Talk at UC Berkeley on U.S. foreign policy in Central America, May 14, 1984:
We have a big argument here about whether Nicaragua and Cuba are sending arms to El Salvador. Well, I don’t know, so far there’s no evidence that they are, but that’s not really the interesting question. I mean, you gotta watch the way questions are framed by the propaganda system. The way it’s framed is, the doves say they’re not sending arms, and the hawks say they are sending arms. But the real question, which is being suppressed in all of this, is, “Should they be sending arms?” And the answer is of course, “Yes.” [applause] Everybody should be sending arms. You see, that question is not raised. Just as if, somebody was talking in, say, the Soviet Union, and the question came up, “Should somebody send arms to Afghan rebels?” Well, of course not, you know, that’s terrorism or something like that. The point is that it’s perfectly legitimate to send arms to people who finally try to use violence in self-defense against a gang of mass murderers installed by a foreign power. Of course it’s legitimate to send them arms.