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

Patterns of Intervention
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York for “forsaking our centuries-old
commitment to the idea of law in the conduct of nations” and for its
“mysterious collective amnesia” in “losing the memory that there once
was such a commitment,” losing “all memory of a vital and fundamental
tradition.” Our UN Delegation headed by Jeane Kirkpatrick “does not
know the history of our country,” he proclaimed, echoed by Anthony
Lewis, who decried Reagan’s “failure to understand what the rule of law
has meant to this country.” 13
Once again, history teaches a different lesson: in fact, it is Ronald
Reagan and Jeane Kirkpatrick who understand “what the rule of law has
meant to this country.” The World Court incident serves as a clear
illustration. It is a reenactment of events of the Taft and Wilson
Administrations 70 years earlier. In 1907, at US initiative, a Central
American Court of Justice was established to adjudicate conflicts among
the American states. A few years later, the Court was destroyed by US
refusal to recognize its decisions with regard to US intervention in
Nicaragua. The incident that finally destroyed the Court, which had
already condemned US intervention in Nicaragua in 1912 to no avail,
involved the Bryan-Chamorro treaty of 1916, which granted the US
perpetual rights to construct a canal through Nicaragua (the purpose
being to forestall any competitor to the Panama Canal) and to lease a
naval base on the Gulf of Fonseca. The Court upheld the plea of Costa
Rica and El Salvador that this treaty infringed upon their rights, but the
decision was ignored by the US and Marine-occupied Nicaragua,
effectively destroying the Court. The treaty itself was fraudulent, as
recognized by former Secretary of State Elihu Root, who noted that “It is
apparent . . . that the present government . . . is really maintained in
office by the presence of the U.S. Marines in Nicaragua” and has no
legitimacy, surely no right “to make a treaty so serious for Nicaragua,
granting us perpetual rights in that country.” 14