Say no to US drug inquisition
The US State Department's recent assessment of Taiwan's cooperation in the drug war is a clear indicator that the US government uses its superpower status to export a dangerous moral crusade around the globe ("US reports on laundering crimes, drugs in Taiwan," Mar. 3, page 4). The tough-on-some-drugs approach is a proven failure.
Consider the experience of the former land of the free and current record holder in citizens incarcerated. Police searches on public transit, drug-sniffing dogs in schools, and random drug testing have led to a loss of civil liberties in the US, while failing miserably at preventing drug use.
Based on finds that criminal records are inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents, a majority of EU countries have decriminalized marijuana. Despite marijuana prohibition and perhaps because of forbidden fruit appeal, lifetime use of marijuana is higher in the US than any European country.
The drug war is in large part a war on marijuana, by far the most popular illicit drug. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. Unfortunately, marijuana represents the counterculture to misguided reactionaries intent on legislating their version of morality. Taiwan should follow the lead of Europe and "just say no" to the American inquisition.
Robert Sharpe
Washington
War is for the birds
Those who tell us we are witnessing a game of geopolitical chicken between US President George Bush and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein may have nailed the wrong bird. By stooping to Saddam Hussein's own kind of games, Bush is showing himself to be just as big a turkey as the Iraqi dictator.
What's astounding, and what the rest of the world is struggling to find a way to fathom, is that the US president is and has been systematically throwing away his country's leadership of the free world and turning the world's greatest democracy into an evil empire that acts only out of narrow self interest [global warming, tobacco trafficking -- and now Iraqi oil]. Call it what you will, such behavior is not leadership.
The world wants the US to see the light and draw back from the lunacy of single-handedly turning the new global order into "I'm the biggest so I'll do whatever I want, no matter what the rest of you think."
By all means, the world needs to be rid of Saddam. But much more than that, the world needs US leadership. That is vastly more important than regime change in Iraq.
The pundits have it wrong. This isn't an issue of who blinks first, Bush or Hussein. It's not chicken for the US to listen to the majority and back off, even at this late hour. It's democracy. It's what the US is about. It's what the world wants the superpower to be about.
There is all this talk of saving face. The "face" George W. Bush will save by going to war is his own, not his country's.
Today we have two leaders facing off for a costly, deadly and destructive conflict, each more concerned about himself than his nation. It's a sad day when it's harder to tell which is the bigger turkey.
William Stimson
Wufeng, Taichung County
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