-Caveat Lector- SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS Monday, 15 January 2001 Colombia effort raises fears of another Vietnam By Eric Rosenberg WASHINGTON - With critics of growing U.S. military involvement in Colombia warning that another Vietnam may be just around the corner, U.S. Army Special Forces are preparing Colombian military units to launch a sweeping offensive, aimed at eradicating coca and poppy fields and destroying the jungle laboratories that turn the crops into cocaine and heroin. The plan calls for three battalions of Colombian commandos - using U.S.-supplied helicopters, weapons and intelligence - to crush that nation's drug trade over a five-year period. Critics, citing the gradual U.S. escalation of the Vietnam War, warn that these steps could lead to deep American involvement in a bloody civil war in Colombia. U.S. Army advisers have trained two of the battalions, and a third will be ready for deployment in April. The arrival this month of combat helicopters - first of a fleet of 33 H-1N Hueys and then 16 advanced Blackhawk helicopters beginning in July - will presage the kickoff of the offensive, U.S. officials say. Congressional skittishness over U.S. troops being drawn into a battle with heavily armed narco-guerillas is one reason that Defense Secretary William Cohen has ordered the U.S. forces training Colombian troops in the Amazon jungle to stay clear from combat. The Americans are there only to train, not to participate in what is known as Plan Colombia. Those concerns are typified by Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., who argues the United States could get sucked into a Vietnam-style entanglement. "It would be a tragic mistake for us to get involved in this civil war," he said. Still, U.S. and Colombian officials are heralding Plan Colombia as a key step toward eliminating the source of much of the drugs that enter the United States and the economic means by which a guerrilla insurgency there has been funded. The overall goal of Plan Columbia is to hold coca production steady by the end of 2001 and to cut it in half over five years. The effort is part of a $7.5 billion international aid program conceived in 1999 by both governments. In addition to using Colombian army troops to close down drug laboratories, the project includes funding to wean impoverished farmers and peasants from planting the profitable drug crops. Of the total aid package, Colombia hopes that $3.5 billion will come from countries with a strong interest in shutting down the drug trade there. But so far only the United States has kicked in a major sum: $1.3 billion authorized by Congress last summer, aimed mainly at buying military equipment and training Colombians. Plan Colombia, with its direct U.S. training, represents a major escalation in the U.S.-Colombia military relationship. For more than 40 years, the United States and Colombia have had some military-to-military contacts, with a steady increase beginning in the late 1980s in an effort to curtail drug cartels. The Pentagon, which has had ground-based radars in Colombia since the early 1990s, has been sharing intelligence with Colombian counterparts for several years. And the United States already has funded Colombian interdiction efforts in an unsuccessful attempt to curtail the drug supply. While the U.S. military and law enforcement have worked alongside other South American countries - notably Peru and Bolivia - to curtail their drug fields and illicit drug supplies, Colombia is in an entirely different league. Colombia is the world's leading cultivator of coca and the source of most of the cocaine and much of the heroin entering the United States. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says net coca cultivation in Colombia has more than doubled, from 120,000 acres in 1995 to 294,000 acres in 1999. Colombia, about the size of Texas, New Mexico and Arkansas combined, has the distinction of producing about 70 percent of the world's cocaine base. But eliminating the drug supply in Colombia is compounded by the desperate predicament in South America's second-largest country. Colombia is in virtual chaos: It is wracked by the worst recession there in decades, with the central government in Bogot facing armed insurrection from all directions and with rebels taking an increasing role in the production and distribution of drugs. U.S. officials fear that left unchecked, Colombia will sink into "narco-state" status - a condition in which the nation's rebels, powered by drug revenues, will overwhelm the democratically elected government and its institutions. Colombia has been wracked by civil war for more than 36 years, and most all warring parties, including the military, have been accused of human-rights abuses. As much as 40 percent of Colombia is controlled by 20,000 left-wing insurgents known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the largest rebel army in the Americas. As an indication of the FARC's growing drug sophistication, U.S. law enforcement agents have observed FARC representatives well beyond Colombia's borders, making shipping and distribution arrangements. Mexican authorities recently arrested a person they believe is a representative of the FARC, whom they accuse of trying to negotiate cocaine distribution deals with Mexican cartels. In addition to the FARC, there is the National Liberation Army, or ELN. This