EXPANDING DRUG WAR

Perhaps the most amazing thing about Congress' quick passage of
emergency aid for Colombian government last week was the lack of
debate that it triggered.

A caution here and there, but by and large Democrats and Republicans
were united in the belief that America should draw itself more deeply
into a violent drug war taking place in South American jungles.

By modern congressional standards, the $1.3 billion aid package isn't
that large. But it well be used to provide training and helicopters
for the Colombian military and police forces. They are in a
long-running and exceedingly violent war against left-wing insurgents
who finance their operations with drug profits.

There are a number of issues that should have been debated more
thoroughly and that should have engendered the interest of the
national media and the American public.

Sending U.S. advisers and arms to complex political struggles in
far-off lands poses obvious dangers. The nation should be discussing
whether any realistic objectives can be achieved, what timetable is
being set for pulling the advisers out of there, what safeguards are
in place to ensure that the United States doesn't became more deeply
enmeshed in a guerrilla struggle.

Instead, both parties dealt mainly in platitudes. Because drugs are
produced in Colombia and end up on the streets of New York and L.A.,
supporters of aid argue, America should help stop those drugs at their
source.

But the Colombia situation spotlights the convergence of two of
America's most misguided policies - the war on drugs and its
police-the-world foreign policy.

By prohibiting illegal dugs, the United States has driven up their
costs and made it lucrative for armed gangs and revolutionary thugs to
traffic in them. Then in response to a problem the American government
helped create, it now sends in military aid and training to clean up
the mess a continent away.

But as long as the demand exists for illegal dugs, drug dealers will
find a way to sell them. And the Colombian civil war is unlikely to go
away anytime soon - even with more U.S. aid.

Those arguments didn't hold much swat last week. But the more that
Americans raise them the more reluctant Congress and the president may
be to waste U.S. tax dollars - and endanger U.S. lives - on a
pointless Colombian anti-drug strategy.