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

The Challenge Ahead
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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described as ‘‘self-defense.”
The limited successes of the peace movement are now often heralded
as a triumph of American democracy. That is hardly accurate, for two
basic reasons. First, consider what was not achieved. There was barely
a peep of protest when the US provided the essential means for the
French war of conquest, finally coming close to using nuclear weapons,
then undermined the political accords and launched a campaign of
violent terrorism while blocking the political settlement sought on all
sides. By the time protest reached a noticeable level, perhaps a million
Vietnamese had already been killed in almost two decades of USorganized
terror and violence. That protest, furthermore, was largely
directed against the attack on North Vietnam, which carried risks of
international war, hence a threat to us. The true nature of the US war
against South Vietnam was never widely understood, a crucial fact with
implications that persist, playing their part in facilitating the cruel
postwar policies aimed at maximizing suffering and repression in the
countries we devastated. Protest reached a truly significant level when
the US had expanded its aggression to all of Indochina, with ½ million
troops fighting in South Vietnam. While the popular movement that
escaped the bounds of the doctrinal system was effective, this alleged
“triumph of democracy” nevertheless left three countries utterly in ruins
with many millions dead, hardly an occasion for great selfcongratulation.
Secondly, the successes of the peace movement were largely
achieved outside of the system of formal political democracy, by direct
action, which raised the cost of aggression. Without these actions,
lobbying of Congress, letter writing, political campaigning and the like
would have proceeded endlessly with as much effect as they had in
1964, when the American people voted overwhelmingly against
escalation of the war in Vietnam, voting for the candidate who at that