Irangate and Washington's dirty war ON APRIL 25 this year, two major demonstrations are planned by the movement against US intervention in Central America, in partiular to protest against US military and financial support to the contras against Nicaragua.
The following article explains how the recent Irangate revelations have affected the Reagan presidency and given a boost to the antiintervention movement. The article is from the February 1987 issue should reply - along with Gorbachev, that up until now the movement has been much too slow. According to the London Sunday Times of December 14, a report drawn up by dozens of academicians stressed that the gravity of the crisis ("'a terrible mess") calls for faster reforms.
To the Gorbachevites who say that the people cannot only adjust to democracy step by step, we should point out that their paternalism is leading them into a blind alley. Nothing better than their own slogans could reveal the depth of their contradiction, which borders on the ridiculous: "Don't be afraid [!] to advance in a brave [!] and resolute way."
In the real world, the brave are characterized precisely by the fact that they are not afraid, that no one can frighten them. That quality is something that the masses will acquire by their own experience and on their own initiative, as they did during the revolution of 1917, and not by command or according to rules established and strictly limited at the top.
Speaking on June 19, 1986, to a group of writers, Gorbachev came up with a very apt formula. "The enemy [it would have been better to say the international bourgeoisie] does not fear Soviet nuclear missiles. But they do fear the extension of democracy in the USSR." (New York Times, December 22, 1986)
Unquestionably, a Soviet Union in which • a real socialist democracy prevailed, which would have a power of attraction for the masses of the entire planet, would change the whole world situation at one stroke. That is, it would, if this socialist democracy were real and not fictional, if it gave the workers not only more economic rights and powers but more political rights and powers than in the most developed capitalist countries.
of Bulletin in Defense of Marxism. TOM BARRETT
Ronald Reagan's presidency has begun to fall apart. The shallowness of his support among the American people was demonstrated during the first week of December by a • 20point drop in his approval rating within a matter of days, falling below 50 per cent for the first time since his inauguration. He and his staff have been shown to be as inept as the Jimmy Carter team and as dishonest as the Nixon team.
The unraveling of Reagan's credibility has opened new opportunities for those working for positive social change, especially for those opposing US intervention in Central America. The exposure of illegal military action in support of the contra terrorists will harden opposition to war against Nicaragua among a population which has never supported it.
The demonstrations planned for Washington and the West Coast on April 25, 1987, have every chance of being the biggest and most important protests in many years.
Reagan's electoral victories and approval ratings have never been based on popular support for his reactionary ideas and policies. Rather, the former movie actor and public-relations representative had a consummate ability to use the media to appeal to people's emotions. Reagan's body language, Madison Avenue phrases, and avuncular speaking tone are designed not to communicate ideas, but. to put forward an image of himself and of the country: "America is standing tall again." One of my coworkers, who voted for Reagan in 1984, explained that every time he heard Reagan actually express his political ideas during the campaign it made him think about voting for Mondale, so he simply stopped watching Reagan's speeches! He, like millions of other Americans, voted for Reagan simply because he "liked him."
Throughout his presidency Reagan had attempted to generate hysteria about "terrorism" and to use it to his advantage. He used the Iranian hostage crisis to get himself elected initially and has used "terrorism" as an excuse to carry out acts of war against those countries that refuse to "cry uncle" to him - Libya and Nicaragua specifically.
"Ayatollah-bashing" has been for Reagan a cheap way of attempting to generate support for his war policies. "We will not negotiate with terrorists" has been the constant refrain from Reagan, Secretary of State Shultz, Secretary of Defence Wein. berger and all the rest of the Reagan gang. More and more revelations
The revelation by an Iranian official, shortly after [US hostage] David Jacobsen's release from captivity in Lebanon, that former national security advisor Robert McFarlane had been in Iran negotiating an arms deal implied that the Reagan administration had traded arms for Jacobsen's release. Whatever the complexities of the situation, all the talk of "no negotiations with terrorists"
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was shown to be nothing but bluster.
After the initial revelations, new and more damaging reports came out with startling rapidity. It was shown that arms trading with Iran had been going on since 1983, and that Israel and Saudi Arabia had acted as go-betweens. Most damning of all was the information that the profits from the Iranian arms deals had been secretly deposited in a Swiss bank account and turned over from them to the Nicaraguan contras.
Besides being a moral crime, that act also happened to be against US law. The principal architects of the arrangement - national security advisor Admiral John Poindexter and National Security Council staff member Lt. Col. Oliver North -have both taken the Fifth Amendment in response to the congressional investigations of what has become a full-blown Washington scandal.
That scandal has given socialists a big opportunity to expose the Reagan administration's crimes. However, to take advantage of it fully socialists need a clear understanding of what it means. It would be a shame to see the Democrats reap the biggest gains from the situation, for their record in affairs of this kind is every bit as sordid as the Republicans'.
