Word: nicaragua
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Although the House tied the aid up in a cat's-cradle of conditions, the Administration kept open its options on the future of covert operations in Nicaragua and impressed on Congress a fresh spirit of bipartisanship. "There is a new willingness to look at the problem together," said one State Department official. That may be because both sides face political peril. Republicans run the risk of being blamed for increased U.S. involvement in the murky politics of Central America, Democrats of being blamed for a rebel victory if they block aid to the Salvadoran government...
Ironically, our friends in Nicaragua have failed completely to accomplish their alleged aim of interdicting arms shipments. Noted the Committee report, "In 18 months, the committee has not seen any diminishment in arms flow to the Salvadoran guerrillas." Not that the insurgents have been idle. They have repeatedly battled Nicaraguan troops on and within the borders of Nicaragua, and have attacked, according to the report, "targets unrelated to arms interdiction...
...with the Cuban-backed rebels. And, to demonstrate its unhappiness, the Committee voted to cut in half Reagan's original request of $136 million in fiscal 1983 funding for E1 Salvador. Similarly, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee approved a bill to eliminate all "covert" aid to insurgents in Nicaragua and to replace it with $30 million this year and $50 million next year in "overt...
Cutting off military aid to E1 Salvador, or to the "interdiction" effort in Nicaragua, would expose Democrats to the charge of "losing" E1 Salvador. Neither Reagan nor the Democrats want to "lose" a country, but the Democrats won't let Reagan try to win it either, so they procrastinate, advocating a doomed, hopelessly inadequate military effort and demanding comforting lies from Reagan about human rights progress and "dialogue in good faith...
...should give Reagan whatever he wants and let him accept the consequences. "Compromises" just prolong the violence, raising the death toll and possibly leaving a mess for a Democratic president to clean up. Sooner or later, someone has to take the heat for pulling out of E1 Salvador and Nicaragua, and Democrats should have learned by now that decisions like this cannot be postponed forever...