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

Patterns of Intervention
6.5. A Glimpse into the Civilized World
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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The hysterical US response to the November election recapitulated the
reaction two months earlier to Nicaragua’s acceptance of the Contadora
peace proposals, surprising US diplomats “who had been saying for
months that Washington backed the Contadora effort but that Nicaragua
was blocking a settlement. 154 Taken aback by Nicaragua’s move, which
could have led to peace in the region thus thwarting US ends, the US
reacted strongly to avert any such danger. Senior US government
officials demanded that a visit to Los Angeles by head of state Daniel
Ortega be blocked, Philip Taubman reports, “to punish Mr. Ortega and
the Sandinistas for accepting the Contadora Peace proposal,” which the
US was able to undermine by diplomatic and economic pressures. A
National Security Council paper a few weeks later, leaked to the press,
“credits U.S. foreign policy with success in blocking efforts by
Venezuela, Panama, Colombia and Mexico—known as the Contadora
Group—to obtain signing of a proposed regional peace treaty in Central
America,” while noting certain problems in ensuring that there will be no
further disruption of US plans for aggression against Nicaragua. 155 “We
have trumped the latest Nicaraguan/Mexican efforts to rush signature of
an unsatisfactory Contadora agreement,” the NSC paper exults. After
Nicaragua accepted the Contadora draft treaty, the US insisted that it be
revised; the amendments proposed under US pressure “tend strongly to
slow and weaken the process of military de-escalation and negotiation,”
Tom Farer observes, by eliminating the indefinite arms freeze and firm
timetables for departure of military advisers and other measures to
which Nicaragua had agreed. 156 The story is a reenactment of the
desperate US efforts to avoid a peaceful settlement of the Vietnam