Colombia a Vietnam?

Re “Colombia Is No Vietnam, U.S. Says,” Aug. 31: The Clinton administration claims its $1.3-billion intervention in Colombia is not another Vietnam, but in fact it is. Only substitute “the war on drugs” for “anti-communism” as the justifying cause--another religious battle that is pursued despite the facts of the matter.

The biggest religious mania of our times, however, is the worship of energy. Industrial nations rely on fossil fuels that pollute our air and water to the point of changing the weather. And they use nuclear energy, despite the fact there is no credible means to get rid of its wastes, which remain perilously dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years to the point they could render the surface of the planet unlivable for all existing species.

National insanity. And people today think some primitive societies were strange.

CARMEN A. LODISE

Santa Barbara

*

President Clinton says that Colombia is no Vietnam. How would he know? By the time we see the effects of the $1.3 billion in aid, Clinton, just as he was during the Vietnam War, will be long gone.

PAUL G. TEAGUE

Lakewood