ANDEAN QUAGMIRE?

U.S. Role In Colombia'S Double War Is Growing.

Five American soldiers were killed in a plane crash the other day in a
mountainous region of Colombia. They were on a reconnaissance flight as part
of an escalating U.S. effort in support of the Colombian government's war
against heavily armed narcotics traffickers.

The deaths call attention to a U.S. aid program that has grown rapidly,
partly because Washington has more confidence in Colombia's new president,
Andres Pastrana, than in his corrupt predecessor, and partly because of a
perception that the threat to this country posed by Colombian traffickers is
increasing.

That perception is strongly held by Gen. Barry McCaffrey, President
Clinton's anti-narcotics chief, who says cocaine production in Colombia has
doubled in three years, that 80% of the cocaine and heroin entering the
United States comes from Colombia.

McCaffrey has called for $1 billion in emergency U.S. aid to combat the drug
trade in Latin America, most of it for Colombia, which is getting $289
million this year - triple last year's total. (Colombia now ranks third,
behind Israel and Egypt, as a U.S. aid recipient.) The money would pay for
technical and intelligence assistance, and training by U.S. advisers of a
newly created anti-narcotics army battalion whose mission is to attack
guerrilla units, clearing the way for police (who get most U.S. aid) to move
in and eradicate coca crops.

But there are serious obstacles. For one thing, U.S. aid has been meager in
the past not only due to corruption but because of rampant human rights
violations by soldiers and right-wing paramilitary groups. Thus the new
battalion has been carefully recruited and will receive human rights training.

A larger problem is that U.S. aid is meant to target only Colombia's
narcotics traffickers, not a 35-year-old leftist insurgency. Yet the two
have become virtually indistinguishable as guerrillas extort tribute from
coca growers and traffic in drugs as well.

Despite such troubling signs, McCaffrey has support in Congress, and to some
extent from the White House, for increasing U.S. aid even as drug prevention
and treatment programs at home are given only minimal funding. Those
priorities are misplaced.

The Pentagon insists that U.S. combat troops will not be used in Colombia.
Good. But Americans have heard that before, about Vietnam, and rebels say
they regard U.S. advisers as targets. While it may be premature to sound an
alarm, it's not too early to begin a debate about U.S. interests in a
conflict that has at least the potential to suck Americans into another
quagmire. Congress and the administration owe it to the country to clarify
what's at stake, what is contemplated and what is not, and the sooner the
better.