COLOMBIA MUST BECOME A PRIORITY

As the U.S. war on terrorism continues to unfold, the Bush administration's
stance on the brutal war in Colombia will become clear. Will it be treated
as a civil war, which it isn't? Or will it be viewed as a war on an unholy
alliance of drug lords and terrorists - the new breed of narco-terrorists -
which it has become?

Certainly, the Bush administration - or any future administration - cannot
honestly claim to be waging an all-out war on terrorism while continuing to
treat Colombia as a sideshow.

Our dramatic response to the events of 9/11 was expected. The threat from
Colombia - to us - is more subtle, more insidious. The terror in our
streets is not from armed bandits, as it is in Colombia. It is from the
increasing flow of drugs - a process that begins in the jungles of
Colombia, as well as in other Latin American nations.

In the last eight years more than 55,000 American citizens have died from
drug overdoses, nearly as many as died in the Vietnam conflict. In
Colombia, nearly 45,000 have been killed in the narco-war.

The International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, released earlier this
month, noted a decrease in opium poppy cultivation in Pakistan but said
that it had tripled in Mexico. Production in Peru and Bolivia, the second-
and third-biggest poppy producing nations remained stable. The report noted
that there was "probably an increase in coca production in Colombia."

If the May 26 elections in Colombia go as expected, the new president -
expected to be Alvaro Uribe Velez - will take office with a mandate to end
the nearly four-decade long struggle in that South American nation. A
national poll in Colombia late last month showed that nearly 60 percent of
voters would choose Velez, compared to only 39 percent of the voting public
that favored him in January.

If he is elected and if he survives - there have already been 15 reported
attempts on his life - it is very likely that his first priority will be to
seek more U.S. military aid, linking Colombia's continued support for U.S.
drug policy on increased military aid from the states.

Recently, the Bush administration shelved plans to increase military aid to
Colombia and has nixed proposals to divert resources meant to fight drugs
to the anti-guerrilla initiative. If that policy continues, relations
between Velez and the Bush administration will be difficult from the outset.

The Colombian military/national police force does not have the resources to
simultaneously fight guerrillas, drug traffickers and paramilitary
organizations, even though the rebel and paramilitary involvement in the
drug trade makes the distinction between counterinsurgency and
counter-narcotics tenuous at best.

The election of Velez would signal a commitment to a military defeat of the
FARC, a group that is responsible for kidnapping more than 50 American
citizens and murdering 10 of them in the last decade.

To this point, Washington's response has been incremental, even erratic - a
reflection of the highly controversial nature of U.S. involvement in a
long-running jungle insurgency which could generate a piecemeal escalation
in the U.S. military presence in that country. This will not be enough to
shift the tide of battle, but it could tie U.S. forces into a long-term
engagement in Colombia.

While there are factions within the Colombian guerrilla establishment that
continue to fight for an archaic political ideology - communism - the war
in Colombia is, primarily, about business - drug trafficking - and its
growing role as the financial base for international terrorism.

As the drug trade and terrorist organizations continue to work hand in
hand, the terrorists providing military muscle in exchange for hard cash,
they become one in the same, a clear and present danger to the United
States from within (drugs) and without (international terrorism) - a
growing threat that is better dealt with sooner than later.