|
Extreme and More Extreme
1/28/05
https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/372/extreme.shtml
David Borden, Executive
Director, [email protected]
|
 |
|
David
Borden
|
Last week, members of a drug
task force in Niagara Falls in upstate New York caused severe injury to
an innocent bystander in the process of conducting a drug raid. Someone
had the bright idea of using a "flash bang grenade" to distract possibly
armed suspects and reduce the risk of injury to the police officers.
It caught fire, and a woman living in the house, who was not a suspect,
was hospitalized with second and third degree burns. Members of the
community are troubled by the extremity of the task force's tactics, and
the police are deservedly on the hot seat.
Peter Christ, a retired police
captain from nearby Tonawanda and a leader of the group Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition, told the Buffalo News, "[T]hese are
like military devices. When you use it, you're putting people in
danger." Without judging the specific situation absent all the facts,
Christ offered an analysis of why extreme tactics such as use dangerous
pyrotechnic devices like the flash grenades have become so routine.
"The reason people accept the use of devices like this is our society's
lack of respect for the people who are being arrested. They're just
'drug dealers' or 'drug addicts.'" And the innocent get caught in
the crossfire, too.
At least Niagara's police
didn't intend to hurt anyone, or so one presumes. On the other side
of the world, death squads are massacring supposed drug offenders in a
wave of extrajudicial vigilante killings, with the outward approval of
the nation's president and likely collusion by a popular mayor. Doubtless
the same kind of attitude is at work, though in a much more extreme way
-- they're just "drug dealers" or "drug addicts," they're criminals, not
good enough to even take to trial, just kill them off and clean up the
streets.
That is troubling enough.
What is doubly troubling is the US government's recent decision to enter
into collaboration with Filipino anti-drug police and military agencies
in the very same region. Will US drug agents and military serviceman,
employed with US taxpayer dollars, indirectly participate and subsidize
one of the worst manifestations of human barbarism, death squads?
Is our government truly willing to not merely overlook mass government-sanctioned
and sponsored murder, but to closely work with the very people in the very
places who work with and support the murderers?
Evidently yes. And
that is abhorrent. How best to engage foreign governments and leverage
our relations to promote human rights is a complex issue, an issue on which
reasonable people can reasonably come to different conclusions as to what
they feel is the best course to take. But there is no possible benefit
to human rights from linking our own drug enforcement bureaucracies so
closely to known death squad activity. If our government won't stand
up to that evil, at least it should not reward it with cooperation -- certainly
not in drug enforcement, which decades of experience proves does not work.
This is not an issue where it can be argued that one evil should be tolerated
for a greater good.
Unfortunately, there will
be more outrages before they stop. Let outraged voices ring loud
and clear around the globe.
-- END --
|
Issue #372
-- 1/28/05
Drug
War
Chronicle
Needs
Your
Support
in
2005
|
Extreme and More Extreme |
US
Training
Philippine
Soldiers,
Cops
in
Hotbed
of
Anti-Drug
Death
Squad
Activity
|
Tip
of
the
Iceberg:
Police
Perjury
Goes
Far
Beyond
Tom
Coleman
|
Newsbrief:
This
Week's
Corrupt
Cops
Stories
|
Blogging:
News
Stream
Continues
to
Illustrate
Futility
of
Prohibition
and
the
Urgent
Need
for
Some
Form
of
Legalization
|
Newsbrief:
Police
Use
Flash
Bang
Grenade
in
Marijuana
Raid,
Injure
Innocent
Woman
--
DRCNet
Mentioned
|
Newsbrief:
Supreme
Court
Allows
Drug
Dog
Vehicle
Searches
Without
Cause
|
Newsbrief:
In
Sentencing
Ruling
Fallout,
Supreme
Court
Orders
Review
of
Federal
Sentences
for
Hundreds
of
Prisoners
|
Newsbrief:
US
Backs
Off
from
Afghan
Aerial
Spraying
as
Anti-Opium
"Jihad"
Gets
Underway
|
Newsbrief:
US
Pressures
UN
Drug
Office
to
Oppose
Harm
Reduction
Language,
UN
Says
Okay
|
Newsbrief:
Justice
Department
Ends
Appeal
of
Ruling
Throwing
Out
Ban
on
Transit
Ads
for
Marijuana
Law
Reform
|
Newsbrief:
Alaska
Governor
Seeks
to
Overturn
Legal
Home
Marijuana
Possession
|
Newsbrief:
Meth
I
--
New
Senate
Methamphetamine
Bill
Would
Limit
Cold
Pill
Sales
Nationwide
|
Newsbrief:
Meth
II
--
Federal
CLEAN-UP
Act
Cleaned
Up
--
Provision
Designed
to
Punish
Music
Venues
Dropped
|
Newsbrief:
Meth
III
--
Kansas
Sheriff
Killed
in
Confrontation
at
Methamphetamine
Lab
|
Newsbrief:
London
Authorities
Grumble
One
Year
Into
Cannabis
Reclassification
|
Newsbrief:
Japan
to
Move
to
Outlaw
Designer
Drugs
|
This
Week
in
History
|
The
Reformer's
Calendar
|
This issue -- main page
This issue -- single-file printer version
Drug War Chronicle -- main page
Chronicle archives
|
PERMISSION to reprint or
redistribute any or all of the contents of Drug War Chronicle (formerly The Week Online with DRCNet is hereby
granted. We ask that any use of these materials include proper credit and,
where appropriate, a link to one or more of our web sites. If your
publication customarily pays for publication, DRCNet requests checks
payable to the organization. If your publication does not pay for
materials, you are free to use the materials gratis. In all cases, we
request notification for our records, including physical copies where
material has appeared in print. Contact: StoptheDrugWar.org: the Drug Reform Coordination Network,
P.O. Box 18402, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 293-8340 (voice), (202)
293-8344 (fax), e-mail [email protected]. Thank
you.
Articles of a purely
educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of the DRCNet
Foundation, unless otherwise noted.
|
