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

Notes
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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67. At War with Asia; For Reasons of State; PEHR, II; and sources cited.
68. NYT, May 5, 1985.
69. WP Weekly, April 22, 1985.
70. For the government case as presented by a respected advocate, see John
Norton Moore, “Legal Issues in the Central America Conflict,” J. of
Contemporary Studies (Winter/Spring 1985); also my comments, “Law
and Imperialism in the Central American Conflict,” Spring/Summer
1985, and Moore’s response, “Tripping through Wonderland with Noam
Chomsky,” in the same issue, which is quite revealing: e.g., his claim
that we may discount statements of intent by the President, high
government officials, the contra leaders, etc., as well as the pattern of
actual events, because “as anyone with a twelfth-grade education understands,”
US policy requires congressional approval. The impossibility of
executive wars and intervention should come as a great comfort to their
victims in Guatemala, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, etc. In fact, what every
sane twelfth-grader understands is that civics textbooks are one thing,
the real world, quite another. Another typical example is his proof that
the US did not attack South Vietnam by bombing it from 1962, later
invading outright; the proof is that North Vietnam invaded the South 13
years later, and according to the US government, controlled the southern
insurgency. Putting the first argument aside out of charity, Moore’s
Communist counterparts could demonstrate by similar logic that the
USSR did not invade Afghanistan, since the insurgency is controlled from
Pakistan and the guerrilla groups have been attacking from Pakistan with
Pakistani support since 1973 (Far Eastern Economic Review, June 9,
1983). A few similar examples appear below, along with examples of
gross misrepresentation. Altogether, not a very impressive performance
by “the staff of the Center for Law and National Security,” whom he
thanks for their “substantial research assistance.” I am, however,
indebted to Moore for pointing out that the full statement by FDN leader
Calero is even more awful than the part I quoted; see chap. 1, note 19,
including the omitted parts. The editors of this right-wing journal
demonstrate their standards, e.g., in attributing to me the view that