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From: afb@pucc-i (Michael Lewis)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Contras as an army of national liberation
Message-ID: <1330@pucc-i>
Date: Mon, 3-Mar-86 11:02:45 EST
Article-I.D.: pucc-i.1330
Posted: Mon Mar  3 11:02:45 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Mar-86 19:17:55 EST
References: <2241@utcsri.UUCP>
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Lines: 29
Summary: You've got to admit that Latin America has had its problems over the years...

In article <2241@utcsri.UUCP>, vassos@utcsri.UUCP (Vassos Hadzilacos) writes:
> In <1716@bbncca.ARPA> Ron Rizzo writes (among other things):
> 
> > Still, partisanship over Nicaragua carries a risk of getting be-
> > smirched by too close an identification with one side or another,
> > given the violent, backward and even nasty character of the region
> > and its history, features embodied by revolutionaries, moderates,
> > and reactionaries alike.
> 
> The vicious racism and chauvinism of this statement is nauseating.

     Maybe disagreeing with your asessment of Rizzo's statement makes me just
as bad in your eyes (I hope you can be a little more open-minded than that),
but I do.  Central America certainly has its share of extremists, ideologues,
and crazies, doesn't it?  I mean, do you dispute that Central America has a
violent history?  That it has a violent character now?  There are two (or is it
three?) civil wars going on now.

    As far as "nasty" goes, the Salvadoran rebels kidnapped Duarte's *daughter*,
which qualifies as "nasty" to me.

    Now for "backward".  There are lots of problems in the region which seem to
draw upon violent solutions.  This is not civilized, and could be characterized
as "backward", although many other places are much more so...

    One of the main problems in Central America is, in my opinion, a surplus of
ideologues and a shortage of pragmatists...

     Micahael Lewis @ Purdue University