Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site hhb.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!linus!philabs!hhb!bcb From: bcb@hhb.UUCP (Bob BField) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: The Sandinista Problem II: The Home Front Message-ID: <141@hhb.UUCP> Date: Thu, 6-Mar-86 08:54:23 EST Article-I.D.: hhb.141 Posted: Thu Mar 6 08:54:23 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 9-Mar-86 21:18:55 EST Organization: HHB-Softron, Mahwah, NJ Lines: 110 This is the second posting in a series on the Sandinista Problem. The previous posting introduced our need to overthrow the Sandinistas with an invasion involving American forces. This posting deals with the task at hand here at home. F.B.E. ---------------------------------------------------------- Our first step in overthrowing the Sandinistas in Nicaragua is winning the support of the American public and of Congressmen. Some solutions are currently in place, but more must be done. The Reagan Administration and others have convinced a great number that the Sandinistas must go. We must take further steps to maintain and expand current support. This is no simple prospect with the specter of Vietnam haunting us. I congratulate the Administration and others for their successful efforts to control the nature and scope of information available to the public. They employ new techniques combined with traditional techniques to place Nicaragua in a dim light. Information favorable to the Sandinistas is quickly dispatched to obscurity, falsified, and overwhelmed. The most valuable, tried-and-true technique is red bating. It works miracles on laymen and Congressmen. We successfully labeled the Sandinistas as "communists" who threaten our National Security. This priceless technique renders them evil. It justifies military action. Those who speak favorably of the Sandinistas are automatically either dupes or communists. People who know things that we don't want said are wary of speaking up for fear of being fingered. The inescapable logic of red bating parallels the effective Moonie concept that all non-Moonies are possessed by the devil. Therefore they lie, trying to trick Moonies into abandoning their blessed state of grace. We must take advantage of red bating's fullest potential. An admirable technique employed by the Administration is the press barrage. When anything favorable to the Sandinistas comes out, the media are barraged with an abundance of statements swamping and attacking the validity of opposition information. This way, the media spend all of their time covering White House and Pentagon statements while ignoring the original story. A fine example of this is the barrage story of a Soviet jet fighter shipment to Nicaragua during their elections. We saw extensive coverage of this escalating threat with miniscule coverage of the elections. The only aspect of the elections for which the Media had time and space were official and unofficial statements that the elections were a sham. Proof that the jets were shipped and that the elections were a sham was neither necessary nor existent. It's the media coverage that counts; not the facts. Another technique involves the use of language. Since we control the language of the debate, we control the debate itself. The use of rhetorical abstraction places the debate on our own ground where the opposition is doomed to failure. We frame our turf with such language as Democratic, Freedom Fighters, National Security, Threat, Marxist, Leninist, Communist, Totalitarian, Puppet, Dictatorship, Just War. The opposition cannot avoid appearing apologetic, weak, and downright wrong. These and other techniques have proven to be very effective in obtaining support for the Contras in the past. At this point, we have lost much support in Congress for Contra funding. Also, we lack support for a full-blown military action involving a large contingency of American troops. We can always bypass Congressional funding hesitancy through alternative channels such as our good friend Israel. The invasion, however, requires strong support or it is doomed at the outset. This campaign demands a greater effort on our part. The primary obstacle here is the "Vietnam Syndrome" fear of foreign military action. We must also silence anyone who speaks favorably of the Sandinistas without it back-firing on us. Solving the latter solves the former because alternative sources of information nullify support for military action. The sources of information favorable to the Sandinistas are primarily Americans who have visited and resided in Nicaragua along with those journalists who disagree with our goal of eradicating the Sandinistas. To solve the information problem we must augment our discrediting campaign with direct attacks on these sources of information. The first, most obvious step is to ban all travel to Nicaragua by American citizens, recalling the great number who currently live there. We should also step up our efforts to bar any foreigner known to speak favorably of the Sandinistas from entering or remaining in the US. For those returning Americans who speak well of the Sandinistas, we should conduct a campaign of silencing and discrediting. We could use techniques such as accusing and arresting them for drug possession, child abuse, treason. Violent groups sympathetic with our cause will serve well to ransack opposition offices, living quarters, and lives. We used this form of harassment effectively on Vietnam war protesters and currently on groups assisting refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala. For those defiant Americans who remain in Nicaragua and for opposition journalists, we could train and finance death squads clad in Nicaraguan military garb. This would serve to eradicate our opposition while making the Sandinistas look worse. We could even use the killing of Americans to rationalize the invasion. We have plenty of experience with this avenue of action. Considering our current efforts and an expansion thereof, we will succeed in swaying public opinion sufficiently to overcome our reluctance to act. Once we have tighter control over the information, we will tailor history to suit our interests. We must succeed. We will succeed. F. B. Esdalib Next Posting: After the overthrow. ------------------------------------------------- The views expressed above are neither those of my employer, my colleagues, nor myself. _ Bob B-Field