Pubdate: Thu, 05 Jul 2001
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Section: Cyberletters
Copyright: 2001 The Dallas Morning News
Contact:  http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Author: J.F. Wilson

HUMPTY DUMPTY DRUG WAR POLICY

Re: "Ensuring Justice - Congress needs to approve border courts," 
Editorials, June 29. This editorial reminds me of the story of Humpty Dumpty.

The U.S. laid an egg with the drug war policy. The egg inevitably cracked 
under the promise of a drug-free America. And with that crack came the 
"tough on drugs" scramble of legislative escalation: build a wall, close 
the border, call the National Guard, send in the military, use more 
surveillance, dispatch more patrol, spend more money than last year and get 
tougher than ever before.

And, yet, the result of escalation is as your column noted, "the situation 
has left border courts looking like an inner city hell, where judges work 
as furiously and as forgotten as any overwhelmed Bronx magistrate ... the 
situation is a mockery of the constitutional promise of a speedy trial. 
More than 25 percent of all federal criminal prosecutions are now filed in 
the five judicial districts that run along the U.S.-Mexico border."

And just as all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put 
Humpty Dumpty together again, the "Let's do more of the same and expect 
different results" behavior of Sens. Dianne Feinstein, Phil Gramm and Kay 
Hutchison produces little more than the stench of rotting egg on their faces.

J.F. Wilson
Kettle Falls, Wash
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth