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

Patterns of Intervention
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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spokesman for the British Parliamentary Human Rights Group which
observed them, 83 while the US government and media exulted in this
heartening display of democracy in action, as Pravda does under
comparable circumstances.
The chief foreign correspondent of the London Guardian, not
constrained to observe the niceties, comments that as reporters who
chose to speak to voters could quickly ascertain, it was not “the hunger
for democracy which made people push and shove frantically to get to
the front of the voting line” and caused “the mood [to] turn close to
panic as the time for shutting the polling places drew near,” but rather
fear of “army, police or death-squad reprisals” if they did not manage to
vote. At the conservative end of the mainstream British political
spectrum, Timothy Garton Ash confirmed that most people voted out of
fear of reprisals or because of the heavy fine for nonvoting, while some
voted in the hope “that this mysterious ritual would somehow bring
them the one thing which they desire before all others: peace.” He too
ridicules the blind enthusiasm of Americans on the scene. 84
The meaningless elections appear to be another troubling
“inconsistency,” from Ash’s point of view, along with the US policy
towards Nicaragua (see chapter 2, 2). The reason is that “respect for the
wishes of the majority in the country . . . is surely the moral principle
behind the Salvadoran elections”—on the assumption, not subject to
question, that the Holy State is guided by moral principles, which, by
some odd quirk, it systematically violates, leading to “inconsistencies.” 85
5.4 The Propaganda System Moves into High Gear
“The immediate goal of the Salvadoran army and security forces—and of
the United States—in 1980 was to prevent a takeover by the leftist-led