... by Alex Cockburn.
Apologies if this has already been posted.
The whole thing is at http://ww2.antiwar.com/cockburn/pf/p-c052501.html
-david
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ANTIWAR.COM
May 25, 2000
Pirates of the Air and Seas
Scenes from the Drug War
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By Alexander Cockburn
Imagine, you're flying at a height of 34,000 feet somewhere over the Persian Gulf; you see a fighter plane with what appear to be Saudi markings not far off on the port side. Next thing you know, the fellow next to you, with whom you'd been drinking gin and tonic only a moment before, is slumped forward with a machine gun bullet through his heart. The plane's depressurized from the bullet breaking the window but the pilot manages to land. Two are dead from the salvo, which many witnesses aboard your plane agree came from that Saudi plane.
Of course there's a big stink because the dead guys are both American. In the end it turns out that, under certain secret protocols in Saudi law, craft (whether maritime, airborne or terrestrial) suspected of harboring substances forbidden by the Koran, like alcohol, can be subject to "interdiction," i.e. shot up or down. The Saudi pilot claimed he'd waggled his wings at the passenger plane, indicating that it should follow him. Only after repeated efforts to signal had finally fired the fatal volley.
All a fantasy of course. True, the Saudi royal family doesn't endorse public consumption of alcohol, but it isn't in the business of shooting down booze-laden planes, however well informed the Saudi Royal Air Force might be about the consumption of gin aboard the suspect plane. And who knows, the Saudi royal family might even have reservations about the prudence, not to mention legality, of firing on civil aircraft.
But suppose the drug in question isn't booze but cocaine? And suppose the shooter's sponsor and legal protector isn't the puny Saudi royal family but the Government of the United States?
In that case we have as policy guide the decision memorandum signed by President Bill Clinton in June of 1994, bringing "closure," to use a fashionable term, to acrimony within the administration on this issue. The documents in question are all available from the National Security Archive, whose Kate Doyle sued for them under the Freedom of Information Act.
[the whole thing is available at:
http://ww2.antiwar.com/cockburn/pf/p-c052501.html
I can send the whole thing to anyone who requests offlist.]