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

The Fifth Freedom
sponsored by the US has precisely the opposite effects: increasing
internal repression, undermining “advocates of a ‘third way’ like
[President] Daniel Ortega,” “supplying arguments to the Leninists,”
increasing the militarization of the country, and strengthening its ties to
the USSR. The situation, he states, “is comparable to that of Cuba
twenty years ago.”
The “inconsistency” arises only if we assume that official US
pronouncements aimed at the general public are necessary truths. If we
subject them to the test of history, as in the case of states that do not
merit such loyalty and adulation, we will discover, not surprisingly, that
they are without merit and that the “inconsistency” disappears. Refusing
to accept the elementary canons of rationality, we will fail to
comprehend that the consequences Ash perceives are precisely the
intent of US policy: to ensure that constructive developments in
Nicaragua will not “infect” the region (see below, notes 57, 58), and to
strengthen its ties with the USSR to justify our assault against those who
violate the Fifth Freedom. The behavior of the US government over many
years will appear to yield further “inconsistencies”—curiously systematic
ones, as anyone whose eyes are open will quickly discover. Ash finds
the “inconsistency” puzzling because he credits childish inanities about
the US “dedication to the liberal creed” and “dedication to a value
system . . . virtually alone among nations” (citing Michael Howard,
Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford). Putting these delusions
aside, a rational pattern emerges, and a highly familiar one.
One might note, incidentally, the remarkable “colonization” of
sophisticated British intellectuals, who regard themselves as
independent and critical but in fact react to US power and propaganda
in a manner reminiscent of some of the more absurd Anglophile Indian
intellectuals under the Empire.
It is particularly important for people who hope to influence
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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