Addicted to Failure

Congress votes today on the Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act, a $2.3 billion military aid package which, many believe, will reduce the flow of illicit drugs into the U.S by 80 percent. In all likelihood, the bill will pass; with the strong support of the Republican leadership, and with midterm elections weeks away, no Senator or Representative will want to appear "soft on drugs" by opposing it. Unfortunately, it appears that a catchy name and the appeal of counter-drug legislation have concealed the content of a bill full of disastrous foreign policy.

The act, if passed, will have three effects. First and most disturbingly, it will allow U.S. weapons, training and military hardware to fall into the hands of human rights violators abroad. Second, it will waste billions of U.S. taxpayers' dollars on policies with a history of failure. Lastly, it will embroil the U.S. unnecessarily in the hemisphere's worst internal conflicts. Not only will this bill fail to achieve its objectives, it will waste U.S. taxpayers' money while deepening the crises in democracy and human rights that afflict the countries where drugs are produced and transported.

Despite the 1998 Leahy Amendment, which prohibits U.S. military aid to foreign soldiers guilty of human rights abuses, the current bill drastically increases the likelihood that U.S. military aid will aid the hemisphere's worst human rights abusers. Colombia, where much of the bill's aid will go, has suffered an average of 10 political killings per day since 1988, many of which have been committed by paramilitary death squads with close ties to the Colombian security forces.

The paramilitary massacres peasants, human rights workers, and left-wing activists at will, without fear of reprisal, and often with the tacit consent of Colombian security forces. While the State Department insists that no violators of human rights benefit from U.S. assistance, the accountability of an inept and abusive Colombian military is far from assured. Currently, 10 soldiers are under investigation for committing human rights abuses themselves, and many more cases have been hushed up. Given the Colombian military's extremely poor human rights record, the reality is that we have no way of knowing whether our aid reaches human rights violators.

The second problem concerns the efficacy of our policies. Even though the public generally regards the "War on Drugs" and other counternarcotics efforts as positive solutions to the U.S.'s drug woes, our international drug strategy of the past decade has fallen flat on its face. Coletta Youngers of the Washington Office on Latin America has written that "U.S. taxpayers have provided nearly $290 billion for the war on drugs, yet cocaine and heroine are more readily available, and at cheaper prices, than ever before."

This is confirmed by even the most conservative estimates of drug use, production and trafficking: the State Department estimates that cocaine production throughout Latin America has increased by 11.7 percent since 1988, and opium production has doubled, even though U.S. government funding for anti-drug efforts has increased by more than 150 percent.

In Colombia, drug production has increased an incredible 260 percent, even though it is the largest recipient of U.S. counter-narcotics aid. Its coca production has tripled, and its heroine production is forth-greatest worldwide, even though four years ago it produced no heroine. Coca eradication efforts destroy crops temporarily, but they cause widespread social discontent, and production spring up quickly elsewhere. The stated goals of the War on Drugs--to reduce drug production and trafficking into the U.S--have proven elusive, despite all the money weive thrown at them.

Last, U.S. counternarcotics aid will never escape the internal politics and warfare that continue to plague recipient countries. Despite guarantees that equipment and training be used to fight drugs, in reality policymakers have no way of knowing that military training and equipment are not used for counter-insurgency against guerrilla forces. In Colombia, where the War on Drugs and the government's counter-insurgency efforts are most intertwined, the bill earmarks $168 million for helicopters and other aircraft, despite repeated reports of clashes between Colombian air forces and FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) guerrillas.

It allows Mexico $18 million for the purchase of six Bell 212 helicopters for use in Guerrero, Jalisco, and Sinaloa states, only a few hundred miles from the heart of the Chiapas rebellion. Meanwhile, resolutions and letters circulate condemning the conflicts in Colombia and Mexico and call for peace. If the U.S. is willing to aid any country militarily, it must also be prepared to become involved in the wars recipient countries are fighting. With recent comparisons to the U.S. involvement in El Salvador in the 1980s and even to Vietnam, recognition of the role we play in these conflicts is not forthcoming.

Despite the problems with the Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act, its sponsors, Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.) and Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), considered the bill non-controversial enough to merit "suspension of the rules," a technical procedure limiting the floor debate to one hour and prohibiting amendments. Even more suspect, all relevant House and Senate committees have waived jurisdiction over the bill. Shockingly, Congress has not held one hearing to study the proposal.

At a time when Washington should be reevaluating its international drug strategies, our leaders, spurred by electoral incentives and misguided intentions, are only worsening our problems. Brendan G. Conway '00, a Crimson editor, is a government concentrator in Leverett House and a certificate candidate at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.