Turkey
and The US War On Iraq
An Interview
With Noam Chomsky
1.Turkey is being bitterly criticized in the US for failing to allow
us combat troops to use Turkey as a launching pad to open a second front
in northern Iraq. There are indeed some who say US and British soldiers
are dying in higher numbers because of Turkey. How would you respond
to such claims and how would you evaluate Turkey's stand so far. Was
it an accidental no in the parliament or did it reflect a coming of
age of Turkish democracy.
The criticism of Turkey in
the US is indeed bitter, and extremely revealing. The Turkish government
took the position of over 90 percent of the population. That reveals
that the government lacks "democratic credentials," according
to former Ambassador Morris Abramowitz, now a distinguished elder statesman.
The government is "following the people," he wrote, instead
of following orders from Washington and Crawford Texas. That is plainly
unacceptable. The view he articulates is standard.
Turkey taught the US a lesson
in democracy. That is regarded as criminal. One can debate the reasons
and the background, but the facts are glaringly obvious, underscored
even more dramatically by the reaction in the US to similar crimes elsewhere.
Germany and France are bitterly condemned for the same reason, while
Italy, Spain, Hungary and others are praised as the "New Europe,"
because their leaders agreed to follow US orders in opposition to the
vast majority of the population, almost as much as in Turkey.
I do not recall ever having
seen such demonstration of intense hatred for democracy on the part
of elite opinion in the US (and to some extent Britain).
2. You have long argued that it was the basic decency of the American
people and not body bags that helped end the war in Vietnam. What will
it take to end this war ? What is driving continued support for President
Bush ?
Public mood is in the US
is complicated. It's important to bear in mind that last September a
huge government-media propaganda campaign was put into operation, which
left the US population on another planet as far as Iraq is concerned.
Iraq's neighbors, and most of the rest of the world, rightly despise
Saddam Hussein. But they do not fear him. In the US, and the US alone,
the majority of the population -- since September 2002 -- regards Iraq
as an imminent threat to US security. That was basically the wording
of the October 2002 congressional resolution authorizing the US of force.
After the September 11 attacks,
virtually no one regarded Iraq as responsible. By December 2002 the
figure had risen to almost half the population. By now it seems that
a considerable majority not only attribute the terrorist attacks to
Iraq and believe that Iraqis were on the planes that destroyed the World
Trade Center, but also believe that Saddam Hussein will soon carry out
more such attacks unless he is stopped now. Evidence for all of this
is zero, and the claims have been refuted by intelligence agencies and
the leading specialists on the topic. It is a truly spectacular achievement
of propaganda -- an achievement, incidentally, which is second nature
to those running Washington today.
They are mostly recycled
from the Reagan-Bush administrations of the 1980s. They were able to
retain political power even though the public was strongly opposed to
their policies, which were quite harmful to the majority. They did so
by regularly pushing the panic button, with claims even more absurd
than their current ones: Nicaragua is a threat to US security, the Russians
will bomb from an air base in Grenada, etc.
Take away the fear factor,
and the US is probably much like the rest of the world with regard to
the war in Iraq: overwhelming opposition.
In the case of Vietnam, it
took years before the public turned against the war -- on principled
grounds, unlike educated elites and the business world, who finally
came to oppose the war too but on "pragmatic grounds": it
was becoming too costly to the US. The situation is far better now,
because of the civilizing effect of the popular movements of the past
40 years. But it remains difficult.
3. Is this war truly the turning point in the way international relations
are conducted ? Are the Bushies really trying to reshape the world and
what impact will its outcome, whatever you predict it to be, have on
Israell and the Palestinian question.
They have proclaimed very
explicitly, in the National Security Strategy of September 2002, that
they intend to control the world by force and to prevent any potential
challenge to their domination. It is reasonable to assume that part
of the motivation for the attack on Iraq is to establish the principle
of "preventive war," enunciated in the Security Strategy,
as a norm that can be followed elsewhere. The plans have aroused enormous
fear and opposition worldwide, and among the foreign policy elite at
home. True, some approve it. Among them are the ultra-right and large
sectors of Christian fundamentalist movements in the US, and others
as well. Osama bin Laden, if he is still alive, must be delighted: the
outcome surpasses his wildest dreams. Within a year, Bush and his associates
have succeeded in becoming the most feared and hated political leadership
in the world, as international opinion studies reveal very clearly.
If they are allowed to persist in their plans, the future looks ominous.
For the Palestinians, the
results are an unmitigated disaster. Bush and Powell speak of their
"vision," but are careful never to describe what it is. That
we can ascertain from their actions in support of their most favored
client, the official "man of peace," Ariel Sharon. Bush and
Powell are now even on record as stating that Israel can continue to
expand settlements in the occupied territories until some unspecified
future when the US government will decide that the Palestinians are
making "progress."
Two-thirds of the US population
support the long-standing international consensus in favor of a two-state
settlement on the internationally-recognized (pre-June 1967) borders,
with minor and mutual adjustments. The US government has barred that
outcome for 25 years, and still does. The facts, though uncontroversial,
are scarcely known in the US. The Bush administration has gone even
beyond its predecessors in this regard. Apart from vague talk about
"visions" and "dreams," there is nothing to indicate
that these commitments have changed, unfortunately. Again, there is
a lot of work to do