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Selects: Iran-Contra Affair: Shady in the 80s, Part 1
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Reagan's Public PR Campaign and the Contras' Atrocities
At 23:50 · chapter starts 21:50
Reagan ran a parallel public campaign to drum up congressional support for turning the funding back on. He cast the Contras in heroic terms — 'the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers' — and stoked fear about a communist-driven refugee crisis at America's doorstep. What he didn't mention was what affidavits were beginning to document: Contra factions committing murder, rape, mutilation, and kidnapping against Nicaraguan civilians. One woman described finding her children's mutilated bodies. A Contra leader admitted there was no disciplinary system within the factions, meaning fighters could do whatever they wanted with zero accountability. Josh and Chuck sit with the cognitive dissonance of Reagan describing these groups in Founding Father terms while their atrocities went unacknowledged and unreported.
The US-supported civil war in Nicaragua lasted into the 1990s, with civilians murdered, kidnapped, and tortured by the scores throughout the conflict.
The civil war the Reagan administration fomented in Nicaragua lasted a full decade, with civilians murdered by the scores. One Contra leader admitted there was no disciplinary system within the rebel factions at all — meaning fighters could commit any atrocity without consequences. A woman described finding her children's mutilated bodies the next day.
