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From: jim@ism780.UUCP (Jim Balter)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re(2): Nicaragua
Message-ID: <22@ism780.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Aug-83 14:42:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ism780.22
Posted: Tue Aug 23 14:42:00 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Aug-83 10:28:47 EDT
Lines: 99

I subscribed to net.politics because I hoped to see intelligent
discussions of political issues, comparisons of political systems,
proposals for making political systems more responsive to
societies or whatever else people consider the role of government to be,
rational discussion of what that role should be, and various other
intelligent rational discussion.  I did expect some occasional
flaming from idiots like rabbit!jj, but I expected that to get shot down
and overridden by more factual arguments.  But instead I continually
see fanatical ideological ravings from people who would never accept
a discussion at that level about some technical design issue.
When someone as intelligent as Kenneth Almquist can say in the same
paragraph
"
Does anyone out there know enough about the history of US/Nicaraguan
relations to evaluate this claim?
...
		    And rather than teaching school children that it
would be nice to be friends with the US, they teach them that America
and Americans are hateful.
"
then my hopes for such rational discussions tend to vanish.
You may strongly suspect that this is the case.  You may have read
or heard testimony that this is the case.  But to be convinced of it,
to state it as fact, as an argument against the claim "these guys would
very much prefer to get along with US" can only come from a prior ideological
assumption; it does not come from logic or induction.  Arguments at this
level are stupid and dishonest.  Please, people, be true to your intelligence!

Some other points from ka's article:

    They may have seemed honest, but I doubt if they were.  I recall that
    they denied shipping arms to the rebels in El Salvedor [sic]; and I don't
    think that there is any real doubt that they have done exactly that.

Without evidence of such shipments, there must be real doubt.
The State Department has yet to come forward with such evidence.
Please do not be so dishonest as to claim they have without offering
documentation.  And do not offer State Department claims that they
have evidence as evidence.

    There certainly was a period when Reagan was making even the
    Russian [sic] propaganda machine sound like the voice of reason and common
    sense on the issue of arms control.

So many of the attitudes of yourself and others seem to be driven by the
ideological notion that we are the good guys and they are the bad guys.
Why aren't you proud of our massive and sophisticated propaganda machine?
What knowledge do you have of the Soviet's propaganda machine that you
consider unbiased?  What do you know of the Soviet's attitudes toward
arms control?  You may be convinced that the Soviets plan to take over
the world by any means possible, that that is basic to the Communist charter.
Did you come to that conclusion through the same rational means by which
you would choose a C compiler?  A friend of mine told me that he really
does know that Russians are bad people compared to us, because they
drink a lot and that leads to violence.  Are we not fools?

You mention some hostile acts on both sides:

	Nicaragua                       U.S.
	---------                       ----
	shipped arms to                 eliminated foreign aid, while
	 El Salvadoran rebels            giving aid to neighbors

	imported Cuban advisors         financing Nicaraguan rebels who
					 aim to overthrow the government
	teaching children that
	 Americans are hateful


and suggest that the question is: who was hostile first?
I suggest that the nature and accuracy of these hostilities is a more
significant question.  Interfering with the Nicaraguans' right to import
advisors from where ever they want is rather hostile, especially when
much of the advice is probably agricultural.  And we all know that
many Americans *are* hateful (perhaps you meant hateable?).  What do we
teach *our* children?  The U.S. support for the overthrow of the
Nicaraguan government is explicitly hostile and a violation of international
law.  You may feel that such support is nevertheless desirable in order
to stop the Marxist Advance; be honest enough to say so and to defend that
position, with factual evidence rather than foolish repetitions about
our doorstep.  But don't be such an ass as to claim that the Nicarguans
have engaged in hostilities toward the U.S. that warrant the overthrow
of their government.

    In particular, no reference was made to Carter's attempts
    to be friendly with the Sandanistas [sic] by either the interviewer or the
    Sandanistas [sic] being interviewed.

There were not only attempts, but successes.  Carter was not merely friendly,
but in fact actively worked for the elimination of the unstable,
uncooperative, and vulnerable Samosa (for which non-interventionalists should
not praise him).  But if you are implying that we were friendly but the
Sandinistas bit the hand ..., it would be better to note that the Reagan
administration has a significantly different attitude towards the Nicaraguans
and toward Godless (but Catholic?) Communists in general.

Jim Balter (decvax!yale-co!ima!jim), Interactive Systems Corp

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