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

Patterns of Intervention
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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running order”; the death squads are still committing murders, “though
on a smaller scale,” while Duarte’s government has not yet convicted
anyone “for the tens of thousands of murders committed since 1979 by
military-manned death squads.” Duarte has blamed the legislative
assembly, which he now controls, but “he has noticeably shifted to the
right, reassuring the army and the businessmen that his aims are really
the same as theirs.” The director of the National Association of Private
Enterprise says: “The man has been politically educated.” The army too
“has come to appreciate the president’s skill, both as a tactician who
can use peace talks to outmanoeuvre the guerrillas [not to lead to the
peace for which the population yearns] and as a salesman in
Washington.” 73
The official line in the US, repeated as fact in news reports as well as
editorial comment, is that Duarte is a reformer thwarted by the
military—that is, by the forces that he lauds for their “valiant service” in
carrying out massacres and torture among the mass of the population,
who “were with the guerrillas” when the exercise began under his
auspices (in his words, this section, above). Defects in the Salvadoran
judicial system “appear to outweigh Mr.Duarte’s good intentions,” James
LeMoyne reports, so that his commission cannot proceed with
investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the Las Hojas
massacre in February 1983, when soldiers murdered 74 Indians in their
usual style; the basic facts of the massacre are uncontested. 74 Similar
defects account for the fact that perpetrators of other murders cannot be
prosecuted, even when they are well-known, or that investigations
cannot proceed. To date, the planners and organizers of mass murder
and state terrorism, including the murder of Americans, have not been
prosecuted and retain their positions in the government.
Ritual invocation of the theme of Duarte’s “bravery,” “moderation”
and “progressive commitments” is a staple of news reporting. “President