COLOMBIA CREEPS UP

Colombia is an example of mission-creep.

The United States has sent 53 helicopters to Colombia as part of $1.1
billion in anti-drug aid. Because of language buried in the anti- terrorism
bill President Bush signed this month, those helicopters and the hundreds
of U.S. advisers that go with them no longer are limited to anti-drug
missions. Neither are the 19 additional helicopters that will arrive in
Colombia soon. All now can be flown in missions to defeat rebel groups that
have tried for 38 years to overthrow Colombia's government.

When the United States first offered the aid during the Clinton
administration, Colombian President Andres Pastrana was intent on
negotiating peace with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
and the National Liberation Army (ELN). He failed, and newly installed
President Alvaro Uribe has pledged to defeat the rebels militarily and has
just declared a state of emergency that grants his government greater powers.

So it's mission creep. But it isn't yet a case of mission-creep disaster,
as in Vietnam or Somalia. Congress generally supports the expanded mission,
and the new stance is clearer than previous guidelines. Because the FARC
and ELN support themselves through drugs, it never was possible to separate
the civil war into anti-drug and anti-rebel spheres. The new policy also
makes sense if we truly are committed to fighting terrorism globally. FARC
and ELN as well as the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia
are on the U.S. list of terror groups.

As the mission escalates, however, there is increased danger that U.S. aid
will support atrocities against civilians or give military advantage to
anti-democratic factions. Adam Isacson, of the Center for International
Policy in Washington, says Mr. Uribe's emergency declaration might avert
something worse. "There are many hard-liners," he said, "including Uribe's
justice and interior ministers, who would like to revive a much harsher
'state of siege,' which was outlawed by the 1991 constitution."

The U.S. role, Mr. Isacson says, is to "make clear that our aid could stop
and our relations could sour if the Uribe government takes further moves to
limit basic human rights.... We cannot be contributing indirectly to a
climate of worsening abuses." The trick in this mission is to fight drugs
and terror without creeping in over our heads.