Reviewing
Noam Chomsky's
New Book: "Interventions"
By Stephen Lendman
15 June, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Noam Chomsky is MIT Institute
Professor Emeritus of linguistics and has been a leading political and
social critic of US imperial policy for over 40 years. He's also one
of the world's most influential and widely cited intellectuals on the
Left. He's the author of many hundreds of articles and publications
as well as dozens of books including his latest one and subject of this
review - "Interventions."
The introductory Editor's
Note explains that post-9/11 Chomsky began writing short, roughly 1000
word, concise articles distributed by The New York Times Syndicate as
op-eds. They were widely picked up overseas but rarely in the US and
only in smaller regional or local papers. They never appeared in the
New York Times that circulated them worldwide but not to its own readers.
It shows how the Times and all the corporate media suppress views contrary
to dominant mainstream thinking. They're verboten in a nation where
A.J Liebling once said "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only
to those who own one."
Imperfect as the European
press is, Chomsky's essays appeared in the International Herald Tribune
and London Guardian and Independent among others. Even one of Mexico's
leading national newspapers, La Jornada in Mexico City, frequently publishes
Chomsky's articles.
"Interventions"
is a collection of 44 op-ed pieces, post-9/11, from September, 2002
through March, 2007. Included is one written specifically for the New
York Times in February, 2004 titled "A Wall is a Weapon."
Chomsky added notes at the end of each one briefly expanding on and
updating what he wrote earlier up to the book's recent publication.
In all his political writings, including the op-eds in "Interventions,"
Chomsky has always been a fierce critic of US foreign and domestic policy
and the dominant US media's practice of "manufacturing consent"
for it assuring criticism never exceeds what political elites allow.
It means there's never enough of it, what's most needed, or anything
diverging from general consensus views corporate America and Washington-based
rulers of the world agree on.
Chomsky confronts these rulers
in "Interventions" as he's always done in his writings and
public appearances. As the Editor's Note says: "Chomsky believes
that the freedom to challenge power is not just an opportunity, it's
a responsibility." He does it as effectively in concise essays
on selected issues as in expanded versions in more extended articles
and books. Chomsky is also an optimist believing people can change things
saying "One of the clearest lessons of history....is that rights
are not granted; they are won" but not by being passive or timid.
On the broad range of issues in "Interventions," Chomsky isn't
timid, and that's why his views aren't allowed in the dominant corporate-controlled
media because speaking truth to power and the public just might catch
on.
"Interventions"
- 44 Op-Ed Essays Critical of Bush Administration Foreign and Domestic
Policies
This review covers a healthy
sampling of Chomsky's book dealing mostly with foreign policies but
also some domestic ones in a post-9/11 world. It's under an administration
former President Jimmy Carter recently called "the worst in history
(because we) endorsed the concept of pre-emptive (in fact, preventive
meaning illegal aggression) war....even though our own security is not
directly threatened." In an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette,
Carter elaborated further, like no other former president ever did.
He almost sounded like Noam Chomsky from what he said about George Bush
and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The UK leader's equally culpable
and shortly leaving office in disgrace with a public approval rating
lower than George Bush's.
Chomsky's first essay is
titled "9/11: Lessons Unlearned" in which he addresses George
Bush's question: "Why do they (Arabs/Muslims) hate us?" Fifty
years ago Dwight Eisenhower's National Security Council explained it's
because we support Middle East despots and "oppos(e) political
or economic progress" wanting only control of the region's vast
oil reserves. It's no different today with people everywhere respecting
our freedoms but hating our policies, especially toward them. With good
reason, they view the US as a "terrorist regime," which it
is.
Feelings on the Arab street
stem for Washington's longtime one-sided support for Israel's repressive
policies toward Palestinians. It fueled a six-decade conflict because
Israel, with US backing, wants it kept unresolved until it achieves
the goal noted Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe, and other courageous observers
explain - to ethnically cleanse, by any means, all parts of Palestine
Israelis want for themselves leaving Palestinians the right to move
elsewhere or live only on cantonized worthless scrub land Israel doesn't
value.
