In the absence of additional planes, the CNP sends out teams of jungle fighters for manual eradication -- a slow and bloody business. An operation requires 300 men cutting coca plants, protected by 1,400 armed police. Their defoliation of five acres in a day compares with 200 acres sprayed in the same time by an aerial eradication team, suffering ambushes by narco-guerillas and heavy casualties. Brig. Gen. Jorge Baron, director of the CNP's anti-narcotics division, told me he would entirely depend on aerial eradication if he only had the planes.
The casualties taken by ground eradication operations are inflicted by the FARC leftist militia and new, supposedly right-wing paramilitary units that now operate side-by-side in the area hit by Wednesday's aerial eradication. Antonio Costa, Vienna-based head of the United Nations' anti-narcotics office, told me in Colombia last week that he considers both groups criminal organizations without political content.
At least, the FARC's Marxist-Leninist orientation has been eclipsed by its role as a narcotics kingpin. Colombians I saw here, including critics of President Alvaro Uribe's regime, are outraged that Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts called FARC's murderous, hated attacks a "civil war."
During the June 9 House debate, floor manager McGovern and other left-wing Democrats harped on the May 10 drug-related slaughter of 10 crack national anti-drug policemen by the army's High Mountain Battalion. The unit's commander, Col. Bayron Carvajal, has been imprisoned and removed from jurisdiction of military court martial (which has a conviction rate of 4 percent). Carvajal is being prosecuted by Colombian Attorney General Mario Iguaran, who has evidence of the colonel's ties to drug trafficking.
In response to this evidence of Colombia's escape from degradation as a narco-terrorist state, Democrats in the House voted 161 to 28 for McGovern's disastrous cut in U.S. aid. The House Republicans saved Colombia, but ardent young officers of the National Police are anxious to win this war. They need more help from Washington, and they deserve it.