AFTER CLINTON & MCCAFFREY THE DELUGE

Is anyone else surprised that Republican Tom Campbell of San Jose, US
Senator Dianne Feinstein's opponent, is the only candidate for national
office we hear making much noise about the US being drawn into Colombia's
36-year civil war?

Congress has authorized President Clinton's and drug czar Barry McCaffrey's
spending $1.3 billion to purportedly revive Colombia's flagging war against
cocaine production. However, this explanation is not only dishonest, it
will probably lead to our going to war. And if that happens, our strongest
allies will probably be the biggest cocaine producers in the world.

The civil war essentially pits 17,000 guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC) against 7,000 members of rightwing paramilitaries
collectively known as the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). FARC and
the AUC, which both finance their forces through trafficking in coca, are
each stronger than the Colombian military.

The main difference between FARC on the left and AUC on the right is that
the guerrillas traffic in coca grown by peasants while the paramilitaries
traffic in cocaine grown by agribusiness. More appalling yet, the AUC is
headed by Carlos Castano, whose late brother Fidel was part of the Medellin
drug cartel before leading the paramilitaries.

Castano, as previously noted in this column, freely admits the AUC gets 70
percent of it financing from drug trafficking. One lab found last year in
the center of AUC territory was capable of processing eight tons of cocaine
per month. Hidden in the jungle, the lab covered seven square miles. Some
of its buildings were four stories high.

"Human rights groups insist the paramilitaries act with the connivance, if
not the active support of the Colombian army," noted The San Francisco
Examiner last Aug. 27. In short, we are about to give almost $1.3 billion
to a military that's in cahoots with cocaine producers we've spent 30 years
trying to wipe out.

In July, The San Francisco Chronicle editorialized that the FARC has "the
resources to endanger both soldiers on the ground as well as those in
military helicopters. Make no mistake: American soldiers are going to be
engaged in combat."

Worse yet, the more pressure the US puts on Colombia's guerrillas, the more
they spread out into neighboring countries. Both the AUC and a second
guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), have already begun
operating in neighboring Ecuador. Venezuela, Peru, Panama, and Brazil have
said they are alarmed at the prospect of our drug war spilling over into
their countries.

The borders these countries share with Colombia range from jungle to
isolated mountain tops. "We have to be alert to avoid the Vietnamization of
that region, said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez last month.

Also worried are the nations of Western Europe, who had pledged $2 billion
toward the Colombian drug war but are now reluctant to pony up. Even the
Colombian government is unprepared to contribute the $4 billion it had
pledged to the anti-drug war.

In addition, at least 38 humanitarian organizations, including the
International Red Cross and World Vision, have refused to accept US money
for helping refugees displaced by the fighting and for finding peasants
alternative crops to coca. The Colombian government appears unwilling or
unable to protect aid workers, The Chronicle noted in an editorial this month.

Yet we're blithely marching off to a war that Latin America, Europe, and
international charities won't touch. And we're doing it with hardly a peep
of opposition from Congress ­ although President Clinton did have to waive
standard human-rights requirements in order to supply arms to the brutal
Colombian military.

The world knows it is watching a disaster in the making. "Someday, people
will look back and ask, 'What were they thinking,'" commented a Chronicle
editorial last July 25. "The situation is turning surreal. The United
States is about to plunge into an undeclared war yet Colombia barely
registers on the political radar and has been mostly ignored by the
major-party candidates for US president."

Only Congressman Campbell is bold enough to point out the terrible folly of
getting into another unwinnable war, but it appears our parttime Stinson
Beach incumbent will be easily reelected despite voting for this madness.
Even drug czar McCaffrey, who convinced President Clinton to go to war, has
announced he will retire before the next president takes office.

I have not read his letter of resignation, but it he could have succinctly
described his contribution to the Clinton Administration with the old
French proverb: "Apres nous le deluge." Epilogue: The line "after us the
deluge" has been attributed to King Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour but
"was original with neither," sniffs Bartlett's.