Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

The Fifth Freedom
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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the modern age. Walter Laqueur, for example, writes that Claire Sterling,
who pioneered this concept to much acclaim, has provided “ample
evidence” that terrorism occurs “almost exclusively in democratic or
relatively democratic countries”; as examples of such “multinational
terrorism” he cites Polisario in the western Sahara (its defense of its
territory counts as terrorism, since it is fighting a takeover by Morocco, a
US ally), and also terrorism in “some Central American countries,”
referring, as the context makes clear, to the guerrilla forces, not the state
terrorism of El Salvador and Guatemala, which are apparently “relatively
democratic countries,” like Morocco, and being US clients, by definition
cannot be engaged in terrorism. Similarly, the London Economist notes
sagely in reviewing Sterling’s Terror Network that “no terrorist has ever
attempted anything against the Soviet-controlled regimes.” Many others
also chimed in, and the point is now a cliché of learned discourses on
the topic. 60 In the real world, Cuba has been the major target of
international terrorism, narrowly construed to exclude the US proxy war
against Nicaragua.
Returning to the rotten apple theory, the State Department warned in
1959 that “a fundamental source of danger we face in the Far East
derives from Communist China’s rate of economic growth,” while the
Joint Chiefs added that “the dramatic economic improvements realized
by Communist China over the past ten years impress the nations of the
region greatly and offer a serious challenge to the Free World.” Similar
fears were expressed concerning North Vietnam and North Korea. The
conclusion drawn was that the US must do what it can to retard the
economic progress of the Communist Asian states. 61
The larger concern was Japan—the “superdomino” as John Dower
called it. Japan, it was recognized, would become again the “workshop
of Asia,” but requires access to raw materials and markets. We must
therefore guarantee Japan such access, so that the entire region can be