COLOMBIA LOOKING A LOT LIKE VIETNAM

WHEN the Senate approved the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in 1964, giving
President Johnson carte blanche for war in Vietnam, only two senators said
no: Wayne Morse and Ernest Gruening. We have made some progress since then.
When the Senate voted last week for an open-ended commitment to aid a war
against drug cultivation in Colombia, 11 senators dissented by supporting a
modest amendment.

The lives of American soldiers are not at risk in Colombia - yet. But in
other respects the parallels between this adventure and Vietnam are spooky.

Congress is about to approve an enormous program - $1.3 billion in military
aid to Colombia as a first installment - with no convincing strategy and no
end in sight.

Exactly as in the case of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, there has been little
public debate or understanding. If Americans knew what we were getting into
in Colombia, I think they would overwhelmingly reject this new involvement.

"There has been no consideration of the consequences, cost and length of
involvement," said Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., one of the opponents. "This
bill says let's get into war now and justify it later."

Colombia is a country with a fragile civilian government and a military with
one of the worst human rights records in Latin America. The country is
harried by left-wing guerrilla groups and right-wing paramilitaries, all
financed by drug money.

The theory of the military aid proposal is that the aid - helicopters, crop
destroyers and the like - will be carefully supervised by the U.S. military
so it goes only to fight drug trafficking, not to get involved in Colombia's
civil wars. To state that proposition is to recognize its absurdity.

But the strategy is flawed for an even more fundamental reason. Fighting
narcotics by trying to reduce the supply is an idea with a proven record -
of failure. We have been spraying coca fields and aiding military forces in
Latin America for 20 years. Cocaine is cheaper and more available on our
streets than ever.

No doubt more coca plants will be eradicated in Colombia as the $1.3 billion
in military aid starts to flow in next year. What will happen to the
peasants whose fields have been poisoned and livelihoods destroyed? Some
will join the guerrillas. Others will flee across the nearest border.
Ecuador has already been warned to expect 25,000 Colombian peasant refugees.

And in the end there will be no reduction in the amount of processed cocaine
on the world market. Not if recent history is a guide. Every time U.S.
efforts have reduced production in one place, it has increased elsewhere.

The reason should be obvious in a world that now acknowledges the power of
the market. As long as the demand for illegal drugs booms in the United
States, someone will supply it. The profits assure that.

Colombia's national police chief, Gen. Rosso Jose Serrano, whose efforts
against drugs have been much admired, pointed to demand as the key factor in
a comment he made as he retired this week. "We'd rather see drug consumption
drop than get any of this aid," he said.

Study after study has shown that the key to dealing with the drug problem is
reducing demand. One by the Rand Corp. found that treatment of drug users is
10 times more effective than trying to interdict supplies. The defeated
amendment to the Colombia bill that got only 11 Senate votes would have used
$225 million of the military aid money for drug treatment and prevention
programs in the United States.

Like so much in our drug policy, the Colombian adventure is a product not of
reason but of politics. The Colombian military, whose political power will
grow with fancy new weapons, lobbied shrewdly in Washington. So did U.S.
makers of helicopters.

But the driving political force was fear - just as in Vietnam. Lyndon
Johnson did not want to be the first American president to lose a war. Bill
Clinton knew that if he did not endorse the Colombian adventure, Republicans
would accuse him of being soft on drugs.

So in we go, hoping for light at the end of the tunnel.