We have always been at war with Oceania

[Bill Stewart]

The Indianapolis Star newspaper ran the NYTimes version of this story
with the headline "Drug Peddling Pilots May Get Wings Clipped".
I was assuming it would be about revoking their pilots' licenses
or confiscating their airplanes, but no, it was about
shooting them down and machine-gunning any fleeing passengers,
like they did to the Baptist missionary and her baby last year.
Under Fujimori's dictatorship in Peru, they claim to have shot down
about 25 planes, and some politician made a highly-pleased-with-himself
statement about how it's really discouraged traffickers.

There may be True Believers on the pro-terrorist side,
but cocainistas are in it for money, not ideology -
they're happy to blow up the occasional judge, but they're smart enough
not to try going toe-to-toe with the US military in a shooting war.

At 09:39 AM 07/04/2002 -0700, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
>http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&ncid=703&e=1&u=/ap/20020704/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_drug_flights_1
>
>President Bush ( news - web sites) is expected to allow resumption of a
>program to force down or
>    shoot down airplanes suspected of carrying drugs in Latin America,
>a senior administration official
>    said Thursday.
>
>Does Mr. Bush understand tit-for-tat?
>Hasn't he figured out that he can bust all the petty hawalas he wants,
>but the Cartels have *cash* to spend, an excellent distribution
>network, and a few submarines?
>Looking for True Believers speaking spanish...
>
>Maybe the Saudis will start taking planes out for carrying ethanol...