Noam Chomsky needs no introduction. He’s a celebrated linguist, who has long denounced U.S. empire at home and abroad. And he has a long relationship with Latin America.
Chomsky’s 1985 book, Turning the Tide: U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace, was formative for many academics and activists analyzing the U.S. role in the region.
In 2012, NACLA awarded him the Latin America Peace and Justice Award for his ongoing commitment to social justice in the Americas.
Chomsky’s wife, Valeria Wasserman, is from Brazil. That’s where he is now. Chomsky suffered a stroke last year and was recently in a hospital in São Paulo, though he has since been released.
You can think of this as our small tribute to the great Noam Chomsky.
In this second bonus episode of Under the Shadow, host Michael Fox takes us to a October 26, 1983 lecture by Noam Chomsky, at the University of Colorado, on the impact of U.S. military intervention in Central America. It’s fascinating to look into what we knew then, even as the events were still unfolding, and hear the historical context from someone like Chomsky.
Under the Shadow is an investigative narrative podcast series that walks back in time, telling the story of the past by visiting momentous places in the present.
In each episode, host Michael Fox takes us to a location where something historic happened—a landmark of revolutionary struggle or foreign intervention. Today, it might look like a random street corner, a church, a mall, a monument, or a museum. But every place he takes us was once the site of history-making events that shook countries, impacted lives, and left deep marks on the world.
Hosted by Latin America-based journalist Michael Fox.
This podcast is produced in partnership between The Real News Network and NACLA.
Additional info/links:
- You can listen to the first episode of Michael Fox’s new podcast, Panamerican Dispatch, here.
- Follow and support him and Under the Shadow at https://www.patreon.com/mfox
- Theme music by Monte Perdido.
- Monte Perdido’s new album Ofrenda is out now. You can listen to the full album on Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, YouTube, or wherever you listen to music.
- Other music from Blue Dot Sessions.
- Many thanks to PM Press for their permission to showcase the clip from Noam Chomsky’s 1983 talk in today’s bonus episode.
- You can find Noam Chomsky’s lectures, talks, and writings, through PM Press here and here.
- Michael Fox’s documentary films and book collaborations with PM Press are available here.
Transcript
Michael Fox: Hi folks. I’m your host, Michael Fox.
So, I have a special treat for you, today. The final two episodes of this podcast series are in the works. They look at 1980s Costa Rica and Panama, two of the countries that are often left out of discussions about Central America. And they will be excellent, I promise. You can look for them in your feed in coming weeks.
But right now, I wanted to walk you back in time with this incredible talk by Noam Chomsky about US intervention in Central America. Chomsky, of course, needs no introduction. He’s a celebrated linguist who has long denounced US empire at home and abroad.
And he has a long relationship with Latin America. Chomsky’s 1985 book, Turning the Tide: US Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace was formative for many academics and activists analyzing the US role in the region. In 2012, NACLA awarded him the Latin America Peace and Justice Award for his ongoing commitment to social justice in the Americas.
Chomsky’s wife, Valeria Wasserman, is from Brazil. That’s where he is now. Chomsky suffered a stroke last year and was recently in a hospital in Sao Paulo, though he has now been released. You can think of this as our small tribute to the great Noam Chomsky.
What’s so interesting about the clip that I’m going to play for you today is that it’s part of a lecture he gave on Oct. 26, 1983 in Boulder, Colorado, at the University of Colorado, my alma mater. In other words, he’s talking about US intervention in Central America, in real time, in the 1980s. This was at the same time that the United States was backing bloody authoritarian governments in Guatemala and El Salvador and waging its Contra war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
In fact, as we heard in the last episode, in the fall of 1983, around the time that Chomsky was delivering this talk, CIA-trained commandos were raiding Nicaraguan ports. The US had invaded the Caribbean island of Grenada just the day before. Chomsky mentions this briefly in his talk. It’s fascinating to see what we knew then, even as the events were still unfolding, and hear the historical context from someone like Chomsky.
