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October 30, 2001
War On Terror?
It's As Bad As War on
Drugs
By Rep. Ron Paul
I
would like to draw an analogy between the drug war and the
war against terrorism. In the last 30 years, we have spent hundreds of
billions of dollars on a failed war on drugs. This war has been used as
an excuse to attack our liberties and privacy. It has been an excuse to
undermine our financial privacy while promoting illegal searches and
seizures with many innocent people losing their lives and property.
Seizure and forfeiture have harmed a great number of innocent American
citizens.
Another result of this unwise war has been the
corruption of many law enforcement officials. It is well known that with
the profit incentives so high, we are not even able to keep drugs out of
our armed prisons. Making our whole society a prison would not bring
success to this floundering war on drugs. Sinister motives of the
profiteers and gangsters, along with prevailing public ignorance, keep
this futile war going. Illegal and artificially high priced drugs drive
the underworld to produce, sell and profit from this social depravity.
Failure to recognize that drug addiction, like alcoholism, is a disease
rather than a crime, encourage the drug warriors in efforts that have
not and will not ever work. We learned the hard way about alcohol
prohibition and crime, but we have not yet seriously considered it in
the ongoing drug war.
Corruption associated with the drug dealers is
endless. It has involved our police, the military, border guards and the
judicial system. It has affected government policy and our own CIA. The
artificially high profits from illegal drugs provide easy access to
funds for rogue groups involved in fighting civil wars throughout the
world. Ironically, opium sales by the Taliban and artificially high
prices helped to finance their war against us. In spite of the
incongruity, we rewarded the Taliban this spring with a huge cash
payment for promises to eradicate some poppy fields. Sure.
For the first 140 years of our history, we had
essentially no Federal war on drugs, and far fewer problems with drug
addiction and related crimes was a consequence. In the past 30 years,
even with the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the drug war,
little good has come of it. We have vacillated from efforts to stop the
drugs at the source to severely punishing the users, yet nothing has
improved. This war has been behind most big government policy powers of
the last 30 years, with continual undermining of our civil liberties and
personal privacy. Those who support the IRS's efforts to collect maximum
revenues and root out the underground economy, have welcomed this
intrusion, even if the drug underworld grows in size and influence.
The drug war encourages violence. Government
violence against nonviolent users is notorious and has led to the
unnecessary prison overpopulation. Innocent taxpayers are forced to pay
for all this so-called justice. Our eradication project through spraying
around the world, from Colombia to Afghanistan, breeds resentment
because normal crops and good land can be severely damaged. Local
populations perceive that the efforts and the profiteering remain
somehow beneficial to our own agenda in these various countries.
Drug dealers and drug gangs are a consequence of
our unwise approach to drug usage. Many innocent people are killed in
the crossfire by the mob justice that this war generates. But just
because the laws are unwise and have had unintended consequences, no
excuses can ever be made for the monster who would kill and maim
innocent people for illegal profits. But as the violent killers are
removed from society, reconsideration of our drug laws ought to occur.
A similar approach should be applied to our war
on those who would terrorize and kill our people for political reasons.
If the drug laws and the policies that incite hatred against the United
States are not clearly understood and, therefore, never changed, the
number of drug criminals and terrorists will only multiply. Although
this unwise war on drugs generates criminal violence, the violence can
never be tolerated. Even if repeal of drug laws would decrease the
motivation for drug dealer violence, this can never be an excuse to
condone the violence. On the short term, those who kill must be
punished, imprisoned, or killed. Long term though, a better
understanding of how drug laws have unintended consequences is required
if we want to significantly improve the situation and actually reduce
the great harms drugs are doing to our society.
The same is true in dealing with those who so
passionately hate us that suicide becomes a just and noble cause in
their effort to kill and terrorize us. Without some understanding of
what has brought us to the brink of a worldwide conflict in
reconsidering our policies around the globe, we will be no more
successful in making our land secure and free than the drug war has been
in removing drug violence from our cities and towns.
Without some understanding why terrorism is
directed towards the United States, we may well build a prison for
ourselves with something called homeland security while doing nothing to
combat the root causes of terrorism. Let us hope we figure this out
soon. We have promoted a foolish and very expensive domestic war on
drugs for more than 30 years. It has done no good whatsoever. I doubt
our Republic can survive a 30-year period of trying to figure out how to
win this guerilla war against terrorism. Hopefully, we will all seek the
answers in these trying times with an open mind and understanding. CP
Ron Paul is a
libertarian/Republican who represents Texas's 14th congressional
district.
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