ABSTRACT
For the most part, the victims of Reaganite terror were defenseless civilians, but in one case the victim was a state, Nicaragua, which could respond through legal channels. Nicaragua brought its charges to the World Court, which condemned the US for "unlawful use of force"—in lay terms, international terrorism—in its attack on Nicaragua from its Honduran bases, and ordered the US to terminate the assault and pay substantial reparations. The bombing of Libya was neatly timed for a congressional vote on aid to the US-run terrorist force attacking Nicaragua. In reality, the intervention was designed to prevent Cuba's imminent liberation from Spain, turning it into a virtual colony of the United States. Violence and economic strangulation were undertaken in response to Cuba's "successful defiance" of US policies going back 150 years; no Russians, but rather the Monroe Doctrine, which established Washington's right to dominate the hemisphere.
