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.