In the early '60s, many people became involved in demonstrations for disarmament. Into the midst of these demonstrations, alongside signs calling for an end to the arms race, appeared posters declaring, "End U.S. aid to south Vietnam."
By the end of the decade, a small, tropical, little-known country on the other side of the world had become a household word, a symbol of all that was wrong with the United States: its greed, imperialism, and willingness to sacrifice thousands of lives to stop the spread of communism.
This Lent at Sojourners, we are keeping a vigil each Thursday evening at the U.S. Capitol to maintain a presence in opposition to nuclear weapons. And on Fridays, we are participating in a vigil at the State Department for the people of El Salvador.
The connection is not coincidental. A U.S. policy of dominance backed by the strength of nuclear arms will inevitably find a stage on which to act itself out. We are entangling ourselves once again in the destiny of a small country which until now has received little attention.
There is no oil at stake in El Salvador--just coffee, sugar, bananas, and U.S. pride. And the lives of thousands of Salvadorans.
Their country has become an arena of mass murder. A Reagan administration official quoted in the Washington Post called the situation a "fortuitous combination of coincidences and circumstances." With the humiliations of Vietnam, Iran, and Nicaragua behind us but not forgotten, El Salvador provides the first testing ground for Reagan's tough policy on communism.
This time the U.S. has the home-court advantage. The history dating from the Monroe Doctrine is one of U.S. interference in Central America and the Caribbean basin, ample evidence of our grand design for those countries within our "sphere of influence."
Read the Full Article
