Editorials

...has been willing to tolerate in El Salvador and Guatemala and is encouraging in Honduras...

...But none of these concessions, which we share with what is usually considered a "realist" approach to international politics, justifies what the U.S...

...All this Democratic jockeying for position is taking place while there is a growing expectation that President Reagan will seek a second term...

...Perhaps...

...Mondale has a good organization, a fat treasury, and wide support in the party...

...The arguments employed to justify it are no less indefensible on our side than on the other, the lies issuing from the White House about Central America no less contemptible than those issuing from the Kremlin about Afghanistan...

...It is striking how similar the arguments to justify American intervention in El Salvador, Guatemala, or Nicaragua have become to those used to justify Russian intervention in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia: national security, economic interest, the need for a buffer zone closed to "enemy" influence, the danger of a rival ideology infecting one client state and spreading to others...

...Let us be clear: if the Soviet Union were to install weapons aimed at the U.S...

...policies are contrary to the best interests of the U.S...

...But both its actions and its ideological convictions cast this official position in doubt...

...We agree with the warnings but are not sure about the conclusion...

...It is one of the ironies of politics that Senator Glenn, a candidate who did not participate in Wisconsin, should be considered one of its main beneficiaries, and some commentators even think the results there may make Senator Kennedy think about getting back into the race...

...Unless they can do a lot better than they have been doing, Ronald Thatcher - er, we mean Reagan - may very well pull it off again...

...But maybe his setback in Wisconsin and his decline in the polls vis-a-vis John Glenn will make him drop his safe and sane campaign and lead to a real contest inside the Democratic party...

...Unfortunately, opponents of U.S...

...We are not isolationists or pacifists - to mention two of the cant labels now popular among hardliners for dismissing opponents of our government's Central American policy...

...The kind of hair-splitting rationalizations that came from the administration would have been dismissed in a moment had they been mouthed by a Kremlin official...

...Then there is the insistence that America has the right to arm and train the Salvadoran government forces against guerrilla attack, but that the Soviets and Cuba have no tight to do the same for Nicaragua...

...THE FIRST CASUALTY One of the most noxious byproducts of Washington's Central American policy is the miasma of lies, half-truths, and contradictions that have been issuing from the administration and its defenders...

...Certainly the president is acting very much like a candidate, and his political aides are still euphoric over the Thatcher victory in Britain...

...No, if they are to have any chance of winning against him next year, the Democrats have to do a better job of getting across a convincing program in domestic and foreign policy than they have been doing up to now...

...Published by the Intercommunity Center for Justice and Peace and funded by the New England Holy Cross Fathers, the Sisters of Loretto, and Maryknoll, the document, "invites your dialogue about this publication...

...First there was the pretense that the U.S...

...The parallel with the attitude of many American voters toward President Reagan is too close for Democratic comfort...

...policy are led to counter in the same spirit...

...and the Soviets in their respective "backyards" do not legitimate their holding a military veto over all social and political change...

...Reagan was successful in portraying them as big spenders who would bring inflation back...

...Reagan could win a comparable victory despite such problems as high unemployment and the lack of achievement in foreign policy and arms control...

...Defenders of the Reagan policy have come up with a slippery new sophistry: opponents of aid to the Nicaraguan contras, they claim, are demanding that the U.S...

...was abiding by a congressional ban on using American aid to overthrow the Nicaraguan government...

...True, political observers complain that none of the six announced Democratic candidates has so far managed to set the voters on fire, and that includes Walter Mondale...

...Thatcher's Conservative party...

...Mondale apparently had planned an "interest" campaign, counting on the endorsement of Democratic leaders around the country, big labor and the various interest groups that traditionally make up Democratic voting strength...

...Not only would it cut off the arms supply the administration persists in believing is the key to Salvadoran insurgency...

...The resemblances between Soviet policy toward Eastern Europe and American policy toward Central America are unavoidable...

