HIGH ON DRUG-WARRING

The new president has a great deal on his mind, added to which is the
burden, imposed by past legislation and executive order, to conclude the
civil war in Colombia. That isn't the stated reason for our intervention in
that part of the world. We're all over the place in order to stop the
production and export of drugs, notably cocaine.

There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of President Pastrana's desire to
bear down on the drug trade, but what the government of Colombia is
actually worried about is a civil war. Bogota wants to cut off the cash
supply enjoyed by the rebels who, at the moment, dominate an area in the
south of Colombia approximately the size of Switzerland.

So now we hear about our newest FOL. That is a Forward Operating Location.
We were using Panama up until 18 months ago, but when Panama finally
asserted its sovereignty, it got twitchy about the continuation of U.S.
search planes operating out of its territory. So? We moved the operation to
Ecuador, and built an air base in Manta. From there our super E-3 AWACS
surveillance planes fly over Colombia and spot drug activity. Our pilots
don't just drop bombs on the drug lords' enterprises. We radio the
information to Colombian police and military detachments, and their role is
to swoop down and abort the export of cocaine to, primarily, U.S. consumers.

How long has this been going on? About as long as memory holds out, in the
matter of drug wars. What is most refreshing in recent news on the matter
is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's observation that we have got a
demand problem on our hands, not a supply problem. The government of
Ecuador is a little shaky, the incumbent president having inherited the
deal permitting the U.S. FOL in Colombia. The deal was executed by an
Ecuadoran president who since then has been ousted from power, fleeing to
the United States, where he resists efforts to return him to Ecuador to
face charges of abuse of power.

We are supposed to wiggle our way through any morphing of Ecuador policy on
the presence of U.S. airplanes operating out of its territory, from the
hospitality of one government, to fermenting opposition on the grounds that
by our presence we are violating Ecuador's sovereignty. Ecuador has an
unstated investment in the progress of the drug war. It desires success for
the Colombian fight against its rebels, but just not that measure of
success that would cause the warlords to move their operation south, into
Ecuador.

So: Mr. Bush inherits a truly anfractuous diplomatic problem in South
America in which different priorities are being shuffled in search of
common interests, however fragile. If the drug lords began to subsidize not
the rebels, but the government of Colombia, could we be certain that
Colombia would then be so hospitable to AWAC planes and helicopters and
military trainers?

O. Ricardo Pimentel, a columnist for the Arizona Republic in Phoenix, draws
attention to the movie "Traffic" as dramatizing the futility of our drug
policies. In that movie is depicted the ultimate invincibility of cash-crop
growers who can generate gold from tilling the soil. "The money in Colombia
is a particular waste," he comments, "in that the country is fighting an
honest-to-goodness civil war against guerrillas who want to topple the
government. These guerrillas just happen to be funded by the drug lords, as
are the paramilitary squads on the other side. In any case, even if the
effort is successful in eradicating cultivation and production, it will
just move to another country."

He seizes on the final sequence in the movie where the futile U.S. drug
czar, played by Michael Douglas, asks officials how much money they will
need to continue to fight the war. "More," answer the officials. "In this
kind of war," Mr. Pimentel comments, "the answer will always be 'more,' and
it will never be enough."

So, has Secretary Rumsfeld come up with a successful way to wage war
against the demand for drugs? No. There are proposals, from such as Gov.
George Pataki of New York and ex-drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey, that
suggest changing the emphasis on how to treat drug addicts. Treatment,
instead of incarceration. "We jail about 450,000 people every year in the
United States for nonviolent drug offenses," according to Mr. Pimentel.

Speaking of civil wars, Pimentel gives us some perspective: The Confederate
Congress called, at the outset of our Civil War, for the recruitment of
400,000 men.

Write to William Buckley at Universal Press Syndicate: 4520 Main St.,
Kansas City, Mo. 64111.