Twelve horrendous years of
harsh Iraqi economic and political sanctions also fueled extreme Arab
and Muslim anti-US sentiment now far worse since March, 2003. It boils
over daily in the country and around the world reflected in Canadian
General Andrew Leslie's comment made in summer, 2005. Explaining why
the Afghan war will be long, he said: (because) "every time you
kill an angry young man (or his family), you're creating 15 more who
will come after you." He might have finished his thought that the
way to stop them killing us is stop killing them.
Before the March, 2003 invasion
alone, the toll on Iraqis was horrific. Twelve years of inhumane, unjustifiable
sanctions caused the deaths of as many as 1.5 million victims of US
genocidal policy and likely close to another million since then. They
were aimed at removing Saddam it took an illegal aggression and occupation
to achieve. It proved a recruiting bonanza for all sorts of resistance
evident throughout Iraq today and around the world targeting America
and our allies. It won't stop till repressive policies do beginning
with the illegal occupations of Iraq and Palestine. Until then, the
worst may be yet to come.
It proves what what former
Israeli military intelligence chief, Yesoshaphat Harkabi, said 25 years
ago on how to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's as true today
in Israel and applies to Iraq and everywhere else. "To offer an
honorable solution to the Palestinians (or other repressed peoples)
respecting their right to self-determination: That is the solution of
the problem of terrorism. When the swamp disappears, there will be no
more mosquitos." It goes without saying respecting peoples' human
and civil rights everywhere is a good way to end wars, too, and justifiable
resistance they and illegal occupations spawn.
The current Iraq war dominates
much of the book including the early March, 2003 article before it began
titled "The Case Against the War in Iraq." In it, Chomsky
explained the Bush administration's National Security Strategy's belligerent
"imperial grand strategy" intentions to control the world
by force and reign supreme through a policy of "preventive war."
The Nuremberg Tribunal called that "the supreme international crime"
against peace with guilty Nazis convicted of it hanged. Warnings this
agenda could lead to terrorist attacks far worse than 9/11 weren't allowed
to interfere with the administration's imperial ambitions. That was
their policy in 2003. It remains unchanged now, whatever the consequences.
Chomsky continued his analysis
in his late March, 2003 essay "Now That the War Has Begun."
In it, he explained what's evident now - that "There is no reason
to doubt the near-universal judgment that the war in Iraq will only
increase the threat of terror and development and possible use of weapons
of mass destruction, for revenge or deterrence." With the US now
an international pariah, hated and condemned by ordinary people nearly
everywhere, it may only be a matter of time before the WMD threat, in
fact, happens. It won't be pleasant when it does if it takes the form
of a "dirty bomb" making a large US city uninhabitable forever
from radiation contamination.
Chomsky continues saying
"the stakes of the war and its aftermath almost couldn't be higher
(with one possibility being) destabilization in Pakistan (making) 'loose
nukes' (available) to the global network of terrorist groups (and) other
possibilities, no less grim." But he notes a promising sign from
the unprecendented world opposition to war in Iraq before it began that's
continued since but not with enough intensity to stop the horrific conflict
now in its fifth year. It's longer in duration than WW II with no signs
it's ending after the pathetic Democrat-led Congress surrendered to
the Bush administration's demands. Defying growing public sentiment,
it passed the largest ever supplemental funding bill ($120 billion)
in the nation's history with more assured for the asking - at least
so far.
Chomsky noted in March, 2003
what's still true today - that the US is pursuing "new and dangerous
paths over near-unanimous world opposition." Instead of responding
to threats by addressing legitimate grievances, the Bush administration
chose permanent aggressive wars and a policy of constructing "even
more awesome instruments of destruction and domination." It guarantees
responses to them, if used, will be unpleasant at least and awesome
and horrific if worst case predictions come true.
In his August, 2003 "Road
Map to Nowhere" piece, Chomsky addresses the long-festering Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. He quoted Oxford University Middle East scholar Hussein Agha
and former Clinton administration Arab-Israeli affairs special assistant
Robert Malley saying "the outlines of a solution have been basically
understood for some time now" and entail "a territorial divide
on the international border, now with a 1 - 1 land swap." Chomsky
explains it never happened nor will it because Israel, with US backing,
rejects it even in modest form.
Rhetoric aside, "road
maps" and other past peace initiatives have all been cruel hoaxes
going nowhere nor will any now barring a huge change in policy only
mass world condemnation and forceful action with teeth can achieve.
