From Reagan to Obama: Secrecy and Covert Operations in the Fight against “Terrorism”

by Rémi Brulin

Jadaliyya - September 23, 2013

Ronald Reagan was the first American president to put “terrorism” at the heart of his foreign policy discourse. During his first term, Reagan did so mostly in reference to conflicts in Central America. In El Salvador, his administration presented US military aid as necessary to help the Salvadoran armed forces fight the “terrorist threat” posed by the FMLN (Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional, an umbrella group of leftist guerilla organizations). In neighboring Nicaragua, Reagan repeatedly accused the Sandinistas of supporting the “terrorist” FMLN and belonging to a Moscow-led “international terrorist network” bent on exporting “subversion” and “terrorism” throughout the region.
In Nicaragua, US policy followed the covert route, namely the provision of military aid to various anti-Sandinista groups collectively known as the Contras. Revelations in the press rapidly pulled Reagan’s “secret war” from the shadows and led many in Congress to question the program’s morality and legality. The Executive branch systematically met such inquiries with claims to secrecy.
These debates highlight the difficulties involved in defining “terrorism” not in the abstract, but as applied to a specific conflict, especially one about which, as was the case with Nicaragua,  Democrats and Republicans were deeply divided. They also bear striking similarities to contemporary debates on the Obama administration’s policies of “targeted killings” or the provision of aid to the Syrian rebels. These debates were for the most never covered in the US press at the time. Consequently, this article is based on a study of the Congressional Record itself (A much more comprehensive version of this research can be found in my dissertation). This “hidden history” of Congressional debates over US covert policies in the first “war on terrorism” suggests historical parallels that may shed light on the present situation.

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