IN COLOMBIA, ECHO OF ANOTHER WAR

To the Editor:

Re "Senate Approves $1 Billion to Aid Colombia Military" (front page, June
22): Senator Paul Coverdell's assertion that "Colombia is the heart of the
drug war . . . if we lose in Colombia, then we lose everywhere" is a
haunting echo of the arguments used to justify America's disastrous
involvement in Vietnam.

The similarities between the two entanglements are more than rhetorical.

As was the case in Vietnam, the huge military aid package for Colombia will
involve us in a convoluted, decades-old civil war in a distant country. As
in Vietnam, our politicians are embracing a nebulous objective whose
achievement is essentially impossible; we have no more chance of eliminating
drug production in Colombia than we did of winning the hearts and minds of
the Vietnamese. It seems that credulousness and a willingness to squander
taxpayer money never go out of fashion in Washington.

DAVID HAYDEN
Wilton, Conn., June 23, 2000

To the Editor:

Re "Into the Quagmire," by Anthony Lewis (column, June 24):

Until the American people understand that the drug issue is a social or
medical problem, not a criminal or military one, we will continue to embrace
failed policies and dangerous interventions.

When drugs are decriminalized and taxed, drug users themselves will be
paying for the support structure needed to deal with the results of abuse.

Such a common-sense approach to the problem would yield vast benefits to
society, dramatically reducing expenditures to our criminal justice system
as well as foreign aid to reduce drug production.

CHARLES CUTTER
Appomattox, Va., June 24, 2000

To the Editor:

The Senate's approval of a $1 billion aid package to Colombia as part of a
war on drugs (front page, June 22) leaves us with the uneasy feeling that
there is also a class-based intent to support one side in the civil strife
in Colombia and recalls covert and overt aid to Central American countries
during the cold war.

We can only hope that our money does not foster political hostilities in
Colombia. Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio is quoted on the "essence" of our need
to "restore stability" and "combat the violent insurgents." Can this not
escalate into interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation?

SIDNEY J. GLUCK New York, June 22, 2000,
The writer is a professor of social sciences at the New School for Social
Research.