1986--Noam Chomsky vs. John Silber

our guests are as far apart on the contra question as American intellectuals can be John Silver the president of Boston University was a member of the Kissinger Commission the diagnosis security threat in Central America Noam Chomsky the language theorist at MIT argues in his new book titled turning the tide that US intervention in Central America is the acute case of our general misuse and miss rule of the third world I'd like to you to begin president silver address yourself to the waverers if there are any in the US Senate why would you vote for the contra money well the Senate of the United States has traditionally been in favor of supporting democratic forces as opposed to totalitarian forces and if they continue that practice they're going to vote against the Sandinistas and they're going to vote in favor of the Contras on October 15th the Sun and East has passed an edict that suspends the protection against the search of homes without a warrant that suspends the privacy of mail and allows for censorship of mail they suspended the right of free assembly they have suspended all freedom of the press I they have continued their harassment of their people and suspended virtually all democratic rights the October 15th decree is much more restrictive and comprehensive than the decree that Hitler passed in February 28 1933 when he ended the Democratic Republic of Aimar and once you a see this totalitarian nature of the regime which was apparent since 1979 in September and has continued ever since then it is time for the Senate of the United States to support the Democrats Noam Chomsky and a short speech to the US Senate why would you be again the country money well as even the most ardent supporters of the Contras now now concede this is what they call a proxy army which is entirely which is attacking Nicaragua from foreign bases is entirely dependent on its masters for direction and support has never put forth the political program has created no base of political support within the country and is it has led its entire militant almost its entire top military command is Somozas officers it's has achieved its military achievement so far consist of a long and horrifying series of very well documented torture and mutilation and atrocities and essentially nothing else the administration administration officials are now openly conceding in public that the main function of the countries is to [ __ ] or reverse the rate of social reform in Nicaragua and to try to create to terminate the openness of that society the state of siege for example which was imposed last fall and which is very mild I should say there's much political opening in the Carabas everyone there up to the American ambassador will tell you that corresponds roughly to the state of siege which has been in place in El Salvador since early 1980 except the El Salvador it corresponds it's it has been associated with a huge massacre of tens of thousands of people destruction of the press and so on and so forth whereas in the garage WA it is a reaction to a war that we are carrying out against them with precisely the purpose of trying to [ __ ] social reform and to restrict the possibilities of an open and developing society and that's a cruel and savage policy which we should terminate complicated senator look too far you go cigar you want to continue that that series of playing falsehoods that's a series of false as the lack of which I've never seen compacted in such a small period of time the massacres that have occurred in Nicaragua have been the massacres by the Sandinistas are the mosquito in dens the the repression there is massive it is more it is more serious than anything that we have seen in Central America or in any Latin American country to date it is a genuine dictatorship imposed there and to describe the leaders of the Contras as being supporters of Somoza is simply fabrication Robalo cruz Calero Chamorro are not solar sisters and never have been and when you take the leadership of the army of the Contras some of them were members of the National Guard but then if you're going to object to that which would be highly unreasonable because that was an army that wasn't simply followers are supporters of soma sisters it is it is important to remember that modesta Rojas the vice-chairman of the of the Air Force of the Sandinistas was also a member of the National Guard and a very large number of members of the National Guard are they are the ones who are the coordinators of the block committees that impose the dictatorship by the Sun and Easter's this is this is a series of distortions and fabrications and the the effort of the Sandinistas to discredit the Contras by the manufacturer of atrocities is now a point that has been very well documented sometimes we try to the response among other things to the vasila original picture the totalitarian let's just firstly still talk about the facts I stated again that the military leadership of the Contras is almost entirely drawn from the top from the Somozas national sore so it's 46 out of 48 of the top military commanders according to edgar tomorrow so excited so these are not ciders this is the top military commanders look Aquino excuse me I let you know I let you go on that I let you engaged in a series of fabrications of truth and it's time that so may I had the opportunity of correcting your historical statements let wire is still around that's know mr. Chung mr. mr. Silber was a very good reason for news one team article walk and that is that he knows all the distorting may I have a chance to say just let me finish it is Marcos Marcos's army is the very army that helped Aquino into power so when you try to take on the National Guard