"The US, under Carter and Reagan, seemed obsessed with fighting "communism" in two small, impoverished countries, El Salvador and Nicaragua. The lessons of Vietnam, where US intervention to fight communism was a terrible failure and the victory of the Viet Cong no threat whatsoever to US interests, was ignored. (Vietnam is still run by the Communist Party, but that nation and the US are now major trading partners and strategic allies, and Vietnam is a huge tourist attraction for Americans.)"
"Both countries depended largely on agriculture, and in both, a tiny fraction of the population owned almost all the land. In El Salvador, a leftist coalition called the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (named after a revolutionary hero of the past) fought to overthrow the dictatorship, which launched a campaign of repression that included US-back death squads who murdered civilians with impunity. They killed the archbishop of San Salvador, Cardinal Oscar Romero. They raped and murdered US nuns."
Bay Area protesters mobilized against Trump's illegal invasion of Venezuela, continuing a legacy of local resistance to U.S. imperialism in Latin America. San Francisco in the early 1980s hosted numerous protest movements including anti-nuclear campaigns and Central America solidarity activism. The U.S. under Carter and Reagan prioritized combating "communism" in El Salvador and Nicaragua, often ignoring the lessons of Vietnam. Both countries experienced histories of U.S. colonialism, land concentration, and brutal dictatorships. Popular leftist movements prompted violent repression, including U.S.-backed death squads in El Salvador and broad opposition to the Sandinista government after the 1979 revolution.
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