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

Patterns of Intervention
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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measures can be taken in time, by terror beyond that employed in South
Vietnam, if necessary. Recall Kennan’s strictures 15 years earlier about
the necessity for “police repression by the local government” (chapter 2,
section 2).
The need for preemption runs through the thinking of American
planners across the spectrum, and is not restricted to state terror
directed against the civilian population as in the favored Kennedy model.
General Nathan Twining, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under
Eisenhower, explained that tactical nuclear weapons, “if employed once
or twice on the right targets, at the right time, would in my judgment,
stop current aggression, and stop future subversion and limited wars
before they start.” 38 As examples of the “world-wide subversion” we
must counter by nuclear weapons if necessary, he cited the Congo
(where US intervention had helped to remove, finally assassinate, the
leading nationalist figure and to install a corrupt and brutal military
dictator), Cuba and Vietnam; by “aggression” he clearly meant to refer to
the kind of aggression then being carried out by Vietnamese against the
American invaders. One may imagine the reaction if such statements
were found in a publication by the top Soviet or Libyan military
commander.