COLOMBIA: BACK TO THE VIETNAM QUAGMIRE

As a teen-ager, Bill Clinton shook President John F. Kennedy's hand in the
Rose Garden and set his sights on the White House. But now, in the twilight
of his own presidency, Clinton has gone one step too far in emulation of
his role model.

Clinton stopped in Colombia last week, just long enough to hand the
government a check for $1.3 billion, which he insists will be used
exclusively to fight the war against illegal drugs.

If only life were so simple. In Colombia, it's not.

Columbia today is not one country, but two: the northern part, controlled
by the government; and the southern part, where all the coca is grown,
controlled by anti-government rebels of the the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia, or FARC.

Like government propagandists, the U.S. media consistently refer to FARC as
"Marxist guerrillas." Baloney. The conflict in Colombia is about money, not
ideology. There is no separating the guerrillas from the drug traffickers
and growers. Together, they make up one force, while the government makes
up the other. Just as the military is the army for the government, so the
FARC is the army for the drug cartel.

The two sides are locked in combat for control of very lucrative and
productive territory, and so far, the government has been losing.

Enter the United States. How? To negotiate a compromise between warring
factions and reunite the country? No. The United States has come down
firmly on the side of the government against the guerrillas.

Enter the United States. How? With economic assistance to teach and
encourage farmers to plant other, equally lucrative crops? No. Only 9
percent of the $1.3 billion targets alternative development programs for
coca farmers.

Enter the United States. How? With massive aid to help the government fight
a civil war. Three-quarters of Clinton's package is for military men and
materiel: the purchase of 60 new attack helicopters; the arming and
training of Colombian soldiers; and deployment of 500 U.S. military
advisors to assist government troops.

We have no military objective, Clinton tried to reassure the world, when he
handed over the check to Colombia's president. But no matter how
well-intentioned he is, there is no way he make that guarantee.

What happens when guerrillas fire on the first helicopter? Colombian
solders will fire back. What happens when the first U.S.

soldier is killed? Americans will start firing back. What happens when the
Colombian government says, as it surely will, that $1.3 billion is not
enough? The United States will send even more money and men, and soon well
be in the middle of another, unwinnable, land-based, civil war.

Clinton's Plan Colombia not only risks wider war, it's the wrong strategy.
Military power is not the way to stop illegal drugs. If people can't buy
coca from Colombia, they'll buy it from somewhere else. Crop eradication
doesn't work, either. Ecstasy, the latest drug of choice, is apure
chemical, no crops needed.

We will never win the war on drugs until we stop attacking it as a problem
of supply, and start dealing with it as a problem of demand.

"Asking South American peasants to stop growing coca is like asking the
Scots to stop growing barley because people on the other side of the world
could not hold their drink," said Britain's Princess Anne after visiting
the Andes. At least she understands the problem. Bill Clinton and Drug Czar
Barry McCaffrey do not.

And the only way to solve the problem of demand is treatment at home, not
chasing guerrillas in Colombia. A 1994 Rand study showed that domestic
treatment programs are 23 times more cost-effective than drug fumigation
and interdiction efforts abroad.

Our priorities are out of line, said Rep. Jim Ramstad (R-Minn.) in voting
against Plan Colombia. For the $400 million proposed to buy new helicopters
for Colombia, we could treat 200,000 addicts in the United States.

Do the arithmetic. For the entire $1.3 billion package, we could treat more
than 600,000 addicts. Instead, we refuse to deal with drug addiction as the
medical problem it is and continue to attack it as a military or
law-enforcement problem. Colombia is the latest misfire in our misguided
war against drugs, and a very dangerous one.

Haven't we been here before? We start by sending in military advisors and
spraying crops with poison. Next thing you know, we're back in the
quagmire. Bill Clinton's Plan Colombia has all the makings of JFK's Vietnam.