JUDGING BY THE Reagan Administration's lobbying effort, the President's $100 million aid package for the Contras is the most important program for hemispheric defense since Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders kicked the Spanish out of Cuba.

Reagan claims that military and economic aid to the Contras is necessary "so we'll never have to send our own American boys." He even told congressmen they had a choice between supporting him and supporting communism. But the choice is not so simple.

Reagan calls the Contras "freedom fighters" and has compared them to the Founding Fathers. He claims supporting their war against the Sandinista government is the only hope for democracy in Nicaragua. But the truth about the rebels is not so glorious.

Waging war in rural areas along the northern and southern borders of Nicaragua, the Contras have taken more than 14,000 lives--most of them civilians--since 1980. The rebels have concentrated on civilian targets, killing coffee pickers, razing agricultural cooperatives and assassinating local officials. Several independent human rights groups--some of which have backed their reports with affadavits from eyewitnesses--have implicated the Contras in numerous incidents of raping, torturing and killing unarmed civilians.

Thus it should come as no surprise that despite years of covert aid and training from the CIA and $27 million of "non-lethal" U.S. aid this past year, the Contras have failed to hold a single piece of Nicaraguan territory. Their brutality has cost them what little popular support they may once have had. With the failure of their latest offensive most Contra units have retreated to bases in Honduras and Costa Rica.

If they have ever represented a legitimate rebellion against the Nicaraguan government, it is clear now that the Contras are entirely a creation of U.S. foreign policy--dependent on their paymaster for their limited ability to inflict malicious harm on the Nicaraguan people.

There should also be little surprise at the Contras' brutal methods. Reports from Nicaraguans who have left the rebel organization indicate that 46 of 48 Contra field commanders are former members of late dictator Anastasio Somoza's National Guard. And, as if their experience in oppression were not enough, CIA advisers supplied the exiles with a training manual which encourages political assassination and details methods of torture.

Fortunately, there is strong resistance in the House of Representatives to Reagan's aid package. But, under pressure from presidential politicking that seems ridiculously out of proportion to the threat posed by a struggling Central American nation, congressmen are entertaining a number of compromise options. Few are real compromises and none is acceptable.

Delaying the aid or giving Congress the opportunity to cut it off if the Sandinistas make changes in their government that are satisfactory to U.S. policymakers misses the point entirely. The Contras are a band of murdering thugs and we should not be giving them anything--whether or not we approve of the Sandinistas. Furthermore, the paternalistic arrogance of assuming that all nations should order their domestic affairs to U.S. specifications is so obvious that it hardly bears criticism.

The Nicaraguan government has its problems, yet it enjoys widespread popular support. The Sandinistas' overwhelming victory in elections that were declared by international observers to be largely fair and open is a credential that can hardly be claimed by U.S. client countries like E1 Salvador or Guatemala.

Finally, the argument that aid to the Contras provides the Reagan Administration with needed leverage to negotiate a settlement with the Nicaraguan government is hardly credible. The State Department has consistently denied reports of Contra atrocities and the presence of ex-Somacistas in rebel units. It has twice ignored attempts by other Latin American nations to start negotiations through the Contadora process. We heard the same rhetoric last year about negotiations; what has been done?

For all its hyperbolic appeals for democracy, the administration's purpose is clear: to overthrow the Sandinistas by whatever means possible. It's enough to make you believe President Reagan when he says, "I'm a Contra too." He should be ashamed to admit it.