Shoulder-Fired Missiles US Left Behind in Cent. America Raise Terror Fears

[NNN0LHI]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBYLU7SM5E.html

Shoulder-Fired Missiles U.S. Left Behind in Central America Raise Terror Fears

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) - Before Iraq, before Sept. 11, Central American nations were torn by rebel conflicts, leaving behind weapons that have come back to haunt American officials, who believe terrorists might tap the past to carry out future attacks.

The topic has taken center stage this week as President Bush pushes to clean up stocks of shoulder-fired missiles, many of which were distributed for conflicts in the 1980s, then discarded, buried or sold on the black market.

U.S. officials fear terrorists will use the missiles, which are easily carried and hidden, to attack commercial flights. snip

U.S. officials earlier expressed concern about missing supplies of portable U.S. Stinger weapons that helped fighters - including some who became al-Qaida figures - drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan in 1989, at the same time Nicaragua's civil war was winding down. snip

Nicaraguan army spokesman Adolfo Zepeda said officials suspect other missiles - including those supplied to the Contras by the U.S. government - are hidden throughout the country. Both the Contras and the Sandinistas handed the missiles out to supporters during the war and some were hidden or simply forgotten after the conflict.

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[NNN0LHI]

1. Quick. How many times is the central figure here Ronald Reagan mentioned?

Ø

[htuttle]

4. None, it's all in 'passive voice'

"(The weapons)...were distributed for conflicts in the 1980s"

As if they distributed themselves..

They always use passive voice when things go wrong.

"Mistakes were made."

[NNN0LHI]

5. I wonder had this had happened under Clinton's watch if the writer...

...from AP just might have found space in that 1000+ word story to mention his name just once maybe? Nah. I am probably just being paranoid.

Don

[Igel]

7. Name Reagan, you're pretty much stuck naming Brezhnev. n/t

[NNN0LHI]

18. Why? Was Brezhnev working for Reagan in 1982 or something?

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/terror/20050224-1435-missilethreat.html

Government unsure how many shoulder-fired missiles are missing

<snip>The United States began selling its Stinger shoulder-fired missile to foreign countries in 1982. The CIA secretly transferred an estimated 2,000 to Afghanistan mujahedeen rebels in the mid-1980s, and they were used to down hundreds of Soviet helicopters and transport aircraft.

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[LynnTheDem]

2. Like the ones the Taleban are using against us in Afghanistan? The ones

the rightwingnuttery sold to Osama bin Laden to fight the Soviets?

THOSE shoulder-fired missiles?

[Igel]

8. Yep. Them. n/t

[gratuitous]

3. Just ask Negroponte

He's probably still got all his old receipts somewhere.

[RobertSeattle]

6. Better check Ollie North's garage

Strange - we gave the Reagan backed Contras Soviet made missiles to fight the Soviet backed Nicaraguan Army? Strange.

[Igel]

9. No, I think we gave them Stingers.

The Russians gave theirs to the Sandinistas. We're the only two countries in the world that manufacture these particular weapons, and the treaty signed yesterday, according to Russian sources, doesn't limit availability directly--it just requires that each country notify the other of sales to third countries.

Actually, part of the hubbub is because the Sandinistas apparently, if I believe rumors, still largely control the military in Nicaragua.

Why they should suddenly be any more anti-American and willing to give their supplies to "evil-doers" now than they were two years ago is a mystery.

[Selatius]

11. I was under the impression the Sandinistas didn't get USSR help

It would've given Reagan the excuse to overtly attack Nicaragua, which he was already doing through covert means. Wasn't it the Int'l Court of Justice that condemned the US for illegally mining their harbor? Reagan was trying to isolate Nicaragua and force them to seek help through the only door he left open: The USSR. If the Sandinistas courted the Soviets, Reagan and Co. would say what they were doing to Nicaragua up until that point was perfectly justified, nevermind the civilian victims. If the Sandinistas didn't, they'd be attacked by the Contras anyway.

[Igel]

13. There are two phases here.

As an insurgency, the Sandino Liberation Front seemed to have unlimited supplies of people and weaponry, with no overt supporter.

Just as the Contras did, later.

On the other hand, once Samoza was gone and the Sandinistas established themselves as the recognized government, there's nothing that Reagan could do if the Sandinistas were supported by the Soviets and their partners (other than help out the Contras).

