[News] The US & Nicaragua: a Case Study in Historical Amnesia & Blindness

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/15/the-us-nicaragua-a-case-study-in-historical-amnesia-blindness/ 



  The US & Nicaragua: a Case Study in Historical Amnesia & Blindness

by Dan Kovalik <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/dan-kovalik/> - June 
15, 2018
------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was stunned the other day to see an opinion piece by Stephen Kinzer in 
/The Boston Globe/ 
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/06/04/nicaragua-brink-calamity/pXOf7gOpjerrYR6ucLExbP/story.html> 
in which he was portraying the violent anti-government protests in 
Nicaragua as some kind of revolutionary insurrection.  What is 
surprising about Kinzer’s position is that he is the individual who 
wrote the wonderfulbook, /All The Shah’s Men 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Shah%27s_Men>/– one of the 
essential readings about the CIA-backed coup against Prime Minister 
Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran in 1953.

What is happening in Nicaragua right now looks a lot like what happened 
in Iran during this coup, and yet, Kinzer somehow does not see this.  In 
this way, Kinzer typifies the utter confusion of so many in this country 
— including those who should know better, such as many self-described 
leftists — about what is happening in Nicaragua and in Latin America 
generally.

First of all, let us look at what Kinzer correctly describes as the 
tactics used by the CIA in overthrowing Mosaddegh and installing the 
Shah of Iran in his place. The main tactic was to organize, pay and 
direct violent street protesters to create a chaotic situation which 
would then provoke a violent response from the government – a response 
which could be used to justify the military’s moving in against 
Mosaddegh under the pretext of restoring order and democratic rule.

In /All The Shah’s Men/, Kinzer describes the days leading up the coup 
as follows:

    The riots that shook Tehran on Monday intensified on
    Tuesday. Thousands of demonstrators, unwittingly under CIA control,
    surged through the streets, looting shops, destroying pictures of
    the Shah, and ransacking the offices of royalist groups. Exuberant
    nationalists and communists joined in the mayhem.  The police were
    still under orders from Mosaddegh not to interfere. That allowed
    rioters to do their jobs, which was to give the impression that Iran
    was sliding towards anarchy.  [CIA Bureau Chief Kermit] Roosevelt
    caught glimpses of them during his furtive trips around the city and
    said that they ‘scared the hell out of him.’

Kinzer explains that when this violence was not quite enough to provoke 
the desired crackdown by the government, Roosevelt sent the US 
Ambassador to Mosaddegh to trick him into using force against the 
rioters by claiming that this was necessary to protect Americans 
allegedly under attack in Tehran.  Roosevelt knew that Mosaddegh, 
inevitably moved by the Iranians’ famous feelings of hospitality towards 
foreign guests, would have to act. And act he did, even going so far as 
to attack his own supporters in the interest of saving American lives, 
or so he was led to believe.  The coup followed shortly thereafter.

But rather than restoring democracy to Iran, of course, the CIA, the 
Shah, and the dreaded SAVAK security and torture apparatus later set up 
by the CIA to keep the Shah in power destroyed Iranian democracy.  
Indeed, by the time of the insurrection against the Shah which 
ultimately toppled him in in February of 1979, Amnesty International 
described the Shah’s regime as having the worst human rights record in 
the world – quite a distinction.

The type of game plan run by the CIA in Iran, the very first of its 
kind, would be carried out again to topple progressive and nationalist 
governments in the future, most notably in countries like Guatemala in 
1954 and Chile in 1973.

However, as one of the foremost experts on such covert ops, F. William 
Engdahl, explains, in the 1980’s, NGOs largely took over for the CIA in 
carrying out these operations. As Enghdahl relates 
<https://ahtribune.com/in-depth/1789-william-engdahl-cia-ngos.html>:

    During the Reagan Presidency very damaging scandals were becoming
    public about CIA dirty operations around the world. Chile, Iran,
    Guatemala, the top secret MK-Ultra project, the student movement
    during the Vietnam War to name just a few. To take the spotlight
    away from them, CIA Director Bill Casey proposed to Reagan creating
    a “private” NGO, a kind of cut-out that would pose as private, but
    in reality, as one of its founders the late Allen Weinstein said in
    a later interview to the Washington Post, “doing what the CIA did,
    but privately.” This was the creation of the NGO named National
    Endowment for Democracy [NED] in 1983.  . . .

