A LOLLIPOP FOR COLOMBIA

What with the 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, we have decided to
review the language of intervention. "Escalation" first comes to mind. It is
an unappealing euphemism for expansive warfare, which is just exactly what
the Clinton administration has in mind for Colombia. It proposes to give
that country around $1.7 billion ostensibly to rid itself of its
longstanding drug addiction to drugs, violence and judicial anarchy. It's a
quagmire in the making.

Colombia is a country that somehow avoided the notion of the rule of law. It
has been at war with itself for decades. Rebellion is ingrained in the
national soul. There isn't just one rebel group. There are several, and two
of them are big.

Last year Colombia led the world in kidnapping for ransom. There were nine a
day, according to Alma Guillermoprieto, whose three-part series on Colombia
just concluded in The New York Review of Books. The government of President
Andres Pastrana last year ceded territory twice the size of El Salvador to
the largest rebel force, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Pastrana was elected on the promise of bringing peace to Colombia. The
cession of land to the FARC -- which recognized the reality of rebel gains
- -- was gesture designed to initiate negotiations. Those negotiations,
however, have produced nothing of substance. Some of the rebel leaders
received a trip to Europe -- supposedly to received a little instruction in
civics, but evidently to little avail. Rebels would just as soon ransom an
outsider rather than talk.

Pastrana's gesture was not cordially received by the Colombian military.
Some threatened to quit. Given the military's propensity for incompetence
and corruption, it would not have been a crushing loss had they quit. They
will stick around. The U.S. aid package is a very large lollipop. On the
other hand, the FARC sees that package as a threat.

If it passes -- the smart money says it will -- it's hard to tell the bad
guys. The coca farmers pay the FARC for protection. The middlemen pay the
FARC. Then the Colombian military often joins with the paramilitary forces
that aim to eliminate the rebels. Currently, the Colombian military along
with help from its American friends is dropping an herbicide by air. The New
York Times reported Monday that crop dusters also indiscriminately rain the
herbicide on schools, legitimate crops and farmers alike.

This is not the most hospitable of environments in which to plunk a billion
and a half dollars. Colombia is a mess. It appears that it is about to
become our mess.