This affair has exposed Reagan's - and Thatcher's, Chirac's and other imperialist leaders' - rhetoric about "international terrorism" to be a thorough fraud. It has shown conClusively that military attacks on so-called "terrorist states" have nothing to do with concern about terrorism; rather, they are attempts by the imperialist military powers to impose their will on states and peoples who are trying to achieve some measure of independence.
Robert McFarlane admitted knowing that the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut was probably carried out by a group with ideological ties to Iran before he began 12 arms negotiations with Iranian representatives.
The revelation that Israel - the most strident voice in the international "anti-terrorist" chorus but which in fact carries out its own statesponsored terror campaign against the Palestinians - was involved in the arms shipments, exposes the fraud even further.
In addition, if one adds up the number of US citizens who have fallen victim to terrorist acts over the past quarter-century, the largest number have been victims of the counter-revolutionary Cuban exile groups. Gangs like Omega-7 and Alpha-66 exercise a vicious tyranny over Cuban communities in North American cities and do not hesitate summarily to execute anyone who gets in their way. These terrorists are providing money and material aid to their contra counterparts in Nicaragua - and they are directly implicated in this latest scandal. The Reagan administration bombs Libya, but gives money to those who perpetrate car-bombings in Miami! Anti-abortion terror campaign
Furthermore, in recent years the grossly misnamed "Right-to-Life" movement has carried on a terrorist campaign of its own, fire-bombing abortion clinics, supposedly to teach "respect for life." More Americans have fallen victim to the anti-abortion mobs' terrorism than to political violence in the Middle East. Reagan's only response is to continue to denounce abortion and to say nothing about the fire-bombings.
The cynicism of all parties in this business is revolting. Among the participants in the arms trading with Iran was Saudi Arabia - which has officially sided with Iraq since the war began. While the Reagan White House was shipping arms to Iran, the CIA has been providing Iraq with intelligence information to aid its bombing of Iranian oil installations and other strategic targets. The US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the private arms businessmen seem only to want the war to continue indefinitely. They are indulging in an obscene orgy of money and death.
While it is important to point out the administration's barefaced hypocrisy with respect to terrorism and Iran, the crime which deserves the greatest outrage in this whole affair is the diversion of yet more money to the Nicaraguan contras. It was bad enough that congress legally appropriated 100 million US dollars to finance a very real form of "statesponsored terrorism." The revelation that Reagan White House aides have been involved in illegally channeling money - over and above the 100 million dollars - makes it that much worse.
The latest "dirty trick" to be exposed is that not only has money been diverted to the contras, it has also been used - illegally - in US political campaigns to defeat members of congress who oppose contra aid. Of all the revelations to date this is the most reminiscent of Nixon's Watergate scandal.
This entire affair has begun to blow the lid off of Washington's dirty war against the Nicaraguan people. The revelations which began after Eugene Hasenfus was shot down delivering arms to the contras have exposed a network of the CIA, Cuban exiles, right-wing businessmen and mercenary soldiers attempting to overthrow the Sandinista government -a government which rules in the interests of the workers and peasants, and a government which in no way constitutes a threat to North American working people.
The contras and their supporters have in fact been no match for the Nicaraguan army in head-on combat; however, they have killed thousands of unarmed civilians, disrupted important agricultural activities such as the coffee harvest, and forced the Nicaraguan government to devote a disproportionate amount of its resources to defence - thus slowing down the pace of improvements in the people's standard of living.
Washington does not entertain any illusions that the contras, by themselves, can overthrow the Sandinistas. The US government is hoping that the Nicaraguan people's will to resist can be worn down so that a Grenada-style quick strike can put an end to the Nicaraguan revolution. This is unlikely, however, for the Nicaraguan people, whatever their problems, have no intention of relinquishing the governmental power which they have conquered at such a huge cost.
It may be that the Iran-contra arms scandal reflects a split in the US ruling class, with one wing consciously seeking to prevent the US from getting involved in a war which it cannot win quickly and which can unleash - at a higher level - the same kind of social unrest generated by the fiasco of Vietnam in the 1960s and early 70s; while the pro-Reagan wing wants to drive ahead whatever the cost and sees the main priority to be pursuing the military battle against the Nicaraguan revolution.
If the Iran-contra arms scandal proves anything it is that US foreign
International Viewpoint 23 February 1987
WEST GERMANY policy has nothing to do with justice, democracy, the safety of American citizens or anything of importance to working people anywhere.
In Central America and Southern Africa, workers, peasants and other oppressed are fighting to put an end to foreign domination and exploitation by the wealthy. Washington is trying to stop them. Those in this country who support the rights of the Central Americans and South African Blacks to determine their own future should use this scandal to expose the US government. It is up to no good wherever it intervenes. It has no business interfering in the affairs of any other country in the world.
Even before the scandal broke, the movement against Reagan's war poli-