MORE CASUALTIES OF THE DRUG WAR
Written 4/28/2001
Mumia Abu-Jamal, M.A.
All Rights Reserved
For millions of people in this country, the mere mention of the word, "drugs," brings a steel wall down, clanging out every other thought.
It is precisely this reflexive response, this closing of the mind, that allows the political order to wage a mindless war against the poor, and in the name of drugs, violate any alleged constitutional right allowed to the people.
When did the U.S. government formally declare the drug war? What President issued an order? When did both houses of Congress issue resolutions favoring war?
The media and the ruling elite favor the rhetoric of war, for it stirs American passions, and it diverts such passions from anger at the rulers to contempt against the poor, the powerless and those on the periphery of the society.
Uncritically, the people have accepted the demonization of a thing (a drug) and by association, have damned anyone even charged in connection with this thing. We don't blink an eye when someone who uses the drug is sent to prison for decades, for there is no rational relationship between the danger of a substance and the punitive sanctions imposed on a person who uses the substance. Over 125,000 people die a year from lung cancer due to the noxious weed, tobacco. Another 25,000 folks die annually because of cirrhosis of the liver, the principal cause of which is alcoholism. Guess how many die from cocaine overdoses a year? Roughly 6,000 - out of over 4 million users annually.
While legal poisons like tobacco are advertised as "smooth," and alcohol is promoted as a sexy social lubricant, both lead to over 150,000 deaths a year.
Yet, only illegal drugs are "bad." Isn't that insane?
As insane as this appears nationally, the
international impact of the U.S. drug war is downright deadly.
When a group of U.S. missionaries were enroute to Peru recently, they encountered a Peruvian fighter jet which saw it's duty as shooting first, no questions later. Veronica Bowers and her baby daughter, Charity, were shot out of the sky by the Peruvians, allegedly because they were believed to be drug couriers. Their pilot (an American) was shot and severely wounded in the legs, and barely managed to get the single-engine craft down in one piece.
The Peruvian fighter was being shadowed during the attack by a CIA spy plane.
These Americans who went to Latin America to do missionary work, unwittingly became the latest victims in this irrational and illogical drug war. One wonders, what if they were drug couriers? Would that have justified their being blasted to kingdom come?
Many of these Latin American countries are sent enormous sums of money, or sent (sold) military material, to enlist them as foreign mercenaries in their northern neighbor's mad cap quasi-war.
It is precisely this maddening rhetoric of war that has driven the nation to such ends that this young American mother, and her baby, are seen as little more than the latest "collateral damage."
Harsh words? Perhaps.
But watch, for the flights will undoubtedly continue. And doubtless more innocent aircraft passengers will be targeted and killed.
It only matters to American media when the dead are Americans.
©MAJ 2001
Text © copyright 2001 by Mumia Abu-Jamal.
All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of the author.International Action Center
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