AID TO COLOMBIA ONLY BUYS MORE DRUG-WAR SMOKE

President Clinton bought $1.3 billion worth of political cover last
week by giving final authorization to a controversial anti-drug aid
package for Colombia. He will visit, ever so briefly, that South
American country on Aug. 30 to check on his investment.

Clinton hauls in a bargain, since the money is not his. He buys
protection for the Democrats against silly charges of being soft on
drugs, and throws in a presidential stopover for a few hours in a
place that is every security agent's nightmare.

U.S. taxpayers may get more than they realize or ultimately want for
their money. The investment engages the United States in a civil war
on the side of military forces it cannot control or easily monitor.
And Plan Colombia will not produce a victory over drug trafficking and
use, unfortunately.

The aid package fosters the illusion that Washington is coping with an
intractable social and criminal problem at home that shows no sign of
going away. That is the point of political cover, of course, and its
peril.

America's politicians are not dealing honestly with the national drug
epidemic that is overwhelming our available medical, social and
criminal justice resources. They are not likely to do so until the
country has a president who will stage a national intervention.

That is, a president who will honestly, persistently and clearly
explain to the nation the severity of the problem and then acknowledge
the inadequacy of the current approach. That president will charge
every elected official at municipal, state and federal levels with the
responsibility for working to lessen the drug burden on American
society every day and then to hold them to it.

The national intervention would turn the spotlight on these officials,
rather than on Colombia's guerrilla-fighting forces or Mexico's
president, and the key role Americans must play in the struggle
against narcotics. Political involvement in drug abuse education,
rehabilitation and enlightened law enforcement remains spotty, and at
odds with inflated rhetoric about waging "war" on drugs.

Representative governments routinely purchase political cover when an
intractable problem upsets their electorates. They deflect blame onto
others or build minimal plausible claims they are doing the best
anyone possibly could.

But political cover eventually becomes the governmental equivalent of
the drug user's psychological state of denial, blocking honest
attempts to come to terms with the problem.

Clinton's signature on a national security waiver on Wednesday cleared
the way for the military-heavy aid program to Colombia to proceed
despite concerns in Washington about human rights abuses by Colombia's
forces.

Clinton justified the waiver in terms of progress being made by
Colombia's army in reducing human rights abuses in the field,
immediately touching off criticism from liberal Democrats who do not
want to fund potential atrocities.

Both the justification and the criticism miss the larger point: Aid of
$1.3 billion will not buy Washington control over Colombia's desperate
forces as they operate in war zones. Humanitarian restrictions on U.S.
aid have to be designed and implemented to protect Americans, not
Colombians or other potential targets of abuse who are beyond American
protection.

Americans need to be protected against the folly of unsustainable
commitments abroad, which drain national treasure and credibility. The
American public has demonstrated in ways big and small, in Vietnam,
Somalia and El Salvador, that it will not support the use of force
when that force creates as much suffering and abuse as it was intended
to resolve.

When governments credibly show the use of force contributes to
stability and reduces oppression, as in Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo and East
Timor, support is sustained for military and peacekeeping operations.

Human rights restrictions on U.S. aid should serve as a guardrail
against commitments that will be abandoned later under public
pressure. Properly crafted, such legislation raises legitimate
questions about the extent and nature of U.S. involvement and flashes
warning lights.

That care and foresight is missing in Plan Colombia, which is about
politics, not about drugs or human rights or insurgency. Colombia is
certainly no Vietnam. But Washington is still Washington, and that is
where the true danger lies in this situation.