In deference to Chomsky's contrary view, it must include boycotts, divestment,
political and economic sanctions, and isolation of Israel from the community
of civilized states. It's not a fit member of them as long as it continues
pursuing barbaric policies best characterized as slow-motion genocide
with the US equally culpable in Iraq and Afghanistan and for providing
Israel unlimited aid.
Chomsky notes "a just
peace could come" citing Northern Ireland as a recent example and
South Africa another, although no one should assume those countries
now resemble paradise as facts on the ground prove otherwise. It's especially
true in South Africa where noted journalist John Pilger's new book "Freedom
Next Time" explains how life there today is harder than under apartheid.
It's because "Thatcherism" and New World Order Washington
Consensus neoliberalism moved in making things worse. It happened under
Nelson Mandela's presidency who signed on to it telling Pilger "You
can put any label on it you like....but, for this country, privatization
(deregulation and free market capitalism) is the fundamental policy."
In October, 2003, Chomsky
wrote about "The United States and the United Nations," that's
little more than a wholly-owned subsidiary of the nation where it's
been headquartered on Manhattan's east side since 1952. Whenever the
US can't bully or co-opt the world body, it just ignores it doing what
it wants like waging illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Only the
Security Council can authorize them or Article 51 of the UN Charter
allowing the "right of individual or collective self-defense if
an armed attack occurs against a Member....until the Security Council
(acts) to maintain international peace and security."
The Bush administration has
contempt for international law using it only when it serves its imperial
interests and condemning or ignoring it otherwise as "quaint and
obsolete." At an early March, 2003 news conference, George Bush
made his position clear saying "when it comes to security (meaning
US imperial interests) we really don't need anyone's permission."
So when it comes to Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington's position is unbending
- "The United States must end up in effective control (of these
countries using) some facade of democracy if that proves feasible."
It means "democratic" elections can go ahead as long as the
lord and master of the universe controls things no matter how they turn
out.
And that's exactly how it
is now in Iraq and Afghanistan from US-orchestrated "demonstration
elections." They installed puppet governments having no say over
their own affairs except what Washington allows. As Chomsky puts it:
"Washington must be in charge, not the United Nations, not the
Iraqi (or Afghan) people," and that's the way, in fact, it is today
in both countries.
Indeed, it will be in Iraq
if the puppet parliament passes the US-drafted new "Hydrocarbon
Law." It's a blueprint for plunder, giving foreign investors (US
and UK Big Oil mainly) a bonanza of resources, leaving Iraqis a sliver
for themselves. Oil giants, like Exxon-Mobil and BP Amoco, will get
exclusive control of 63 of the country's 80 known oil fields plus all
newly discovered deposits. Even worse, Big Oil will get long-term contracts
up to 35 years and be free to expropriate all revenues, investing none
of them in Iraq's economy. Foreign investors will also have no obligation
to partner with Iraqi companies, hire local workers, respect union rights,
or share new technologies. Iraqis only get the right to take it, or
else.
Iraqi oil workers aren't
taking it. They went on strike for three days over a range of issues.
Prime Minister al-Maliki then shamelessly issued arrest warrants for
Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU) leaders sending his military to
surround the workers. He then had to back down June 8 when an Iraqi
general in charge disobeyed his orders, demanded his government "sort
it all out," or he'd resign and join the strikers. In response,
IFOU suspended the strike saying it will be resumed and expanded in
a week unless an agreement is reached. Washington and Big Oil aren't
happy, but this issue is far from resolved.
In November, 2003, Chomsky
wrote about "Dilemmas of Dominance" noting in George Bush's
"axis of evil" North Korea and Iran (unlike Iraq since 1991)
aren't defenseless. It's a lesson to all other potential US-targeted
nations. "If you want to defend yourself from us, you had better
mimic North Korea and pose a credible military threat" because
the Kim Jong-il regime may have nuclear weapons while Iran does not,
claims no intent to develop them, but no one in the West knows for sure.
Iran's importance, however,
lies in its having the world's third or fourth largest proved oil reserves
(depending on who's measuring what reserves) while North Korea is "one
of the poorest and most miserable countries in the world," except
for one other thing. It has great geostrategic importance within Northeast
Asia (including China, Japan, South Korea and resource-rich Siberia
in Russia's East). It's now "the world's most dynamic economic
region, with close to 30% of global gross domestic product," compared
to 19% for the US, plus "half of global foreign exchange reserves."