    Hiding very black dirty anti-democratic CIA operations behind
    private political NGOs waving the banner of “Human Rights” has been
    very effective for Washington’s global agenda of toppling
    un-cooperative regimes around the world. In effect the CIA has
    weaponized human rights.

It was the NED which was critical in supporting and helping to organize 
the coup in Venezuela against Hugo Chavez in 2002, a coup which 
thankfully was short-lived. It is important to remember that the 
precipitating event of this coup was the shooting of protesters by 
snipers who were originally accused of being Chavistas, but who later 
turned out to be right-wing provocateurs.  This is well-documented in 
the film, /The Revolution Will Not be Televised./

Meanwhile, on July 19, 1979, shortly after the Shah was ousted in Iran, 
tiny Nicaragua had its own revolution, led by the Sandinistas, which 
toppled a brutal US-backed dictator, Anastasio Somoza.

As we know, the US, through the CIA, quickly moved against the 
Nicaraguan revolution, arming Somoza’s former National Guardsmen, 
organizing them into the Contras, and overseeing a brutal terrorist war 
against Nicaragua which destroyed the infrastructure and economy of 
Nicaragua, and which claimed the lives of 50,000 Nicaraguans.  This is 
equivalent to 2.5 million deaths in the United States.

Finally, in 1990, the Nicaraguans, exhausted by the Contra war and 
economic strangulation, voted the Sandinistas out of power.  In short, 
the US terror campaign succeeded according to plan.

The Sandinistas were in the wilderness until 2006 when Daniel Ortega was 
voted in as President once more. And while many on the left have 
criticized the older Ortega as having abandoned his revolutionary and 
socialist principles, a few points must be made about this.

First of all, while Ortega certainly has made concessions to the 
business community, the conservative political opposition and the 
Catholic Church, I would ask his detractors to explain just what choice 
he has had.

Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Hemisphere, was so before 
the Sandinistas took power in 1979, and was still so when they took 
power again in 2006.  When the Sandinistas took power the first time, 
they inherited an economy wrecked and pillaged by Somoza, a country 
still left in shambles by the 1972 earthquake because Somoza siphoned 
off the aid money for himself instead of rebuilding, and a country 
further destroyed by Somoza who aerially bombed neighborhoods in Managua 
to cling to power.  When the Sandinistas took power the second time, 
they inherited a country still struggling to recover from a decade of 
the brutal Contra war and by the accompanying economic embargo.

Meanwhile, the Sandinistas never even attempted to rid Nicaragua of the 
leading elements of the /ancien régime /(as Cuba did after its 1959 
Revolution) with which they now must contend.  This of course has made 
governing much more difficult and more radical reforms even more so.  
But if the Sandinistas had moved against these elements, such as the 
bourgeoisie and the Church, then they would be criticized even more than 
they are now for being repressive and anti-democratic.

And yet, there are some who argue that, somehow, the Sandinistas have 
failed by not building socialism in one country upon such a weak 
foundation, in a country with few natural resources and in the face of 
hostility from a much more powerful enemy in the United States.  Never 
mind that such critics generally believe that socialism in one country 
is unachievable even in good conditions.  In short, the Sandinistas are 
criticized for not achieving the impossible.

All of this recalls to mind the words of Michael Parenti in his 
wonderful article, “Left Anticommunism:  The Unkindest Cut 
<https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/02/24/left-anticommunism-the-unkindest-cut/>”:

    The pure socialists regularly blame the Left itself for every defeat
    it suffers. Their second-guessing is endless. So we hear that
    revolutionary struggles fail because their leaders wait too long or
    act too soon, are too timid or too impulsive, too stubborn or too
    easily swayed. We hear that revolutionary leaders are compromising
    or adventuristic, bureaucratic or opportunistic, rigidly organized
    or insufficiently organized, undemocratic or failing to provide
    strong leadership. But always the leaders fail because they do not
    put their trust in the “direct actions” of the workers, who
    apparently would withstand and overcome every adversity if only
    given the kind of leadership available from the left critic’s own
    groupuscule. Unfortunately, the critics seem unable to apply their
    own leadership genius to producing a successful revolutionary
    movement in their own country.   . . .

