Arguing About Means and Ends

And U.S. aid to Nicaragua's contra rebels

The sporadic clashes in the mountains and jungles of Nicaragua's thinly populated northern provinces so far scarcely deserve to be called a war. The forces involved are minor. On one side are perhaps 2,000 exiles, known as contras, who have slipped back into the country from bases in Honduras, where they were trained as guerrillas; on the other are a scattering of militia and border guards of Nicaragua's Marxist Sandinista government. Casualties in the past month total a few hundred, of whom many were peasants killed almost...