"The US and Europe now
trade more with Northeast Asia than with one another," and Washington's
concern is that integrated regions like Europe and Northeast Asia may
choose an independent course from Washington. Today, that may be more
likely given the state of things under George Bush with worldwide alienation
growing in the face of aggressive US policies getting harder to accept
or endorse.
Chomsky also wrote about
"Saddam Hussein Before the Tribunal" in December, 2003 before
this writer did it in November, 2006 in an article called "A Trial
Giving Kangaroos A Bad Name." It covered the 11 month travesty
of justice ending November 5 with his conviction already decided before
proceedings began.
He then addressed "Saddam
Hussein and Crimes of State" in January, 2004 citing the "long,
tortuous association between (Saddam) and the West" and how embarrassing
it would be for that relationship to come out at trial, so it didn't.
Even at Nuremberg (Chomsky calls "the least defective" post-conflict
tribunal), war or other crimes were only what losing sides did, never
winning ones under a long-standing policy of victor's justice meaning
none at all.
So voices of UN humanitarian
coordinators Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponek could never be publicly
heard explaining why they resigned in protest. In 1998, Halliday said
he "had been instructed to implement a policy that satisfies the
definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed
well over one million individuals, children and adults," and that
5000 Iraqi children were dying needlessly every month. That's inconsequential
to the Bush administration in its openly stated National Security Strategy
(NSS) policy. It's a scheme to "dismantle much of what remained
of the system of world order" and rule by force "with Iraq
as a demonstration project." It tells the world we mean business,
so stand aside or you're next.
Chomsky also covered Israel's
Annexation/Apartheid wall in an article called "A Wall as a Weapon"
with Israel (with US financial and political backing) continuing to
build it in defiance of international law. The World Court in the Hague
ruled 14 - 1 construction must end at once, the existing portion already
built must be dismantled, and affected Palestinians must be compensated
for their losses. Israel flouts the decision.
He also wrote about "The
United States: Terrorist Sanctuary" with Washington notorious for
granting safe haven to ousted tinpot despots and "a rogues' gallery
of people whose actions qualify them as terrorists." That's never
a problem, however, when their crimes aided this country's imperial
agenda. Two noted examples Chomsky cites are Orlando Bosch, and Bosch
accomplish Luis Posada Carriles. They masterminded the bombing of a
Cuban airliner in 1976 (among their many terrorist acts) killing 73
on it, but never answered for it and now live freely in the US.
Chomsky also wrote on "Iraq:
The Roots of Resistance" explaining US intelligence knew well in
advance "Washington's most formidable foe (would be) the resentment
of ordinary Iraqis....hostile to the American occupation." The
Bush administration ignored the warning feeling that price was minor
compared to its greater goal to establish permanent military bases in
a client state "at the heart of the world's major energy sources."
Chomsky addressed "Who
Is to Run the World and How" in June, 2004 noting former Carter
administration National Security Advisor Zbiigniew Brzezinski writing
"America's security role in the (Middle East) region (meaning military
dominance) gives it indirect but politically critical leverage on the
European and Asian economies" (also dependent on) energy exports
from the region." That would keep those regions from opting for
a course independent from us, so controlling Iraq's oil and reorganizing
the Middle East under US control prevents that from happening. Uppermost
for US policy makers is preventing successful defiance of US policy.
Costly wars spawning terrorist fallout is of lesser importance and a
price worth paying for unchallengeable imperial dominance, provided
we can get and keep it. That's very much in doubt today, however, with
things falling apart in the Middle East and Central Asia.
Chomsky addresses a crucial
domestic issue in "Democracy Building Must Begin at Home"
in August, 2004 and in October in "The Disconnect in American Democracy."
He did it with the presidential elections approaching and things in
disarray on the ground in Iraq and soon to be in Afghanistan as well.
He observed the campaign pointed up "the severe democratic deficit
in the world's most powerful (nominally democratic) state" where
true democracy is more illusion than reality. He noted how detached
the candidates were in their common agenda from issues mattering most
to ordinary people. They pay little more than lip service to vital concerns
like health care ranking at the top with costs exploding and 47 million
people having no insurance because they can't afford any.