...Finally, we recognize that the principle of nonintervention, however valuable as a guideline for sane international relations, need not be absolute...

...The Soviet strategic stake in Poland, for example, is probably greater than that of the U.S...

...The commentator points out that papal speeches on human dignity and rights do not apply to the Soviet system alone...

...The Democrats may be convinced that Ronald Reagan makes a poor president, but they had better not forget that he is a great campaigner...

...A "Reagan Doctrine" might in fact "work" in Central America, in the same way the Brezhnev Doctrine has so far "worked" in Eastern Europe and possibly may "work" in Afghanistan...

...The assault on human rights on our side of the superpower divide is no less appalling than it is on the other...

...President Reagan, of course, has not announced any such "doctrine...

...As of this writing, the administration officially denies any intention to overthrow the Nicaraguan government...

...At the beginning of July, one of its chief commentators wrote a lead column describing examples of torture, massacre, summary execution, brutal rape and murder - all committed by government agents...

...Our side is "imperfect...

...Many have warned that this strategy, possibly involving a major Nicaraguan "incursion" by Honduran troops, and an expanded army of Nicaraguan contras, with U.S...

...the other side is "totalitarian...

...What the American critics reject is an implicit "Reagan Doctrine" which, like its Soviet parallel, decrees that no nearby nation can ever leave the camp of the presiding superpower...

...The London Tablet is a distinguished Catholic weekly that most observers would probably consider distinctly more centrist than Commonweal, and that is certainly known for a judicious tone...

...Senator Cranston, on the other hand, put most of his eggs in the nuclear freeze basket, and it paid off, even though his position is not substantially different on this point from that of the other Democratic candidates...

...As the campaign progressed, it became increasingly clear that many voters lacked all confidence in Labor's ability to curb unemployment or to manage the economy in general...

...We recognize the reality of the balance of power between the superpowers, that it does, in a very uncomfortable way, keep 4 the peace, or at least that upsetting it radically could bring an enormous risk of war...

...And it is easy to see why the White House might hold that excising the Sandinistas is the most direct route to a solution in El Salvador...

...they are asking that Washington stop actively arming and aiding what even the hawkish and pro-Reagan Economist terms "brigands in bandoleros...

...Reagan if he decides to run, and this despite widespread indications in the polls that a majority of the voters strongly disagree with Mr...

...in Central America...

...As a result many Britons simply voted against Labor rather than really voting for the Conservatives...

...We will offer some dialogue: such a one-sided presentation does a disservice to the truth and, looking beyond its immediate propaganda value, to the cause it would serve.cause it would serve...

...But in fact these American critics are not asking Washington to protect Managua against the Somocista-led insurgency...

...Reagan's policies on particular issues...

...A recent publication, "Nicaragua: A Look at the Reality," attempts to provide "viewpoints of people who believe that the present U.S...

...Nonetheless, the Sandinistas are far less deserving of the label "totalitarian" than our ally General Rios Montt (he of the "bum rap") in Guatemala, and at this point, anyway, the majority of Nicaraguans appear to have gained enough from their revolution to defend it fiercely - which the Poles would never do for General Jaruzelski...

...says the full military might of the United States...

...For all these reasons, they conclude, it won't work...

...They are reported to feel certain that Mr...

...Looking back, it seems too much to say that Senator Alan Cranston's upset victory was that bad for the former vice president, but there is no doubt that it did him serious damage - damage doubly harmful because it was done by a Californian in a state next door to Mondale's native Minnesota...

...But Senator Mondale should not be counted out yet, by a long shot, even aside from internal party criticism of some of Senator Cranston's methods in Wisconsin...

...We also noted the dissimilarities...

...logistical, communications, and air support, might entail fierce fighting, acquiescence in a post-victory bloodbath, prolonged repression of social and nationalist aspirations, and enormous long-range damage to America's world posture...

...Sometimes it helps to see our deeds through the eyes of others...

