Does the State Department really expect anyone to believe that the aircraft carrying Veronica Bowers and her 7-month-old daughter that day was “accidentally” shot down? How does one “accidentally” strafe an unarmed aircraft?

Before I'm accused of judging a book by its cover, let me assure you that semantics are not the only problem with the joint U.S.-Peruvian report on the killings of Baptist missionary Veronica Bowers and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity. In fact, the report does detail several very significant discrepancies in the U.S. account of what happened that day, which shows that American CIA-contractors were hardly blameless in the blunders that led to the shootdown. More importantly, though, throughout the investigative report, information is presented without the larger context.

Peru’s air interdiction program is painstakingly described as a huge success, ignoring the fact that the larger purpose it serves — “the drug war” — is a tremendous failure, whether measured by American drug use, destabilization of the region or, vitally, the price of drugs on the street, now lower than ever despite decades of multibillion dollar misappropriations.

The report assumes as a starting point that American policy with regard to drug trafficking is fundamentally sound in its increasing use of military force and the expanding presence of U.S. intelligence and Special Forces in the Andean region. As is made clear very early on:

“The investigating team was not authorized to: make a recommendation or determination with regard to the suspension or startup of counter-narcotics aerial intercept operations in Peru; question witnesses under oath or receive sworn testimony; examine misconduct or fix blame.”

In other words, the U.S. and Peruvian governments, quite happy with the systems and financial arrangements already in place, will under no circumstances allow this incident to spiral into a full-blown assessment of “the drug war.” And in that, regardless of what it concludes about this horrible incident, the report is a whitewash.

Picking Nits

The headlines in tomorrow’s newspapers about this report will likely focus on the fact that the United States has been forced, after a full joint inquiry, to once again revise its own story, which initially sought to shift all the blame onto the Peruvians who flew the warplane that shot down the Cessna float plane containing the Bowers family.

This much appears uncontroversial: on April 20, the missionary family — Veronica and baby, plus husband James Bowers and their 6-year-old son, Cory — took off with hired pilot Kevin Donaldson from Islandia, in the Peruvian Amazon, to fly to a Peruvian consulate in neighboring Colombia. Their mission: to obtain a residence visa for their newly adopted daughter.

(Despite initial U.S. claims to the contrary, Donaldson did file a flight plan.)

Their plane was monitored taking off by a U.S. surveillance aircraft and identified as a suspect plane on the basis of its location and its heading toward Colombia.

However, contrary to what U.S. officials said in the aftermath of the tragedy, the series of events that led a Peruvian A-37 interceptor to open fire cannot be blamed entirely on over-anxious pilots. The Peruvian fighter co-pilot did, in fact, correctly report the registration number of the plane — OB-1408 — at least eight minutes before the fighter opened fire on the missionaries. At that point in previous intercepts, U.S. or Peruvian military officers immediately aborted the missions. In this case and at several other key junctures, however, the crew of the U.S. surveillance plane, including the Peruvian who traveled with them, did not hear this message because they were busy with other conversations. At several other times, language barriers also caused confusion.

The end result: despite overlapping procedures requiring multiple confirmations and expressed authorization from officers who should know better, the A-37 ultimately got permission to shoot down the plane containing the Bowers family and probably never heard the crew of the American surveillance plane — belatedly — urging them to cease fire. Another report expected out later this year will recommend whether to restart the intercept program or to scrap it.

Collateral Damage

No one seriously believes that either the Peruvian airmen or the U.S. intelligence and military officers involved in this mission deliberately shot down a planeload of innocent civilians. But to pretend it was an accident is to pretend that other, more suitable words don’t exist: words like “reckless,” “arrogant,” or “screw-up.” This also ignores the fact that the United States now operates an enormous infrastructure of surveillance radars, secret airbases and commando units in the region.

As experience shows elsewhere, when that much military power is put in motion, it is devilishly hard to control the “on” and “off” switch.

On a deeper level, it is equally wrong to pretend that there is a solution to America’s drug problems in high-tech surveillance, crop eradication, Coast Guard pickets or CIA-run operations that pay smaller nations to do our dirty work — in this case, shooting down “suspect” aircraft.

The solution to America’s drug problem lies in taking the money out of the business. For decades now, American taxpayers — numbed by the very real drug violence of the late 1980s and overblown political rhetoric about drugs being a threat to national security — have happily devoted hundreds of millions of dollars a year to “stemming the flow” of drugs into the United States. This simply is not happening, and the best measure of that is this shocking fact: a gram of cocaine on the streets of New York currently costs about half what it cost in 1981.

It is not the drugs that fuels the violence, but rather the enormous sums of money available to those who sell them. Prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s created crime syndicates that thrived on bootlegging and used the proceeds to challenge law enforcement for much of the 20th century. Similarly, America’s inability to deal squarely with its drug problems has financed an international version of the Mafia which will be just as difficult to eradicate. Many nations with far better records on domestic violence and keeping drug use down already realize this, including Canada.

Some brave dissenters have suggested the United States explore the idea of decriminalizing at least some drugs, among them former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, and current New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson. But until a national politician takes first step toward breaking America’s addiction to the drug war, it will just be business as usual in the Andes and on the streets of America’s towns and cities.

Note: A failed policy, a secret war, a dead mother and child.

Michael Moran -- Michael.Moran@msnbc.com -- is senior producer, special reports at MSNBC.

Source: MSNBC (US Web)
Author: Michael Moran
Published: August 2, 2001
Copyright: 2001 MSNBC
Contact: letters@msnbc.com
Website: http://msnbc.com/news/
Forum: http://www.msnbc.com/bbs/

Related Articles & Web Site:

Colombia Drug War News
http://freedomtoexhale.com/colombia.htm

Report: Errors Led to Plane Downing
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10511.shtml

Report Shows Why Peru Shot Down Plane
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10508.shtml

Home    Comment    Email    Register    Recent Comments    Help

[ Post Comment ]

d
d
d
d

[ Post Comment ]

Dan B

[ Post Comment ]