I think this article is very well balanced - including historical context, some sins and strength of Ortega and the raising the essential question of how will the US react.

There is a risk that Bush, seeking to divert public attention away from a humiliating Iraq withdrawal, may decide Nicaragua is a suitable arena to scare the public and fix the "Ortega threat". While the US would be hard pressed to claim Nicaragua is going Communist it could say it is Socialist (a serious accusation in America) and that Nicaragua is close to Castro's Cuba

Hopefully the US will decide tolerance of the will of the Nicaraguan people is preferable to imposing pro-business "Democracy" on America's terms.

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com/

The USA - why its concern? It does good, and too often, not-so-good.
Having unparalleled power, it expresses supreme confidence - waving the banner of its democratic system, never doubting that all peoples of the world are aware that such values are superior. Surely it expects the rest of the world, just by viewing its passive example, to automatically drift towards adopting the same?
But, scratch the surface, and there is a conundrum.
The world's most powerful "Christian Country" (by advocacy not constitution) is too often like "My brother in Sydney":
"My brother's a curate in Sydney - he's saving young girlies from sin. He'll save you a blonde for a dollar; my God how the money rolls in."
Whether it is to "save a blonde for a dollar", or from a feeling of insecurity, the US has a history of forcible intrusion.
As Senator Fullbright said in The Arrogance of Power: "The United States went to war in 1898 for the stated purpose of liberating Cuba from Spanish tyranny but after winning the war - a war which Spain had been willing to pay a high price to avoid - the United States brought the liberated Cubans under an American protectorate and incidentally annexed the Philippines, because, according to President McKinley, the Lord told him it was America's duty to 'educate the Filippinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them'-- Isn't it interesting that the voice was the voice of the Lord but the words were those of Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Admiral Mahan, those 'Imperialists of 1898' who wanted America to have an empire just because a big, powerful country like the United States ought to have an empire?"
It has since been continuous - Chile, Gautemala, Grenada, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama, --. The George W. Bush Administration is not the first to demonstrate insecurity or worse. God knows why

With the Democrats taking over Congress and the increasing problems in Iraq, coupled with Henry Kissinger'w advice to ask for assistance from sworn enemies, Syria and Iran, looks like any thoughts about a remake of the Sandanistas for the Bush regime would be like having the whole Bush White House really on the hops.

Ready and waiting to challenge when the last fortnight's dreaded US Middle East problems find rightful space in our OLO.

The incestuous "can't jump."

How to trust someone who can't tell the difference between right and wrong, who has a wife who defends his incestuous behavior?

Like priests who can't tell whether it's "just sex" or "child abuse."

Calling destroying children psychologically, spiritually, emotionally, "just sex" is an extremely self-interested interpretation of a criminal act that is extremely destructive.

Can communists tell what is moral and what is not? How about the Khmer Rouge, who wanted to create a "new world" based on their theories, and therefore went out to kill everyone who didn't agree with them -- those who read books, those who played musical instruments....? Isn't that what atheism is all about? I'm also referring to those who call themselves believers in God, who commit child abuse, who act like they don't believe in God and his ways, which are protective of children.

Whether the US invades or otherwise sponsors death squads again in Nicaragua will depend solely on how 'cooperative' Ortega's govt is - largely how cheap it flogs off the nations natural resources (ironically protected by the terror created by Contra death squads sponsored by US in '80s) and how compliant it is in allowing US military bases. Ortega sounds profoundly compromised, but if the ads against him featured corpses in the street, think we can guess that he is not a US puppet.

Australia has never needed death squads or campaign ads featuring corpses, but then we're too craven gutless to stand up to Uncle Sam (NZ has escaped thanks to its limited resources and geostrategic irrelevance).

Perhaps a bigger variable is whether the Contra portion of the Iran-Contra arms & drug trafficking operations of the 80s & 90s have been displaced by other criminals. Theres still an awful lot of cocaine needing regular passage to USA, and right wing death squads (in Paraguay, Columbia, Panama, Guatamala and Mexico) routinely diversify into such activities. Question is, will that great US patriot Col. Oliver North give up his post-jail talk show network to come down and run it again?

I wish i was making this up, i really do, if its news to gentle/young readers, maybe start with
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_Affair
or
Federation of American Scientists
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_02.htm
or to drop faux balance
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/usa/oliver-north/
or google it yourself.

Bush Snr (GHW) was head of the CIA at the time, and apparently Ronnie Reagan never forgave him for creating and funding the arms&drug trafficking network without his knowledge.

americans like to describe themselves as the 'good guys' of international affairs. many around the world believe them, which explains why rich people like to own media.

but their whole history has been simple brutal aggression. they began with 'manifest destiny', and continue today with the 'war on terror'.

the sandinista government would be in danger if not for the iraq quagmire, which the usa can not escape anytime soon. i believe the american empire may have reached it's limit, exhausted politically by a futile war in which lives and money were clearly wasted, exhausted economically by the monstrously inflated military expenditures america has been making since world war ll.

let's hope central america enjoys a respite from usa attention. the yanks have much worse problems than ortega, and closer to home.