WHY THE U.S. IS GETTING INVOLVED IN COLOMBIA'S WAR

The war on drugs has prompted Washington to shore up a beleaguered ally.
The problem is that nobody in Colombia has clean hands, and critics fear a
quagmire...

Along with the presidency, Bill Clinton inherited from President Bush the
Somalia deployment - a well-meaning overseas military operation that turned
into a nightmare. And as his parting gift, Mr. Clinton will leave his
successor an expanding U.S. military commitment in Colombia, which could
just as easily turn nasty.

President Clinton last week visited the troubled country to showcase the
$1.3 billion in mostly military U.S. aid being sent ostensibly to help
Colombia's security forces fight the war on drugs. But nothing is that
simple in a country that has been in the grip of an almost 40-year civil
war in which all of the major protagonists - the left-wing guerrillas of
the FARC and ELN groups; the right-wing paramilitary groups; and the
government's own army (which will be the prime beneficiary of the aid) -
have been linked both with ugly human rights abuses and with
narco-trafficking. Peace talks between the government and the guerrillas,
which began after the government recognized guerrilla control over huge
swaths of territory, have failed to resolve the conflict, and concerns over
Colombia's expanding narcotics exports have prompted Washington to
intervene on the government side.

Colombia produces 80 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States,
the largest proportion of it in territory under the direct control of the
FARC. Taxing the traffickers in exchange for protection earns the Marxist
army some $700 million a year, making it easily the wealthiest peasant
guerrilla movement in history, one that is better equipped than the army it
is fighting. That has prompted the U.S. to blur the distinction between
counterinsurgency and the war on drugs in order to strengthen the
government's forces - which many observers in the region and in the U.S.
believe is a no-win proposition unless America's appetite for narcotics is
diminished. But what congressional opponents of the U.S. aid package really
fear is that it may drag Washington into the quagmire of the ongoing civil
war. After all, the guerrillas and their supporters may be tempted to
retaliate for Washington's involvement by directly attacking U.S.
personnel, which would tend to prompt the Pentagon to expand its
commitment. And the human rights record of the Colombian military
Washington is currently re-equipping and training certainly won't win any
prizes - many of its officers have been widely reported to be working hand
in glove with the paramilitary groups responsible for a number of massacres
of civilians.

Yet the White House and the majority on Capitol Hill believe that without
the aid, the Colombian state is in danger of collapse, which in the end
would be good news only for the narco-traffickers and the Marxist tycoons
who protect them. On the other hand, regional leaders have pointed out that
even if "Plan Colombia" succeeds in lowering production of narcotics in
that country, that would simply displace the problem across the border into
Brazil, Venezuela or Peru. As long as there's a bullish market for drugs in
the U.S. and grinding poverty in Latin America, there's little chance of
eliminating the cocaine industry. So "Plan Colombia" remains a high-stakes
gamble that may well force Clinton's successor to be more engaged with
Latin America than any president since Ronald Reagan.