On the Border of Madness

Is it really a war against drugs?
Or is it an Inquisition dressed in modern clothing?

by Claire Wolfe
© 2000 by Claire Wolfe Artwork © 2000 by Nick Bougas

When, at the first large town, soldiers asked how they could distinguish between heretics and orthodox,
the Cistercian [Abbot of Citeaux, leading the 13th Century crusade against the Albigensians] thundered:
“Kill them all, God will know his own”1…

Seventy-five percent of the people in the Texas border town of Redford are narco-traffickers.
It's a known fact. The town is hostile. If you see anyone there with a gun, he's probably a drug runner
or a scout for drug runners.

At least, that's what the Marines were told.

So when four soldiers on a drug-interdiction patrol spotted 18-year-old goatherder, Esequiel Hernandez,
one afternoon in 1997, they assumed the worst. When young Zeke -- an honor student and classic good boy
-- raised his WWI-vintage .22 rifle and fired into the brush, they knew he was shooting at them.
Never mind that they were 200 yards away, camouflaged by shaggy ghillie suits. Never mind that
country boys herding goats shoot guns for many reasons, from playful plinking to varmint control.
They knew. Zeke was a drug runner, a gunman. The Enemy.

The Marines never considered yelling, “Hey, kid! Cut it out, there are people out here!”
They never considered shouting, “Drop your gun or we'll shoot!” They claimed the wind would
have made it impossible to hear. Never mind that no one else noticed any wind that afternoon.

Marine Corporal Clemente Banuelos radioed that he was going to “take him” next time Zeke
raised his rifle in their direction. He got a roger. And - after following Zeke for 20 more minutes
as the boy moved away from the Marines hidden in the brush - they “took him.”

At least, that's what they said. The autopsy on Esequiel Hernandez indicated that he was
facing away from the man they said he was aiming at. But never mind that - and never mind
all the other discrepancies in the Marines' accounts of the shooting. A Congressional report2 found
“mistakes” and “inadequacies in training.” Small matters like a wound on the wrong side of a body troubled them
somewhat, but didn't seem obvious evidence of criminality. A grand jury found “no bill” against the shooter.

Oh, yes, the Justice Department and the Pentagon (whose joint operation it was)
quickly paid the family of Esequiel Hernandez more than a million dollars. But no individual government
agent paid any price for the shooting. The Drug War went on.

And so did the intimidation.

In the months after Zeke's killing, children weren't allowed out to play for fear of soldiers
hidden in the gullies. Unmarked helicopters continued to buzz homes and herds. Nearly three years later,
Father Mel LaFollette, retired Episcopal priest and neighbor of the Hernandez family, says,
“I don't think anybody's hiding in their house…but there's still a great bitterness and suspicion.
The military people have said they don't go on patrols anymore, but no one really believes that.

“Washington sent a new boss for the Marfa sector of the Border Patrol who is a public relations expert.
He has at least made things a little smoother for the residents. They haven't been subject to the
harassment they used to be - stopping the same person four or five times during a routine trip to Presidio
for shopping - 16 miles away. Someone who might decide to walk a mile or two might be questioned
over and over again. That has lessened, but I wouldn't say it doesn't happen any more.
The word is out not to harass the natives too much. But a stranger comes through here at his own peril.”

He concludes: “We're kind of a lab experiment here on the border [for forces who want control],
and if they succeed with us we'll live in a real police state instead of this partial police state.”3

“Police state,” however, is simply a modern term for an ancient form of terror. What's happening today
in the name of a War on Drugs has happened before - an exercise of raw power and putrid
corruption in the name of a “righteous” cause.

We can see through the ancient lies. Why is it so much harder to see through the lies
that are brutalizing us today?

In the beginning it was a war against heretics

Pope Lucius II in 1184… laid down the penalties as exile, confiscation, and infamy (loss of civil rights)
:… Then came Innocent III, who…completed the foundations of the Inquisition by reaffirming,
with heavier emphasis, that the bishops were not to wait for charges of heresy, but were to seek
out heresy, or make an inquisitio. They were to have special officials, or “inquisitors,” for this purpose….
Its birth is variously put by historians in 1229, 1231, and 1232. By the latter year, at all events, the
Inquisition was established, and the hounds of the Lord felt the bloody rag at their nostrils.

In the late twelfth century - with its crusades against the Eastern Infidel losing their appeal and profitability
- the world's superpower, the Catholic Church - turned upon its own. Beginning with the crusade against
the Albigensians of Southern France and continuing with the Inquisition, the Church began to root out,
imprison, slaughter and seize property from “heretics” within its midst.

Indeed, the Church had a very real “heretic problem.” Millions secretly or openly held anti-Roman views,
disgusted by Church corruption. This was insupportable to an institution whose power lay in its ability to
dictate what people should think.

Continue to Prt 2