Can’t have both

A comment from M. Simon reminded me of something which was drummed home further by today’s events.

The war on drugs makes it harder to fight the war on terrorism.

I don’t mean simply diversion of resources, although it would be nice to shut down the DEA and all the various drug enforcement divisions and redeploy them against real threats to our country and our safety (as opposed to the inverse). Drugs contaminate law enforcement by corruption, and by guaranteeing ridiculous prices for illegal drugs they provide a perfect opportunity for terrorists to fund themselves.

The war on drugs fuels terrorism.

Then of course, there is mission creep. Ordinary citizens might be willing to accept NSA type spying on terrorist communications, but when that morphs into supplying data to ordinary law enforcement, when the technology developed to fight terrorism is redeployed by local police in the name of the war on drugs, the situation becomes intolerable.

And it is one thing for tactics and weapons to be developed, sharpened and honed to allow our combat forces to conduct door-to-door operations against terrorists. But when the same technology and weaponry are then brought home and used against American civilians, simply because they might allegedly be engaged in the victimless crimes of using, buying, or selling certain plants or substances, then the war on terror becomes a war on American civilians. All the more so when military personnel return to this country to be redeployed as “police officers.” (Is it any coincidence that SWAT team raids against civilians suspected of victimless crimes have increased dramatically since September 11, 2001?)

To be blunt, I think that for the USA to wage both a war on drugs and a war on terrorism, it will have to wage war on the Constitution, and with the American people.

What a mess.

It might not have hit the major news, but earlier I read about an innocent 68 year old man who was lying on the floor and who had cooperated fully with the police was shot to death by a SWAT team, with the drug war as the usual pretext.

They keep this stuff up and pretty soon ordinary people will start asking irritating questions about what constitutes terrorism.