    To be sure, the pure socialists are not entirely without specific
    agendas for building the revolution. After the Sandinistas overthrew
    the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua, an ultra-left group in that
    country called for direct worker ownership of the factories. The
    armed workers would take control of production without benefit of
    managers, state planners, bureaucrats, or a formal military. While
    undeniably appealing, this worker syndicalism denies the necessities
    of state power. Under such an arrangement, the Nicaraguan revolution
    would not have lasted two months against the U.S.-sponsored
    counterrevolution that savaged the country. It would have been
    unable to mobilize enough resources to field an army, take security
    measures, or build and coordinate economic programs and human
    services on a national scale.

Meanwhile, the Sandinistas, within the constraints of world capitalism 
as well as the immutable laws of physics, have done many positive things 
within the realm of the possible.  Thus, they have done much to 
alleviate poverty in Nicaragua, to build homes for the poor, to 
successfully combat illiteracy and to bring a remarkable level of 
economic prosperity and stability to this once war-torn country.  Even 
the /New York Times /recently acknowledged 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/22/world/americas/nicaragua-ortega-protests.html> 
that “[m]any poor people who receive housing and other government 
benefits support” Sandinista President, Daniel Ortega.

Long-time Nicaragua solidarity activist, Chuck Kaufman, recently 
summarized these achievements 
<https://afgj.org/nicanotes-lets-think-about-the-consequences-of-our-actions>, 
explaining that Daniel Ortega’s first action after being re-elected as 
President in 2006

    was to end school fees, allowing 100,000 children into the schools
    whose poverty had kept them uneducated. This was rapidly followed by
    his administration building the free public health system into a
    robust institution that treated people rather than just wrote
    prescriptions that the patients were too poor to fill. The peasant
    agriculture sector was revitalized bringing hundreds of thousands up
    out of abject poverty, especially women and children.

    Impoverished Nicaragua became one of the first countries in the
    world to achieve the UN Millennial Challenge to cut poverty in half
    by 2015. Along the way, the Ortega government achieved sustained
    economic growth of 5% and achieved labor stability through the
    famous Tripartite Model in which unions and big business negotiated
    semi-annual increases in the minimum wage with the government
    intervening when the two other parties couldn’t agree. The World
    Bank, IMF, and European countries all praised Nicaragua for its lack
    of corruption and effective use of grants and loans. Finally,
    Nicaraguan women’s participation in public and private affairs
    raised Nicaragua to one of the top four countries in the world for
    gender equality.

As a result of the foregoing, Nicaragua has been the only Central 
American country touched by the brutal wars of the 1980s not to be 
contributing to the recent mass migration to the US.  Indeed, a May, 
2016 DNC email released by Wikileaks 
<https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/8731> explains, “Our neighbors 
in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and 
Guatemala are in a crisis of uncontrolled violence. Women and children 
from these countries are coming to our Southwest border in search of 
refuge. Essentially, no one is coming from Nicaragua . . . .”

In addition, Ortega has taken some very bold moves on the international 
stage, for example when he took in the deposed Honduran President, 
Manuel Zelaya, after the 2009 coup, and when he offered for Miguel 
D’Escoto to serve as Libya’s Ambassador to the UN when Libya, in its 
death throes from the 2011 NATO bombing, had no UN representative.  
Ortega also stopped sending Nicaraguan troops to be trained at the 
School of the Americas (SOA) after meeting with SOA Watch founder, 
Father Roy Bourgeois.

And, up until the recent events in Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega enjoyed 
sky-high approval ratings.  Indeed, just several months before the 
current events rocking Nicaragua, Ortega had an astounding approval 
rating of nearly 80 percent 
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Nicaraguan-President-Daniel-Ortega-at-80-Aproval-Rating-Poll-20171019-0008.html>!

Now, we are told, by such folks as Stephen Kinzer, Amy Goodman and by a 
number of “pure socialists,” that the people are suddenly rising up 
against President Ortega. And, some on the American left are arguing 
that we should welcome and support this uprising as a new stage of the 
Nicaraguan revolution which will finally bring true socialism to that 
poor, isolated country.

