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

Patterns of Intervention
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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in El Salvador,” thus tacitly conceding that this argument was always
fraudulent. Christian also quotes a classified report that Reagan sent to
Congress stating that U.S. invasion “must realistically be recognized as
an eventual option, given our stakes in the region, if other policy options
fail.” Several months earlier, the BBC had reported that a classified
National Security Council document that had come into its possession
indicates that the Reagan Administration is willing to use military force
against Nicaragua. 151
The Administration claim that the election was a farce, though denied
by foreign and US observers including the LASA delegation, has
achieved the status of unquestioned fact; more exactly, the election did
not take place. Thus, nine months after the election, the Washington
correspondent of Business Week informs us that Shirley Christian
“argues convincingly that the Sandinistas never really had any intention
of living up to their early promises of elections.” In another review of
Christian’s book at the same time, Susan Kaufman Purcell, the director
of the Latin-American program of the Council on Foreign Relations,
informs us that when Edén Pastora broke with the Sandinistas in 1982,
“it was . . . too late to mount an effective nonviolent opposition.”
Obviously, then, it was too late in 1984, independently of the facts,
which are an irrelevance as usual. Purcell agrees with Christian that the
US should support the contras but recognizes that there are some
‘‘moral dilemmas to this course of action’’: ‘‘Like many of us who would
like to see a more democratic Nicaragua, [Christian] is not sure how far
we should go.” 152
Concern for a more democratic Nicaragua is admirable, and might
even be taken seriously if accompanied by similar concern for a more
democratic El Salvador, which should by similar logic justify US support
for the rebels, or even a more democratic United States. Lacking that, it
is merely the cynical pretense of the commissar. 153