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

Patterns of Intervention
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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credible evidence. 89 A senior State Department official involved in the
Nicaragua program dismisses the idea that the contras were organized
to intercept arms shipments as “ludicrous,” 90 and the rationale has
generally been dropped.
The State Department Background Paper, which had to serve as the
main source of “facts” for those who attempted to provide at least some
basis for the US war against Nicaragua, 91 is largely a compilation of
press reports and official statements. Its credibility is illustrated by the
charge, based on a report in Rev. Moon’s Washington Times, that
Nicaragua has recruited Costa Rican leftists, training them for
subversion in Costa Rica. The government of Costa Rica states that it
has no evidence to support the charge, and “a senior State Department
official who has read the intelligence information behind the charge said
it was ‘extremely weak.’ ‘They’ve taken everything that came out of the
vacuum cleaner,’ he said. ‘It’s not the sort of thing we normally go
with’.” 92
Apart from press reports of little significance, the Background Paper
relies heavily on an ex-Sandinista security official, Miguel Bolanos
Hunter, who alleges that arms were transported to Salvadoran guerrillas
through Mexico and Guatemala, so presumably they too should be
attacked by the US in accordance with the logic of the case presented
by the government and its partisans. As for the contras, their weapons
include AK-47 rifles made in Poland and Bulgaria and Soviet-made SA-7
surface-to-air missiles, which they have acquired “by the dozens” in
recent months according to a senior White House official. 93 It must be,
then, that the contras attacking Nicaragua are agents of the
international “terror network” sponsored by the Soviet Union, if we
accept the logic employed by the “experts on terrorism” whose dire
pronouncements dominate media discussion of this plague that
threatens civilization in the modern era. The truth of the matter is that