GET OUT

Time To Leave Colombia, Not To Escalate

The U.S. presence in Colombia can't be compared to the early years of
Vietnam. Or that's what government officials kept saying as they sent
soldiers from Fort Bragg to help conduct a war on drugs. But that old line
about the drug war being unlike Vietnam is getting harder to believe.

Officials have decided to push more aggressively into Colombia, where it's
difficult to tell drug traffickers from rebel forces involved in the
activity. So the one thing the Vietnam era has in common with the Colombia
effort today is escalation.

Rep. John Conyers Jr., who was quoted in the Los Angeles Times, isn't
fooled. This mission is becoming more than a drug war.

"What it sounds like is that we may be in the process of erasing the line
between the civil war, the rebel activity and the counter- narcotics
initiative. It's not going to lead us in a good direction."

He's right. And the outcome is preordained. The winners will lose, the
losers will lose, and Americans will lose.

The only stake our nation has in 40 years of internal strife in Colombia is
an appetite for drugs that won't be sated no matter how many Green Berets
are sent there, no matter how many Colombians our nation trains to fly
helicopters.

If Colombia disappears from the world of narco-trafficking, then other
countries -- including our own -- will be able to fill that void with
heroin, methamphetamine, and synthetic drugs.

The United States is, by decision or accident, taking sides in a civil war
in Colombia. If it hasn't already.

The only drug war we have is the one that should be fought at home.