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 general counsel of the New York City Commission on Human
Rights described the election as “free, fair and hotly contested,” citing
the access of all seven parties to free TV and radio time and campaign
expenses, and reporting also a discussion with the political affairs officer
at the US embassy, who described the election as “flawed” because we
must use “a different measuring stick” for countries like Nicaragua that
“pose a threat to United States security and interests in the area.” The
spokesman for the British Parliamentary Human Rights Group, whose
comment on the elections in El Salvador was quoted earlier (note 83),
British Liberal Party leader David Steele, and the special envoy of the
Socialist International, a former Norwegian defense minister, all
compared the election favorably to the one in El Salvador. 145
The Managua correspondent of the London Guardian, Tony Jenkins,
observed that the political opposition in Nicaragua “has never really
committed itself to trying to win power by democratic means.” One of
the leaders of the Democratic Coordinating Committee (CDN; the group
described here as the “democratic opposition,” which refused to
participate in the elections) explains this posture: 146
It is true that we have never really tried to build up a big
membership or tried to show our strength by organising regular
demonstrations. Perhaps it is a mistake, but we prefer to get
European and Latin American governments to put pressure on the
Sandinistas.
As noted earlier, the political leadership of the contra armies feel no
need for political organization because they can rely on the internal
domestic opposition, the CDN, which in turn feels no need for political
mobilization because it can rely on outsiders (in the real world, the US).
We learn something more from this about the true nature of the