Pubdate: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 Source: Hawk Eye, The (IA) Copyright: 2001 The Hawk Eye Contact: attn: Letters, P.O. Box 10, Burlington IA 52601-0010 Fax: 319-754-6824 Feedback: http://www.thehawkeye.com/hawkeye/forms/lettoed.html Website: http://www.thehawkeye.com/ THE DRUG WAR MILITARY ESCALATION IN COLOMBIA HAS CIVILIANS WORRIED. Ready or not, among the Bush administration's first jobs will be to oversee an escalation of the cocaine war in Colombia. With the blessings of Congress and a $1.3 billion contribution from U.S. taxpayers, Colombia will take delivery this month of a first installment of new U.S.-made helicopter gunships. Two U.S.-trained Colombian army battalions will use the heavily armed gunships to attack cocoa fields and drug labs deep inside Colombia's mountainous no man's land. There Marxist rebels, right-wing deaths squads and drug dealers all pose deadly threats to one another, and the civilians caught in the middle. For months civilians have rightly worried that they will be caught in the crossfire when the drug war escalates. Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chief of the U.S. Southern Command, has issued assurances that the Colombians' new anti-drug units will not terrorize civilian populations. He cannot, however, assure they will not suffer at the hands of rebels and the death squads who may well take out their anger at the government on the civilian population. Already in two instances in the last week, more than 30 civilians were massacred by right-wingers accusing them of consorting with the rebels. It was a warning. In truth civilians have no more choices than they do luck. Because they are poor and Colombia is broke, many grow cocoa to survive. Those who refuse are told by the rebels and the competing right-wingers who also profit from drugs to grow the cocoa plants, or die. Either way civilians pay the price of Colombia's social breakdown. The danger for the U.S. is that enraged drug dealers will retaliate even harder against the civilian population for increased military attacks on their source of income. To a watching world, that will leave Colombia and the U.S. looking like the bad guys. It could force both governments to decide how many dead civilians the world will tolerate on TV news before the policy of escalation must be rethought. - --- MAP posted-by: Kirk Bauer