as if the National Guard was Soler sisters you mistake the case but you all didn't make the fact there are plenty of National Guard members who are supporting the son and Easter chowderheads now now let me let's see here you're having an action a good example of totalitarianism that is to ensure that the oh let the opposition will it stopped your monopoly on this information the idea that I have a monopoly of instant misinformation the American president little ridiculous now let me read what really I control the American press the let me repeat the let's go back of the facts 46 out of 48 top military commanders of the of the Contras are Somozas officers you can find that in a congressional report in funding from Edgar Chamorro who is the CIA appointed spokesman that's exactly what I said it's exactly true as for the idea that this and the NESTA's have carried out massacres on a par with those that we have been carrying out on Central America this is really astonishing in El Salvador the number of people massacred since 1978 are since 1979 when we moved in and force is on the order of 60,000 in Guatemala where we incidentally have been supporting it all the way through with military aid which never terminated and are now supporting and enthusiastically the number of people massacred is on the order of a hundred thousand in mr. Silber referred to the Mosquito Indians who were badly treated I should say the figures are that approximately 60 or 70 were killed many more than that it whereas in contrast about five or six thousand people have been killed and I don't mean kill this is not garden-variety killing this is torture murder and mutilation massively documented in great detail by our forces now there are crimes of the Sandinistas there's no doubt but they are undetectable in comparison with the crimes of the godlike slow black put it to central arguments that this whole thing turns on one is the notion that Santa Anas Nicaragua poses a security threat to the United States and to this hemisphere secondly that we owe it to the so-called Democrats and the Democratic notion to help people who are carrying our standard in the region John Silber are these equal arguments and do you support them both well I don't support the presence of about 6,500 Soviet and Cuban troops in Nicaragua I don't support the presence of 24 armed helicopter gunships supplied by the Soviet Union to Nicaragua or 150 battle tanks or about a 1,200 trucks and 300 400 as a security threat to this country well it's not a security threat yet and neither was Hitler security threat when he threw when he suspended all freedoms of the Germans in February 28 1933 he wasn't even a security threat that was serious in 1936 when he rearmed the Rhineland but by the time that the Allies got around to recognizing that he was a threat it cost us tens of millions of lives and it took six years in which to defeat him now at the present time we can put an end to the Sun and East a dictatorship in Central America without using a single American life all we have to do is help pay for the fireman is a fire going on down there we don't have to put the fire out but we're asked to pay to help pay for the firemen if we wait and we decide to do nothing until the soviets establish a land base there and it develops as it will develop if we allow it to happen we will then have to face the fact of a possibility of war it is not a present threat it is a vector if if people don't have sense enough to understand that a small fire in a room is a threat not because it's a small fire but because small fires have a way of becoming big fires then we haven't learned anything from history Noam Chomsky's turned on the question of the security threat to the hemisphere to this country well to talk of Nicaragua as a security threat is a bit like asking what security threat Luxembourg poses to the Soviet Union mr. Silber mentioned Hitler and I'm old enough to remember Hitler speeches in which he talked about the threat and Germany posed by Poland from which Poland Germany had to defend itself and we're facing that kind of any even that's it that's unfair to Hitler to draw that example the fact is if we want is quite true that Nicaragua is now Soviet armed and heavily armed and the reason is that it's being attacked by a superpower which has specifically blocked every other source of supply up until the for example up until the May embargo last year 20% of Nicaraguan trade was with the Soviet bloc prior to that its arms were coming from everywhere we then blocked arms from everywhere else as we intensify the war they do exactly what the US government wants them to do namely they divert resources from the social reforms which we really fear and they turn them towards militarization if we want to the idea that Nicaragua could attack it the countries of might add that the countries of Latin America regard this is hysterical lunacy every country every ball the contador countries all the support countries which include all of the relatively democratic countries in Latin America are pleading with us to call off the war against the countries because they understand perfectly well exactly what it's doing it's forcing them to be a militarized state and it's creating a day danger of a wider war in the region if we want to get the Soviet tanks out of Nicaragua and the Soviet advice then there very few the Cuban advisors out what we should do is very simple and everyone in the government knows it call off the war and they will return to what they were doing before we attacked them namely creating they've been creating the most effective social reforms in the hemisphere which were widely praised by the World Bank the inter-american Development Bank organizations like