INTERVENTION WILL LEAD TO QUAGMIRE

The news from Colombia early this week was anything but encouraging. Last
weekend, leftist guerrillas killed six people and kidnapped several others.
Bomb attacks in Cali, Colombia's third-largest city, leveled buildings near
a military base and injured three people. A bomb exploded Sunday in
Cartagena, a popular tourist spot on the Caribbean coast.

Then on Monday at least 24 people were killed in clashes between leftist
guerrillas (the FARC or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and
paramilitaries who may or may not be affiliated with the Colombian
military, near the village of El Prodigio, about 45 miles south of Medellin.

The outlawed paramilitary Self Defense Forces had warned earlier Monday
that they are prepared "to die or conquer" in an effort to prevent
Colombian President Andr s Pastrana Arango from turning over control of a
1,500-square mile area in northern Colombia to a second rebel group, the
National Liberation Army.

Last week, President Pastrana was in Washington asking President Bush to
pledge more aid to Colombia in addition to the $1.3 billion in mostly
military aid to fight against coca production, manufacturing and smuggling
in and out of Colombia, the illicit trade that finances much of the
violence that wracks the country.

The administration is said to be considering aid to Ecuador, Bolivia and
Peru, neighbors of Colombia whose governments had previously expressed
doubt about American involvement in Colombia's drug wars, which is supposed
to be separate from, but is inextricably linked to, the 40-year civil war
the country has endured.

Before the involvement - begun by the Clinton administration - is so
intense that it becomes a matter of not wanting to appear as if the
invincible United States is backing down, the Bush administration should
take a hard-nosed, skeptical look at U.S. intervention in Colombia.

One can understand empathy and a desire to help a country facing such a
wrenching and violent struggle. But the likelihood of playing a
constructive role is so low and the cost of trying and failing could be so
high that prudence would suggest ending the U.S. commitment in Colombia.

The current civil war in Colombia has its roots in the 1950s, when a
10-year war called "La Violencia" followed the split of the two main
parties. The conflict simmered at a low level for years, then gained new
energy in the 1980s when Colombia emerged as a leading producer of coca and
cocaine. Leftist guerillas and then rightist paramilitaries offered to
protect cocaine traffickers for a share of the profits and the drug-trade
money has made it possible for all sides to escalate the violence.

The notion that the United States can help the Colombian government
eradicate cocaine trafficking without becoming embroiled in the ongoing
civil war is na ve at best.

The United States might hope to play a strictly advisory role, but U.S.
forces are more likely to be drawn in or targeted the longer the United
States is an active player.

It is unlikely the U.S. government will end its war on drugs, which would
be the most effective way to take much of the profit out of the trade and
steam out of the civil war.

But it should think long and hard before increasing a commitment to a
conflict that must eventually be settled by those participating in it, not
through the intervention of Uncle Sam.