September 9, 2004

Worth Another Look: Kerry's 1985 Trip to Managua

Hugh Hewitt takes a look at John Kerry's 1985 trip to Nicaragua to meet with Nicaragua's el presidente Daniel Ortega. Official U.S. policy was supporting the Nicaraguan freedom fighters, known as the Contras, against Ortega's communist regime, but Kerry came home openly in support of Ortega's Sandinistas and against the U.S. providiung aid to the Contras. In other words, he stood firmly against the interests of the freedom-seeking people of Nicaragua.

In February, 1990, Violetta Barrios Chamorro of the National Opposition Union, a collection of all the anti-Sandinista parties, was elected president in elections brought about by the U.S. economic embargo of the Sandinistas, pressure from the Contras, and mediation from neighboring governments. Daniel Ortega has twice attempted to return to power via elections, in 1996 and 2002. He has twice been defeated.

Kerry was wholly wrong about Nicaragua, about the limits of American power, about the applicability of the Vietnam experience outside of Vietnam, indeed even about the lessons of the Vietnam War. Kerry's instinct in 1985 was appeasement of Ortega, and there is no reason to believe that his fundamental views, quite visibly revealed in his mission to Managua, have in any way evolved to a more mature understanding of the nature of America's enemies or the use of American power. John Kerry: Wrong about Vietnam. Wrong about the Sandinistas. Wrong about the Soviets. Wrong about Iraq. The wrong man with the wrong ideas at the wrong time.