TAKING COVER IN THE DRUG WAR

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

Even in his final months Clinton is unwilling to take on demagogues to his
far right. He seeks to placate or neutralize them with Plan Colombia. It is
not that on drugs, missile defense and other issues Clinton is worse than
the Republican congressional leadership; it is that in the end he is no
better, though he has the opportunity to be so.

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 that 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.