INTO THE QUAGMIRE

BOSTON -- 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 this 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 Senator Slade Gorton, Republican of Washington,
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 Corporation 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.