Collegiate Times

Underpinning all of this was a fear by the U.S. establishment that Nicaragua's development might "infect others" by giving people in other countries in the region the same ideas about social and economic justice. U.S. control of the region in "our backyard" would erode. So, standard propaganda lines were invented about how the Soviets are going to come and get us if we don't destroy Nicaragua. According to Noam Chomsky, the preeminent foreign policy expert and the eighth most cited scholar of all time, the U.S. purposefully pressured all allies to refuse requests for military aid from Nicaragua for defense of our attacks, in the hopes that Nicaragua would turn to the Soviet Union for aid and thus be able to portray Nicaragua as a tool of the Soviets in their vast conspiracy to destroy America and rule the world forever. The Nicaraguan government did not comply, but the propaganda line was invented anyway.

So, the people in office in the 1980s and many in office today, in carrying out the "war on terror" were committing some of the worst and abominable terrorist acts in history. Nicaragua is just the tip of the iceberg. The Reagan administration practically destroyed the rest of Central America, killing innocent people in the hundreds of thousands. It's possible the region may never recover because there has been too widespread devastation.

Elsewhere in the world, in Angola and Mozambique, the U.S. financed the deaths of a million and a half people, 850,000 of them infants and young children, according to UNICEF. Angola and Mozambique had recently cast off the remaining vestiges of the Portuguese empire in their countries, but apartheid South Africa, with our blessing and backing, would not permit independence. South Africa invaded Angola to crush the recent independence movement, but failed thanks to the selfless help of Cuba. The U.S. and South Africa then began a terrorist campaign, primarily through the Savimbi movement, against the people of Angola, resulting in the aforementioned deaths. It also resulted in about $60 billion worth of damage. At the same time, the U.S. was supporting South Africa's racist regime against "notorious terrorist groups" (according to the Pentagon in 1988) like the African National Congress, led by Nelson Mandela. Valuable support and increased trade flowed to South Africa in their effort to crush evil terrorists like Mandela. Then-Representative Dick Cheney voted against a resolution calling for the release of Mandela from prison, demonstrating his great commitment to freedom.

The "war on terror" of the 1980s provides valuable lessons about how such a war would be conducted by the world's leading terrorist state — namely, the "war on terror" is a brutal terrorist war. The current "war on terror" has nothing to do with stopping terrorism; it's about dominating the globe and ensuring U.S. geopolitical hegemony, and American citizens are responsible for letting their government continue these illegal actions.

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