Editorials / The Worst Books of the Year / Idiots on a Seesaw
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr.
IDIOTS ON A SEESAW W atching the political contest between Republicans and Democrats over whether to continue aid to the anti-Communists in Nicaragua known as the contras is like watching grownups...
...But in time of war military aid is an army's life support system...
...The contras' prospects soared even higher when no less a Sandinista insider than Sr...
...Major Miranda has revealed what is happening in Nicaragua now...
...Their corruption and the repression of their countrymen are what transformed him into an anti-Sandinista...
...Ortega's promises that sent them plummeting...
...Continued assistance to the contras is the only way to defend American security and democratic prospects in Central America...
...Sandinista President Daniel Ortega Saavedra has promised to suspend Nicaragua's state of emergency and to begin direct talks with the contras...
...Ortega is talking about what may happen on a far tomorrow...
...In the 1970s the Soviets and their cronies set up Marxist-Leninist regimes in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Central America, and the Middle East...
...Even if they keep their promise to talk with the contras, Sr...
...ut hold...
...Furthermore, the Sandinistas have been supplying weaponry to Communist insurgents in El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Guatemala...
...According to Major Miranda, the Sandinistas plan to create a 600,000-man military force equipped by the Soviet Union with flame throwers, gas masks, 252,000 AK-47 assault rifles, and a squadron of MIG-21 fighter jets...
...In Afghanistan, many thousand miles fromour border, those Afghan freedom fighters whose capacity to fight the Soviets has been so mightily improved by our supplies must thank Allah at every prayer session that they have more support in Washington than the contras, less than a thousand miles from our border...
...Humberto Ortega Saavedra, the Sandinistas' Minister of Defense, corroborated Major Miranda's revelations...
...The Democrats are not so sure...
...At least the Republicans claim the stakes are serious, namely: American security and the future of democracy in the region...
...That is clear from a glance at the globe...
...State of emergency or no state of emergency, the Sandinistas are not going to allowuntrammeled democracy in Nicaragua...
...And if gossip columnists Liz Smith or Suzy report seeing Sandinista revolutionaries gliding down the slopes this season at plush Swiss ski resorts, take it as gospel—Major Mir8 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 1988 anda has disclosed that some of his former bosses have squirreled away millions in Swiss banks...
...What the Sandinistas and those who think kindly of them such as Senator Dodd of Connecticut and Congressman David Obey of Wisconsin are saying is that if the United States cuts military supplies to the contras the Sandinistas will talk with contra representatives about how the contras can best surrender . . . maybe...
...In fact, he claims the government has already suspended its state of emergency, though on the very day it did so it rounded up leading civilian opponents and interrogated them for hours...
...Moreover, before the Sandinistas put their state of emergency into effect some six years ago they were setting up their secret prisons and repressing the opposition with their secret police...
...They will not discuss political questions...
...The Sandinistas are promising to talk while we cut off the life support system of our friends...
...Students of rhetoric will 1) note there is a vast disparity between Major Miranda's revelations that sent contra aid prospects upwards and Sr...
...Assistance to opponents of these regimes by the Reagan Administration has demonstrated that this spread was not inevitable...
...many seem to doubt that the Sandinistas now in control of Nicaragua want to spread Communism or terrorism, though there is evidence to the contrary...
...Ortega has said they will discuss only the mechanics of a ceasefire...
...support for the contras seesawing upward, for his revelations supported the White House's grim assertions of Sandinista mischief...
...Somehow, however, his promises have sent the Republicans' prospectsfor winning continued contra aid seesawing downward...
...IDIOTS ON A SEESAW W atching the political contest between Republicans and Democrats over whether to continue aid to the anti-Communists in Nicaragua known as the contras is like watching grownups playing on a seesaw—though they play for serious stakes...
...Last December the presentation in Washington of a high-ranking Sandinista defector, Major Roger Miranda Bengoechea, sent prospects for continued U.S...
...Right now, however, it is the Democratic opponents of contra aid whose prospects have seesawed upward...
Vol. 21 • March 1988 • No. 3
