Pubdate: Sun, 09 Jul 2000 Source: Northwest Florida Daily News (FL) Copyright: 2000 Northwest Florida Daily News Contact: http://www.nwfdailynews.com/ U.S. GOES DEEPER INTO A JUNGLE WAR Perhaps the most amazing thing about Congress' recent passage of emergency aid for the Colombian government was the lack of debate it triggered. A caution here and there, but by and large Democrats and Republicans - including Florida Sens. Bob Graham and Connie Mack - were united in the belief that America should draw itself more deeply into a violent drug war in South America's jungles. By modern congressional standards, the $1.3 billion aid package isn't much. But it will buy training and helicopters for Colombian soldiers and police. They are in a long-running and exceedingly violent war against left-wing insurgents who finance their operations with drug profits. A number of issues should have been debated more thoroughly. Sending U.S. advisers and arms to complex political struggles in far-off lands poses obvious dangers. The nation should be discussing whether any realistic objectives can be achieved, what timetable is being set for pulling out the advisers, and what safeguards are in place to ensure the United States doesn't became more deeply enmeshed in a guerrilla struggle. Instead, both parties dealt mainly in platitudes. Because drugs are produced in Colombia and end up on the streets of New York and L.A., supporters of aid argue, America should help stop those drugs at their source. But the Colombia situation spotlights two of America's most misguided policies - the war on drugs and its police-the-world foreign policy. By prohibiting illegal drugs, the United States has driven up their price and made it lucrative for armed gangs and revolutionary thugs to traffic in them. Then, in response to a problem the American government helped create, it now sends in military aid and advisers to clean up the mess a continent away. But as long as demand exists for illegal drugs, drug dealers will find a way to sell them. And the Colombian civil war is unlikely to end any time soon, even with U.S. aid. Those arguments didn't hold much sway last month. But the more that Americans raise them, the more reluctant Congress and the president may be to waste U.S. dollars and endanger U.S. lives on a pointless anti-drug strategy. - --- MAP posted-by: greg