A Risky Policy Unfolds--and No One Is Paying Attention

At Donald H. Rumsfeld’s confirmation hearing earlier this month, a remarkable exchange took place between Arizona Sen. John McCain, among the Senate’s most respected foreign-policy experts, and the new secretary of defense:

McCain: “Recently, the United States made a very significant investment in the problems in Colombia, largely . . . unnoticed by Americans and their representatives. I take it from your [previous] answer--’I have less than well-informed personal views [on Colombia], which I’d prefer to discuss with the appropriate officials before taking a public position’--that you haven’t paid as much attention to it as maybe other issues. . . . You know that we’ve just invested about $1.3 billion in the last appropriation cycle?”

Rumsfeld: “That’s my understanding.”

McCain: “And we’re upgrading a base in Ecuador, which I found out--perhaps I shouldn’t admit this--by looking at a newspaper.”

Rumsfeld: “I didn’t know that.”

McCain: “There’s a lot of things going on in Colombia, Mr. Secretary, and I hate to harken back to other conflicts, but I hope you’ll get very well aware of this situation--what we’re doing, what the involvement of U.S. military personnel is in the area and what kind of investment [and], more importantly, what goals we seek there. . . .”

In all likelihood, McCain had Vietnam in mind when he referred to “other conflicts,” a conflict the former prisoner of war knows only too well.

Nothing evokes Vietnam more these days than U.S. policy toward Colombia. Many worry that the $1.3-billion anti-drug, mostly military aid package approved last summer by Congress--and the placement of several hundred U.S. trainers in the Andean country--could be the first steps on a slippery slope to a Vietnam-style quagmire.

Yet, as the McCain-Rumsfeld exchange sharply reveals, there has been scant public debate about U.S. Colombia policy, and there is little understanding about what it is supposed to accomplish. The bewilderment about Colombia policy can be juxtaposed with the country’s relentless deterioration--and the high stakes of such deterioration for the United States. There is a wide gap between the urgency of Colombia’s crisis and the relatively low level of attention it is receiving as the Bush administration takes over.

President George W. Bush and his foreign-policy team would do well to reframe and elevate the debate on Colombia. The exchange between McCain and Rumsfeld underscores how imperative it is to do so, and as quickly as possible. To guide a more productive policy debate on Colombia, it is crucial to ask some pointed questions, especially about two controversial issues: drugs and human rights.

Does it make sense to justify U.S. policy toward Colombia only in terms of fighting drugs? Is that Colombia’s core problem? Or is it rampant insecurity and lawlessness, reflected in the more than 3,000 kidnappings--a record--that took place last year? Is it realistic to expect that the United States can solve drug-related problems at home by attempting to eradicate coca plants in southern Colombia? Should U.S. Colombia policy and U.S. drug policy be one and the same? How can U.S. policymakers better grapple with Colombia’s complex realities?

With respect to human rights, what is the best way to help Colombians improve their situation? Colombia, whose internally displaced population is the world’s third largest, following Sudan and Angola, is wracked by violence from many sources, including leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary forces. Beyond humanitarian, social and economic support, should the United States assist the Colombian military and police to contain and reduce such violence? If so, should the assistance emphasize the provision of helicopters and training of anti-drug battalions, or a broader, institutional reform and professionalization of government security forces?

In light of what is known about the military and economic power of the paramilitary forces--and the reported links they have with some elements of Colombia’s military--what would be the likely consequences of cutting off all support to the security forces? Should Americans worry more about being tainted by a military with a troubling human-rights record or about how best to apply pressure and leverage to reverse the downward spiral in South America’s oldest democracy?

These sets of questions should be fully discussed within the U.S. government, indeed, throughout U.S. society. Too often, the debate has been muddled, or trivialized, by references to numbers of helicopters or acres of coca destroyed.

It is important to recognize that, though certain risks will no doubt accompany U.S. involvement in Colombia, they do not necessarily mean that we are heading toward another Vietnam. Such risks, taken in support for a beleaguered government trying to protect its frightened citizens from many lawless forces, can, after all, be held in check by sensible planning and a clear policy focus. Moreover, Colombia’s government, however weak, is democratic, a fact that undercuts the Vietnam analogy. And unlike Vietnam--or the Central American conflicts in the 1980s, for that matter--Colombia is not, as is widely assumed, in the midst of a “civil war.” It is, rather, in the midst of an “uncivil war,” with thousands of combatants terrorizing the overwhelming majority of Colombians who simply want to live in peace and do not support the guerrilla groups. Is the United States capable of pursuing an effective and coherent policy--aimed at assisting a government under siege to help restore its authority--without repeating the mistakes made in Vietnam?

The Bush foreign-policy team may be forced to face these questions sooner than it expects. On Jan. 31, Colombia’s president, Andres Pastrana, must make a key decision, one bound to be controversial, about whether to extend the time period the country’s largest insurgency, the FARC, is allowed to control a zone the government granted the guerrillas in November 1998. In February, the U.S. conducts its annual review of other countries’ cooperation in the fight against drugs. And in mid-April, Bush is scheduled to join his Latin American counterparts in Quebec for a summit. Even if not formally on the agenda, Colombia’s crisis--and what the United States is up to in the region--will be foremost in the minds of the other hemispheric leaders. Neighboring countries are particularly nervous about the spillover effects of violence, drugs and refugee flows. It will be impossible for Bush to avoid the Colombia question in Quebec.

McCain is right to ask what goals we seek in Colombia. More than a quarter-century after the U.S. ended its involvement in Vietnam, he, along with other members of Congress, should undertake a serious review of U.S. policy in Colombia to determine precisely what those goals are.