Intervencion! screamed a recent headline on the cover of the Colombian weekly news magazine Cambio.
It was printed in the blue and white colours of the American flag and set against the backdrop of a US soldier, machine-gun poised and looking out from a helicopter over the coca-growing areas of southern Colombia. The article was just one of a series of newspaper and magazine pieces to highlight the possibility of US intervention in what the American Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, recently referred to as South America's "most problematic" country.
The talk of intervention is not only confined to the newsrooms of Bogota. At least once a week I'm asked when do I think the gringos will arrive? The people are tired of 38 years of a seemingly endless and largely forgotten war.
Speaking on Caracol television channel last week, a senior congressman said the country was "held hostage" by the insurgent groups, and it was about time the US made active decisions.
In the last month, there have been several visits from high-ranking US officials. A trip by the White House's drug specialist, Gen Barry McCaffery, coincided with the recovery of a US Air Force plane which crashed into the mountains in the department of Putumayo, near the border with Ecuador, killing five Americans and two Colombians.
Packed with sophisticated intelligence equipment, the reconnaissance plane was on a routine flight from a Colombian air force base to locate coca-processing laboratories in this region of thick jungle, one of the main areas for coca and poppy cultivation. The incident raised eyebrows - people began to ask what exactly was the aircraft's mission, and, more importantly, if it was connected in any way with rumours circulating in Bogota that an American invasion was imminent.
A week after Gen McCaffrey's visit, Mr Thomas Pickering, US Under Secretary of State - the highest level American diplomat to visit Colombia in 10 years - arrived in the capital. Accompanied by top officials from the CIA and the Drug Enforcement Agency, he paid a two-day visit to Bogota to discuss President Andres Pastrana's strategy for the new round of peace negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The first round began in January and broke down within a month. The FARC, Colombia's largest guerrilla group, finances its war against the state with money from drug trafficking - an estimated $600 million a year.
Washington says it will not approve further help unless Mr Pastrana produces a coherent strategy for renewed peace talks by the middle of this month. US financial aid to Colombia was $289 million in 1999, making it the third largest recipient of US military aid after Israel and Egypt. After his visit, Gen McCaffrey asked Congress to approve $1 billion for the Andean region, with a third going to Colombia.
Although the Americans say the financial aid is for anti-narcotics activities, it is almost impossible to separate the war against drugs from the counter-insurgency struggle. The FARC and the rightwing paramilitary groups control almost 40 per cent of the country - swathes of land, mainly in the south and west of Colombia, are used for the production and trafficking of cocaine and heroin. Colombia supplies 80 per cent of the world's cocaine and almost 70 per cent of that reaching the US.
President Pastrana has a long, difficult road ahead. Domestic problems are mounting daily with the economy in its worst recession for 30 years - a two-day strike called by the unions paralysed the nation earlier this week and faltering talks with the FARC has meant people's patience is growing thinner.
There has been a mass exodus from Colombia in recent months.
A recent opinion poll showed most Colombians would favour US intervention to relieve them from decades of violence and economic problems. But the US is adamant. There will be no direct military intervention. a, After his talks with Mr Pastrana, Mr Pickering said the idea was "totally false, totally crazy". Last week, Gen McCaffrey told reporters in Lima at the end of a four-nation visit that neighbouring countries had to support Colombia, but he rejected any possibility of direct military intervention.
It remains highly unlikely that US Marine Corps will be landing on the Caribbean and Pacific beaches of Colombia, with all the echoes of Vietnam that would create, but the pressure for other forms of international intervention, less subtle than we have seen to date, are becoming very strong indeed.