Oxfam which described them as unique in their experience in 76 developing countries we're run which we have [ __ ] and stopped by this attack we were running so far over times we might just as well keep going I want you to deal with the question of democracy and our responsibility to to a cause you criticize the Sandinistas but do you really want to embrace the countries as a vehicle of democracy absolutely and let's in let's dispense with the myth that somehow these were lovely Democrats until we drove them into the hands of the Soviet Union by our opposition that is a myth that is a fabrication of history that mr. Chomsky knows is false as a matter of fact when the revolution came to an end in July of 1979 the Sandinistas came to Washington after having pledged the Organization of American States that they would hold free elections they then received 117 million dollars in loans they received credit from the youth from the World Bank through the intercession of the United States they were very well received and very well treated and on September of 1939 teen 79 they already began their process of repression so the notion that we drove them into the hands of the Communists is utterly false so let's go change the question is is the Contras as a vehicle for democracy the Contras do not have overt support among the Nicaraguan people at the present time inside Nicaragua for one obvious reason Hitler's opponents did not have any obvious support in Germany after Hitler had taken over that country in a totalitarian state the opposition does not have any effective voice you don't find that effective voice in the Soviet Union right now either you have isolated groups of refuseniks but in in Nicaragua you have a leadership role Bello Cruz Chamorro colette oh those are major figures major democratic figures who opposed samosa and went to jail and they are followed by literally thousands of people who are opposing the Sandinistas dictatorship to try to right these people office totalitarians and to come up with that trumped-up nonsense about the atrocities that those people have committed is just a good example of doublethink this is just a 1984 exercise but mr. Chomsky for which he has already established a worldwide reputation it's rubbish mr. Chomsky when you hear this call to come to the rescue of democracy and democratic forces what do you answer I would be delighted if the United States were to reverse its long-standing policies of opposing democratic forces throughout Central America and begin to support those forces now in to return to Nicaragua and return to the real world I never described the Sandinistas as perfect Democrats or whatever your phrase was what I did was quote the World Bank Oxfam other the Jesuit Order and others who recognize that what they were doing was to use the meager resources of that country for the benefit of the poor majority that's why health standards shut up that's why literacy shut up that's why agrarian reform proceeded the only place in the region that's why subsistence agriculture improved and consumption food increased and that's why we attacked them it had nothing to do with democracy now I also did not say that Cruz and rabello committed atrocities in fact Cruz and Rubio said in Washington and don't do anything there figureheads we concocted the people who commit atrocities of the Contra forces led by the National Guard and of all the figures he mentioned one is involved namely Calero who's an ultra right-wing businessman and represents the extremist narrow business forces in nicaragua now if we had the slightest concern with democracy which we do not in our foreign affairs and never have we would turn to countries where we have influence like El Salvador now in El Salvador they don't call the archbishop bad names what they do is murder him they do not repent they do not censor the press they wipe the press out they sent the army and to blow up the church radio station the editor of the independent newspaper was found in a ditch mutilated and cut to pieces with machete may I continue I do not every wonderful a time value on anything you say is you well that was nice okay I'm glad I talked about nine I'm talk about 1900 somatic lire did these things happen or didn't they these things did not happen in the context in which you suggest all and when you suggest that Cruz is simply a figurehead and does nothing you overlook the fact that our Toro Cruise was the ambassador of the Sandinistas to the United States he has always had banker of the sizes in the United Negro quit them and when he found out fine uh turley totalitarian I we you are a phony mister and it's time that people will read you crate it's it's clear that's clear why you want to divert me from the discussion then I yeah there's no but let's get tired of rubbish excuse me the art or cruise exactly as I said was in the United States he was brought why was in the United States both to the United he was in the United States and he defected in the United States he was brought back to Nicaragua to as a political figure because the business based opposition there had no credible candidate he did not participate in the elections as he could have in part because he could may I continue again I got a catchable I didn't say anything absorbers were the ones who prevented Cruz sorta limiting the election he did well that's another fabric but let you get you with yeah except we can't I'm afraid we're out of time you've given President Reagan a tough act to follow on Sunday night we thank you both John Silber and Noam Chomsky okay

Channel: Snowball

Views: 208,080

Keywords: Noam Chomsky (Author)

Id: iXY6E7wCZZs

Length: 16min 48sec (1008 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 04 2014