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“SYMBOLIC WAR AGAINST DRUGS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1289 on July 16, 1996.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
SYMBOLIC WAR AGAINST DRUGS
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HON. BENJAMIN A. GILMAN
of new york
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, July 16, 1996
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, the much publicized Clinton administration cancellation of the U.S. entry visa for President Ernesto Samper of Colombia, because of his campaign's link with drug trafficking moneys, is a symbolic public gesture in the battle against illicit drugs.
However, while it is a welcome message against those who deal with or are influenced by the drug traffickers, the actions critically needed from this administration in the war on drugs, are much more important than merely revoking one visa.
Meanwhile, in our fight against the drug traffickers and their guerrilla allies in the most important drug producing nation in the world, Colombia, and other producing or transit nations around the globe, this administration has to do much more.
Illicit drugs have cost our society billions of dollars each and every year in crime, violence, incarceration, health care, lost productivity, and lost lives, especially our young people.
Revoking one visa in a nation like Colombia, is tantamount to providing a cup of water to fight a raging fire, when the local fire department has no equipment.
We must also provide the dedicated and courageous men and women of the Colombian national police, who have suffered more than 3,000 casualties in their real war, the equipment and supplies they need. We must aid them in waging the true battle against the traffickers, and their guerrilla supporters on the ground, who protect and support the cocaine labs and the air strips for processing and moving this poison eventually north to our cities, streets, and schools.
The differences between these guerrillas and the drug traffickers they protect, is difficult to distinguish. While the Colombian national police have taken down the Cali cartel leadership and killed many of its key figures, it has not been cost free. They have lost many men, planes, and helicopters shot down in the deadly struggle, while our State Department bureaucracy has acted like this was just another foreign aid account service, if and when, it suits them.
Only when we treat this struggle like the real war that it is, and we provide those willing to fight the battle with us, the tools to do the job, can the United States be seen as serious by taking the fight to the traffickers in this deadly struggle. It is in our national interest to fight this struggle abroad, before this corrosive poison reaches our shores and costs much more of our Nation's treasure, and the lives of so many of our people, especially our youth.
We in the Congress have had to push very hard for many months in order to get six replacement helicopters for Colombia for those shot down or crashed in battles with the traffickers or the use of the highly professional Colombian National Police.
These much needed excess U.S. Army Vietnam era helicopters, which our own military no longer needs, and older than many of the Colombia police pilots who fly them, are vital tools in the struggle against the narco-guerrillas.
While the six Hueys finally arrived in early June, although late for the guerrillas' annual spring offensive, they were promptly, effectively used in seizing large quantities of narcotics, and medevacing out the wounded from the battlefield in this deadly struggle being waged in Colombia today.
The Clinton administration has rolled back the source and transit resources efforts in favor of attempting to win a war by treating the wounded here at home. Supplying nearly $3 billion dollars annually for drug treatment programs in many cases, which at best produces limited results, while neglecting the source and transit nations, is a prescription for failure.
Just a little of that $3 billion from treatment moneys properly placed in key nations like Colombia, will help drive drug prices up and purity levels down, as was the case in the Reagan/Bush eras where waging a real--not symbolic--war, reduced monthly cocaine use by nearly 80 percent, from 5.5 million users down to 1.3 million users each month. It is doubtful that all those treatment moneys will produce anywhere near that almost 80 percent success rate.
With the soaring drug use we are once again witnessing here at home, especially among the young, and our newest drug czar, having already abandoned the analogy of ``a drug war'', focusing primarily instead on the drug users and treating the wounded, we need more effective action. A real war must be waged against drugs, or we will face another lost generation to the evils of illicit narcotics.
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