I believe that such commentators could not be farther from the truth.  
What is happening now in Nicaragua is not revolution, but in fact 
counterrevolution. And, this is no less true because there are some 
self-described leftists who are participating in and cheering on this 
uprising, just as Steven Kinzer tells us that a number of communists and 
socialists unwittingly supported the protests which unseated Mosaddegh 
in Iran.

Indeed, in an interesting article entitled, “My Contra Parents Are 
Marching For a New ‘Old’ Nicaragua: Are We, Too? 
<http://www.latinorebels.com/2018/04/29/mycontraparents/>”, Melissa 
Castillo expresses reasonable skepticism about the prevailing narrative 
surrounding the protests in Nicaragua:

    Another suspicious aspect of this opposition is that it claims to
    include former Sandinistas who have now turned against Ortega
    because of his corruption. This is confusing because the
    opposition’s social media platform does not seem to consist of any
    socialist groups. The Sandinistas were built on socialism and the
    leaders at the time of the revolution were largely Marxists. A group
    involved in the opposition, for instance, is the Sandinista
    Renovation Movement (MRS). The MRS are Social Democrats who have
    partnered with a right-wing coalition in recent years in order to
    expand their base.  By now, the MRS seems to have grown more
    centrist and devotes much of its platform to anti-Ortega rhetoric.

    Leftists and Sandinista supporters may have legitimate concerns
    about Ortega, but that does not mean these are the same people
    joining forces with right-wingers and the U.S. government or
    appealing to the American public to “share” images of unrest on
    social media. I believe true leftist concerns include the
    concessions Ortega has made to the private sector in his economic
    policy, the power he has ceded to the church, his softening towards
    capitalist policies, and the increasing influence of Western
    international entities in public sector decision-making. It would
    not rationally be in the interest of leftists to join a coalition
    led by a private sector interested in pulling Nicaragua further to
    the right.

The impetus for the current demonstrations was Ortega’s April 16, 2018 
announcement of very modest social security reforms designed to keep 
Nicaragua’s near-bankrupt social security system solvent past 2019. 
Ortega actually rejected the more drastic reforms demanded by the IMF 
and the business community, and then demonstrations began which the 
business community supported.  But, to Castillo’s point, the business 
community wants more draconian cuts; it has obviously not supported the 
protests to advance progressive social change.

Moreover, it was college students who really moved the protests to a new 
level. But college students are not generally concerned about reforms to 
social security which will not affect them for decades.

As Barbara Moore, a long-time solidarity activist living in Nicaragua, 
explains in her, “Letter From Nicaragua: A Catastrophic 
Well-Orchestrated Event Is Occurring 
<https://popularresistance.org/letter-from-nicaragua/>,”

    On April 19 student-led protests began what the Mainstream media and
    international NGOs would describe as a pro-democracy uprising.
    Initially at issue were the social security reforms. For reasons no
    one has been able to explain, the students were highly agitated over
    the 1% rise in worker contributions, the 3.5% rise in
    employer contributions (over time) and a 5% cut in the benefit which
    was also a trade-off for expanded medical coverage. The alternate
    proposals rejected by the Ortega government and favored by the
    private sector COSEP and the IMF involved much greater cuts, raising
    the retirement age, cutting benefits completely (the little
    pensions) and the privatization of clinics.

Vietnam veteran and long-time peace activist, S.  Brian Willson, who is 
currently in Nicaragua and who famously lost his legs on September 1, 
1987 while sitting in on railroad tracks to block arms shipments bound 
for Central America, sent Barbara Moore’s letter to /Popular 
Resistance/with a note which reads 
<https://popularresistance.org/letter-from-nicaragua/>, in pertinent 
part:  “This is a very good assessment of the orchestrated coup 
in Nicaragua. The author is a Gringo [sic.] who lives in Managua working 
at the Ben Linder house who happens to be stuck in Granada because we 
are under siege by many thugs armed I am sure with help of the US.”   I 
note that I was in Nicaragua doing reforestation work and learning about 
the brutality of US foreign policy at the time Brian lost his legs in 
protest.  His great sacrifice has had a huge impact on many of us, and I 
find it quite sad that the voices of people like Brian Willson are not 
being heard on the issue of Nicaragua at this critical time.

