Pubdate: Mon, 07 May 2001
Source: Post-Standard, The (NY)
Copyright: 2001, Syracuse Post-Standard
Contact:  http://www.syracuse.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/686

DRUG WAR YIELDS INNOCENT CASUALTIES

To the Editor:

Women and children, brutally slain in a moment of confusion.

Fatally bad judgments, breakdowns in discipline, lies and cover-ups. Easily 
overlooking the incident because it is a righteous cause.

The conflict was predicated upon false premises and sustained by willful 
prevarication. The men making the critical decisions on prosecuting the war 
knowing from the beginning that it could not be won.

When I read these words in the second editorial of last Sunday's Herald 
American with the title, "Casualties of War," I fully believed it would be 
about the shooting of the American Missionaries over the Peruvian jungle.

Then I read further, and saw that the story was actually about Bob Kerry 
and Vietnam.

What does it say when an editorial about suspected atrocities in the 
Vietnam war could so closely mirror an incident from the War on Drugs?

How many more of these terrible tragedies will occur in the War on Drugs? 
Remember, as George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are 
condemned to repeat it."

William John Meyer

North Syracuse

Kindness
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MAP posted-by: GD