Posted on February 5th 1988
Case Against Aid Fails
By Alex Linder
[ The following is from a forum thread posting. ]
[opinion published in Pomona College's The Student Life, Friday, February 5, 1988]
Case Against Aid Fails
By Alex Linder
Let's examine two dominant themes of the liberal case for ending contra support as evidenced in the debate leading up to Wednesday's House vote.
The first bit of demagoguery is the liberal adjuration to "let the Nicaraguans decide their future for themselves." This specious appeal to American respect for self-determination, (which, you'll recall, was one of Wilson's Fourteen Points), is pure misrepresentation of the question Congress is deciding in voting to aid the freedom fighters.
When confronted in this manner, the listener is meant to feel shame that his/her country is interfering in the internal affairs of another state wtihout warrant. That is, s/he's supposed to conclude that if we'd pull out, the situation would improve. This formula ignores the fact that the Sandinistas, of their own volition, allied with the Soviet Union and have threatened to spread their political system.
Look at the facts. From 1983 to 1987 the U.S. gave the Contras roughly $200 million dollars. In 1986 alone, the Soviets gave the Sandinistas an estimated $850 million. Over the course of the revolution Soviet aid has amounted to nearly $3 billion. In other words, while we debate around the clock over the extension of niggardly sums ($36.25 million this year), the Soviets give willingly and freely. Yet, have you ever heard a liberal express concern about Soviet involvement in Nicaragua?
Besides ignoring Soviet entanglement in Nicaragua, there is a second, subtler, premise of the slogan "Nicaragua for the Nicaraguans," (to paraphrase mildly). That is that the Sandinistas are a legitimate, democratic government. But how could Nicaraguans, assuming all Soviet and American aid were ended, decide their own future? The Sandinistas, as practically everyone now admits, are Marxists. The leaders of the country, the National Directorate, have said frequently that they'll not hold "bourgeois" elections to raffle off power. When one considers the vast military force they head, these assertions must be taken seriously. Besides controlling a 70,000-man army along with an equally large reserve, the Sandinistas dominate all avenues for internal opposition in the media. They have also consolidated economic power in state-run agencies and unions, giving them vital leverage over workers with divergent opinions. In short, Nicaragua today is a totalitarian society on the order of East Europe rather than traditional Latin Ameriacn society.
The above being the case, is it nevertheless possible that the average man in Nicaragua really does favor the Sandinistas? Well, no one knows for sure because polling is illegal in Nicaragua. Still, we do have evidence from other Central American countries. This evidence shows that the citizens of the region have clear attitudes toward the Sandinista regime. The following evidence comes from a Costa Rican affiliate of Gallup quoted by Susan Purcell in the Fall 1987 issue of Foreign Affairs. In a study of attitudes in Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, it was found that, among other things: 80% in all countries see Nicaragua as a threat to the region. Majorities think the majority of Nicaraguans favor the resistance. Between 54 and 69% believe the resistance, were it to gain power, would hold free elections and establish democracy. Finally, more than two-thirds of the respondents in every country approve of U.S. military aid to the Contras. On point after point, the majorities of the populations of Nicaragua's neighbors express their agreement with the American Right.
The second dominant theme of the Left is the old sixties cant "Give Peace a Chance." Liberals want Reagan to cut off aid to the Contras in return for vague promises of democratization. The problem with this request is simple. It ignores the role of force in furthering Sandinista liberalization. Without Contra pressure, which, as Purcell amply demonstrates, has deepened over the last year, there is nothing to make the Sandinistas change. No army in Central America could dream of forcing them. The only things that worry the Sandinistas are the Contras and their U.S. backers. To desert the Contras at this point, when they are gaining vastly in strength and ability, for the sake of trusting the Sandinistas to abide by the Arias Plan -- a plan with neither means of verification nor penalty for failure to live up to its demands for democratization -- would greatly set back the cause of democracy in Nicaragua and Latin America.
Let us hope then that Congress will do what the majority of those in Central America wish: support the Contras. Let this support, moreover, be at a level high enough to offset Soviet aid to the communist ruling elite. Finally, may the liberals call into question some of their central beliefs about the nature of the regime they presently support in Nicaragua.//