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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MARCH 28, 1986
Mr. Reagan has said he will come back to Congress again and again for
money to aid the contra cause. He perceives a danger to U.S. security
that many legislators either do not or are afraid to face. In his sober
ing March 16 nationwide television address, the President warned that "a
second Cuba, a second Libya" is being established "right on the doorstep
of the United States.• Be noted that he had only three years left to
serve his country and that he could not "sit back and permit this cancer
to spread, leaving my successor to face far more agonizing decisions in
the years ahead.•
The persuasive Mr. Reagan may yet get his way, partially at least, with a
balky Congress. The cancer just might go into remission for the remainder
of Mr. Reagan's term, with barely enough material flowing to the contras
to keep them from collapsing, meanwhile tying down the Sandinista forces,
preventing them from subverting their neighbor countries. But after 1988,
look out 1
The attitude of today's Congress, meanwhile, drew a sharp
criticism from Michael Novak, writing in the March 14 WASHINGTON TIMES:
Many in Congress these days show half a profile of courage••••
If they had their way, they would remove every last right-wing
dictator at sun up. Facing right, they show magnificent pro
files of courage.... Show them a left-wing Marxist-Leninist
di�tatorship, and they•••always want to •negotiate.•
This asymmetry reflects true costs.
These days, to oppose
dictatorships on the right costs no American blood.
Such
vaunted potentates as Anastasio Somoza, the Shah of Iran, Jean
Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, and Ferdinand Marcos have fallen
like overripe rose petals.
To oppose Marxist-Leninists, �
contrast, means a commitment of blood and treasure•••• The left
has taken the measure of Soviet powerin Nicaragua, and has
decided to back away••••
Here is how they reason: While they are sure the Sandinistas
are Marxist-Leninists, they �re not sure the resistance forces
opposing them are completely democratic•••• They point out that
several (but not all) of the field leaders of the Nicaraguan
resistance are former officers under Mr. Somoza. (They do not
raise this objection against Gen. Fidel Ramos or Defense
Minister Juan Ponce Enrile [who served President Marcos until
their defection] in the Philippines.) ••• Pity those who yearn
for liberty and justice in the meantime. Democrats like FDR,
Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy [who wrote the book Profiles in
Courage], and Henry M. Jackson would have been disgusted.
In the March 16 LOS ANGELES TIMES, colunnist Charles Krauthammer compared
Congress's •we-don't-want-to-get-involved" attitude with the positions
held by isolationists in the 1930s who didn't want to act to help fore
stall the gathering storm clouds in Europe. Krauthammer made one distinc
tion, however:
At least the isolationists of the '30s had an idea: hunkering
down and hiding from the world in our own hemisphere. Where do
we hide?