If the executive branch of the US government — starting with President Nixon — has declared a federal “war on drugs” as US national policy, aren’t all lower-level federal officials who carry out this stupid war the equivalent of “war criminals”, including federal police agents (who investigate and arrest people for drug crimes), federal prosecutors (who instigate federal charges for the commission of drug crimes), and federal judges (who impose harsh sentences for drug crimes — see, for example, the table in yesterday’s post below), especially when you consider that a large fraction of drug offenders just “happen” to be black or Hispanic?

Of course, these lower-level federal officials could argue that they are just “following orders”, but if this defense did not work for lower-level Nazi war criminals, why should it work for them?