War Against the Poor: Low-Intensity Conflict and Christian Faith
by Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer
Category: Social Science

The strategy of low-intensity conflict (or LIC) is a little-known yet sophisticated and deadly form of U.S. intervention in the Third World. Drawing heavily on his own experience of living and working in Central America, Nelson-Pallmeyer shows how LIC victimizes the poor through various techniques: disinformation, manipulation of elections, economic exploitation, even--as with the contras in Nicaragua--outright terrorism. Low-intensity conflict does more than disable the poor. It also threatens U.S. democracy and undermines Christian faith. By integrating economic, psychological, diplomatic, and military aspects of war into a "unified package" designed to manage or block social change in the Third World, U.S. "special interests" use LIC to protect their elite positions and profits. So cynical in outline, and so damaging in practice, Nelson­ Pallmeyer argues LIC presents Christians in the United States with a situation similar to that faced by the Confessing Churches in Nazi Germany.