DRUGS AND CORRUPTION ARE RUINING COLOMBIA

Your Feb. 24 editorial grossly mischaracterized my position on Colombia. In
my 1997 book, "The New War," I warned that drugs and corruption were
destroying the credibility of the Colombian government with its own people.
I wrote: "Brave people fought against the narcoterrorists and continue to
do so. They deserve greater international support in the struggle to hold
onto their country." Back then you published an op-ed attacking me for
being too tough on Colombia's drug industry and my suggestion that "we
should engage in joint military and paramilitary operations, with
congressional approval, including helicopter and air strikes on cocaine
fields." ("In the War on Drugs, Keep the Troops in the Barracks," July 27,
1989.)

The views I expressed are indistinguishable from the words spoken by
President Uribe in his inaugural speech last August, when he argued that to
combat terrorism Colombia needed to act against corruption and provide
assistance to small farmers and rural areas to get them off the coca.

We need to get tough on narcoterrorists and equally tough on the corruption
that gives them a platform with which to explain away their violence.

Sen. John F. Kerry (D., Mass.), Washington