Nicaragua
The following is the definition of terrorism as defined by the FBI: "theunlawful use of force against persons or property to intimidate or coerce agovernment, the civilian population or any segment thereof, in thefurtherance of political or social objectives" (FBI, 2003). It is the aimof this essay to determine whether the actions of the United States inNicaragua in the early 1980s fit this American definition of terrorism, andto compare those actions with the actions of regimes that the United Statesgovernment has been critical of in recent months to establish if suchcriticism may be seen to be hypocritical.Nicaragua gained independence from Spain in 1821, along with the rest ofCentral America. It was a part of Mexico for a brief time, then part of thethen Central American Federation. Nicaragua finally achieved completeindependence in 1838. Soon after, Britain and the USA both became extremelyinterested in Nicaragua and the strategically important RA-o San Juannavigable passage from Lago de Nicaragua to the Caribbean. In 1848, theBritish seized the port at the mouth of the RA-o San Juan on the Caribbeancoast and renamed it Greytown. This became a major transit point for hordes
[Al-Shifa] providedaffordable medicine for humans and all the locally available veterinarymedicine in Sudan. Theyinherited a poverty-stricken country with high rates of homelessness andilliteracy, and very rudimentary health care. America's track record in this regard has not been very successful, andhistory may in time place a different complexion on the actions of recentmonths. The United States' support for the Contras continuedsecretly, however, until the so-called 'Iran-Contra Affair' revealed thatthe CIA had illegally sold weapons to Iran at inflated prices, and used theprofits to fund the Contras ("Amigos De Nicaragua: History", 2002). However,there is evidence to suggest that this hope would be naive, as shown by theClinton administration's 1998 bombing of the Al-Shifa plant in Sudan. corporations such as Exxoninformed the Nicaraguan government that they would no longer supply tankersfor crude oil transportation to Nicaragua from Mexico, the country'sleading supplier, due to security concerns. Nicaragua was excluded from US programs whichpromoted American investment and trade; sugar imports from Nicaragua wereslashed by 90% and Washington pressured the International Monetary Fund,the World Bank and the European Common Market to withhold loans toNicaragua. The case of Nicaraguaserves as a cautionary tale to those who would attribute all of America'sactions to honest motives, and would serve to be a caveat for anyunquestioning acceptance of American interventions in other nations. Four years later, there came the non-existent Vietnamese attack ontwo American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin for which the media demandedreprisals, giving President Johnson the pretext he wanted to bomb NorthVietnam (Pilger, 2003). On the one instance,America supports a dictator. Somoza ruled Nicaragua as a dictator for the next 20 years, amassing hugepersonal wealth and landholdings. At the end of the Somoza government inNicaragua, the nation was affected with widespread poverty and illiteracy. " The manual also urged the contras to "kidnap all officialsor agents of the Sandinista government. In Congress, the question was raised to Reagan, "Is this not, in effect,our own state-sponsored terrorism'" CIA chief William Casey wrote apersonal letter to each member of the House and Senate intelligencecommittees, stating that the manual was intended to moderate the contras'behavior. InIraq, recently, the United States has replaced a dictator with a regime offoreigners imposed onto the people of that nation.
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Acceptance Essays
