LET'S HOPE ANTI-TERRORISM EFFORT ISN'T LIKE DRUG WAR

As this is written, the war in Afghanistan appears to be moving right along
- -- if in a confusing and seemingly confused manner. The Taliban seem to
have lost much of their vaunted ferocity and are either quitting or running
for mountain cover. The northern alliance has demonstrated a surprising
ability, though there are signs that it also could become a loose cannon,
setting its own time schedule and giving postwar planners attacks of nerves.

Relations among the Pashtuns of the south, the remnants of the Taliban and
leaders of various independent tribes are also uncertain, as are those
between the Pashtun and the northern alliance. The fluid situation is
naturally a temptation for the United States to construct a peace by using
the massive power it is assembling, though it wants to avoid being put into
the position of imposing a government on the country.

One further complication remains. Osama bin Laden has not been found, nor
have other leaders of al-Qaida. This, of course, is not only President
Bush's stated goal but also the original reason for the war. Until bin
Laden and company are, as Bush says, brought to justice, the fighting in
Afghanistan can yield only a limited result.

Bush also has warned Saddam Hussein that Iraq must open its borders to U.N.
inspectors seeking signs of development of weapons of mass destruction,
possibly nuclear or biological. Otherwise, he suggests, Iraq could face
large-scale trouble.

Bush cannot ignore the fact that Iraq is a major source of terrorism if he
intends to carry out his promise to crush terrorists and those who give
them aid or shelter. The prospects of such an effort hint at interminable
war, similar to the "perpetual war to gain perpetual peace" depicted in
George Orwell's 1984. The prospect seems unlikely, but even Bush and his
subordinates speak constantly of "a new kind of war" and "a war requiring
patience."

Inevitably, analysts are comparing the war on terrorism to the war on
drugs, a so-called war that seems to be going nowhere in all directions.
Let us hope that the parallel is not apt. The drug war, launched with good
intentions and poor planning, has proved to be, purely and simply, a
disaster, a costly, cruel failure.

Yet the government, regardless of the party in power, imagines that U.S.
prestige, as well as its welfare, is at stake and thus refuses to end the
debacle. We are like a naked man standing in a swamp, besieged by
mosquitoes, but too stubborn to flee the swamp.

The cost of the drug war has been ruinous. Each year the government spends
an estimated $20 billion to wage it, and that does not count the hours
devoted to the effort by local and state police, court costs for processing
the army of people caught in the drug net, or the hundreds of millions
spent on keeping them in jail or prison.

For example, the drug chasers arrest about 1.5 million suspects every year,
and we now have at least 400,000 offenders in prison. Multiply that number
by the estimated $18,000 a year it costs to keep a person in prison, and
the price of the drug war begins to become clear.

And the cost cannot be reckoned only in dollars. There must also be
considered the hundreds of thousands of lives shattered each year by drug
use; for although officials seize hundreds of tons of drugs -- marijuana,
cocaine and heroin -- every year, the supply continues. Drugs are as easy
to come by as they were 10 years ago; prices are just as low, indicating no
scarcity of supply.

In the process, we are deeply damaging countries throughout Latin America.
Our helicopters terrorize Colombian peasants, destroy their crops and burn
their fields. We have already sprayed more defoliant over Colombian forests
than we loosed on Vietnam.

There are 1,500 species of plants in Colombia that can be found nowhere
else on Earth, and they, too, are endangered by our drug war. Our efforts
have only increased the guerrilla warfare tearing at that country, which
was once a showpiece of democracy and a firm U.S. ally.

The stubborn traffic engenders civil strife in Panama, Honduras and Mexico,
where drug lords still pose a huge problem for President Vicente Fox. We
have been equally unable to stanch the flow from Turkey, Uzbekistan,
Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries.

For the inescapable fact is that, as long as there is money to be made, the
poor people of the world are going to find ways to make it. Smugglers will
find a way to get it across our borders if the price is right.

Like Vietnam, we have lost the war, but don't know how to get out of it.
Let us pray that the effort to defeat terrorism will be more successful.
For a while, as in the war on drugs, we expend our major efforts overseas
although the essential battle in our fight for security is here at home.
And that could prove a longer, tougher fight than the more spectacular
battles against the likes of bin Laden.