THE WAR ON FARC IS THE WAR ON TERROR:

Washington's quiet war in Colombia: 3 more U.S. contractors die in operations vs. drugs, rebels (Aram Roston, 4/02/03, NBC NEWS

While world attention is focused on the conflict in Iraq, the United States is also deeply, and quietly, involved in a battle in the jungles of Colombia. In that conflict, Washington employs a small army of private contractors who assist Colombia’s government in its fight with leftist rebels and drug lords. In the past seven weeks, four Americans and one Colombian have been killed in the conflict while under contract with the U.S. government. Three others have been taken hostage.

THE LATEST U.S. casualties in the simmering conflict came March 25 when a Cessna 208 operated by private contractors on behalf of the U.S. military crashed, killing all three U.S. crew members. It was the second disaster in Colombia involving that type of aircraft in just two months.

That flight was in turn part of a search-and-rescue effort trying to track down three U.S. employees of the same company who were taken hostage after their aircraft crashed Feb. 13 in rebel-held jungle territory.

These disasters have cracked open a window on a small private army of pilots, commandos and maintenance personnel involved in a secretive military and intelligence operation in Colombia run on behalf of the U.S. government. These contractors are smack in the middle of a campaign against leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers.

"We never use the 'm' word," one veteran pilot says, meaning 'm' as in 'mercenary.' But it is a job. "Where else can a guy with a high school education earn more than $100,000 a year?" the pilot says. "If you don't mind living on a base with other smelly guys, sharing a room with six other guys."

Under a U.S. program to back Colombia's battle with narcotics producers and traffickers, Washington has allocated $2 billion worth of military equipment and training to the Colombian military, which is also at war with guerrilla groups. In March, in a little-noticed item in the emergency spending request sent to Congress for Iraq war funding, the White House asked for an extra $105 million for operations in Colombia.

The three Americans taken captive by FARC are still missing, and their names have not been released. The Colombian army launched a massive operation to encircle the guerillas and rescue the captives. The U.S. Southern Command sent about 40 SAR specialists to help in the hunt, but so far there has been no trace of the missing Americans.

Robert D. Kaplan's next piece for the Atlantic Monthly will describe FARC's burgeoning ties to al Qaeda, at which point it will be difficult for folks, even those who are pro-drugs, to oppose greater U.S. involvement in Colombia. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 3, 2003 7:53 PM