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Article: Conscience vote. (United States Congress; military aid to El Salvador) (editorial)
- Article from:
- The Nation
- Article date:
- November 19, 1990
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1990 The Nation Company L.P. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Conscience Vote
In the early 1980s a foreign service officer atempted to explain to New York Times correspondent Raymond Bonner why threats to cut military aid to El Salvador never had any impact. "Congress says one more massacre and no more aid," the officer mused. "That was ten massacres ago."
Over the past decade Congress has voted more than $4 billion in economic and military aid to the Salvadoran government, apparently preferring the massacres to charges that an aid cut would produce an F.M.L.N. guerrilla victory. But now Congress, most recently the Senate on October 19, has voted to halve military aid to the Salvadoran armed forces. What has ...