Bob Barr

THE WAR WITHOUT END - AMERICA'S "FORGOTTEN WAR" IN COLOMBIA

or more precisely, the State Department's bungled war.

SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR BY BOB BARR

Imagine Americans putting up with a war 40 years in duration. To a people whose patience started to fray within weeks, if not days, of our military victory in Iraq, and who forced our government to cut and run from a fight against the evils of communism in Vietnam a generation earlier, maintaining the focus and the will to fight a war for survival against armed insurgent groups for 40 years would be, simply put, a non-starter.

But to the citizens of Colombia, the second oldest democracy in the Western Hemisphere, that task is clear, unambiguous, and not open for debate. They have been fighting a war against merciless terrorists - first leftists, then narco-terrorists, and now a combination of both - for 40 years. At the beginning of 2004, the United States had lost about 500 soldiers in the current conflict in Iraq; every new casualty is a headline. Colombians, by contrast, have seen more than 200,000 men, women and children slain in its war against terrorism.

For Alvaro Uribe, Colombia's latest president, to have his administration defined by how it deals with its internal war, failure to prosecute, and ultimately win, this war, is not an option. The very survival of Colombia as a free and sovereign nation depends on defeating the bands of home-grown, but foreign-supported terrorists now ravaging its countryside and bombing its cities.

While the cost to the United States of this forgotten war may not appear as dire, the stakes are high for us as well. Some 60 percent of the heroin now poisoning and killing thousands of our citizens comes from Colombia; its cocaine continues to flood U.S. and European markets. The cost of illicit drugs to America's economy is in the billions each year; the human cost even higher.

The conflict centered in this South American nation of more than 43 million souls, pits two heavily armed Marxist armies - the 19,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (known by its Spanish-language acronym, FARC), and the nearly 5,000-member National Liberation Army (ELN), against the Colombian military and its national police force, and against the right-wing paramilitary force known as the AUC. Hardly a week goes by without one or more bombs being detonated in Colombia's capital city of Bogotá, perched high on a plateau in the Andes.

For years, the United States has had men on the ground - civilian and military - helping Colombia by providing intelligence, equipment, advice, protection, and other support. But the multi-billion dollar "Plan Colombia" is coming into question. Are hard-earned dollars of Americans are being spent effectively in Colombia? Alas, they are not. Lack of direction, poor management, and indifference by Washington have severely limited the effectiveness of an otherwise wise and important program.

A year or so ago, a small, single engine plane, carrying four Americans and a Colombian intelligence specialist on a narcotics-related mission in an area of Colombia controlled by the guerrillas, made a forced landing. One American and the Colombian were murdered by guerrillas on the ground in the area. American rescuers, "minutes" away according to the always-glowing briefings of the sort I as a Congressman received whenever I visited the field, actually took over three hours to reach the crash site. By that time, the bodies of the slain American and Colombian were as cold as the trail taken by their three captured comrades and their murderous captors. These Americans remain in the hands of the same guerrillas who have captured hundreds of Colombians and other foreign nationals, and who have murdered many in cold-blood.

Yet few in Washington are even aware that these and other Americas are in captivity or have been captured, or killed (some 15 killed since 1995) by leftist terrorists in our own backyard.

The ramifications of the poorly-managed "Plan Colombia" go beyond even the borders of Colombia and the United States. You don't have to search far or deep to discover the foreign influences in Colombia's war. In the early 1990s opium poppy growers for the Taliban (yes, that Taliban) were instrumental in helping the Colombian cocaine cartel diversify into the heroin trade. IRA bomb-making experts (yes, the Irish Republican Army) have been advising the FARC in explosives.

The Spanish terrorist group ETA was drawn to Colombia in the late 1980s in order to capitalize on the weapons-bombs-and-drugs market. Colombia's eastern neighbor, Venezuela, provides safe haven to Colombian guerrillas. Of course, this comes as no surprise when one notes that the resume of Venezuela's current President, Hugo Chavez, includes serving as a sponsor for leftist guerrillas. A top FARC commander who goes by the nom-de-guerre "Simon Trinidad" was captured early in January 2004 in Ecuador, Colombia's southwestern neighbor, where numerous camps that provide these terrorist with rest and relaxation.

