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From: baba@spar.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Orphaned Response (US aid to Sandinistas)
Message-ID: <673@spar.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Nov-85 15:30:33 EST
Article-I.D.: spar.673
Posted: Tue Nov 26 15:30:33 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 29-Nov-85 22:14:05 EST
References: <7559@ucla-cs.UUCP> <7800726@inmet.UUCP>
Organization: The Institute of Impure Science
Lines: 27

> Having sold the Nicaraguan people down the river with its aid to
> the Sandinistas, the US has an OBLIGATION to at least match that
> with aid to the resistance.
> 
> 		Jan Wasilewsky

I hope someone has some verifiable figures handy.  The Carter administration
committed a few million to the Sandinista regime shortly after they took
power, partly in recognition of the fact that "our son-of-a-bitch" Tacho
Somoza and his pals had looted most of the Nicaraguan treasury on their
way out of town, and partly in an effort to retain some degree of influence
in Nicaragua.  I do not believe that very much aid was actually delivered.
I would be suprised if the U.S. has not already spent more on the Contras,
but given the CIA's accounting methods, it would be hard to get accurate
numbers.

At the time that the aid was offered, there were still significant democratic
and nationalist factions within the Sandinista directorate.  Offering aid
in an attempt to strengthen their position was both morally and realistically
a reasonable thing to do.  I fail to see how doing so "sold the Nicaraguan
people down the river", when the Sandinistas were already in power and
indeed were at the peak of their popularity.

People of a Manichean bent will doubtless take this as an endorsement of
the Sandinista regime.  They will be mistaken.

						Baba