U.S. ALREADY IS ON A SLIPPERY SLOPE IN FIGHTING DRUG WAR IN COLOMBIA

LEWISBURG -- Former Drug Czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey says Colombia is
dying and we must not stand idly by. Colombian guerrillas have fired
on a "State Department helicopter" carrying "civilian contract
employees" seeking to rescue wounded crew members from a Colombian
helicopter gunship shot down while providing air cover for crop
dusters over coca fields. The myth that we are not militarily involved
in Colombia is fast eroding, and the slope is getting slippery.

The decision to provide military aid to Colombia for the war on drugs
cannot possibly succeed and is very likely to escalate into a more
direct and much more costly U.S. involvement.

Violence has deep roots in Colombia. A civil war that started in the
late 1940s as a battle between partisans of the traditional Liberal
and Conservative Parties, evolved in the 1960s in two directions.
First, local bosses throughout the country (Conservative and Liberal)
used violence to consolidate themselves in power, creating a local
politics af gangs, and a national politics of gang alliances.

Second, violence evolved into several guerrilla insurgencies, almost
all of which subscribed to some version of Marxism-Leninism, and all
of which were inspired by the success of the Cuban Revolution. Two of
those insurgent groups survive today: the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia (FARC), and the Army of National Liberation (ELN).

Underlying the violence is the deep poverty afflicting most
Colombians, urban and rural, and a profound inequality that makes
poverty all the more bitter. A poor Colombian in a violent society can
best assure her or his security either by becoming a client of a
political boss or by joining one of the guerrilla groups in hopes that
it can bring about radical transformation of the society. Both choices
perpetuate the violence.

Violent crime has increasingly afflicted the cities, another
manifestation of the profound insecurity of life for most Colombians.
Armed robbery and assault are ever-present dangers. The murder rate is
higher in Colombia than almost anywhere on earth. Poor young men make
brief careers as sicarios, hired killers who, for a modest fee, will
dart through traffic on a motorcycle and blow away a politician, a
business partner, a spouse. Their careers are brief because they too
will die violently, and they know it.

Floating atop this morass is a small national political class that has
managed, since the late 1950s, to maintain the form of electoral
democracy. There are competitive elections every four years (and
incumbents lose), there is freedom of speech and press (if you are
willing to risk assassination for your opinions, as an astonishing
number of Colombians are). The performance of democracy goes on in
Bogotá, but it is less and less relevant to what is happening
in the daily lives of Colombians.

It was in this environment that the drug trade emerged as big business
in the 1970s. Colombia had long produced marijuana for export to the
United States. Coca leaves were produced for local consumption in
Bolivia and Peru before the Spanish conquest, and cocaine had been
known for a century. But it was Colombian gangsters who saw the
possibilities posed by the exploding demand for cocaine in the United
States, forming a succession of underworld organizations that
controlled the entire process from production of the leaves to
delivery of finished cocaine.

The profits for the kingpins have of course been enormous, but it is
also important to realize that the average Colombian can make much
more moneyand have more security by joining the cocaine trade than by
any legal endeavor.

The drug cartels have fortified themselves in Colombia by cooperating
with any sector that could hurt them: guerrillas, police, military
officers, government officials, anticommunist death squads. Some
people in all of these sectors appear to have been only too willing to
accept profits from the drug trade in return for protection. Thus,
although the drug trade is not the origin of Colombia's crisis, it is
a cancer that has spread to all parts of the society.

To expect the Colombian Army or the Colombian State to root it out is
simply foolish. When they fail, as they will, the temptation for the
United States to become ever more directly involved will be
intense.Camouflaged military aid will not solve Colombia's many
interlocking problems. A determined effort to broker a peace
settlement might help.

What would help the most has nothing to do with military aid: We
should stop using cocaine.