In fact, the border region between Colombia and Venezuela has become a virtual magnet for terrorist groups of all stripes and allegiances, including al Qaeda, according to well-placed sources. What happens in this corner of the world, right now, matters to the United States; it matters a lot. Yet with all these danger signs, obvious to all but the deaf, dumb and blind, Washington dithers, and a confused U.S. Embassy in Bogota appears paralyzed.

We are a nation blessed with a military unquestionably the best in the world by a wide margin. Our country has fought two wars in the Middle East in the past dozen years with spectacular success each time. We spared no expense - or public relations effort - in securing the release of every single one of our men and women captured in the latest war in Iraq. Our technology can spy inside the most hardened bunkers and blast our enemies therein with pinpoint accuracy.

But, in Colombia, we have Americans held hostage; men who have been paraded in front of television cameras and used for propaganda by their terrorist captors; and we appear to be either unable or unwilling to find and rescue them. It appears the FARC is now holding the trump card in this most dangerous game.

In both Middle East wars - 1991 and 2003 - we moved massive amounts of equipment and personnel halfway around the world with resolve and dispatch. Again, no expense was spared. Yet, in Colombia, it took years, not weeks or months, for the State Department to deliver a handful of helicopters, even after Congress directed their quick delivery. In Iraq, our troops and those of our allies fighting with us are armed with the latest and most current equipment, including new ammunition. Yet, in Colombia, to help our long-time ally fight a war against a common enemy, our State Department sent .50 caliber ammunition that was surplus from the Korean War (yes, the one that ended 50 years ago).

Why this comedy of errors in Colombia? Who's in charge? Who is accountable? Therein lies the rub. We have put the diplomats at the State Department in charge of implementing the front line of our anti-drug war, and not the Defense Department, or the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The nickname long-ago affixed to the State Department - "Foggy Bottom" - should give us a clue. The U.S. effort in Colombia, a multi-agency, multi-billion dollar, and multi-faceted operation clearly more akin to a military operation than a diplomatic soiree, suffers in large measure because diplomats, not warriors, are in charge. Who doubts that we'd still be fighting the first Gulf War if the folks at Foggy Bottom had been charged by Bush I with prosecuting that effort?

The State Department exists to be diplomatic; to convey messages; to send strongly-worded telexes; to occasionally pound the lectern at the United Nations; to recall ambassadors – but not to wage war. Yet that's what this most senior of our Cabinet departments has been tasked with doing in Colombia. And as long as it remains in charge, we will not win. Wresting responsibility over a multi-billion dollar program away from any federal agency, however, is no easy task. Reflective of Bob Barr's Law of the Universe® Number 49 - "The most powerful force in the universe is the force of the status quo" - one might easier move a mountain than remove a responsibility, once given to a federal agency, from that entity.

When diplomats rather than generals direct the logistics, tactics and strategy for a large-scale military operation, bad things happen; and that's exactly what's happened in Colombia in recent years. This situation has been compounded by another grave error - outsourcing many aspects of the anti-terrorism effort in Colombia. Partly the result of short-sighted cost-cutting measures, and partly an effort to lessen the fingerprint of official U.S. involvement, the use of outside contractors to do much of the heavy lifting in Colombia has weakened the effort considerably. But when we ask, nobody can tell us who made the decision.

If outside contractors were used in other theatres of operation to the extent they are in Colombia, similarly disappointing results would ensue. A military commander, ordering a military pilot, to conduct a specific drug eradication effort, or to provide protection therefore, could expect that mission to be carried out forthwith. A diplomat, after receiving the policy and legal green light from superiors in Washington, telling an outside contractor to assign a private pilot and a private aircraft under contract to the State Department, to conduct a specific drug eradication or related mission, can expect no such obedience. And they don't get it. Missions to eradicate opium poppy fields are called off because a contractor doesn't want to fly that day. Lawyers veto vital missions because some diplomat is scared the "primary" purpose of a mission might be construed by someone, somewhere, at sometime, to be "anti-terrorist" rather than "anti-drug," or perhaps vice versa.