pro-Cuban force has more than 3,000 members. >From the other end of the political spectrum is the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, an alliance of some 8,000 right-wing Colombian paramilitary troops. The AUC is challenging leftist rebels for control of drug-producing regions. The U.S. troops will be operating amid all this fighting, a fact that has sparked comparisons with U.S. involvement in Vietnam, when American troops initially had an advisory role training the South Vietnamese military against a communist insurgency. That instructional mission gradually evolved into full combat, with the ultimate loss of 58,000 Americans. The comparison has put the Clinton administration and U.S. military planners on the defensive - so much so that U.S. officials call the Americans in Colombia "trainers," not "advisers." Retired Marine Corps Gen. Charles Wilhelm, former commander of U.S. forces in the Southern Command, which includes Colombia, said senior Army officials are keenly aware of the Vietnam comparisons. "The lieutenants and captains, like me, who struggled and suffered through Vietnam, have become today's generals," Wilhelm said. "I know that we will speak with one voice in opposing any measures that would lead to a repeat or a risk of repeat of the Vietnam experience." "When I visit Colombia, I do not feel a quagmire sucking at my boots. I willingly place a 36-year professional military reputation on the line when I tell you categorically Colombia is not another Vietnam," Wilhelm told lawmakers. Congress has imposed a cap of 500 troops and 300 civilians as the maximum number of U.S. advisers in Colombia. The cap can be increased by the president. Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y., chairman of the House International Relations Committee, who supports the eradication efforts, said Colombia doesn't expect U.S. troops to fight. "Let us be perfectly clear and let's not be fooled by that old, 'it's another Vietnam' canard some are trying to sell," he said. Despite those assurances, the plan has vocal critics. Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., a veteran who lost three limbs in Vietnam, questions the U.S. approach. "As I see us committing more helicopters and more resources, I wonder if that won't help us win more battles, particularly in terms of, say, reducing coca production, but I wonder if that gets at the root of the problem," he said, referring to the destitute underclass in Colombia. "In treating rebels as narco-guerrillas, the policy ignores their 36-year-old political agenda, which focuses on the needs of Colombia's forgotten rural citizens." Michael Shifter, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Inter-American Dialog think tank, warns that Plan Colombia, with its emphasis on military strikes, could destabilize the region further. Critics of Plan Colombia also point to a report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative branch of Congress, blasting the Colombian government's role. In an October study, the GAO found that "the Colombian government has not demonstrated it has the detailed plans, management structure and funding necessary" to meet Plan Columbia's goals, and that international financial support other than from the United States "has yet to materialize." European countries have been reluctant to pony up cash for Plan Colombia. The European Union stepped forward with $280 million in aid, far below the $1 billion Colombia had sought. Spain and Norway have committed about $120 million. President Clinton, defending U.S. military aid, said of Colombians, "They're in the fight of their lives. ... I don't think the average American can imagine what it would be like to live in a country where a third of the country, on any given day, may be in the hands of someone that is an enemy, an adversary of the nation state." President-elect Bush agrees with the Clinton administration's assessment. During the campaign, Bush expressed support for Plan Colombia. And he said he would make Latin America a priority in U.S. foreign policy. "I will look south, not just as an afterthought but as a fundamental commitment of my presidency," Bush said. While Bush has voiced support for Plan Colombia, incoming Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld indicated there might be an emerging division in the new administration about the extent of U.S. involvement. "I am one who believes that the drug problem is probably overwhelmingly a demand problem," Rumsfeld said at his Senate confirmation hearing last Thursday. "If the demand persists, it's going to find ways to get what it wants, and if it isn't from Colombia, it will be from somebody else." Rumsfeld added that he had not studied the Colombia problem in depth yet. "It's going to take a lot of careful thought and a combination ... of the kinds of things that are being done, as well as diplomacy, to see if we can't have that situation begin to get better rather than worse," he said. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told Rumsfeld that the U.S. military escalation is occurring in Colombia without much public debate. "There's a lot of things going on in Colombia, Mr. Secretary, and I hate to hearken back to other conflicts, but I hope you'll get very well aware of this situation," McCain said. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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