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

Patterns of Intervention
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
206
will be too stupid to draw the connection between the US aggression
and the crumbling economy and military conscription. More significant is
their barely concealed delight in this further success of the terrorist war
they have long supported, which of course has, from the start, had as its
essential aims to create an “eruption of discontent” as the society reels
under imperial attack and to strengthen elements in the leadership that
will demand harsher measures to mobilize resistance to it, providing the
opportunity for Times editors and other hypocrites to pontificate about
this predictable and intended consequence of the violence they
advocate.
When direct CIA supervision of the US proxy army was terminated by
Congress, the Reagan Administration secretly transferred control to the
National Security Council. This was essential, since “the C.I.A. had
managed almost every aspect of their activities” and “when left to their
own devices, the rebels ‘couldn’t manage themselves very well,’ a senior
official said.” “When the agency [CIAI was pulled out of this program,
these guys didn’t know how to buy a Band-Aid,” according to the
government official in charge, later identified as Marine Lt.-Col. Oliver
North. The extent of CIA control has been detailed by former contra
leader Edgar Chamorro, who describes the FDN as a “front organization”
for the CIA. After the mining of harbors, for example, he was given a
press release to read taking credit for the mining in the name of the
FDN, who “of course” had no role in the mining carried out by CIA Latin
American agents. He describes how every detail of the FDN operations,
including propaganda, was stage-managed by the CIA. Chamorro also
described the nature of US assistance, for example, advising the contras
of “the precise locations of all Nicaraguan military units.” Citing this
testimony to the World Court, Anthony Lewis notes that new legislation
introduced by Democrat Dave McMurdy permits “provision of
intelligence information or advice to the contras,” another congressional