes-and-you're-out voters of California agreed to a ballot initiative that steers first-time nonviolent drug offenders into treatment rather than jail. The tough-on-crime governor of New York called for shortening prison sentences for drug offenders, and his fellow Republican governor of New Mexico is pushing decriminalization of marijuana. [continues 1209 words]
Missionary Jim Bowers believes God had a plan for his wife, Veronica, and infant daughter, Charity. He also believes God worked a miracle by clearing the smoke from their damaged plane's cockpit, enabling the sticken pilot to guide the survivors to safety ("A puff of smoke, and then chaos at 4,000 feet: Drug War Over Peru," Cover Story, News, April 30). The true miracle of this tragic event would be a clearing of the drug policy-smoke screen that has blinded our nation for the past 30 years. It is a policy bereft of charity, punishing those suffering from drug addiction rather than offering them the help they need. [continues 79 words]
In the more than three months since George W. Bush became president, the drug-policy world has eagerly awaited his choice of drug czar. Bush's repeated campaign references to his compassionate conservatism and his candid remarks about his own battles with alcohol raised expectations that he might name someone familiar with the social and medical dimensions of drug addiction. Now the president has indicated his choice: John P. Walters. And he seems to be exactly the wrong man for the job. [continues 1261 words]
WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers are trying to force the government to stop hiring U.S. companies for dangerous counternarcotics missions in South America. Two proposals one to phase out the use of contractors in Colombia, the other to end it entirely in the entire Andean region were introduced recently in Congress. The measures were prompted by concerns about the role of contractors flying State Department-sponsored drug eradication missions in Colombia. But those worries intensified after the Peruvian Air Force on April 20 shot down a plane carrying American missionaries that a CIA-hired surveillance crew had identified as a possible drug flight. [continues 702 words]
In the world of drugs and thugs, brutality works. That's why Peru's policy of blasting drug flights out of the sky has been hailed as that nation's single most effective counterdrug tactic. Since 1995, Peruvian Air Force jets have strafed or forced down more than 30 narcotics-laden airplanes. Narco flights, not surprisingly, have fallen off dramatically. So has Peruvian coca production. But all that meant little to the Bowers family of Muskegon, Mich. On April 20, they were flying in an area known to U.S. intelligence as the Dog's Head. That's where the borders of Brazil, Peru, and Colombia come together. The Bowerses were en route to a missionary project in Iquitos, Peru. After their Cessna 185 re-entered Peru, a Peruvian Air Force fighter jet suddenly began spraying them with bullets. Aboard a surveillance aircraft operated by the CIA--which had first detected the Bowerses' Cessna and passed the info on to the Peruvians--the American pilots were alarmed by the attack. "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" shouted one pilot into his radio. By then it was too late. Veronica Bowers, 35, and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, were already dead. [continues 202 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Lawmakers are trying to force the government to stop hiring U.S. companies for dangerous counternarcotics missions in South America. Two proposals -- one to phase out the use of contractors in Colombia, the other to end it entirely in the entire Andean region -- were introduced recently in Congress. The measures were prompted by concerns about the role of contractors flying State Department-sponsored drug eradication missions in Colombia. But those worries intensified after the Peruvian Air Force on April 20 shot down a plane carrying American missionaries that a CIA-hired surveillance crew had identified as a possible drug flight. Lawmakers are angry that the CIA has refused to publicly identify the contractor or provide details of its work. "I think it really underscored the need for transparency and accountability," said Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., a member of the House International Relations Committee. With bipartisan support, Delahunt last Wednesday amended the committee's version of the State Department authorization bill to say that the government should try to phase out the use of U.S. companies for antidrug missions in Colombia. Responsibility would be transferred to Colombian security forces. Delahunt's amendment also would require annual reports identifying the U.S. businesses hired for the missions and providing information about their pay, purpose and the risks they face. A bill introduced last month by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., would effectively ban the use of private businesses for counternarcotics operations. "I think the American taxpayers are funding a secret war that could suck us into a Vietnam-like conflict," she said. The State Department's counternarcotics bureau said it could not comment on the Delahunt and Schakowsky proposals. [continues 518 words]
I would like to comment on several news items of the recent past that I believe are "commentable." It is encouraging that the National Republican Party has recently done something "on principle." They are, after all, supposedly the party of (Constitutional) principles. Lately, however, principles have taken a back seat to expediency, getting elected, and, of course, "politically correct" actions. But in the matter of the census, they, at least, insisted upon using the actual count (as the Constitution requires!), rather than the "guesses" of some "expert," bureaucrat, etc. Let us be duly thankful for these small (Constitutional) blessings. [continues 436 words]
America's Drugs Policies Don't Work. Alas, The Bush Administration Seems To Want More Of The Same BY ANY reasonable measure, America's "war on drugs" is a disaster. At home, ferocious "mandatory sentencing" laws are the main reason for the country's huge prison population. Almost one in four of the country's 2m prisoners are there for drug offences, with only a limited chance of becoming productive members of society when they are released (see article). Abroad, America is being sucked into domestic conflicts, notably in Colombia; and recently its forces shot down a "drugs" plane in Peru that turned out to be carrying missionaries. Meanwhile, drugs have never been easier to get in the United States, with prices lower, purity higher and experimentation among schoolchildren as rampant as ever. [continues 584 words]
