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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Nicaraguan Parallel: Some key fa
Message-ID: <7800580@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 18-Oct-85 15:27:00 EDT
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Posted: Fri Oct 18 15:27:00 1985
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Nf-From: inmet!janw    Oct 18 15:27:00 1985


Date: Wed, 9 Oct 85 00:40:05 edt
From: ihnp4!inmet!janw@UCB-VAX.Berkeley.EDU (Jan Wasilewsky)

> Date: Mon, 30 Sep 85 10:33:22 PDT
> From: upstill%ucbdegas@Berkeley.EDU (Steve Upstill)
> 
> 	[ So, what are...[Nicaragua's large]...forces for, anyway?
> 	...JoSH ]
> 
>     An excellent question, one which has much troubled me.  You, JoSH,
> seem to feel that since there is no plausible explanation for their 
> numbers, they must be for attacking their neighbors.  Logically, this is
> an unsound implication.  

Add to it their early rhetoric about revolution without borders,
and you get both tools and motive: they were out to carve out
a Central American empire for themselves and their cause.

Not opportunity, though:

> You also feel that they would be useless in 
> defending against a determined attack by the United States; why then are 
> you so enthusiastic about their utility in attacking nations which the 
> US would surely leap to defend?  

When the revolution won, it was quite unclear what USA would do in
such a crisis. Salvadoran situation seemed, to many, hopeless.
Apparently, Ortega & his comrades waited for a moment that never
came.

>     Sadly, I have to come to the conclusion that the militaristic nature
> of the Nicaraguan state is the result of a paranoid mentality  on the
> part of the leadership.  But as has been pointed out to me before, just
> because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.  And
> the US is surely out to get Nicaragua. 

You mean out to get the regime in Managua.
Yes, but it was not at first: it *helped* the bastards.
And it was then that they created that bloated army.
Paranoia, all right, but it can be a powerful tool of
conquest - as many revolutionary wars in history will attest.

>    The simple fact is that the most powerful nation in the world is fuming
> with hostility at a tiny, bankrupt but proud (read, uncooperative) neighbor.
> Not being saints, the leadership has responded to this threat the way all
> nations have responded to similar situations: with desperate militarism
> and nationalism.

Again: the "response" came before the threat.   And  many  people
feel  that  here is a "tiny, proud" tentacle of the Soviet squid.
*That* beast is large; no shame in combatting it where you can.

In any case, Contras are as Nicaraguan as are the Sandinistas; in
helping  them,  we are *helping* a tiny neighbor. Was any outside
help to Sandinistas against Somoza a cowardly attack on  a  small
nation?  If not, then sauce for the goose should be sauce for the
gander.

	Jan Wasilewsky