IN THE REAGAN YEARS THE CIA DIRECTOR WILLIAM
CASEY LIED OVER AND OVER TO CONGRESS AND THE
AMERICAN PEOPLE
In order to make an end run around Congress, Casey and NSC official Oliver North concocted an elaborate illegal operation. Aided by Israeli arms dealers, the United States sold missiles to its enemies in Iran at exorbitant prices and used the profits to fund the contras, with Latin American drug dealers often serving as intermediaries and receiving easier access to U.S. markets in return. With U.S. funds and CIA guidance, the contra army grew to 15,000. The CIA also recruited contract mercenaries from countries like Guatemala and El Salvadore who launched independent attacks from offshore, bombing and mining coastal targets and commercial ports.
Reagan defended the United States' covert war with a flight of fancy that bore little resemblance to the reality on the ground in 1984. "The Nicaraguan people," he said, "are trapped in a totalitarian dungeon, trapped by a military dictatorship that impoverishes them while its rulers live in privileged and protected luxury and openly boast their revolution will spread to Nicaragua's neighbors as well. It's a dictatorship made all the more insulting, all the more dangerous by the unwanted presence of thousands of Cuban, Soviet-bloc and radical Arab helpers." Reagan went so far as to call the the contras "the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers," a comparison so odious that it drew a sharp rebuke from the Organization of American Historians. Reagan's "moral equivalents" were notorious for torturing, mutilating, and slaughtering civilians. Employing terrorist tactics, the contras destroyed schools, health care clinics, cooperatives, bridges, and power stations and were responsible for the deaths of most of the 30,000 civilians killed in the war. One advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff called them "the strangest national liberation organization in the world." In his view, they were "JUST A BUNCH OF KILLERS." The U.S. Embassy reported one former contra leader's assertion that civilians who refused to join the contras were "shot or stabbed to death" and others were "burned to death in smelting ovens." He said that kidnapped young girls were "raped night and day."
Atrocities were also committed in El Salvador, where U.S. leaders decided to test their new post--Vietnam counterinsurgency doctrines and try to defeat an uprising without a large commitment of U.S. forces. First they expanded and modernized the Salvadoran army, which, by 1983, reached 53,000 troops, many of whom were trained in Fort Benning, Georgia, or in the U.S.-run School of the Americas in Panama. Former U.S. Ambassador Robert White, who served under both Carter and Reagan, testified before Congress :
For 50 years El Salvador was ruled by a corrupt and brutal alliance of the rich and the military. The young officers revolt of 1979 attempted to break that alliance. It was then Reagan renewed tolerance and acceptance of the extreme right which led to the emergence of the National Republican Alliance, ARENA, and the rise of ex-Major Roberto D'Aubuisson.
ARENA is a violent Fascist party modeled after the Nazis and certain revolutionary Communist groups . . . The founders and chief supporters of ARENA are rich Salvadoran exiles headquartered in Miami and civilian activists in El Salvador. ARENA's military arm comprises officers and men of the Salvadoran Army and security forces . . . My Embassy devoted considerable resources to identifying the sources of rightwing violence and their contacts in Miami, Florida . . . the Miami Six explained . . . that to rebuild the country it must first be destroyed totally, the the economy must be wrecked, unemployment must be massive, the junta must be ousted and a "good" military officer brought to power who will carry out a total cleansing ----limpieza---killing 3 or 4 or 500,000 people . . . Who are these madmen and how do they operate ? . . . the principal figures are six enormously wealthy former landowners . . . They hatch plots, hold constant meetings and communicate instructions to D'Aubuisson.
TO BE CONTINUED
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