Reply #61: Rumsfeld went crazy from all the death. Gates doesn't care.

[Octafish]

He's like he's the Kissinger of Wichita.

Gates Pushed for Bombing of Sandinistas

His 1984 memo called for 'hard measures' against Nicaragua.

by Julian E. Barnes
Published on Saturday, November 25, 2006 by the Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — Robert M. Gates, President Bush's nominee to lead the Pentagon, advocated a bombing campaign against Nicaragua in 1984 in order to "bring down" the leftist government, according to a declassified memo released by a nonprofit research group.

US President George W. Bush (R) listens as former CIA director Robert Gates speaks in the Oval Office of the White House. Gates, the man nominated by President George W. Bush to be the next US secretary of defense, recommended in the 1980s overt military action against Nicaragua, including air strikes and a naval quarantine of its ports, according to a document made public here. Photo:/AFP

The memo from Gates to his then-boss, CIA Director William J. Casey, was among a selection of declassified documents from the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal posted Friday on the website of the National Security Archive, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/ .

In the memo, Gates, who was deputy director of the CIA, argued that the Soviet Union was turning Nicaragua into an armed camp and that the country could become a second Cuba. The rise of the communist-leaning Sandinista government threatened the stability of Central America, Gates asserted.

Gates' memo echoed the view of many foreign policy hard-liners at the time; however, the feared communist takeover of the region never materialized.

"It seems to me," Gates wrote, "that the only way that we can prevent disaster in Central America is to acknowledge openly what some have argued privately: that the existence of a Marxist-Leninist regime in Nicaragua closely allied with the Soviet Union and Cuba is unacceptable to the United States and that the United States will do everything in its power short of invasion to put that regime out."

Gates predicted that without U.S. funding, the Nicaraguan anti-communist forces known as Contras would collapse within one or two years. But he said that providing "new funding" for the Contras was not good enough. Instead, he advocated that the United States withdraw diplomatic recognition of the Sandinista government, provide overt assistance to a government in exile, impose economic sanctions or a quarantine, and use airstrikes to destroy Nicaragua's "military buildup."

CONTINUED, with LINKS to PDF of memo 'n' stuff...

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1125-04.htm

Hmm. Lots of deceased people thanks to Gates and Casey and Bush and Reagan.



BTW: Thank you, H20 Man. Truly appreciate your Friendship.