Bush and Kerry got to run
with enough funding by "similar concentrations of private power"
controlling everything. That includes picking the candidates and, practically
openly since 2000, which one wins, decided in advance making a mockery
of the whole system. Investigative journalist, Greg Palast, covered
it in his 2006 book, "Armed Madhouse," and his 2003 one, "The
Best Democracy Money Can Buy." In them, he showed how elections
today are more like auctions than a serious exercise of democracy. He
documented how the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen and 2008 is already
shaping up for more of the same.
Chomsky explains changing
things when they're not right is the way it's always been. It has to
be from the grassroots that against long odds ended slavery, and won
rights for labor, women and minorities. It also helped end the Vietnam
war through mass energized opposition on the streets to it. So even
though Chomsky urges voters to make "sensible choices" at
the polls (limited as they are), the "main task is to create a
genuinely responsive democratic culture, and that effort goes on before
and after electoral extravaganzas, whatever their outcome."
Two articles in November
and December, 2004 help unmask the benevolent facade we present to the
world, no longer needing Chomsky to do it two and half years later.
The first is titled "We Are Good" and the second the "Imperial
Presidency and Its Consequences." The first essay observes "the
fundamental principle (in international relations) that 'we are good'
- 'we' being the government....benevolent, seeking peace and justice"
even though, in practice, the opposite is true. However, the Bush agenda
of permanent war "carr(ies) an appreciable risk of ultimate doom"
according to some straregic analysts like John D. Steinbruner and Nancy
Gallagher. They wrote in the summer 2004 issue of "Daedalus,"
the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Chomsky says
isn't given to hyperbole.
The administration's contempt
for international law, scorched earth war agenda, and future intent
to use nuclear weapons, like they're just king-sized hand grenades,
means the fate of the human species and most everything else some day
may be up for grabs. Chomsky observes that "the world is in awful
shape today" although better off for an "unwillingness to
tolerate aggression." It's because the Bush administration's "conception
of presidential sovereignty (the imperial presidency) is so extreme
(it's drawn) unprecendented criticism from the most sober and respected
journals."
It's based on the "unitary
executive theory of the presidency." Lawyer, academic and author
Jennifer Van Bergen wrote about it at length in her January 9, 2006
FindLaw Legal News and Commentary article titled "The Unitary Executive:
Is the Doctrine Behind the Bush Presidency Consistent with a Democratic
State?" Her conclusion is unequivocally no. The "doctrine
violates the separation of powers" fundamental to our system. It
puts the chief executive above the law, in effect, making him a dictator.
George Bush usurped this
power claiming the law is what he says it is and proved it around 800
times (more than all past presidents combined) attaching "signing
statements" to congressional legislation. In doing so, he illegally
annulled provisions in them because nothing in the Constitution allows
such practice. Chomsky asks how can we best respond to a situation so
dire? He notes our "legacy of great privilege and freedom"
saying we have a choice - abandon all hope or "further a democratic
culture in which the culture plays some role in (political and economic)
policies." Saying these are hardly radical ideas, he stresses history
shows "rights are not granted; they are won" by going for
them from the grassroots.
In April, 2005, Chomsky addressed
"The Universality of Human Rights." He cited the 1948 Universal
Declaration of Human Rights as the "modern standard" including
Article 25 in it stating - "Everyone has the right to a standard
of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his
family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary
social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment,
sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood
in circumstances beyond his control (with) Motherhood (and children
born in or out of wedlock)....entitled to special care and assistance."
Needless to say, the Bush
administration rejects these rights by its policies alone. Earlier,
undersecretary of state for democracy and global affairs, Paula Dobriansky,
while serving under Ronald Reagan and G.H.W. Bush, refuted what she
called the "myth (that) economic and social rights constitute human
rights," even though the majority population feels otherwise. Surveys
clearly show popular preferences favor sharp cuts in military spending
along with large increases for education, health care, medical research,
job training, conservation, renewable energy and other essential social
programs enhancing life. The current power structure wants no public
involvement in policy choices pointing to what Chomsky calls a "growing
democratic deficit."
