‘World Scofflaw’

The U.S. veto of the U.N. Security Council resolution supporting the World Court decision in “Nicaragua vs. U.S.” was expected, but the bald fact evokes a sense of impending tragedy.

It should be clear by now that the Reagan Administration’s attitude toward the Sandinistas has reached the stage of a sickness, for what else can we call a single-minded commitment to violence against a nation of only 3 million poor people, in the face of reasonable, peaceful, and non-threatening alternatives? Such alternatives have been offered for over three years by the Contadora Group, whose efforts to avert disaster in Central America are disdained by Washington.

At least 60% of the American public opposes the President’s Central American policy. The Joint Chiefs of Staff know this, and they remember the national convulsions resulting from a similar commitment to violence in Vietnam. No matter--the President will press ahead, applying “pressure,” until the Nicaraguans, in justified self-defense, overtly invade Honduras and Costa Rica to destroy the contra bases the World Court has ruled illegal.

Predictably, Honduras and Costa Rica will call for “help,” and once again young Americans (mostly black, brown, and poor) will be sent to die so that the United States can be seen as “standing tall.”

There is now only one hope left for avoiding this tragedy--Senate repudiation of the $100 million aid-to-the-contras package, which was passed by the House. Perhaps the blatant hypocrisy of selling wheat to the Soviet Union (the “evil empire”) on bargain terms, while using atrocious terrorism against helpless women and children in Nicaragua will not be lost on our senators.

If the Senate fails this test, the United States will be revealed as living by only one law: the strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must. So much the worse for us.

BILL BECKER

Woodland Hills