[Rhodes22-list] Which list is this.

[DCLewis1 at aol.com]

Stan,
 
You and I know "the war on drugs" is a phony metaphor.  The notion of  a war 
implies (to me) a beginning and an end.  There is no "end" to the war  on 
drugs, any more than there is a end to "the war on theft" or "the war on  
killings",  or "the war on child abuse" etc.  It's a behavior problem  and it'll be 
with mankind forever - along with rape, assault, theft, you name  it.  Because 
there is no "end" to the "war on drugs" we assume we haven't  won it, therefore 
we lost it, but that's not true - we will never completely win  it, hopefully 
we won't completely lose it, and behavior problems like drugs will  be with 
us forever.  Forget the war metaphor.
 
I agree the Afghanis and other drug sources will like us a lot better if  
we'd buy their drugs, but I think we'd be creating a major major domestic  
problem if we did that.  We'd be putting a monkey on the back of a lot of  citizens. 
 You don't like working to pay OPECs bill, just wait until you  see the 
addicts bill to Columbia and Afghanistan.  Wait until you see the  social services 
cost of keeping millions of addicts alive.  I'm  confident the costs will be 
in the hundreds of billions  to trillions of dollars/yr.   Apart from any 
morality, from an  economic perspective it's a big mistake to go down that path.
 
As you know, I don't think we owe the Afghanis anything.   I see  no good 
reason why we shouldn't just pack up and leave Afghanistan  tomorrow.  I really 
don't care if they like us.
 
Again, I don't think the key to shutting down terrorism is to shut down  
their $ supply - terrorism is cheap and shutting down every loose $ is going to  
be impractical.  I think Oklahoma City cost less than $100K, I'd be 9/11  cost 
less than $1M - these are not big numbers.  What might be more  practical is 
to go after the individual lighting rods that organize and motivate  the 
crackpots - i.e. get bin Laden and his ilk, get the guy that's running the  Sadr 
militia.  There are a finite number of charismatic guys that can pull  this kind 
of stuff off, they have to make themselves known as part of building a  
following, be aware what's going on, track 'em down and put 'em away.  On  the other 
side of the equation, build robust systems that can't be disrupted by  1 or 2 
individuals. I think it's a practical approach.
 
To me, leaving the US saddled with 50 million addicts is not a  practical 
approach.
 
Dave



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