Thanks, Ronnie, For The Debacle In Latin America

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Had you listened to the hot air coming from the television or radio at all last week, you probably came away with an impression of Ronald Reagan as a lovable old grandpa with a soft voice and a repertoire full of knee-slapping jokes. 'Grandpa reshaped the American economy and talked sense into those nasty Soviets,' commentators would have you believe. 'Even if you didn't agree with his politics, you had to admit he was the kindest man around,' went another sound bite.

Talk about a joke! What the American media forgot to tell us during its state of spellbound mourning last week was the story of the massive bloodshed in Latin America during Reagan's presidency that he condoned, encouraged, and even funded illegally. And the Iran-Contra scandal was only the tip of the iceberg. The Reagan administration engineered bloody military actions to suppress social and political change in El Salvador and Guatemala too, not to mention propping up, then tearing down the Panamanian caudillo (political strongman) Manuel Noriega, invading Grenada and 'getting cozy with Argentine fascist generals,' as The Nation's David Corn writes in his piece, '66 (Unflattering) Things About Ronald Reagan.'

Renowned investigative reporter Greg Palast recalls being in a little Nicaraguan town named Chaguitillo in 1987 when a local woman died needlessly of tuberculosis. 'People don't die of TB if they get some antibiotics,' writes Palast. 'But Ronald Reagan, big-hearted guy that he was, had put a lock-down embargo on medicine to Nicaragua because he didn't like the government that the people there had elected. Ronnie grinned and cracked jokes while the young woman's lungs filled up and she stopped breathing. Reagan flashed that B-movie grin while they buried the mother of three.'

The embargo, of course, went hand in hand with Reagan's grand scheme to illegally arm the Contras with secret money from Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini and break the will of the Nicaraguan people, who Reagan imagined were dangerous Commies 'only a 48-hour drive from Texas.' Palast continues: 'In Chaguitillo, all night long, the farmers stayed awake to guard their kids from attack from Reagan's Contra terrorists.'

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