Meanwhile, what we do know is that one of the main student groups behind 
the current protests – the Civil Youth Movement (MCJ) “was created by 
and received funding from the National Democratic Institute (NDI) 
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-latin-american-regime-change-tour-now-playing-nicaragua/243431/>” 
—  the NDI, in turn, being one of the three pillars of the National 
Endowment for Democracy (NED) which took over a number of covert 
operations for the CIA in the 1980’s.   Indeed, between 2014 and 2017, 
the NED has given $4.2 million 
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-latin-american-regime-change-tour-now-playing-nicaragua/243431/> 
to opposition groups in Nicaragua for the purpose of “democracy 
promotion” (aka, “regime change”).

At the same time, there is no doubt that the protests, which began 
peacefully on April 17, accelerated due to violence and the great loss 
of life which has taken place since the protests began, with certainly 
over 100 people killed.   However, there has been much disinformation 
about this violence both within Nicaragua and in the Western press.

First and foremost, whenever you see a tally of the deaths, all of the 
responsibility for them is laid at the feet of the Nicaraguan security 
forces even though members of the security forces themselves are 
included in the tally, as are government supporters and bystanders.  
Indeed, one of the first people killed in the protests was a police 
officer, and many have been killed since – some at their homes /and even 
in their barracks after Ortega ordered the police off the streets 
<http://tortillaconsal.com/tortilla/node/3001>/.  But you are never told 
this. You are also never told of the fact 
<https://afgj.org/nicanotes-lets-think-about-the-consequences-of-our-actions> 
that, up until these very recent events, “Nicaragua’s community based 
policing, and their women’s police stations, specializing in domestic 
violence, were studied by police departments throughout the world and 
were famous for their record of positive community relations.”

My friends in Nicaragua tell me that what seems suspicious is that some 
of the student groups, armed as they immediately were with an arsenal of 
well-constructed weapons, were so obviously prepared in advance to start 
a violent uprising, and clearly used the opportunity of the protests 
against the social security reforms as a mere pretext to start and 
provoke violence. As one commentator explains 
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-latin-american-regime-change-tour-now-playing-nicaragua/243431/>, 
while “most of the media reports have portrayed the opposition groups 
and protestors as a ‘rag tag’ team of students, . . . examples of 
opposition violence, such as opposition use of ‘homemade mortars’ and 
‘gas bombs’ as well as the burning of public buildings has received 
minimal coverage in the Western media.”

And, it was these well-armed protesters who became predominant two days 
after the protests began.   As the independent media collective, 
Tortilla Con Sol, reported 
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/Nicaragua-Regains-Its-Balance-After-Social-Reform-Protests-20180428-0011.html>, 
“from April 19 onward, extremist opposition activists hijacked the 
student protests, attacking hospitals, government and municipal 
authority offices, public buildings of all kinds, university precincts 
and even the brand new national baseball stadium.”

Quite tellingly, the violent groups calling for Ortega to step down in 
the midst of his presidential term – despite the fact that he won 
re-election in 2016 with about 70% of the vote   — have been attacking 
symbols of the Sandinista Revolution which overthrew the dictator 
Anastasio Somoza.  Again, this reveals these groups to be more 
counter-revolutionaries than revolutionaries.

Another aspect of the violence which is largely being ignored is the 
strong evidence of snipers (remember the key role snipers played in the 
coup against Hugo Chavez in 2002) in carrying out precision killings 
which are then later blamed on the police.

Barbara Moore, citing the forensics described in a report by the 
Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights, explains 
<https://popularresistance.org/letter-from-nicaragua/>:

    The opposition claimed and continues to claim the National Police
    had used lethal and deadly force, firing indiscriminately into
    crowds with live ammunition. Yet that seems impossible given the
    forensics, nearly every fatality occurred in a precise, specific,
    even clean shot to the head, neck or chest. Not exactly what one
    would expect given the street battles filled with heightened levels
    of chaos or that when police do shoot to kill they are trained to
    aim for the mid-section.

    The public, deceived by press reports, the international mainstream
    media and rightfully outraged over the killings continued over the
    following weeks to take to the streets.  Almost always the same
    pattern repeated itself; more killed- always a male, despite the
    fact the early protests were well attended by females. The
    victims continued to be shot with incredible precision always in
    the head or neck, sometimes in the chest. These facts, incidentally
    corroborate government claims that snipers were responsible for the
    killings. As the death toll continues to rise this pattern has
    remained entirely constant.

