YESTERDAY AFTERNOON, the House of Representatives voted to postpone consideration of the U.S.-Colombia free trade pact, which President Bush sent to Congress earlier this week. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama oppose the Colombia deal on the grounds that Bogotá has not done enough to curb violence against trade unionists. This is the same argument we hear from other top Democrats and from senior American labor leaders. Yet it reveals either a total lack of perspective or an indifference to the facts, or both.

To appreciate where Colombia is today, it’s helpful to recall where it was six years ago, when Alvaro Uribe was first elected president. At that time, dozens of municipalities lacked a real state security presence. Leftist guerrillas were terrorizing Colombians with bombings, kidnappings, and gun battles, while right-wing paramilitaries were committing atrocities of their own. The “peace process” launched by President Andrés Pastrana had failed. In April 2002, Uribe was nearly killed by a roadside bomb while campaigning for the presidency. A month later, Colombians voted him into office.