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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, AUGUST 5, 1983
PAGE 14
� military movements as routine exercises lest he further upset
his squeamish cr1t1cs here at home. It 1s hard to have 1t both
ways. People remain confused.
Thus, the President still has to sell his strategy, and many
pressing questions remain.... Do we have a right to intervene?
Could we win a war there? How big would the war be? What would
the Soviets do?... Would open intervention alienate our hemi
sphere neighbors, and is it worth that? Things are not neces
sarily as they used to be, with the Latins docilely following the
giant United States. Is it wise to attempt running any part of
the Americas without cooperation?...
All these questions and many more, if we're lucky, will be de
bated publicly over weeks to come. Citizens who value this
nation's future should be listening.
In a recent interview in the business magazine FORBES (August 1, 1983),
President Reagan said the following concerning Central America:
.•.Congressmen that have come back [ after visiting El Salvador]
have some fascinating stories to tell. They talked to 16-year
old boys, enlistees in the El Salvador army: "Why? Why are you
doing this?" And those kids said, "To fight for our country."
This isn't a thing in which there's a lackadaisical feeling on
the part of the people...•
But there are other stories, because the congressmen talked to
others on the other side. They had high-ranking leaders of the
forces that are backed by the Soviets and the Cubans tell them
that this revolution is for real and that this revolution is
aimed at all of Central America. They stated that. As a matter
of fact,
one
M these h1gh-rank1ng officers said to the congress
men, "Make no mistake about it. We'll be at the Arizona-New
Mexico;-Re"xican border sooner than you think.,,-�-
I think that it [the war ] is winnable on our side, but we do need
to get adequate funds from Congress to help them down there.
What we need is to give them the weapons, the training.... And
the American people have got to know that this is to our national
interest. We're talking about if those Cuban- and Soviet-backed
people succeed in getting their kind of dictatorships there, you
� look for anywhere from seven to ten million refugees.
At the moment, the initiative in the fighting appears to be with the govern
ment in El Salvador. Training in counterinsurgency tactics has paid off. A
U.S.-sponsored military/civilian national reconstruction plan in rebel
contested areas is bearing fruit. This only means that someday, probably
after President Reagan is no longer on the scene, a squeamish Congress will
pull the support plug, as in South Vietnam, letting the undermanned Commu
nists win.
Meanwhile, Pentagon officials are said to be concerned that a more-or-less
permanent placement of military power in Central America wi11 stretch
global U.S. forces thin. Reports the August 4 LOS ANGELES TIMES: