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

Patterns of Intervention
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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the heads of logistics, intelligence, training, operations, special forces
and most of the largest combat units, and many company commanders.
Several influential civilian officials were large landowners who backed
the Somozas. Given their tradition and the source of their current
support, it is not surprising that these forces have been engaged in
ruthless terror and massacre. Early on, American Catholic missionaries
reported that they were “torturing and mutilating captured peasants or
Sandinista sympathizers, creating the same terror as in the past” when
they were trained by the US Army. 133 The subsequent record, unearthed
in part by human rights groups but largely ignored by the US journalists
in Nicaragua, demonstrates the accuracy of these observations made on
the scene. The US violation of international law and its responsibility for
war crimes seem obvious enough.
The US government and commentators here like to speak of the
“symmetry” between El Salvador and Nicaragua; in both countries, it is
alleged, indigenous guerrillas with foreign support are rebelling against
the government. The comparison would have some merit if the guerrillas
in El Salvador lacked any domestic base, having been organized in
Nicaragua by the KGB for the purpose of sowing terror in El Salvador
and overthrowing its government; were launching murderous attacks
against civilians in El Salvador from Nicaraguan and Cuban sanctuaries,
killing, torturing and mutilating their victims; were led by thugs who had
ruled El Salvador by violence for 50 years with Soviet support and had
finally been driven out by an uprising of virtually the entire populations
and were armed, trained and controlled by Soviet military forces in a
major Nicaraguan military base while the USSR maintains large naval
units offshore, carries out overflights of El Salvador to supply the
guerrillas and for military operations, uses Cubans and Bulgarians to fly
arms to guerrillas and to carry out major sabotage and terror operations
which are attributed to the Soviet proxy army operating from its foreign