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

Free World Vignettes
6. The Contribution of the Mercenary States
S
ince the advent of the Reagan Administration, the US has
provided direct military assistance to Guatemala, first in roundabout
ways, then more directly, helping to facilitate the torture,
murder and general brutality. The US government has not, however,
been able to participate in the genocidal activities of its Guatemalan
friends as fully as it would have liked, because of congressional human
rights restrictions. Nevertheless, contrary to what is commonly alleged,
the delivery of arms to the murderers never ceased, and as Pentagon
figures show, it was barely below the norm during the Carter years. 79
Still, there were impediments, so prime responsibility for providing
the means and the advice and instruction was shifted to various clients,
particularly Argentine neo-Nazis (though this ally was lost after the
unfortunate return to democracy in Argentina) and Israel, which has lent
its services enthusiastically to the cause, a fact commonly suppressed
here. 80 The occasional articles and editorials on Guatemalan horrors in
the press commonly refer to the travail of the years since 1954, without
recalling the overthrow of Guatemalan democracy in 1954 and the
regular US intervention since to maintain the system instituted by the
CIA coup, a sordid display of moral cowardice. 81
The US is, of course, implicated in the activities of its clients. The
Argentine neo-Nazis regularly served as proxies for the US in Latin
America, a fact noted without shame (see, e.g., chapter 3, section 5.4,
below), and more generally, the US was instrumental in the rise and
sustenance of the neo-fascist National Security states of South America,
as was the USSR in the case of Argentina. 82 But there are also other
links, extending from Nazi Germany to Central America via the US, to
which we return in chapter four.
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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