# Collateral Damage - Airborne Imperialism: The Tragic Deaths of Veronica and Charity Bowers

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-intercept-briefing-951534/collateral-damage-airborne-imperialism-the-tragic-deaths-of-veronica-and-charity-bowers
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-intercept-briefing-951534/collateral-damage-airborne-imperialism-the-tragic-deaths-of-veronica-and-charity-bowers.md
Podcast: [The Intercept Briefing](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-intercept-briefing-951534)
Published: 2025-12-26T10:30:00+00:00
Episode link: https://theintercept.com/2025/11/12/collateral-damage-episode-six-airborne-imperalism/
Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/f5b64019-68c3-57d4-b70b-043e63e5cbf6/e/694af63930165a956dceb3c8/media.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-intercept-briefing-951534/episodes/collateral-damage-airborne-imperialism-the-tragic-deaths-of-veronica-and-charity-bowers
Duration seconds: 3524

## Resource

We're excited to share another episode of The Intercept’s new podcast Collateral Damage . The investigative series examines the half-century-long war on drugs, its enduring ripple effects, and the devastating consequences of building a massive war machine aimed at the public itself. Hosted by Radley Balko , an investigative journalist who has been covering the drug war and the criminal justice system for more than 20 years, each episode takes an in-depth look at someone who was unjustly killed in the drug war.  Veronica and Charity Bowers, a young Christian missionary and her daughter, are killed when the Peruvian Air Force shoots down a small passenger plane in 2001. The plane had been mistaken for a drug smuggling plane and was shot down as part of a joint anti-drug agreement between the CIA and the Colombian and Peruvian governments. President Donald Trump has made the Bowers's deaths newly and urgently relevant since he began ordering the U.S. military to strike down alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean in September 2025. By early November, the U.S. had launched a total of 17 strikes, killing at least 70 people, and those figures seem to grow almost by the day . The attacks are illegal under both U.S. and international law. The administration also provided no documentation of the alleged drug trafficking .  The attack on the Bowers family pierced the veil that obscures drug war foreign policy because of their nationality, skin color, and relatability. More than 20 years ago, House Oversight Committee hearing members Jan Schakowsky and Elijah Cummings demanded accountability after U.S. drug interdiction forces killed the Bowers. They demanded to know how such a mistake could happen, and how we could prevent the loss of in…

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