In 1973, banker David Rockefeller
(grandson of oil tycoon and mega-corporate predator John D.), Zbigniew
Brzezinski and others founded the Trilateral Commission that included
notable members like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. It's purpose was
to counter a "crisis of democracy" from the 1960s. That meant
too much of it as sectors of the population (called "special interests")
became active politically while these rulers of the world expect them
to remain inert. So action was needed to restore them to their proper
status - quiescent, letting "the people who own the country....run
it" (for their own benefit). Those were Founding Father John Jay's
words, our first Supreme Court Chief Justice, showing his contempt for
ordinary people. Today, things are so extreme under George Bush even
Jay might be shocked enough to think we went too far and say change
is needed to soften things.
He and the other Founders
would likely be alarmed by Chomsky's April, 2005 essay called "Dr.
Strangelove Meets the Age of Terror" with the title alone pretty
scary. The subject addressed is a real nuclear threat with the 1970
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) "never....weaker or its
future less certain" according to Thomas Graham, former US special
representative for arms control, nonproliferation and armament. He warned
in the April, 2005 issue of "Current History" if the treaty
fails, a "nuclear nightmare world" may become reality. His
concern is that Bush administration policy is the main threat. It effectively
renounced NPT and its crucial Article VI pledging nuclear nations make
"good faith" efforts to eliminate these weapons because having
them heightens the risk they'll be used endangering the planet. However,
it's even worse than that as the Bush administration:
-- claims the right to develop
new type nuclear weapons, not work to eliminate ones we have;
-- ignores NPT intending
to test new weapons developed;
-- ended the protection of
the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty;
-- rescinded and subverted
the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention;
-- spends more on the military
than the rest of the world combined with large future increases planned;
-- refuses to consider a
Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty preventing more nuclear bombs being added
to present stockpiles already dangerously too high; and
-- claims the right to wage
preventive wars under the doctrine of "anticipatory self-defense"
using first strike nuclear weapons.
As a result, former NATO
planner, Michael McGuire, thinks a "nuclear exchange is ultimately
inevitable," and Harvard international relations specialist, Graham
Allison agrees with a "consensus in the national security community
(that a) dirty bomb (attack is) near-certain" given current policy
and the fact that fissionable materials aren't secured.
Chomsky also wrote about
"The Social Security Non-Crisis." It was about the Bush administration
concocting a propaganda blitz in 2005 (no longer heard lately) of an
impending phony Social Security "fiscal crisis" to convince
the public to let Wall Street sharks control their financial future.
Meanwhile, he noted, a real Medicare crisis looms with medical costs
spiraling out of control and the US having the most unfair, inefficient
system in the industrialized world. Reforming it through more efficient,
lower cost national health care is off the table because insurers and
Big Pharma won't tolerate any public benefit harming their right to
run the system their way earning huge profits from it.
Then, there's Chomsky's take
on "The Bush Administration during Hurricane Season." In it,
he noted "a long-gathering storm of misguided policies and priorities
preceded the tragedy, citing a pre-9/11 FEMA report. It listed the three
most likely catastrophes to strike the country - a terrorist attack
in New York, an earthquake in San Francisco, and a major hurricane striking
New Orleans with the latter becoming an urgent FEMA priority in 2005.
Elaborate plans and a successful simulated hurricane drill were conducted,
but the war, budget cuts, other preventive measures and overall Bush
administration indifference meant the Katrina disaster was inevitable.
Four Chomsky essays deal
with Latin America, the first in December, 2005 called "South America
at the Tipping Point." In it, he says "From Venezuela to Argentina,
the hemisphere is falling out of control, with left-center governments
almost all the way through. Even in Central America....the lid is barely
on."
The view from mid-2007 looks
different with only Venezuela and hopefully Ecuador (still a work in
progress under new President Rafeal Correa, barely six months in office)
very much embracing a left-center social democratic agenda. In contrast,
Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia have mostly followed Washington Consensus
neoliberal dictates. That's in spite of their distancing themselves
from US one-way FTAA trade deals and IMF and World Bank crushing debt
slavery from their Faustian-imposed rules assuring debtor nations always
get a raw deal.
But Chomsky noted in 2005
indigenous populations were more active and influential, especially
in Ecuador and Bolivia. Today they're still active there and in other
Latin countries but have modest influence, at best. He also observed
internal integration was strengthening, including South-South interaction
with Venezuela in the lead responsible for most positive results in
how it deals with its neighbors and other world trading partners like
China.