This brings us full circle back to Stephen Kinzer’s piece in /The Boston 
Globe/.  Kinzer begins this piece by describing a key incident which has 
further inflamed the situation in Nicaragua:

    As a mass of unarmed protesters filed past Dennis Martínez Stadium
    in Managua, Nicaragua, on May 30, /snipers inside the stadium began
    firing at them./ That day’s casualties joined a list of about 100
    dead and 1,000 wounded and missing in the last two months. Among
    those outraged was the person for whom the stadium is named. Dennis
    Martínez is the most celebrated of all Nicaraguan baseball players,
    immortalized by pitching a perfect game for the Montreal Expos in
    1991.(emphasis added).

Kinzer then goes on to explain how Daniel Ortega is allegedly 
responsible for the violence that has been taking place in Nicaragua, 
and to criticize him for remaining “defiant” in his refusal not to step 
down from his elected office. Meanwhile, Kinzer neglects to mention how 
opposition groups ransacked the Dennis Martínez stadium.

What is remarkable about this piece — written by a man who literally 
wrote the book on the CIA’s manipulation of violence in unseating Iran’s 
Mohammad Mosaddegh — is that Kinzer does not even try to identify who 
these unnamed “snipers” were.   And, while he makes a passing reference 
much later in his piece to alleged “paramilitary gangs” of Ortega, he 
does not attempt to connect them to this sniper firing at the stadium.   
In short, Kinzer glosses over the most important detail of the 
narrative, and that is because it is the most inconvenient one for him 
in his apparent crusade to urge Ortega’s resignation.

If these snipers are, as the Nicaraguan government claims, part of the 
violent opposition’s attempt to overthrow Ortega, then what is happening 
in Nicaragua must be seen in a very different light than what we are 
being told by the likes of Kinzer.  And, this is the only logical 
conclusion.  There simply is no incentive for the Nicaraguan government, 
over one month into the protests, to incite even more protest and 
opposition by firing into a crowd of demonstrators.   This could only 
serve the interests of those waging the coup operation, and it indeed 
has served these interests quite well.  Indeed, Kinzer himself rightly 
points this out, explaining that “[f]uneral marches balloon into new 
protests, and when they are attacked [again, we are not told by whom], 
the spiral intensifies.”

Ortega, who currently has the reins of government, has all the incentive 
for the status quo of peace and calm to return to Nicaragua, for this 
means he remains in his position as president. It is the opposition who 
needs a game changer – one which could only be brought about by dramatic 
events such as those that took place at the baseball stadium on May 30.  
But these realities do not seem to be worth considering by those like 
Kinzer who, ironically parroting the coup plotters who overthrew 
Mosaddegh, are pontificating in the press about the need to promote 
democracy by unseating an elected leader.

What all parties can certainly agree on is that the current events in 
Nicaragua are indeed calamitous, and becoming more so with each passing 
day.  The economy has already suffered about $250 million in losses 
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-latin-american-regime-change-tour-now-playing-nicaragua/243431/>– 
a hefty sum for such a small country.  And, this figure will surely 
climb as businesses, burned down by the violent opposition, do not 
re-open, and as tourism, a major source of national revenue, surely 
dries up.  Indeed, just today, American Airlines announced that it is 
suspending flights to Managua as a result of the violence there.

No one in their right mind could wish any of this upon another nation – 
especially upon a nation which has suffered so much as Nicaragua.  And I 
guarantee you that if Ortega is forced out of office by this violence, 
the result will not be, as some on the ostensible left would have us 
believe, a deepening of democracy and socialism.   Rather, it will 
result in a return of the right- wing to power, an end to the social 
programs which have greatly benefitted the poor and the further 
destruction of the symbols and memorials of the very laudable Sandinista 
Revolution. The result, in other words, will be a counterrevolution.  
Anyone calling themselves a leftist, or even a humanitarian, must oppose 
such an end.

/*Daniel Kovalik,* the author of The Plot to Attack Iran 
<https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1510739343/counterpunchmaga>, 
wrote this piece with the significant help and encouragement of friends 
in Tehran./

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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