Like many other Colombians, I would welcome the U.S. military aid if it helped the Colombian government push the guerrillas to the negotiating table, thereby improving the prospects for a peace agreement that would put an end to a cruel war.

The guerrillas have established an instrumental relationship with drug traffickers, accumulated enough military power to lay siege to the government, and displayed a strategy indifferent to the international humanitarian law.

I cannot, however, welcome aid given under the most ominous terms: "We provide the money; you provide the corpses."

As it is conceived under the current plan, the military aid will primarily affect the most vulnerable links in the drug trafficking chain: peasants who plant illegal crops. The U.S. government set goals regarding the reduction of those crops that Colombian authorities have to achieve.

Who will set goals for the U.S. government for stopping the flow of arms to the country, which guerrillas, paramilitaries and criminals can buy in black markets? Who will set goals for stopping the flow of chemicals used for processing cocaine? For dismantling money laundries? For preventing consumption through education and for promoting rehabilitation?

I cannot welcome Bill Clinton's cynicism. In Colombia, he stressed the importance of respecting human rights. A few days ago, however, he signed a waiver authorizing the military aid to the Colombian government even though it has not met all the human rights conditions set by the U.S. Congress. Paramilitary groups, which are responsible for a large number of political killings, do receive financial support from drug traffickers, but this issue is kept out of the spotlight by the U.S. government because the paramilitaries also assist the Army against the guerrillas.

I cannot join those who think this war against drugs is correct, for this war is ultimately rooted in the idea some people have that they are entitled to force others to improve their lives.

Unfortunately, this moral perfectionism and paternalism is embedded in the culture of the United States. I would appeal, instead, to the best political traditions of the United States -- those of tolerance, personal freedom, critical judgment and public discussion.

I do not hold any expectation of anything better from the next president of the United States whoever that will be, but I believe alert citizens can get information by themselves about what their government is doing, how it affects people in other countries and demand responsibility on the part of their public officials.

Juan Gabriel Gomez-Albarello is a doctoral student in political science at Washington University in St. Louis.

© 2000 St. Louis Post-Dispatch

###