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

The Race to Destruction
1. The Threat of Global War
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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enator Dave Durenberger, chairman of the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence, delivered an address to the National
Press Club in March 1985 on US policy in Central America,
describing it as “ill-timed” and “ill-planned,” a “policy which no one
understands.” Durenberger was concerned that the controversy over aid
to the contras might suggest, “incorrectly, that Congress and the
Administration are not in agreement on the need to oppose the
Sandinistas and all they stand for.” He suggested more forceful moves to
replace the current “incoherent” policy of “reacting after the fact to
events which appear beyond our control.” The US and its allies, he
urged, should consider cutting diplomatic relations and ceasing all trade
and economic cooperation with Nicaragua. “He also said the
Administration should make it clear that the United States is prepared to
join in an invasion of Nicaragua, ‘if the other nations undertake a
collective action’ in response to Sandinista aggression,” where
“aggression” has its usual Orwellian meaning: defense against US
attacks. The US should now consider a naval blockade to prevent the
import of Soviet arms, he said, with the implicit consequence that the
US proxy armies would then be able to conquer a defenseless
Nicaragua. 1
Secretary of the Navy John Lehman said that any attempt by the US
to blockade Nicaragua to halt the flow of arms might trigger a US-Soviet
naval conflict. The Navy “cannot conceive that a naval conflict which
engaged Soviet forces could be localized,” he added: “It is
instantaneously a global war.” 2 S
If so, then Durenberger’s proposal would
be a step towards a terminal nuclear war.
Democratic Presidential candidate Walter Mondale had also spoken