gly is the word that comes to mind, followed by shameful and sad and senseless. With the unblinking stare of live television, countless numbers of viewers witnessed yesterday afternoon the arbitrary and too-often cruel application of U.S. refugee policy.

And it was rendered all the worse by being overzealously applied by Coast Guardsmen who, in so many other situations, take pride in saving lives.

This drama unfolded just a few hundred yards off the beach of Surfside when the Coast Guard was alerted to the plight of six Cuban men in a tiny wooden boat paddling toward shore.

A Coast Guard patrol boat, a motorized inflatable and a police boat closed in on the refugees, attempting to cut off their quest to reach the beach. A shocking confrontation ensued as Coast Guard crewmen on a larger boat turned a water cannon on the refugees; a second Coast Guardsman unnecessarily doused one of the six Cubans with noxious spray as the refugee was treading water. Clearly, those actions warrant serious review and possible disciplinary measures.

But also subject to review should be the U.S. refugee policy that caused this ugly scene, guiding the Coast Guard's action. The policy was put in place following the balsero summer of 1994 when countless thousands of desperate Cubans risked their lives on the flimsiest of rafts in search of freedom. Many died. The Clinton administration struck a well-intended deal: Stop the rafters, and the United States would allow 20,000 Cubans to immigrate annually.

But that policy underestimated the cruelty that is Castro's Cuba. And its arbitrariness was graphically on display yesterday as two of the Cubans, incredibly, eluded capture and struggled to shore. Almost certainly they soon will be free to stay. The other four -- unless they can prove ``a well-founded fear of persecution'' -- will be returned to the island and sure harassment.