By Scott Tibbs, December 17, 2008
♣ A letter to the editor in Thursday's IDS takes issue with the description of Live Action Films as a "human rights" organization because LAF has "solely dedicated themselves to anti-abortion causes." There is no more pressing human rights issue than abortion, as babies are dismembered for profit at the rate of 1.2 million annually.
♣ The IDS staff editorial on Friday was unecessarily offensive, comparing a song and prayer before the opening of the Indiana House of Representatives to drunken and lewd behavuior by legislators in Australia. That the IDS had to reach back to 2005 for the story about the Indiana legislature demonstrates that this was little more than a cheap shot at people of faith. The IDS should apologize for this reckless and offensive attack.
♣ While the genocide in Sudan is truly apalling, it would be a mistake to send American combat troops there, even on a humanitarian mission. The American military, fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, would be overextended by a mission to Darfur. The military should not be used unless there is a vital national security interest at stake, and even then military force should be a last resort. While more aggressive diplomatic intervention and humanitarian aid is appropriate, we should heed the lessons of Somalia and avoid sending troops into what will inevitably be a quagmire.
♣ Chalk up another example of excess in the "War on Drugs" with a report by the CIA that pilots in the Peruvian air force, seeking to stop drug trafficking, fired "without being properly identified, without being given the required warnings to land, and without being given time to respond to such warnings as were given to land." This program, aided by the CIA, resulted in the death of an American missionary and her daughter in 2001. Whatever one thinks about decriminalization, abuses of power by government are a far greater threat to our liberty than the drug trade and it is disturbing that the CIA was involved in this disaster.