In March, 2006, Chomsky's
op-ed piece was called "Asia, the Americas, and the Reigning Superpower."
In September he wrote "Latin America Declares its Independence,"
and in December his article was titled "Alternatives for the Americas."
In these, he noted Washington's concern that Europe, Asia and Latin
America might move toward more independence away from US dominance,
and, to a degree, there are some hopeful signs, it's happening. Middle
East misadventurism consumes the Bush administration, unable to admit
what every sensible political analyst knows - the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
are lost. In addition, the longer we stay embroiled, the worse things
get and more likely US world influence will wane encouraging other nations
to become more independent, less fearful of the consequences.
Central to policy everywhere
is energy, and aims to control it create the possibility of shifting
alliances and more potential nightmares for Washington. Crucially ahead
is who lines up with whom, and one relationship Washington fears is
greater India-China cooperation. Add Venezuela, Russia and Iran to the
mix and Washington's fears will be huge if those ties become strong
and solidified enough to counter US dominance. Throw in a couple of
other Middle East and Central Asia producers, and it spells potential
big trouble for Washington planners.
Another Washington fear is
if Latin states ever, in fact, unite in a "continent community
similar to the European Union." It would give them far more clout
together than any single regional state could have on its own, even
one as large and important as Brazil. Washington has long dominated
Latin America it dismissively calls its "backyard." It's done
it through "violence....economic strangulation," and brutal
exploitation through installed or co-opted governments profiting as
junior partners in the savage exploitation of their own populations
for profit, the way it's been for 500 years going back to conquistador
rule.
Today, Hugo Chavez is a symbol
of change and courage standing up to the ruling hegemon. That makes
him the single greatest threat Washington faces - a good example that's
spreading enough to cause alarm in the Capitol. Since taking office
in February, 1999, the US tried and failed three times to oust him by
different means. The current Washington-orchestrated made-for-media
street protests over the RCTV Channel 2 shuttering may indicate a fourth
attempt is now underway. Chavez apparently thinks so accusing the Bush
administration and internal opposition of planning a "soft coup
with a slow fuse." He compares it to the same US scheme used in
Ukraine's 2004-05 Orange Revolution and Georgia's Rose one in 2003.
Both times, leaders allied with Russia were deposed and replaced with
ones favoring the West.
Chavez is standing firm and
is actively moving ahead with his socially democratic agenda while solidifying
ties with regional neighbors and other states. He seeks integrated alliances
(a "prerequisite for genuine independence" from Washington)
and relations with other countries based on cooperation, solidarity,
complementarity and respect for each nation's sovereignty. He wants
it to be free from the strangling control Washington imposes in its
relations with the Global South, especially in Latin America it feels
it owns. The confrontational lines are drawn with the spirit of democracy
alive in Latin America, headquartered in Venezuela, and the Bush administration
determined to crush it.
It's one reason Washington
seeks bilateral deals in the region and elsewhere and just signed one
last December with India. It's called the United States-India Peaceful
Atomic Energy Cooperation Act, the name itself reeking in Orwellian
Newspeak. The act is another blow to NPT effectively authorizing India's
nuclear weapons development along with other nuclear-related assistance
enough to cause nuclear weapons specialist Gary Milhollin alarm. The
deal violates "cardinal principle(s)" established to reduce
nuclear weapons proliferation and delivery systems for them. They undermine
the barriers to nuclear war and "may hasten the day when a nuclear
explosion destroys a US city."
Hedging its bets to "become
equidistant between the US and China," India agreed to a similar
deal with the Asian giant the US fears most as a future challenger to
its supremacy. It's because of China's size and fact it's unintimidated
by US dominance. But while Washington gambles with our future, the potential
threat from an eventual nuclear holocaust get greater. The Bush administration
is giving India "a free pass around nuclear controls," says
nuclear threat expert Michael Krepon. It means "other states will
be lining up to profit from proliferation," export controls are
now off the table, and the safety of NPT enforcement is null and void.
It points to a potential frightening future ahead thanks to reckless
US policy putting geopolitics and corporate profits ahead of common
sense security.
