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From: tos@psc70.UUCP (Dr.Schlesinger)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Aid for Nicaraguan Contras
Message-ID: <170@psc70.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 8-Mar-86 05:24:37 EST
Article-I.D.: psc70.170
Posted: Sat Mar  8 05:24:37 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 23:24:42 EST
Organization: Plymouth State College, Plymouth, NH
Lines: 50


President Reagan campaigns for Congressional approval of $100 
million aid to the Contras, the counter-revolutionary guerrillas 
in Nicaragua. He calls his opponents "unwitting allies of the 
communists."  The qualifier "unwitting" half-heartedly reduces 
the sting of the red-baiting. Lacking persuasive arguments some 
stoop to the personal smearm and the resort to McCarthyism 
backfired even among Presidential supporters. Yet one finds real 
irony in Reagan policy which bolsters hard line Marxist-Leninists 
in Managua.
    Before 1979 the hatred of Nicaraguans was focused mainly on 
the Guardia, Somoza's National Guard.  And for good reason.  They 
were killers and torturers, and organized by us.  Upon Somoza's 
defeat, the Sandinista regime, then still a mix of Democrats and 
Marxists, learned that the US-backed government of neighboring 
Honduras wouldn't lift a finger against the two thousand Guardia 
murderers, rapists, and looters ensconced in refuge across the 
Honduran border. And soon these were maintained by the CIA.
    Apparently the Carter administration did offer withdrawal of 
US-aid to the Contras in return for Sandinista concessions. No 
doubt the response was cocky and doctrinaire. What else to expect 
from very young men who've just won a war, when we had ceased 
support of their enemy at only the last moment? And when Carter 
had been chastized for this by soon-to-be President Reagan. 
    And why should simple justice and removal of a threat on 
their border have called for concessions at all?
    These events played into the hands of the most radical 
Nicaraguan leaders. And they were bound to weaken the hand of 
Democratic forces. Conveniently Mr. Borge and Company could point 
to the CIA-pimped Guardia as a threat which justified more 
Cubans, more Soviet aid, and stronger armed forces.
    That suited the folks in Washington who were itching to beef 
up the Contras and turn them loose in guerilla war. Now Managua's 
hotheads had just what they needed. Our state terrorism, such as 
mining their harbors, served as excuse to curtail civil 
liberties, trample human rights, mismanage the economy.
    If the consequences weren't so grave, it would be amusing to 
hear conservatives cry about totalitarians in Managua. Aren't 
Conservatives supposed to favor that government which governs 
least? 
    But war, in Nicaragua, just as it did here in the 40's and 
the 60's, makes any government more intrusive and oppressive.  
And that's why President Reagan is really the Nicaraguan 
Communists' best friend.


Tom Schlesinger
Plymouth State College
Plymouth, N.H. 03264
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