O P IN I O N
ASHES and DIAMONDS
by Alexander Cockburn
Rocky Horror Show
It is hard to repress a shudder while
turning on the television set to watch
the Iran/contra hearings in Washing
ton, D.C. True to gloomy predictions
Republicans, with the slack-jawed ac
quiescence and even vociferous sup
port of most Democrats, have turned
the joint Congressional investigation
into a pro-contra rally. Even senators
and representatives with good inten
tions dribble away opportunity, bay
ing emptily down false trails, bom
barding the witnesses with red her
rings. It's instructive to remember the
Senate and House probes of the Wat
ergate scandals and the performance
of the congressional class of '73 and
'74. The difference is as good an in
dex as any of the political rot of the
past decade and a half.
As I suggested here a month ago,
Israel has disappeared from the scan
dal entirely, at least so far as these
Congressional hearings are con
cerned. Under the zealous protection
of Senator Inouye, the nation that
either co-sponsored or initiated the
arms and money shuttle to Iran and
on to Nicaragua, is referred to only
by number. It took Special Prosecu
tor Lawrence Walsh, with the issue
of his subpoena for David Kimche,
Israeli arms dealer and former head
of the Foreign Ministry, to remind the
world that Israel was involved. Israel
had exacted from Sen. Inouye pro
mises that whatever documents it
might turn over would not be dis
closed without consultation.
Indeed Israel, despite its domestic
political crisis, has felt sufficiently
relaxed about its scandal-management
to dispatch—according to a report in
Le
Observateur
Nouvel
in
February—military instructors to
work with the Iranian revolutionary
guards, the Pasadaran. The magazine
said that the wisdom imparted by
these instructors contributed to the
success, earlier this year, of the Pasa
daran on the southern front against
Iraq. Israel has also been reported as
supplying trainers for the contras in
Honduras.
Congressional timidity about caus
ing offense to Israel has been a prime
factor in prompting the debacle of the
hearings, since it was outrage at the
furnishing of weapons to Khomeini
rather than at illegal U.S. supply of
the contras that made the U.S. con
gressional watchdogs—and press
stir sleepily in their kennels. But since
resolute probing of what happened be
tween the U.S. and Iran must in
evitably involve Israel, the commit
tee has swivelled its attention to
Nicaragua, thus allowing Courtier,
Garn and the others their contra soap
box.
All is not utterly dark. Despite the
incantatory howls in the corporate
press about Reagan’s supposed popu
larity, the late-May CBS/New York
Times poll, among others, appears to
have established beyond reasonable
doubt that more Americans than
otherwise think he is doing a lousy job
and three out of four think he is ly
ing about his role in the scandal. This
is well above the Nixon level on the
spectrum of human credibility. So
cheer up. And while we are at it,
listen to a true tribune of the people
addressing the House of Represen
tatives on May 4, 1987:
“So here we are with a President
trying to divert our attention by try
ing to say he can do something with
literally a bunch of gangsters known
as the Contras. . . . How in the world
would they be received in Nicaragua
if we were to try to pour them down
On May 14 the
Sandinistas flew up 70
reporters to examine
the abandoned contra
camp, but precious
little of their findings
made it to the U.S.
corporate media.
the throats of the Nicaraguan people?
Never. That is why they are hiding out
in Honduras. They are not leading the
revolution in Nicaragua because they
are the representatives and the sym
bols of the regimes that were kicked
out by the revolution in Nicaragua.
“And let me say that I call it a
glorious revolution. Regardless of
what anybody else may call it, I call
it a glorious revolution because it was
an uprising of people that had been
under the yoke of the worst kind of
tyrant, the most corrupt form of
human government in any part of the
world. And who gave a hoot then
about human rights? Where was Ron
ald Reagan worrying about human
rights and freedom and democracy in
Nicaragua? . . . Either we get on the
side of the people or we continue as
the aides and the allies and those in
close brotherhood with the despots
and tyrants of this part of the world.”
This was Rep. Henry Gonzalez of
Texas, the lone person in Congress
calling for the impeachment of Ronald
Reagan.
A
Contra Love Call
Six days after Gonzalez expressed
these uplifting sentiments, Sandinista
troops wiped out a contra base near
San Andres de Bocay and drove more
than 800 contras across the river into
Honduras. This was the terrain to
which credulous U.S. journalists had
been brought in droves to examine the
supposed ability of the contras to hold
a piece of Nicaraguan soil. Their
plan, conceivably in conjunction with
the U.S. “Solid Shield” maneuvers
just above the Honduran border, was
to have FDN military commander
Enrique Bermudez and other contra
leaders come down and claim that the
“democratic resistance” now func
tions inside Nicaragua. Had the San
dinistas not successfully routed the
contras it is entirely conceivable that
Bermudez and the others would have
made their descent to “liberated terri
tory” in mid-May and immediately
called upon the U.S. troops massed
a few miles to the north to come and
help them ward off Sandinista attack.
This has been a Reagan scenario all
along, hand in hand with other
strategy, chillingly evoked in late May
by General Galvin to Boston Globe
reporter Fred Kaplan, with his remark
that the contras were doing well since
they were hitting “soft targets” and
“not duking it up with the Sandi
nistas.” By “soft targets” Galvin
meant peasant co-ops, health workers,
medical facilities, ill-defended settle
ments, and other targets appropriate
to the martial arts of the contras.
On May 14 the Sandinistas flew up
70 reporters to examine the aban
doned contra camp, but precious lit
tle of their findings made it into the
U.S. corporate media. In a typical dis
patch Steven Kinzer of the New York
Times, who followed his usual habit
of staying in Managua and seeking the
counsel of “diplomatic sources,” i.e.,
the U.S. embassy, acknowledged that
there may have been a battle in which
the contras were routed, but on the
other hand there may not and that
perhaps the contras never claimed to
control this area and on the other hand
perhaps they did and who knows the
narrow line that divides truth from
fiction, etc., etc. The Militant, the
Continued on page 16
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