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

Introduction
I want to consider here some aspects of the reality that is often
concealed or deformed by the reigning doctrinal system, which pervades
the media, journals of opinion, and much of scholarship. 1 An honest
inquiry will reveal that striking and systematic features of our
international behavior are suppressed, ignored or denied. It will reveal
further that our role in perpetuating misery and oppression, even
barbaric torture and mass slaughter, is not only significant in scale, but
is also a predictable and systematic consequence of longstanding
geopolitical conceptions and institutional structures. There is no way to
give a precise measure of the scale of our responsibility in each
particular case, but whether we conclude that our share is 90%, or
40%, or 2%, it is that factor that should primarily concern us, since it is
that factor that we can directly influence. It is cheap and easy to deplore
the other fellow’s crimes in the manner of the official peace movements
of the so-called “Communist” states, or their counterparts in the West
who, with comparable sincerity, denounce the crimes of official enemies
while dismissing or justifying our own. An honest person will choose a
different course.
These are among the questions I want to examine here, concentrating
primarily on relations between the US and its southern neighbors—and
victims—in the post-World War II period, although the pattern that
emerges is by no means new and is not limited to this region. 2
Chapter 1 is concerned with the grim reality of normal life for a large
majority of the population in our dependencies in Central America, and
with the consequences that regularly ensue, at our initiative and with
our crucial support, when efforts are undertaken to bring about
constructive change. In chapter 2, I will turn to the backgrounds for US
policy and the geopolitical conceptions that guide planners, as exhibited
in the documentary record and, more significantly, in the actual pattern
of events. Chapter 3 places these matters in the broader context of US
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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