AID FOR COLOMBIA

Colombia's bloody civil war has escalated with a vengeance. The
increasing violence atop a U.S. focus against terrorism provide good
reason for bolstering U.S. military aid to Colombia. To that end, the
White House is poised to propose an aid package that broadens how U.S.
aid can be used by Colombia's government in its struggle against
narco-terrorism and the corruption that it sows.

The murder of Archbishop Isaias Duarte Cancino of Cali is only the
latest brutality in the violence fueled by drug cartels and
insurgents. While his killers have not been arrested, authorities are
pointing to drug traffickers. The outspoken archbishop long had railed
against the nation's leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries.
But earlier this month he had denounced ''narcos'' for funding
congressional candidates and buying votes. That denouncement may have
cost him his life.

New Terror

The archbishop's killing comes amid a new terror campaign by the FARC,
Colombia's largest guerrilla group. Since peace talks with the
government fell apart in February, the FARC's bad faith at the
negotiation table has evolved into redoubled attacks on pipelines,
power stations and civilians. It is a telling witness to the country's
continued skid into greater violence that more people have been killed
in Colombia's civil war in the last year than in the 18-month intifada
in Israel.

The need for U.S. aid to Colombia shouldn't be a question.
The United States has too much at stake in the South American country
and the region. Colombia's narcotics exports are snapped up by
Americans, the world's most voracious drug consumers. Meantime,
terrified Colombians flee to safety in such places as South Florida.
Regional spillover effects cannot be ignored, either. Already there
are reports of drug traffickers and the FARC bringing in supplies for
the drug trade through Venezuela, along the vast and unguarded Amazon
region whose border is shared with Colombia. We also know from
experience that as the drug trade is squeezed out of one country,
operations shift elsewhere -- from Colombia potentially to Ecuador,
Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela.

U.S. policy must address the potential destabilizing effects of any
anti-narco successes in Colombia that drive these forces elsewhere. We
must protect regional allies from similar strife.

Promising Proposal

The White House is expected to send its Colombia-aid proposal to
Congress this week. Current restrictions linking the aid to the
human-rights records of military units and limits on the number of
U.S. soldiers and civilians on the ground should remain. However, the
White House also is expected to ask for an end to a provision that now
restricts U.S. aid to counter-drug efforts alone -- a good move.
Colombia's drug traffickers cannot be divorced from the guerrilla and
paramilitary groups that use narco-profits to fuel their atrocities.
These groups already have made the State Department's list of
terrorist organizations.

Yes, the United States should provide desperately needed military help
to a democratic government fighting triple scourges. But Colombia
itself has to win the overall war. That will require strengthening its
democratic institutions by wiping out the insidious narco-corruption
that Archbishop Duarte so rightly denounced.