I have to say that I really love the audio quality of this clip. It’s not perfect. You’ll notice that it has a low hum. It’s kind of crackly. And it feels like that helps to transport us there. Remember, the clip is more than 40 years old, but the points Chomsky makes are as relevant today as they were then.
This lecture excerpt comes to us courtesy of PM Press, a fantastic independent publisher based in the US. I released a book and two feature-length documentaries with them back in the day. I’ll place links in the show notes for both PM and where to find more of Chomsky’s work.
OK. Enough already. This is “Noam Chomsky on the Impact of US Military Intervention in Central America”.
In this clip, he’s speaking about Central America within the larger context of the probability of nuclear war between the world superpowers — The United States and the USSR. Remember, this is still years before the end of the Cold War. Chomsky said that, in his analysis, any nuclear conflict would likely erupt “as a consequence of some Third World conflict in which the superpowers become engaged,” most likely in either the Middle East or Central America.
[LECTURE BEGINS]
Noam Chomsky: Well, let me begin with Central America, which has been a US fiefdom throughout this century and, in fact, before. Major US armed intervention in Central America — Major US armed intervention began in July 1854 when the American Navy bombarded and destroyed a Nicaraguan town to avenge an insult to the US ambassador.
In the first third of the 20th century, the United States sent military forces to Cuba, Panama, Mexico, Honduras. It occupied Haiti for 20 years. It established a military dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. It invaded Nicaragua twice, leaving a brutal military dictatorship there.
In the post World War II period, there have been American military interventions in Guatemala several times. In Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Nicaragua. And there has also been a 20-year war of terrorism waged against Cuba — Which, in fact, has been the major victim of international terrorism during this period, and therefore, in this Orwellian world, is naturally described as the center of international terrorism in the country which is responsible for the terrorist war against Cuba and that directs the terrorist violence there. But that’s standard Orwell.
The most recent military intervention was yesterday, at least as of this morning [audience laughs and applauds]. The results of all of this have been absolutely horrendous, apart from tiny elites which were placed and maintained in power by the United States and are generally linked to the American military and to American corporations.
Throughout the region, there is vast starvation. In fact, since the major American escalation since the early ‘60s, which I’ll come back to — Since that time, the production of subsistence crops in the region has actually declined, declined about 10% through the ‘60s and the ‘70s, while at the same time agricultural production has increased. But that means export crops for the United States.
There’s semi slave labor throughout the region. There’s crushing poverty, institutionalized high technology torture has been introduced, and mass murder.
Virtually every attempt to bring about any constructive change in this US-installed and maintained chamber of horrors has been met with a new dose of American violence. The record is one of the most shameful chapters of modern history, and therefore, predictably, is very little known in the United States, though in a truly free society they’d be teaching it in elementary school.
In contrast, not too surprisingly, the history is quite well-known in Central America. An uncomfortably accurate perception was expressed by President Arévalo of Guatemala when he stepped down in 1951. He had led the first democratic government in Guatemalan history, a sort of a liberal capitalist regime consciously modeled on Roosevelt’s New Deal — And this was an experiment that was terminated by a CIA coup in 1954. It, of course, evoked immediate and total American hostility, but that’s consistent. And as I say, it was terminated.
Well, as he stepped down, Arévalo described the World War II conflict between the forces of terrorist violence led by Hitler and the forces of freedom and justice led by the United States. And he concluded that, “contrary to appearances,” — I’m quoting — “Roosevelt lost the war. The real winner was Hitler.” In fact, if some Rip Van Winkle had fallen asleep in, say, 1945 and were to awaken today and look at Central America — And not only there, incidentally — He would certainly conclude that Hitler, in fact, had won the war. That’s what the world would have looked like if Hitler had won.
