Chomsky pretty regularly exaggerates his positions regarding politics. For a long time he was defending the Venezuelan government. He has popular appeal in a lot of communities, but his expertise is linguistics not politics.
No objective historian would say that the US is responsible for all or most of the violence in South America, nor that it has been innocent. The violence is not due to the US but rather is largely a result of the divide between the landholding elites and poor and the economic/social system the Spanish set up.
To add to their examples, political violence was common in Mexico from 1900 onwards, and that was largely self-inflicted.
Funny you bring up political violence in Mexico from 1900 onwards.
Mexico had a revolution at the beginning of the century. It lasted 3 years at first, and then the US ambassador was involved in the murder of the President, which extended the violence for at least another 4 years.
Mexico has a cartel problem now. It also happens to have in its northern neighbour the biggest consumer demand for drugs in the world. And said neighbour will rather export its problem and fund a war south of the border with billions of dollars, torture training and illicit arms smuggling [1], than address its public health issue.
No objective historian would say that the US is responsible for all or most of the violence in South America, nor that it has been innocent. The violence is not due to the US but rather is largely a result of the divide between the landholding elites and poor and the economic/social system the Spanish set up.
To add to their examples, political violence was common in Mexico from 1900 onwards, and that was largely self-inflicted.