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

The Race to Destruction
In embarking upon a holy crusade to extirpate the evil of
Bolshevism these forces embarked, as they do now, in actuality
upon a campaign to outlaw morally and legally all popular
movements favoring social reform and in that fashion to make the
status quo impregnable to change. The symbol of the threat of a
non-existent Communist revolution becomes a convenient cloak,
as it was for German and Italian fascism, behind which a
confused and patriotic citizenry can be rallied to the defense of
what seems to be the security of the United States, but what
actually is the security of the status quo.
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
342
There was much truth in this description then, as there is today.
In fact, the Great Satan is there, surely enough. Reagan’s Evil Empire
is exactly that, as is its American counterpart. The enemy is indeed ugly
and threatening, with an ample record of brutality and atrocities,
brandishing means of destruction that can scarcely be ignored, so there
is at least a modicum of plausibility when the Soviet Union appeals to
its population to rally to the “defense of Afghanistan” against bandits
supported by the CIA and other warmongers, or when the US does the
same while defending South Vietnam by armed attack against its
population. In short, the system works, often with spectacular success.
Thus, in our highly ideological and deeply-indoctrinated society, the US
attack against South Vietnam in 1962, expanding in later years, simply
does not exist as an event of history. I do not know of even one case
where it was described as such in the media or establishment
scholarship, quite a remarkable achievement of propaganda, one that
any dictator would envy. 101
For us, the Cold War has been a war against much of the Third
World, while for the USSR, it has been a war against their subject