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

Patterns of Intervention
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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destructive but not on the scale of the war against South Vietnam. In
both cases, the right of the US to attack and destroy is tacitly conceded,
as long as there are no threatening international complications, a fact
that reveals a good deal about the power of the state propaganda system
to set the terms of discussion, and about the principles that guide critics
within the mainstream, and sometimes even beyond.
What is more, it would be quite legitimate to provide military aid to
people attempting to defend themselves against the depredations of a
violent superpower, whether in El Salvador, South Vietnam, Afghanistan
or elsewhere. If properly intimidated, a government may not do so, but
that is another matter. T. D. Allman describes how an old man, after
telling a harrowing tale of government atrocities and violence in a
Salvadoran town, asked about a place called “Cuba” somewhere beyond
the seas where, he had heard, there were people who might provide the
suffering population with aid. He asked “how we might contact these
Cubans, to inform them of our need, so that they might help us?” 112 Few
Americans seem able to comprehend the meaning of this plea, though it
would arouse great anguish if uttered by a victim of some official enemy.
In this case as in others, the formidable power and successes of our
system of “brainwashing under freedom” are rarely appreciated.