A POLICY RECALLING VIETNAM, NICARAGUA

Holding up a map of Southeast Asia, the government of Panama last week sent
U.S. officials the diplomatic equivalent of "Hell, no, we won't go." Any
way you looked at the map, signposts pointed to a quagmire in the southern
hemisphere.

In nearby Colombia, President Clinton and a bipartisan entourage of 35 U.S.
officials were not amused by this rebuff. They had wanted to use the
Central American nation as a staging area to fight Marxist-backed
narcotics-trafficking in Colombia.

There they were in Cartagena - all set for lights, camera and action - when
Panama pulled the plug. Next came Venezuela, whose president, Hugo Chavez,
said such intervention, albeit at Colombia's behest, "could lead us to a
Vietnamization of the whole Amazon region."

Not at all, said Clinton. "This is not Vietnam," he insisted, "nor is it
Yankee imperialism." Republicans and Democrats in his entourage agreed.

As the politicians once more scrutinize the definition of "is," here's what
to expect now that the Washingtonians are safely back in their brownstones
thousands of miles from Bogota.

Americans, through Plan Colombia and congressional approval of a $1.3
billion aid package, have entered Colombia's 40-year-old civil war and have
done so with no exit in sight. (See Vietnam.)

That strategic oversight coincides with a bizarre anti-human-rights
arrangement that undermines whatever good intentions are behind the war on
narco-trafficking. Blood will be on Democratic and Republican hands.

Panamanians can see what's coming.

Not only does the Colombian initiative evoke the Vietnam quagmire, but a
military escalation in the region would represent regressive, rather than
progressive, policy. Bordering nations want diplomacy and dialogue to end
the civil war, not just the drug war.

In Colombia it's difficult to tell guerrillas from drug traffickers because
sometimes they inhabit the same body. Sometimes the drug lords use
civilians as shields, the way the Vietcong did. It's pure folly to trust
the Colombian military, recipient of 60 helicopters from Uncle Sam, to not
target civilians given its record thus far.

As the Central American region moves toward further democratization, this
buildup in foreign aid and materiel - virtually certain to be followed by
more advisers and possibly deployments - tilts things in the wrong
direction. This is Vietnam and Nicaragua rolled into one.

In Reagan's presidency, when $1 million daily went to El Salvador and
Thomas Pickering was U.S. ambassador there, it was a Republican
administration and a Democratic Congress. Now there's a Democratic
president and Republican Congress.

And Pickering, promoted to under secretary of state, oversees U.S. policy
supportive of Colombian President Andres Pastrana's $7.5 billion Plan Colombia.

In Reagan's day, U.S. funds went to fight leftist guerrillas in Nicaragua.
Under Clinton, money goes to fight Marxist-backed coca-growers in Colombia.
It took the diplomacy of the Contadora nations, not just military might, to
get peace in Central America. It may take such an alliance, not the
prescribed foreign military aid, to bring peace to Colombia.

But where there's drugs and money, there's the potential for wrong. In the
Iran-contra scandal of the Reagan administration, some Americans took part
in drugs-for-arms-for-hostages schemes. Here's what has happened already
with Colombia.

In July, a federal judge sentenced Col. James Hiett, former commander of
the U.S. military's anti-drug operation in Colombia, to five months in
prison for trying to launder $25,000 in cash from his wife's heroin and
cocaine operation. The U.S. Embassy in Bogota was used as a point of transfer.

Also consider: The U.S. aid package, including helicopters and military
"advisers," comes just as Republicans have blamed Clinton for stretching
military commitments too far. Yet, GOP support for Plan Colombia stretches
things further over time.

That's OK because, as House Speaker Dennis Hastert said, it's necessary.
The Illinois Republican said in Colombia: "For the sake of our children and
grandchildren, we can't afford to let this fail."

Congress will also spin the venture this way: The Colombian aid package is
a supplement to a military construction bill that would, conceivably,
improve conditions for U.S. troops domestically.

Supporters of Plan Colombia insist this won't be a U.S. military operation
but that story won't hold up for long. Colombian rebels vowed to oppose
"U.S. aggression." The Miami Herald last week reported that U.S. Brig. Gen.
Keith Martin of the Southern Command will oversee the military aspects of
the Colombian package.

This won't be a tidy operation by a longshot.