US is still fighting the Cold War with Nicaragua

Writing at The Huffington Post, Nikolas Kozloff takes on the New York Times' coverage of Bill de Blasio, the Democratic candidate in New York's mayoral race, and his ties with the Sandinistas.

Perversely, New York's media is again debating the Sandinista Revolution and the tumultuous Contra War in Nicaragua. Just why has the media suddenly taken such a keen interest in Central America, a region it has for the most part ignored over the past 30 years? For local media to break away from its normally parochial coverage and actually run stories about foreign policy, let alone Nicaragua, is unusual. What makes the recent flurry over the Sandinistas surprising is that debate has centered upon the political activism of Bill de Blasio, the Democratic candidate in New York's mayoral race.

If it were not for the New York Times, which ran a long investigative piece on de Blasio's political organizing in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it is perhaps unlikely that the media establishment would have latched onto Nicaragua, and few would have revisited the Sandinista Revolution at all. Yet the Times piece, which treats de Blasio's activism in a rather unflattering and condescending light, has led to a media firestorm and added an unusual foreign policy dimension to the New York City mayoral race.

As I mentioned before, I thought that the coverage was pretty good. However, it was lacking a bit because de Blasio hadn't really spoken in detail about his time in Nicaragua or how his thinking has changed or remained the same since. I also read a number of terrible right-wing delusional attacks against the NYT piece that probably made me think that it was actually better than it was.

I don't mean to take a middle ground but the Sandinistas were probably worse than what many of their supporters remember (look at their treatment of Miskito Indians) but not as bad as what some critics have and continue to allege (Totalitarian? Seriously?). The Contras committed numerous atrocities but the motivations of many of them were sincere (land taken by the Sandinistas, increasingly hostile relationship towards the Church).

I don't support what the US did in Nicaragua during the 1980s or maybe it's just better to say that it wasn't my preferred policy. Reagan could have done more to support human rights and democracy while still supporting pro-democratic and anti-communist forces in the region. It was an either/or policy choice.

However, I am always torn by the fact that I am happy that the US, democracy and capitalism won the Cold War over the Soviet Union and Marxism-Leninism. But was the defeat of the Sandinistas really necessary to accomplish that outcome?