Spooked In Peru A good litmus test for the integrity of any news organization is the aggressiveness of its reporting on the CIA. And the test has never been more relevant than in the two weeks since April 20, when CIA operatives helped shoot down a missionary plane in Peru. While many journalists concentrated on reconstructing events behind the "tragic" death of an American mother and child, others rejected the U.S. government's spin and turned to unauthorized sources to piece together the more important back story. [continues 1103 words]
The shooting down of the missionary plane in Peru with the tragic results is another example that the so-called War on Drugs is a mistake. Americans are encouraging and assisting other nations to participate in law enforcement activities that we could not do in America without due process. It has not been for the lack of trying. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, tried to introduce legislation recently that would have allowed U.S. authorities to shoot down a plane that failed to respond to a radio call or otherwise appeared suspicious in the eyes of the DEA. [continues 74 words]
lf one medicine were 23 times more effective than another, which would you take? In 1994 the Rand Corp., a conservative think tank, made a study finding treatment of cocaine addiction 23 times more effective at reducing usage than attacking the source. Though financed by the U.S. government, the results have been ignored with billions spent trying to cut off the source. Only two million of nearly five million hard-core addicts receive treatment. Last year Congress approved $1.3 billion in aid for Plan Colombia, supposedly to cut cocaine production. Most of this aid is military. It was conditioned on Colombia observing human rights standards. President Clinton horrified human rights groups by waiving the standards. Plan Colombia has become a poorly disguised war against the poor. [continues 134 words]
The captain of the submarine that collided with a Japanese fishing boat, killing nine men and boys, has received as punishment a letter of reprimand. His Navy career is in tatters, and Cmdr. Scott Waddle will retire Oct. 1, years earlier than he would ever have planned. In response, the Japanese government acknowledged the United States has accepted responsibility for the accident. On the same day Waddle's punishment and forced retirement were announced, a different tragedy in another part of the world was resulting in a far different sense of responsibility. [continues 328 words]
In wake of the downing of a missionary plane in Peru, more than Peru's ''shoot-down'' policy needs to be evaluated (''A puff of smoke, and then chaos at 4,000 feet,'' Cover Story, News, Monday). The whole counterproductive, rights-infringing, corruption-producing, violence-mongering, lie-fueled war on drugs ought to be put on trial. Seven-month-old Charity Bowers is not the first innocent child killed in the drug war, and she won't be the last as long as we continue to accept the myth that force and violence are the best ways to address drug problems. Stephen Young Roselle, Ill. [end]
WASHINGTON -- If you believe Secretary of State Colin Powell, the blame for the Peruvian air force shootdown of a plane carrying a Baptist missionary family lies with Robert Downey Jr. and other drug users in the United States. I respectfully disagree. The blame, I'm afraid, lies with the U.S. government's fruitless, wasteful and destructive war on drugs. In congressional testimony last week, Powell pointed the finger of blame at wealthy American drug users as the cause of the cocaine scourge ravaging Colombia and other Latin American countries. It is that demand, he explained, that makes the costly war on drugs necessary. [continues 631 words]
An immoral war If this isn't the straw that broke the camel's back, I don't know what is. The blood of the American missionary and her daughter, killed when their plane was shot down in Peru, is on the hands of the U.S. and Peruvian governments. I wonder what would happen if Air Force One was shot down because it was suspected of carrying illegal drugs? Just one more reason the "war on some drugs" must end! [end]
She And Her Baby Were Victims Of A Failed Policy Only because Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter were Americans did we hear of their deaths. Mrs. Bowers and her husband, Jim, were Baptist missionaries in Peru. The Peruvian air force fired on a small plane in which the Bowers family was flying. It was piloted by another missionary. The pilot, though injured, was able to land. He, Jim Bowers and the Bowers' 6-year-old son, Cory, survived. A bullet from the Peruvian plane had pierced Mrs. Bowers' heart and her baby's skull. [continues 345 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers rebuked Bush administration officials Tuesday for what they called slow work on investigating the Peruvian military's downing of a civilian plane that killed an American missionary and her daughter. "It's been 10 days," said House Government Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton, angered that the U.S. investigative team only arrived in Peru on Sunday. "Why weren't they down there the next day?" Further infuriating lawmakers was the officials' refusal to give details of the April 20 shoot-down -- even to confirm the U.S. surveillance plane carried a CIA-hired crew. [continues 459 words]
Thank you for printing the April 25 Associated Press story, "U.S. surveillance flights might resume over Peru," which describes the shooting down of a missionary plane and the addition of two more innocent lives lost to the drug war. Sen. Christopher Dodd blames it on our enthusiasm to stop drugs. It recently was revealed that although Peru's air force might have downed some drug traffickers, it was taking huge bribes from others to let them pass. Roger Rumrill, a Peruvian expert and author on the drug trade, called the missionary plane incident "the most absurd accident in the world" because more than 70 percent of the drug trade between Peru and Colombia now moves by sea along the Pacific Coast, not by air. [continues 82 words]
