Editorials
Contents Volume CXI, Number 9 Correspondence = 258 Editorials 259 Missing the moderates- Denis Murphy_9 262 New world order II: Fred Siegel 263 Faith and fanaticism: John Garvey 26-6 El...
...Yet they would be far less than the ones we are now running...
...equipment and advisers on the ground, this nation would be led directly into the conflict...
...Four months later, the report is a dead letter, there is no national consensus, and there may not even be a U.S...
...Are skeptics about the administration' s emphasis on elections in Central America saying -- as the article cited above charges -- that you can have democracy without elections...
...Which brings us to the security question...
...T HERE IS, in fact, another and reasonable solution to the Central American imbroglio: negotiations...
...or it means full-scale American intervention...
...Canada, $47...
...The economic, political, and military must all interact, and in such a way as practically to require theself-elimination of the ruling elites...
...Thousands of U.S...
...military advisors in the area as there were a year ago, American pilots are daily (and nightly) flying reconnaissance missions and radioing information in support of Salvadoran military actions...
...In addition, the report is flawed, on the one hand, by its rather sanitized presentation of American involvement in the region and of governments like those of El Salvador and Guatemala as fledgling democracies, and, on the other hand, by its description of regional insurgencies as having no existence independent 4 May 1984: 259 . . . . . Going...
...Only when the administration positively rubs Congress's face in something like the mining incident has there been a definite reaction...
...Yearly subscriptions, U.S., $24...
...But does the present American position -- or any that the U.S...
...Only someone who believes Poland is a great victory for the Soviet Union should think that our current policy in Central America is leading to a triumph for the U.S...
...Cuba already poses some serious problems of interdiction of American support to NATO in wartime--a matter that ought to be of special concern to those who want to see deterrence--or even, if worst came to worst, war--stabilized at the non-nuclear level...
...Of course there would be risks in the alternative approach, seeking negotiations on the basis of a carefully circumscribed definition of U.S...
...They proceed blithely down the road of assuming that, cost what it will, governments even latently friendly to the Soviet Union must be barred from power in Central America -- presumably for as long as the superpower rivalry persists...
...4 May 1984:261...
...It is to such tasks that the largest portion of our energies should be devoted...
...interests there...
...In a month, a thousand airborne troops will practice parachuting into areas bordering Nicaragua and El Salvador...
...Canada, $26...
...It is to these precise matters that U.S...
...Or the cost to the United States's longterm standing in Latin America and Europe, or to its ability to cope with other issues, from the world economy to the arms race...
...or at the surrounding nations, or by the establishment of a permanent Soviet presence or a naval base servicing Soviet submarines...
...That would occur, to be sure, after the election...
...military involvement in the region has been growing by leaps and bounds...
...About the last point, it is hard to be certain...
...Democracy is more than a one-shot procedure of voting...
...policy precisely on excluding Soviet installations is a matter of waiting or complacency...
...9 From Commonweal thirty years ago: "This nation has been catapulted into a position of world leadership...
...The nature of the societies and the nature of their civil wars present conditions vastly different from those where the original one-two punch of Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan were applied...
...teachers, agrarian advisers, management counselors, legal-services aides, health-care and even family-planning workers would be sent into the region, unloosing the Great Society on Central America...
...On the contrary, if the Kissinger commission report now lies neglected, it is not because liberals have abandoned democracy but because they -- and not only they -- may have abandoned certain illusions...
...Another estimate, including additional military and economic support in the region, puts the costs of a "military solution without U.S...
...It is in these terms that the U.S...
...it did not give birth to a democratic and stable social order...
...Oligarchies and military elites won't negotiate as long as they believe that the U.S...
...policy...
...It is the certainty of the next election...
...it is the legitimacy of loyal opposition...
...Elections are the current preoccupation...
...Economic development has, in fact, been tried...
...the last round of Sandinista gestures was met by heightened American demands...
...10016...
...No one can say for certain that'it couldn't happen...
...Nonetheless, the report paints a devastating picture of bankruptcy -- the economic bankruptcy of the region but even more important the social and political bankruptcy of the ruling elites and of past U.S...
...maintains an attitude toward its Central American "sphere" that is the mirror image of the Soviets' attitude toward Eastern Europe...
...No doubt, we would be told how many Americans die yearly in traffic accidents anyway...
...combat troops" at $6.6 billion over five years...
...True enough...
...One thing we almost certainly cannot do is make it grow out of the barrel of a gun...
...Defeat for the Salvadoran guerrillas, probably...
...In Central America, economic development and social justice cannot be achieved behind a military shield...
...Visibility is almost zero when it comes to charting the direction of administration policy...
...The second, and far more central, is that the commission's declared concern with ending human-fights abuses and repairing social and economic inequities can really be combined with the "military shield...
...Telephone: (212) MU 3-2042...