Don't know how reliable a source this is, but it seems fairly neutral:
http://www.country-studies.com/nicaragua/the-sandinista-years,-1979-90.html
"Immediately after the revolution, the Sandinistas had the best organized and most experienced military force in the country. To replace the National Guard, the Sandinistas established a new national army, the Sandinista People's Army (Ejército Popular Sandinista--EPS), and a police force, the Sandinista Police (Policía Sandinista). These two groups, contrary to the original Puntarenas Pact were controlled by the Sandinistas and trained by personnel from Cuba, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union. Opposition to the overwhelming FSLN influence in the security forces did not surface until 1980. Meanwhile, the EPS developed, with support from Cuba and the Soviet Union, into the largest and bestequipped military force in Central America. Compulsory military service, introduced during 1983, brought the EPS forces to about 80,000 by the mid-1980s."

[RobertSeattle]

15. They had some Soviet hand me downs

They had some old Tanks and a handful of Hind-D helicopters. They would not have last long against any US forces. It was the classic cold war "boogie man" where we can our panties in a wad over a tin can army in a relatively poor country.

[burrowowl]

20. You are right

the Sandistas were pretty much left out in the rain.
Cuba could get USSR support, but the rest of Latin America, USSR didn't dare.
Banana republics were created by the U$. Guatemala in 1954 (or thereabouts) tried to be a democracy, Cuba had tried before Castro, but TR didn't let it happen, Haiti got screwed, etc.
Guatemala, RayGun and Co are cupable for the deaths of over 200,000 Guatemalena indians, a Maryknoll liberation social justice type (case where my father was asked to say it was an accident and my father replied that the bullets in the plane and probably the dear priest (he didn't get to see the priest, who was hauling medical supplies to the Indians) didn't look accidental, the fuel lines, etc. were ok.

[RobertSeattle]

16. Article says SA-7s

[happyslug]

17. So did Britain and other Countries

In fact some people like the British version better for it was NOT a heat Seeker but a aim and hold on target missile. Blowpipe was the older version, Star-streak in the more modern version, both were used in Afghanistan.

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/starstreak/starstreak3.html

[slothrop]

10. from xymphora

"One of the men convicted of selling a SAM-7 surface-to-air missile in Nicaragua, Jorge Ivan Pineda, said he was paid $1,000 by the CIA to buy the weapon and that the whole thing was planned at a meeting in the US embassy in the presence of the US ambassador Barbara Moore on Dec. 23 2004. The head of the Nicaragua Army, Gen. Javier Carrion, said he believes there could be an international campaign to discredit his institution.

According to Pineda, two former contras were also present at the meeting at the US embassy. These two men went by the names of 'Cascabel' and 'Arandu' and were the ones who obtained the weapon, which had never been in possession of the Nicaragua Army but was one of 100 SAM-7 missiles that the US government had given to the contras to fight against the Sandinista government in the 1980s. These weapons have never been recovered and apparently are still in the possession of ex-contra fighters in the northern mountains of Nicaragua.

Pineda went on to claim that Silva Clarence, the head of the anti-drug directorate in the National Police force, is really an undercover CIA agent. Those who orchestrated the whole thing, says Pineda, 'even asked 'Cascabel' and 'Arandu' to take a photo of the weapon as proof. This photo would be shown to Bolaños and Moore.'"

With Negroponte running all American intelligence, and CIA-Contra dirty tricks in Nicaragua, it feels like the 1980's have returned.

[underpants]

12. I believe Richard Clarke said that these were not to be worried about

that they require a specific type of battery and those batteries decay over time (he was talking about ones left in Afghanistan) and procurement of said batteries is tightly controlled.

Maybe he was talking about another kind of missile
Maybe he was wrong
Maybe this is complete BS as it doesn't mention anyone in the Regan administration.

[Igel]

14. No, all sorts of people said the same thing about Stinger batteries.

I'm not at all sure about the Soviet-made equipment, though. Soviet's didn't make things complicated, just sturdy and easily fixed (with the usual joke that this was an important design consideration, since Soviet-made equipment needed fixing so often).

Not every story relevant to today has to mention Reagan explicitly. Referring to the Contras is sufficient.

[daleo]

19. I have heard that about the batteries, but still...

There has to have been a few smart guys out there that figured out how to get around this feature. A battery is just a power supply, after all. This seems likely to be one of those "reassurance" rituals, like showing your ID 4 times between the gate and the airplane.