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

The Fifth Freedom
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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to show that the best way to bring Nicaragua to demilitarize and cut its
ties with the Soviet bloc would be to accept the Contadora agreements
blocked by US pressure and to call off the war, and that the
commitment of the Reagan Administration, or its predecessors, to
“pluralistic democracy” in Central America is as believable as the Soviet
commitment to “socialism” or “democracy” in its domains. But this
drivel, for that is what it is, is blandly reported as “news” in the nation’s
press. Nothing could be more plain than the absurdity of the whole
game, in which the media play their assigned role, earnestly reporting
each pretense and occasionally commenting on the weakness of the
argument or the “inconsistency” of the highly consistent and rational
policy.
The real reasons for the “lust” to destroy the Sandinista regime have
nothing to do with the charges that are raised, whether valid or simply
concocted. That is obvious enough. The real reasons can readily be
explained on other grounds: by fear of Nicaraguan success. The Oxfam
report on Sandinista social successes (chapter 1, section 2), inspires
real fear; useless tanks do not. The real reasons are based on the
argument that President Wilson regarded as “unanswerable”: the
interests of the people of Latin America are “an incident, not an end.”
What is paramount is a narrowly conceived American interest: “The
protection of our raw materials,” the Fifth Freedom. We must therefore
become deeply concerned when some group becomes infected by the
heresy detected by US intelligence: “the idea that the government has
direct responsibility for the welfare of the people,” what US political
theology calls “Communism” in our Third World domains, whatever the
commitments of its advocates.
In the real world, as we shall see in more detail directly, the US has
consistently opposed “human rights, the raising of the living standards,
and democratization,” using harsh measures where necessary. These