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...issued on January 10, the Report of the President's National Bipartisan Commission on Central America was supposed to provide what its name implied: the basis for a national consensus on a comprehensive U.S...
...The point was effectively demonstrated when the administration failed to follow through on its complaints about Salvadoran death squads...
...When this journal previously argued that America should combine an uncompromising policy toward concrete Soviet military installations in Central America with a relaxed policy toward the nature of Central American regimes (although not abandoning its leverage, especially economic, for supporting democratic elements), we met with two kinds of responses...
...From those hostile to the exercise of military power generally, there came the criticism that such a stance lel~t open the door to unilateral military action and self-serving definitions of what constituted a concrete Soviet incursion...
...Almost no close observers have any confidence that the administration's notion of negotiations amounts to much more than arranging for the Salvadoran insurgents' surrender and the Sandinistas' exit from power...
...Congress is pretty well aware of all this, but it would prefer not to look too hard...
...As one of the report's defenders acutely observed in the March Commentary, the commission has produced what would once have been a mainsteam Democratic document...
...could " safely wait" to see if the Soviet Union would take advantage of a friendly regime in the regime and that it was therefore "complacent about the latent threat posed to U.S...
...Contingency plans are reported to be in preparation for American invasions of Nicaragua or guerrilla-controlled areas in El Salvador, complete with diplomatic justification...
...Special two-year rate: U.S., $43...
...has a wide range of possible countermeasures...
...But the situation would be greatly inflamed by the installation in Central America of Soviet weapons aimed at the U.S...
...All Canadian and foreign subscriptions must be paid in U.S...
...No, they are saying you can have elections without democracy -- as the history of Central America amply illustrates...
...Direct U.S...
...it is a continuing political life in the between-times...
...According to James Finn and R. Bruce McColm, writing in last fall's Journal of Contemporary Studies, "The time to secure those interests is now...
...President Reagan has declared the region a "vital interest" in terms which hardly allow the survival of anything but regimes reliably in the American orbit...
...should couch the essentials it wants to negotiate in Central America...
...According to this author, the report's proposal for a five-year plan costing $8 billion in economic aid "adds up to what could be described as a Central American version of the Mississippi Freedom Summer...
...Overthrowing the Nicaraguan government, possibly...
...The q u e s t i o n . . , is how . . . . " But there is no reason why targeting U.S...
...It did not break the back of the rigid, exploitative social hierarchies...
...As Undersecretary of Defense Fred lkl~ put it, "We do not seek a military stalemate...
...will inevitably have to back them up...
...policy, at least not a comprehensive one, toward Central America...
...But the author, in familiar neoconservative fashion, ascribes liberal opposition to this wonderful vision only to the supposed fact that liberals have abandoned democracy...
...has repeatedly undercut or dismissed efforts at negotiations...
...it is, in other words, a democratic culture...
...No one has estimated the cost of Central American bloodshed...
...It is in this regard that a clearcut American declaration of intent -- and readiness to back up that declaration with military action -- would be justified...
...Because this is so, it is important to stop every now and then to realize what our strength i s . . . the truly revolutionary idea of freedom . . . . Freedom is, so to speak, our stock in t r a d e . . . . Now, in 1954, the cold war with the Soviet has been under way for the better part of a decade . . . . In this war internal security is essential, but it is clear that it is only one part of the overall struggle...
...Traveling down that road means handing blank checks to local oligarchs and death squads...
...So what was wrong with the report...
...it means a prolonged bleeding of Nicaragua...
...The authors simply refuse to explore the possibility of achieving that through negotiations, formal "line-drawing," and unilateral military readiness...
...And we need to build a truly bi-partisan foreign policy, with prior consultation and joint responsibility, free of partisan name-calling...
...Contents Volume CXI, Number 9 Correspondence = 258 Editorials 259 Missing the moderates- Denis Murphy_9 262 New world order II: Fred Siegel 263 Faith and fanaticism: John Garvey 26-6 El Salvador: paralysis is still the winner: Jim Chapin & Jack Clark 268 The God beyond: Daniel J. O'Hanlon 271 Verse: Nancy G. Westerfield 275 David Leedy 280 Martial law_9 Easter: Thomas R. Swick 276 Stage: GeraM Weales 278 Screen: Tom O'Brien ' L279 Books ~ l ! l Tolstoy and 6andhi/An Autobiography/ The Gandhi Nobody Knows/Gandhi: A Potential Biography: Patrick Jordan 281 One Day of Life" Marc Edelman 283 The Percys of Mississippi: Sidney Callahan Cannibal Galaxy: Margaret Wi-msatt 284 286 Staff Editor: Peter Steinfels Assistant Editor: David Toolan Editorial Assistant: Anne Robertson Columnists: John Garvey, J. Bryan Hehir, Abigail McCarthy Poetry: Rosemary Deen, Marie Ponsot Staff: Karen F. Silva, Harriette Balsky, Sheila Tanksley Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor Publisher: Edward S. Skillin Commonweal, [ISSN 0010-3330] A Review of Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is published biweekly, except monthly Christmas-New Year's and July and August, by Commonweal Foundation, 232 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y...
...The reason, of course, is that they have no consensus on a comprehensive approach to the problem -exactly what the Kissinger commission report was supposed to provide...
...From World War II to the early seventies, Central America actually enjoyed remarkable economic growth...
...No one would maintain that, outside of Costa Rica, democratic culture is deeply implanted in Central America...
...CENTRAL AMERICA: THE WAY OUT R EMEMBER THE KISSINGER commission report...
...vital interests...
...There is no counting the amount of Salvadoran suffering which that Commonweal: 260 would involve, the political polarization in the U.S., the degradation of democratic ideals, or the possibility that with extensive U.S...
...But a lot of Americans are unwilling to gamble on it -- not with $8 billion in aid and incalculable expenditures in lives and suffering...
...policy should be directed...
...Nonetheless there are many Central Americans with profound democratic aspirations...
...There are at least ten times as many U.S...
...10016...
...bank...
...The Editors, "The Weapon of Freedom" May 7, 1954 of Cuban and Soviet actions...
...make grow out of the barrel of its guns...
...Revolutionary forces won't negotiate as long as they believe it is the long-run policy of this nation to eliminate them...
...Single copy, $1.25...
...Washington is fogged in with denials, equivocation, and outright deception...
...But negotiations are indeed problematic as long as the U.S...
...W ASHINGTON IS enamored of three kinds of solution to its problem in Central America: economic development, elections, and military force...
...Exercises involving 350 ships and tens of thousands of U.S...
...The U.S...
...could encourage democracy in Central America, most of which we are not doing...
...intervention are concretely specified and narrowed...
...Not that the diplomats at the State Department appear to be in charge...
...The difference is that the grounds of U.S...
...troops are now underway...
...Even then, the two Houses have chosen more to drag their feet than reach any clean decision...
...Central American policy is increasingly the domain of the Pentagon and the CIA...
...Negotiations will have a real prospect of success only when the United States decides precisely what is really "vital" in its concerns with Central America and separates that from an endless quest to exercise a veto over what kind of internal regimes emerge in these nations...
...But only at tremendous cost...
...policy toward the region...
...There are a hundred ways the U.S...
...The affair of the mines is only part of a much larger problem...
...is likely to take this side of world government -- rule out such unilateral judgments...
...We are now financing, arming, and tO some considerable extent directly commanding anti-Sandinista Nicaraguan forces 15,000 strong, bigger by one-fourth, in other words, than the Salvadoran guerrillas (and even more significant when one recalls that the population of Nicaragua is only half that of El Salvador...
...The Kissinger commission warns, "The worst possible policy for El Salvador is to provide just enough aid to keep the war going, but too little to wage it successfully...
...The commission proposes significantly increased levels of military aid but shies away from naming a figure...
...It does refer to a Defense Department estimate of $400 million for this year and the next with lesser sums for an indefinite period afterwards...
...We seek victory for the forces of democracy...
...What can the U.S...
...dollars by International Money Order or by check on a U.S...
...The report is dedicated to the late Senator Henry Jackson and it reflects the (Henry) Jacksonian persuasion, rooted in post-war containment policy, that massive economic development, launched behind an effective "military shield," will produce democracy...
...We need to devote a larger part of our energies to positive measures which will encourage understanding and strengthen our ties with our allies . . . . We need to re-affirm and enlarge our plans to help create in impoverished areas a political and economic climate which will be unfavorable to the spread of Communism...
...invasion of Nicaragua raises the cost to $16 billion and five thousand American lives...
...The first is that a government successfully cutting back on human services for its own citizens will be willing or able to freely provide them for Central Americans...
...foreign, $29...
...It is in the interest of both America and world peace that no sudden or drastic shifts occur in the superpower balance...
...From the other side came the criticism that such a posture was based on the premise that the U.S...
...in the previously supportive New Republic, this failure was bluntly termed "appeasement...
...The same source estimates that a direct U.S...
...The likelihood of elections in Sandinista Nicaragua in the near future may concentrate some minds on this matter...
...Obviously, for many commentators it was tainted from the start by the well-earned reputation for deviousness of the commission's chairman...
...Airfields, training bases, radar stations, and deposits of military supplies have been built up in Honduras, and a naval base proposed -- with the Pentagon insisting, all the while, that we are not establishing any permanent presence...
...It is hard to read that passage without irony, coming as it does in a journal which regularly bemoans the unloosing of the Great Society on the U.S...
...The U.S...
...Some of them are receiving American weapons, but others are receiving American bullets...
...foreign, $53...
...In theory, the Reagan administration is committed t o " dialogue and negotiations...
Vol. 111 • May 1984 • No. 9
