Repugnant From All Sides

AS A MEMBER of The Salient, I was dismayed by the appearance of Nicaraguan Contra Jorge Rosales at the Science Center on May 7, sponsored by campus conservatives. Not only does supporting the Contras violate truly conservative principles, but the raging debate over President Reagan's efforts to fund the Contras should be unnecessary. No conservative President properly mindful of what it means to be conservative would have ever sought the aid package.

A torrent of regrettable statements began last year when the President labeled the Contras "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers." Recently Secretary of State George P. Shultz insisted on our "moral duty" to help the rebel forces, and Reagan expounded his sentiments further in declaring the Contras "the moral descendants of the men at Valley Forge." In last month's Salient, John L. Worden concluded that aiding the Contras is "a moral imperative." When the administration and its supporters must repeatedly advertise that their policy is moral, it probably isn't.

War is the greatest confounder of moral and philosophical principles and dilemmas; it is not the occasion for lavish and indiscriminate bestowing of moral awards. A true conservative mind devoted to careful thought and pensive reflection would not offer such rash laud as did the President. No doubt, war has throughout history inspired in many individuals some of the noblest of moral traits: courage, loyalty, valor, honor, selflessness. These are not the traits embodied by the Contras, an outfit supported not only by the United States but by cocaine smuggling as well.

IN LIGHT OF reports of widespread atrocities committed by the Contras, conservatives should be squeamish, not sanguine, about the Contras' behavior. Supporting the Contras requires a vast desensitization to knowledge of their nature, which can lead to a further deadening of our better judgment and civil sensibility in other areas of social policy.

It is not incidental, but central to the Contras' history that their barbarities have been directed against civilians. Conservatives should pay greater heed to centuries-old prohibitions against the terrorizing of civilians during war. To regard this sacrifice of civilians as a necessary and legitimate step in pursuit of a geo-political goal is to ignore the warning of anti-communist philosopher Karl Popper: although one has the right to sacrifice oneself for a cause in which one believes, no one has the right to sacrifice another.

OPPOSING THE CONTRAS is not an endorsement of the Sandinistas. No one can credibly dispute Worden's contentions about the repressive nature of the Sandinistas. But his recommendation that the Contras are "the only viable alternative at this time to the Sandinistas" is false. A Sandinista threat can be contained much more effectively and humanely through economic and diplomatic means, options which the President has not sufficiently explored.

Systems of repression equal to or worse than the Sandinistas' are operating in scores of countries not victims of Reagan's wrath, some even on cordial terms with his Administration. It is simply not clear that the Sandinistas are the worse of the two evils in Nicaragua. A conservative attentive to consequences should recognize that it will be more difficult for Nicaragua to recover from the effects of the American-financed civil war than from the Sandinistas' economics.

Regrettable but not surprising, the moral pretense of aiding the Contras has garnered adherents from the religious right. Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network has funneled aid to the Contras through its "Operation Blessing" program. Jerry Falwell's Liberty Federation has lobbied for aid to the Contras and has encouraged its members to support the rebels. Moreover, during the Contras' lobbying efforts in Washington in March, some of the entourage conspicuously appeared in Lynchburg to meet with Falwell.

For people calling themselves Christians to even indirectly finance a war of this nature is unconscionable. It abuses the memory of the individuals throughout history whose religion has moved them to relieve, not to perpetuate suffering; it inexcusably ignores the example of those religious figures with a gift for mediating disputes, not aggravating them.

"Pacifism is not biblical," says Robertson. Too bad Robertson went to Yale Law School--if he had gone to Yale Divinity School, he might have learned something. An irrefutable application of the "just war" concept did not occur until the fight against Nazi Germany. Charlatan theologians such as Robertson and Falwell have absolutely no authority to embrace the Contras with this tenet.

Reagan's hyperbolic rhetoric in support of a policy which condones this hemisphere's most brutal fighting force only amplifies the moral emptiness of the policy to a deafening roar. Last week at the Kennedy School, even former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane expressed doubts about funding the Contras as long as their terrorist activities continued.

No doubt, many members of Rosales' audience accepted at face value his claim to represent a group of democratic "freedom fighters." That conservatives continue to do this is not only mystifying, but frustrating as well. This is exactly the same self-deception that prompted many American leftists to believe the Sandinistas' claim of being a democratic, peaceful source of social good, and to give the Leninist Daniel Ortega repeated standing ovations during his 1984 Harvard appearance.

David Alan Sanner '86 is a member of The Harvard Salient.