Because of bureaucratic timidity and confusion, at least one vital and attainable aspect of fighting the drug war in Colombia - eradicating the opium poppy crop - has stalled. The heroin refined from those Colombian opium poppies, has been showing up in ever increasing amounts in U.S. schools, businesses, communities and previously drug-free neighborhoods.

The folly of placing diplomats in command of a complex military operation is evident even in such otherwise mundane jobs as parts and training for helicopters and the pilots who fly them. The multi-million dollar Blackhawk helicopters, and the older but equally vital Huey choppers sold or leased to the Colombians, are often parked on concrete slabs, because parts are unavailable due to poor inventory control or paperwork delays. More time is spent flying these sophisticated aircraft for training than for actual anti-drug and anti-terrorist missions; training time that could be saved if a decision were made (as frequently suggested) to simply provide the Colombians with a flight simulator. Perhaps these are some of the reasons why we've lost more aircraft (nearly 40 planes and helicopters) in Colombia in the past few years than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

And then there's the question of good ammunition; ammunition that won't constantly foul the sophisticated machine guns mounted on the helicopters because it's so old. DEA agents tell me when Colombian pilots complain, they are told "this is what you get --- use it!" But, we've already discussed that problem.

How many Congressmen and Senators know that the United States Department of State has an Air Wing? One key congressional leader does – Henry Hyde, the veteran Chairman of the House International Affairs Committee. In the wake of documented, serious problems with the management of the air wing, Chairman Hyde has called for the placement of this mini-air force under the control of an agency of the U.S. government that actually knows the hows, whys and wherefores of managing military equipment.

A new Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement was recently sworn in - Bobby Charles, a veteran of congressional committee investigations and the military. His portfolio includes major aspects of the anti-drug and anti-terrorism war in Colombia. Whether his extensive knowledge of the situation in our southern neighbor, and his keen sense of what needs to be done, will actually result in significant progress, remains to be seen. But so long as the war in Colombia remains but a footnote in the global effort to protect America and her children, and so long as 99.9 percent of official Washington attention remains focused on more glamorous hot spots elsewhere, the bureaucracy will likely prevail. And American lives and vast amounts of U.S. taxpayer dollars will continue to be wasted.

Fortunately, Colombia's President Uribe, whose chances for success against the narco-terrorists depend to some extent on U.S. aid and assistance, however, does not appear to be sitting around waiting for the gringos to wise up. Though in office less than two years, he has already dealt the terrorists a number of body blows. He quickly scuttled an appeasement plan pursued by his predecessor that allowed the terrorists to operate with impunity in a military-free zone. He has shaken up the Colombian military establishment, long a haven for playboy generals and barracks-bound under-trained and under-paid soldiers, and cleaned up much of the corruption that had crept into its ranks.

At the end of February, the FARC launched an offensive that claimed the lives of 18 soldiers and as many innocent civilians. But Uribe's reorganized security forces countered by inflicting a crushing defeat to the FARC leadership. These actions by President Uribe should be exploited and supported. He realizes that if you aggressively eradicate the illicit drug crops, including the heroin crop, you hit the terrorists where it hurts them - in their wallets. When you remove the money from the equation the guerrilla riflemen will desert the terrorist ranks and go home.

If the Colombian President had the same type of support and understanding from Washington, as we give unquestioningly to civilian leaders in Afghanistan and Iraq who simply mouth pro-American sound bites and are then invited to the State of the Union Address, perhaps we'd finally start seeing the success of our efforts in Colombia that our children and our brave anti-drug warriors deserve. Our DEA agents and the 5,000 Colombian policemen who have lost their lives in fighting the war on drugs deserve no less.