WH announces resumption of foreign "shoot down" program

[Superfly]

From the Aircraft Owner's and Pilot's Association (AOPA)

http://www.aopa.org/

<snip>

The White House announced today the resumption of the "Airbridge Denial Program" with Colombia, the U.S. drug interdiction program allowing the use of deadly force against civilian aircraft. This is the first of the "Airbridge" programs to resume after the tragic shoot-down of a missionary aircraft in Peru in 2001. While the White House said that Colombia now has "appropriate procedures to protect against loss of innocent life, AOPA and the International Council of Aircraft Owner and Pilot Associations reiterated opposition to the use of deadly force against civilian aircraft that are not a threat to national security.

<snip>

[Superfly]

1. Kick

somebody's gotta care about this!

[bluestateguy]

2. This will have dreadful consequences

Yes, maybe some drug runners' planes will br shot down. Maybe. But it won't be worth it when a nice, All-American family veers off course by accident and is mistaken for a "drug dealer" by some Homer Simpson at the control panel.

[papau]

3. In Afghanistan Drug production up 1000% - ane we say we will do nothing

because it might anger the warlords that control Afghanistan (our friends in Kabul only control Kabul) - and that fact can not become known to the US public until after the 04 election.

But we sure can shoot down planes in South America - based on private enterprise contracted out services that we now use in lieu of DEA or DOD folks.

But as with the last mistake, if we kill someone again in error, we will tell Congress, as we did before, that we have no information on why we were told to shoot the plane down - so it is not our error - go talk to that private company that we hired but whose work we do not review. And Congress will back off - as they did last time!

Isn't the Bush plan to privatize Gov working splendidly!

:-)

[Superfly]

4. Not to put too fine a point on it...

but it was the Peruvian AF that shot down that Cessna in 2001.