[Newsbot]

<strong>Filibuster Cartoon</strong>
<strong>Title: </strong> <a href="http://www.filibustercartoons.com/archive.php?id=20061025" target="_blank">Orteganstein</a> (click to view)
<strong>Date: </strong> October 25, 2006

Daniel Ortega, the revolutionary soldier who led a Marxist junta that ruled Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, appears poised to once again become his country\'s leader. He is presently leading in the polls, and will likely win the presidential election next month if trends continue. <br> <br>This has in turn prompted Oliver North, the former American colonel who was at the heart of an elaborate US-backed scheme to undermine Ortega\'s government with covert aid to anti-Marxist rebels, to speak out. Visiting the country this week, he has gone on Nicaraguan TV and argued that it \"would be the worst thing for Nicaragua\" if Ortega was elected back to power. Other people say that Ortega is no longer anything to fear, as he has moderated his politics considerably during his 16-year exile. But Mr. North seems to have a hard time giving up meddling in the affairs of that nation.

[andrewcool]

I think they need Arnoldo Aleman back .

[Prestwick]

Ortega is the Nicaraguan version of Ken Livingstone (Mayor of London, known in the 1980s as "Red Ken" for his commie leanings). Both were far left in the 70s and both met their downfalls in the 1980s and spent the next decade or so moderating their politics.

Both are still controversial figures, but neither are as dangerous as they were 25 years ago.

North's latest meddling is both misguided and misinformed. He'd be better off relaxing in his retirement from funneling arms to extreme Islamic regimes in exchange for cold hard cash for right wing paramilitaries in Central America.

[Psudo]

Exactly how "moderated" are Ortega's politics? Did he drop to Socialism, or down to Liberal Democratic?

[Prestwick]

He's dropped down to social democratic politics or something.

Whatever it is, he probably wouldn't have been let back into the country without promising to play nicely. Also there would have been feelers put out to the former right wing opposition to see what they thought of him coming back into politics.

If they really didn't want him to run, they would have gone through the courts to bar him.

[Rhoffman]

Don't really know anything about the subject, but is it just me or does it seem to anyone else that Oliver North campaigning in Nicaragua as being a guarantee backfire for his "cause?"

[fabe]

You shouldn't underestimate Ortega. Recently Nicaragua has announced plans to build a second "Panama Canal". A new canal owned by a socialist country, financed by Chávez (who perhaps could even sell his oil to China through it) and a Venezuelan military-presence in Nicaragua could really be a geopolitical nightmare for the US.