...he will have to stake out some hard positions of his own and provide potential Democratic voters with a clear indication of how, if at all, his position differs from that of the Republican party...

...With the economy apparently on the brink of recovery, any Democratic candidate, whether Walter Mondale, John Glenn, Alan Cranston, or whoever, is likely to find it far from easy to beat Mr...

...Are they correct in their estimates...

...By doing so he managed an identification with the anti-nuclear cause that the other Democratic candidates never achieved...

...REAGAN DOCTRINE...

...military exercises in Central America look exactly like the ones the Soviet Union mounted in Solidarity's salad days...

...Granted, the Labor party ran an inept campaign, and the crucial factor in the election was that the anti-Conservative vote was split between the Labor party and the Liberal-Social Democratic alliance - in spite of which the Conservative vote total was actually down from the last time round...

...On the other hand, we can send arms to guerrillas in Afghanistan but the Soviet bloc cannot send arms to guerrillas in Central America...

...In short, despite the dissimilarities, the genuine security interests of both the U.S...

...In the Soviet Union, Vietnam, countries where Western principles of humanity and the rule of law do not apply...

...In Britain, Mrs...

...It is equally striking how both superpowers are increasingly finding the church the most awkward critic and exposer of the sophistry they employ to justify the apparatus of repression...

...we have noted them ourselves (February 26, 1982...

...But would not a good many voters in this country, even working-class voters, vote against the Democrats in like manner if Mr...

...Where have these atrocities occurred, he asks...

...On the other hand, the Sandinistas are not Solidarity...

...We also recognize that the Western side of that balance protects crucial liberties from the encroachment of totalitarianism...

...or establish a military force in Central America that posed a direct threat to U. S. security or American ability to supply NATO through the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean, or which threatened the independence of Mexico, Colombia, or Venezuela, then the United States would be justified in taking immediate military action, unilateral if necessary, against those installations or forces...

...enforce the Brezhnev Doctrine, the self-decreed Soviet principle that no Communist regime can be reversed...

...Coming after the public opinion polls showed him losing ground to Senator John Glenn, the Wisconsin defeat ruined a key element in the Mondale candidacy, the notion that his nomination was inevitable...

...Not only would it eliminate what the president terms a Soviet and Cuban "base...

...It would also teach an unmistakable lesson: even if revolutionaries do take power in El Salvador or elsewhere, they are not going to retain it...

...One thing is sure: as the infighting warms up, it will not be enough for Senator Glenn to run as the Democratic Eisenhower...

...It seems quite possible, as some commentators have argued, that voters there valued the dramatic drop in inflation more than they worried about unemployment, given the fact that the already existing welfare state measures would cushion the shock for those out of work, as they do here...

...Said Cranston after the voting: "Most observers and analysts and activist leaders in the party have underestimated the deep, deep concerns and apprehensions on the part of the American people about the arms race and the threat of nuclear war.'' After Wisconsin, that is a lesson other candidates are likely to take to heart...

...Which is exactly what the present administration intends to exercise...

...It all depends on what kind of society the United States wants to be...

...But certainly they have been done in Central America by governments funded, equipped, and supported by the West's most powerful democracy...

...The U.S...

...Indeed, the Sandinistas have taken (from afar) the side of Solidarity's oppressors, and there is little to indicate that the Salvadoran guerrillas wouldn't do the same...

...Indeed, in Britain something like one out of every four of the unemployed themselves cast their ballots for Mrs...

...Thatcher won her victory because millions of voters who disliked her specific policies nonetheless admired her for always sticking to her guns, for having firm views even when they disagreed with them, for her wartime resolve on the Falklands - in short, for her "leadership...

...References to elections, democracy, and freedom are wielded in the most cynical fashion - given what the U.S...

...is doing in Central America...

...and the Nicaraguan people, and destructive of ideals that many of us cherish.'' A worthy purpose, but one damaged by the fact that the result makes every attempt to minimize any serious criticism of the Sandinista regime...