Self-Inflicted Wounds

There are alternative names for the familiar syndrome, such as shooting oneself in the foot, scoring an own goal, suffering a self-inflicted wound. The capacity of the West in general and the United States in particular to indulge themselves in this manner is almost infinite, and, as somebody once said, self-inflicted wounds are no less painful than the other kind, although less deserving of sympathy.

I am prompted to these somewhat banal reflections by the House vote of February 3, rejecting President Reagan’s aid package to the Nicaraguan Contras. No such problems beset the President’s aid program for the Afghan Mujahedin. Is this because they are far away? Or because the Soviets are practicing known atrocities in that mountainous ex-kingdom? Because Nicaragua is uncomfortably close to home and the Contras often attract a bad press (although I have seen nothing to suggest that they are morally inferior to the Afghan rebels)? Over all of this brood the memories of Vietnam. Nobody has ever suggested that the Yanks will be out there fighting the invading Russians (actually, nearly all non-Russians); whereas there is undoubtedly a lingering fear that, sometime or other, the U.S. may blunder into a Vietnam in Central America.

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Brian Crozier

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There are alternative names for the familiar syndrome, such as shooting oneself in the foot, scoring an own goal, suffering a self-inflicted wound. The capacity of the West in general and the United States in particular to indulge themselves in this manner is almost infinite, and, as somebody once said, self-inflicted wounds are no less painful than the other kind, although less deserving of sympathy.

I am prompted to these somewhat banal reflections by the House vote of February 3, rejecting President Reagan’s aid package to the Nicaraguan Contras. No such problems beset the President’s aid program for the Afghan Mujahedin. Is this because they are far away? Or because the Soviets are practicing known atrocities in that mountainous ex-kingdom? Because Nicaragua is uncomfortably close to home and the Contras often attract a bad press (although I have seen nothing to suggest that they are morally inferior to the Afghan rebels)? Over all of this brood the memories of Vietnam. Nobody has ever suggested that the Yanks will be out there fighting the invading Russians (actually, nearly all non-Russians); whereas there is undoubtedly a lingering fear that, sometime or other, the U.S. may blunder into a Vietnam in Central America.