Abstract

Suicida and the Gang

This article presents information on the book "With the Contras: A Reporter in the Wilds of Nicaragua," by Christopher Dickey. How is it that a handful of barbarous soldiers, universally despised when they were routed from Nicaragua six and a half years ago, have since grown into a fighting force of more than 10,000 that threatens the Sandinista government? How is it that the President of the United States can call this cruel collection of criminals, mercenaries, terrified peasants, upper-class landowners and former Somoza National Guardsmen "the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers" and not be laughed out of the White House? How can truth have been so stood on its head that many intelligent people in the U.S. government and the mainstream media now consider the contras, whose atrocities have been thoroughly documented, a "legitimate democratic alternative" to the "totalitarian" Sandinistas? In this engrossing though uneven book, Dickey provides a lot of information to help answer those questions.