In defense of the Contras, the Reagan government said that the anti-communist strategy of the US in Latin America did not include attacks upon civilian populations.[11] The CIA said that the Contras’ terrorism against Nicaraguan civilians resulted from “the poor discipline characteristic of irregular forces”, and that terrorism was not official military doctrine of the Contras

It seems misleading to write this in the intro, and fail to mention that we had a whole specialized school for teaching Central American paramilitaries how to do terrorism against civilian populations exceptionally well, based on our long experience with it.

I don’t know if the Contras trained in the School of Americas back when it was called that, but I would assume that at least some of the leaders did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_for_Security_Cooperation