> I don't remember much about the Contras, but I certainly didn't support
> any of them at the time when I was part of the Central America solidarity
> movement.
Are you kidding? How could anyone who was part of that important movement NOT "remember much about the Contras"? I mean, apart from the daily reports of terror inflicted on Nicaraguan peasants, teachers, doctors, et al., and "debates" in Congress about sending more tax dollars to these thugs, there was that little scandal that came to light in late-'86, y'know, the one about arms-for-hostages, drug running, Iran, etc? They held hearings on that in DC, I believe, which was covered by all the networks. It was a whitewash, a scandal in itself, but it wasn't pushed back to A-23, beneath the fold.
Again, are you fucking serious?
> The Sandinistas were probably an improvement over Somoza and previous
> regimes, but they were still (and are) authoritarian Marxist-Leninists.
"Authoritarian" in what sense? Allowing a newspaper that is funded by the superpower seeking to destroy the revolution to publish calls for the violent overthrow of the government? Yes, La Prensa got hassled from time to time, shut down periodically, denied ink and paper, and so on. But its editors were not taken out and shot in the head, as was the case in El Salvador and Guatemala; indeed, its figurehead, Violeta Chamorro, ran successfully for president in a coalition that included conservative businessmen and communist parties -- three small parties, if memory serves. For a small nation under years of attack, tens of thousands killed, and which didn't even control its own airspace, I'd say that's not terribly "authoritarian." If allowing yourself to be voted out of power is a Stalinist tactic, then yes, the FSLN were indeed dictators of the severest kind.
Dennis