DON'T EXPAND A FAILED POLICY

THE ELECTION of a hard-line president in Colombia on Sunday gave the Bush
administration a new partner and a new excuse to drag Washington further
into a civil war under the guise of fighting terrorism. In Sunday's
election, 53 percent of Colombia's voters supported Alvaro Uribe Velez. He
wants Washington to help him carry out his promise to double military
spending and give the army a freer hand in crushing leftist guerrillas.

Congress has restricted U.S. military aid to Colombia to a
drug-interdiction program that has failed. Coca production has risen by 25
percent in spite of the U.S. efforts to destroy coca crops, crush cocaine
labs and halt traffickers in Colombia.

The focus may now shift to yet another doomed mission. A week before
Colombia's presidential election, the White House persuaded the U.S. House
to pass a supplemental appropriations bill that would allow President
George W. Bush to send troops and military equipment to Colombia for
missions beyond countering drug trafficking.

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Lexington, a member of the House Armed Services
Committee, voted against the measure. He notes that the U.S. military
already is stretched thin by other commitments around the globe. That
strain is due partly to the administration's ever-broadening definition of
terrorism and of nations that supposedly pose a threat to U.S. security.

The conflict in Colombia is a civil war dating back to the Kennedy
administration. The three broad groups that are destabilizing the nation
are the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National
Liberation Army (ELN), and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia
(AUC). The FARC and ELN are made up of leftist guerrillas; the AUC consists
of right-wing paramilitary vigilantes. What the three have in common is
their having resorted to drug trafficking and extortion in a conflict that
has undermined Colombia's vitality and stability.

Mr. Skelton says the administration has not made a credible case for
expanding the U.S. role in Colombia. He touched on another matter that
might make Americans think twice about giving the administration a blank
check for this venture: Colombia's law allows its wealthy and educated
youth to avoid military combat. In other words, American's sons could
become proxies in a war that some of Colombia's own sons do not have to fight.

This may be the kind of policy President-elect Uribe will embrace. But it's
a bad policy for Americans. The House measure marks a significant and
misguided shift in U.S. foreign policy, one that the Senate should reject
when it takes up this supplemental appropriations bill.