A FOOL'S ERRAND

Although your editorial comment on the recent escalation of U.S.
involvement in Colombia's protracted civil war raises many legitimate
concerns, it ended by disappointing because its anonymous author was unable
to grasp the essential nature of the conflict and completely missed its
interdependence with our own domestic policy of drug prohibition.

American drug policy, which we have inflicted on the rest of the world
through U.N. treaty, is insistent that cocaine be everywhere illegal. This
maintains a rich criminal market -- for decades, Colombia's greatest source
of foreign exchange -- and as such, an essential target in any armed
insurrection. No matter what the rebels' primary motivation might have been
35 years ago, they always need to buy guns.

Suppression of the criminal cocaine market also generates Colombia's
ever-increasing aid from the United States. Colombia's armed forces and
police are doubly blessed -- able to profit both from our aid and from drug
traffickers' graft. Their curse is having to fight the war.

We are key players, but as prisoners of our own drug war rhetoric, we are
committed to a fool's errand -- not only in Colombia, but around the world.

Tom O'Connell

San Mateo, Calif.