There are some Americans, but very few, who have been willing to face the obvious facts. Let me quote one who did face them: Charles Maechling, who was the director of counterinsurgency and internal defense planning for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson from 1961 to 1966 and is now connected with the Carnegie Endowment. He wrote an article recently in which he was describing the state terrorism in Guatemala and El Salvador, and he had the following remarks to say:
He said, “These atrocities are not just a tragic byproduct of civil war, nor are they accidental. Not understood by the American public, concealed by the Reagan administration, is that the Latin American military, Salvador and Guatemalan or Argentine, routinely employs terror to exterminate guerrillas and insurgency movements devised by the Nazis for occupied Europe, perfected by Argentina, and now passed from hand to hand by Latin military staffs. The strategy involves torture and murder of anyone suspected of association with ‘subversives’.
“Guilt or innocence is immaterial; the object is to exterminate the opposition, and by cowing sympathizers into submission to deprive the guerrillas of support. In their endless quest for stability South of the border, US administrations repeatedly turn a blind eye to the rapacity and cruelty of the Latin American military.
“Not until 1961, however — And remember the date — Was their direct complicity, as opposed to occasional direct interventions by the US government, in aiding domestic repression in Latin America. In that year, 1961, under pressure from the Pentagon, the Latin American military role was changed from hemispheric defense to internal security. US assistance programs were retooled to strengthen the hold of the local military forces over their own people.
“For 20 years, the Pentagon has lavished training and equipment on the Latin American military, both at bases in the United States and at the US Army School of the Americas in the former Panama Canal Zone. Under guise of civic action programs, Latin American officers have been encouraged to meddle in government and civilian affairs. There has been little screening to weed out the drug racketeers and war criminals, and no indoctrination in civilized standards of warfare — A bit of an understatement.
“Senior officers indistinguishable from the war criminals hanged at Nuremberg after World War II
have passed through the Inter-American Defense College in Washington. Neither in training programs nor thereafter does the Pentagon insist on compliance with the Geneva Conventions regarding humane treatment of prisoners and non combatants. Equipment is given without strings.
“For the United States, which led the crusade against Nazi evil, to support the methods of Heinrich Himmler’s extermination squads is an outrage. It is also counterproductive. Unless mass killing stops, the tide of violence will inundate the whole of Central America. And, in fact, quite possibly the rest of the world, we may add.”
That was March 1982. The observations by the man, again, who led counterinsurgency and internal defense planning for the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Not many have recognized these facts, though sometimes American policy is, in fact, expressed with a certain degree of honesty, or, one might even say, relative frankness.
One State Department official put the matter in these terms, describing American policy in Latin America. I’m quoting:
“The Central American area, down to and including the Isthmus of Panama, constitutes a legitimate sphere of influence for the United States. We do control the destinies of Central America, and we do so for the simple reason that the national interest absolutely dictates such a course. We must decide whether we shall tolerate the interference of any other power in Central American affairs or insist upon our own dominant position.
“Until now, Central America has always understood that governments that we recognize and support stay in power, while those we do not recognize and support fall. Nicaragua has become a test case. It is difficult to see how we can afford to be defeated.”
Well, these remarks were made by Under Secretary of State Robert Olds in January 1927. And the outside power that he was concerned about was Mexico. His reference to the national interest, like all such references, is just standard Orwellian mystification.
The national interest, in practice, means the special interest of dominant groups in the United States or any other country. It’s no more the interest of the nation than is the so-called national interest of any other state.
[LECTURE ENDS]
Michael Fox: I wish I had more for you today. Chomsky’s talk is almost like a teaser for the whole podcast. It’s so good. You can check out more of Chomsky’s lectures and writings at pmpress.org. The links are in the show notes.
Alright, that’s it. The next episode on Costa Rica will drop into your feed next week.
As always, if you like what you hear, please check out my Patreon page: patreon.com/mfox. There you can also support my work, become a monthly sustainer, or sign up to stay abreast of the latest on this podcast and my other reporting across Latin America.
Under the Shadow is a co-production in partnership with The Real News and NACLA.
The theme music is by my band, Monte Perdido.
This is Michael Fox. Many thanks.
See you next time…
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