U.S. officials used Contras as a harassment proxy because direct intervention was impossible.

Evidence

There was never any real hope the Contras would overthrow the Sandinistas. Instead, in a post-Vietnam environment where direct U.S. military intervention was nearly impossible, U.S. officials saw the Contras as a second-best option. They were, in the words of former foreign service officer Todd Greentree, “a classic guerrilla counterweight who could harass and bleed the Sandinistas and whom the Sandinistas could not defeat.” Their “real political boss” was the CIA. President Reagan infamously described the group as the “moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers.” Greentree, like others, says that they had “the reputation of being brigands and brutes who raped women, executed prisoners, and enjoyed murdering civilians.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 286

Categorization

• CANDY: Reagan calling drug-trafficking murderers ‘the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers’ is a grimly memorable irony.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 286