WELCOME TO THE WAR, MR. PRESIDENT

TODAY, PRESIDENT Clinton will visit Andres Pastrana, the president of
Colombia, a country the White House claims is vital to the national
security of the United States. Eager to demonstrate solidarity with
Colombia's fragile government, Clinton also comes bearing gifts, $1.3
billion in aid, ostensibly to expand the war against drugs.

To receive these funds, the Colombian government was supposed to meet
seven human rights conditions imposed by Congress. It met only one.
Undeterred, President Clinton signed a waiver that released the aid to
the Colombian government.

That decision drew angry responses from Amnesty International, Human
Rights Watch and the Washington Office on Latin America. Together, they
issued an unprecedented joint report that criticizes Clinton's decision
and condemns Colombian government and paramilitary forces for
committing major human rights abuses and violations in a continuing 36-
year civil war.

With the prospect of American aid pouring into Colombia, peace talks
have stalled and the violence on all sides has increased. To ensure
President Clinton's safety, the Colombian government has deployed a
fleet of patrol ships, a squadron of choppers, and encircled the
meeting place in the coastal city of Cartagena with 5,000 army troops.
Meanwhile, the Secret Service, unwilling to permit the president to
sleep even one night in Colombia, has flown in a phalanx of protectors.

Few people in Colombia believe that U.S. military helicopters will be
used to fight the growth and traffic in coca leaves. Leftist rebel
forces argue that the United States is entering a civil war on the side
of the government. When American soldiers fly above the rebels,
assisting government troops, they will become military targets, subject
to antiaircraft fire.

Some Colombian intellectuals and journalists, moreover, suspect that
America's real ``natural security interest'' is the protection of
multinational corporations' access to huge oil reserves, inconveniently
located on peasant lands in rebel-controlled areas of the north.

As America's involvement in Colombia's civil war deepens, a growing
number of political leaders -- as well as ordinary citizens -- are
questioning the wisdom of Clinton's foreign policy.

In California, Sen. Barbara Boxer originally voted for the aid package.
But she also vigorously supported two amendments that would have
reduced funds used for military intervention. Now she has publicly
criticized Clinton for signing the human rights waiver and releasing
military aid to Colombia.

Tom Campbell, a Republican candidate for the Senate, has been a leading
voice of dissent. His rival, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, supported the aid
package, which originally had greater provisions to protect human
rights. At the time, she said that the ''ongoing narco-crisis in
Colombia and the overall crisis of drugs in America represent an
important threat to our nation's security and stability.'' Since then,
she has voiced no public protest against plans for military
intervention.

And so, America's entry into the Colombian war begins. In the past,
Americans have harshly judged those elected officials who failed to
speak up before American soldiers died. The time for dissent is now.