Pubdate: Fri, 18 Jan 2002
Source: Palm Beach Post (FL)
Copyright: 2002 The Palm Beach Post
Contact:  http://www.gopbi.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/333

NEW RULES FOR COLOMBIA

Imagine a narcotics agent whose sole mission is to stop drug dealers. If 
the agent does anything else, he oversteps his legal authority. When the 
agent learns that a suspect plans to kill a police officer, he's not 
allowed to inform the target or do anything to prevent the hit because his 
mission is narcotics, not murder.

That sounds crazy, and it is. It also describes, without much exaggeration, 
the U.S. position in Colombia's civil war.

Colombia supplies most of this country's cocaine and a large part of its 
illegal heroin. By law, U.S. aid to Colombia -- about $1 billion in the 
past year -- can be used to fight drug dealers but not to defeat rebels 
attempting to overthrow the elected government of Andres Pastrana. Because 
the drug dealers and rebels often are the same, the distinction is 
impossible to make. American aid, equipment and advisers might contribute 
to surveillance flights that spot drug activity, for example, but they 
couldn't help to spy on rebel troops preparing to strike military targets.

Congress imposed the restrictions -- to which Presidents Clinton and Bush 
had agreed -- as a brake on American involvement in the four- decade-old 
civil war. The impulse for restraint is understandable, even if the rules 
are not.

The Sept. 11 attacks forced policy-makers to think more deeply about 
Colombia. The Bush administration lists three military groups in that 
country as terrorist organizations. If America is "at war" against 
terrorists, why hamstring Colombia's army in its fight against them any 
more than we would hamstring the Northern Alliance fighting Al- Qaeda?

The Colombian army's ties to one of the terror groups, guilty like the 
others of massacring civilians, is one complication. Another is Colombia's 
recent drift toward all-out war. A last-minute effort this week saved peace 
talks. Another deadline for the largest rebel group -- the FARC -- to agree 
to cease-fire terms expires Sunday. Then, or soon, Colombia's army could 
assault a vast rebel enclave. U.S. officials have to be ready, when the 
time comes, to direct the use of American aid and the involvement of the 
several hundred advisers in the country.

Vague and impractical rules of engagement invite abuse and mistakes. 
President Bush could ask Congress for new rules. Is it possible to enact 
flexible rules that put U.S. aid to more effective use but do not ensnare 
Americans in a foreign civil war? No one has explained how yet, but the 
Bush administration should try.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth