Pubdate: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 Source: Houston Chronicle (TX) Copyright: 2000 Houston Chronicle Contact: Viewpoints Editor, P.O. Box 4260 Houston, Texas 77210-4260 Fax: (713) 220-3575 Website: http://www.chron.com/ Forum: http://www.chron.com/content/hcitalk/index.html Note: Links to the referenced "The Drug Quagmire" series are at the end of this editorial. COLOMBIA More Questions Than Answers In Narco-infested Country The three-part series "The Drug Quagmire" (July 16, 17 and 18), written by Chronicle correspondent John Otis about U.S. involvement in Colombia, painted a painful, sobering picture of the superproblems a superpower faces in today's high-tech world. Here is a country, slightly smaller than Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico combined, weighing on our collective conscience almost as heavily as did Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. When it comes to Colombia, there are far more questions than satisfactory answers: * Can the central government of Colombia ever end the communist insurgency that has endured three decades and controls vast areas of the country? * Can the powerful paramilitary units that grew out of the conservative opponents of communism be dismantled? * Can the military, even with U.S. assistance, bring the whole country back under government control? * And the big question: Can the drug war ever be won on the ground in Colombia, even with massive U.S. aid, like the $862.3 million recently approved by Washington? Critics of the drug war say more emphasis should be put on controlling demand for drugs in the United States, but Peru has proved that drug wars can be won, even if it means the problem simply moves to another country. There an insurgency was whipped and coca production was cut drastically in a tough anti-narcotics program. The lure of big money has kept the drug trade growing in Colombia despite everything its government, with U.S. aid, can throw at it. Narco-dollars permeate Colombia's economy and pollute its politics. Part of the U.S. aid program is earmarked for alternative income programs for Colombian farmers, who have increasingly been drawn into coca production and other phases of the drug industry. But competing against narco-dollars is tough. The United States could have said in the early 1960s that Vietnam was not an American problem, but we didn't. We got involved because it seemed to be the right thing to do, to save a sovereign country, and its neighbors, from communism. The situation was far more complicated than anybody at first imagined, and once involved there was no easy way out. We face equally vexing problems in Colombia. There are no trouble-free solutions. We know that. The question is: Can we afford to stand by and watch a hemispheric nation disintegrate? Obviously, we can't. We can look back at Vietnam and learn a few things about overinvolvement, but mostly the United States will have to take due caution every step of the way in the Colombian mine field. ~~~~~ Index for "The Drug Quagmire" series: Colombia's War On Drugs Getting Hotter http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n992/a05.html Escobar's Drug Cartel Put Colombian Cocaine On Map http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n992/a06.html Mules Ferry Drugs Across Borders In Game Of Chance http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n993/a01.html US Aid Package For Colombia http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n992/a01.html Colombia Rolling In Cocaine Crop http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n996/a10.html Despite Risks, US-Backed Crop-Dusters On A Mission http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n996/a09.html Drug War Options http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1004/a03.html Officials Urge Farmers To Try Alternative To Coca http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1023.a10.html - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake