Word: chokes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Straddling Central America with harbors on both the Caribbean and Pacific coasts, Nicaragua is strategically situated to threaten sea-lanes that carry more than half the crude oil imports of the U.S. It is but a half-hour jet flight away from perhaps the most critical "choke point" of all, the Panama Canal. There have been some ominous signs that Nicaragua is preparing to serve as a Soviet base. Warsaw Pact engineers are building a deep-water port on the Caribbean side, "similar," Reagan said in his speech, "to the naval base in Cuba for Soviet-built submarines." Under construction...
...usual, the President has not let the facts interfere with his policy. The Pentagon said Wednesday, according to The New York Times, that the Soviets "would not place a high priority on attacking many of the choke points cited by Mr. Reagan." Other experts said the Soviets were actually more vulnerable to the closing of the points than the West...
...example, one of the choke points is the straits of Skagerrak, adjacent to Germany. What if the Nazis today controlled such a choke point? Would we then condone their mass murder in the face of the Soviet threat...
Such distinctions are not only ridiculous but unworkable. Either you support murderers, or you don't. If you decide military bases and choke points are more important than human life, if you decide that preparation for war is more important than preserving democracy, there is no going back...
That road has already led us to Marcos' door, bearing gifts, and I'd rather not see the the kinds of friends choke points are going to make us in the future...