In June, 2006 Chomsky wrote
on "Disarming the Iran Nuclear Showdown." He observed "The
urgency of halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and moving
toward their elimination, could hardly be greater. Failure to do so
is very likely to lead to grim consequences (and) a near meltdown (a
year ago and now) seems....imminent over Iran('s)" commercial nuclear
enrichment program. It conforms to NPT standards while countries like
India, Pakistan and Israel are nuclear outlaws. Under George Bush, so
is the US, by far the worst one of all.
Washington, with help from
the West it bullies, demands Iran stop its program in contrast to its
strong support for it under the Shah before 1979. Today, it's different
with Washington wanting NPT's Article IV strengthened. It grants non-nuclear
states the right to produce fuel for commercial nuclear energy use.
Chomsky believes that because of today's technological advances, tightening
Article IV "would have to ensure unimpeded access for nonmilitary
use" but prevent it from being for weapons. That's not easy as
nuclear expert Helen Caldicott explains. She calls operating commercial
nuclear reactors atom bomb factories as a single 1000 megawatt reactor
produces 500 pounds of plutonium annually, while a mere 10 pounds can
produce a bomb powerful enough to devastate a large city.
Despite the heated Western
rhetoric targeting Iran's nuclear program and its claimed interference
in Iraq, only one country poses a real threat to what Chomsky calls
"the end of biology's only experiment with higher intelligence"
and most everything else. He means the US, especially in the age of
George Bush. So Washington is in the lead pointing fingers at phony
nuclear threats from other countries while never admitting it's the
greatest one of all. It's the only country with a publicly stated policy
to freely use these first strike weapons under its doctrine of "anticipatory
self-defense" meaning preventive illegal aggression international
law bans.
Chomsky revisted Iran in
March, 2007 in his essay titled "The Cold War Between Washington
and Tehran." He noted Iran and Syria are enemies because they "failed
to subordinate themselves to Washington's basic demands. Iran by far
(is) the most important" because of its vast oil reserves we want
control over the way things were after the CIA-led coup ousted democratically
elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. It reinstated the
US-backed Shah Reza Pahlavi's generation-long fascist reign of terror.
It lasted until the 1979 Iranian revolution deposed him, setting up
a confrontation between Iran and this country ever since. It now threatens
to erupt in open war, possibly a nuclear one.
Iran's importance goes beyond
oil as its "influence in the 'crescent' challenges US control"
there. Chomsky notes "By an accident of geography, the world's
major oil resources are in largely Shiite areas of the Middle East:
southern Iraq, adjacent regions of Saudi Arabia and Iran, with some
of the major reserves of natural gas as well." He continues explaining
"Washington's worst nightmare would be a loose Shiite alliance
controlling most of the world's oil" independent of the US. If
such a bloc ever emerges and links with the Asian Energy Security Grid
and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in China, US power in the
world will be seriously and potentially permanently undermined.
The Bush administration will
do everything possible to prevent this, but Chomsky doubts it will attack
Iran. World leaders and three-fourths of the US public are strongly
opposed. So is the Baker Commission representing a more conciliatory
position, but no less hard line on controlling the world's energy resources.
While not able to withstand
overwhelming US power, Iran is three times the size of Iraq and no pushover.
It would be crushed in a head-to-head confrontation with Washington
but could put up a fight and inflict some heavy damage in the process
not likely to go down well at home. It would also inflame the Middle
East far more than already. Iran can also "respond in other ways,"
Chomsky notes, "inciting even more havoc in Iraq" and throughout
the region. The public is already fed up with endless wars, demands
they end, so anything is possible on US streets and the next election
if George Bush starts another one with his toughest opponent so far.
Instead of war, Chomsky thinks
Washington may try destabilizing Iran from within stirring up trouble
and "secessionist tendencies" from much of the population
that isn't Persian, including in oil-rich areas like Khuzestan on the
Gulf that's largely Arab. It's also urging harsher sanctions wanting
to isolate and "strangle Iran economically" that won't likely
work because China and Russia won't buy it and Europe only will part
way. For years, Iran sought a negotiated settlement to long-standing
differences, but Washington always rebuffed diplomatic efforts because
it demands unconditional surrender to its agenda. Iran, under its present
leadership won't ever buy that, and why should it, or any other nation.
Following Israel's brutal,
illegal assault on Lebanon last summer (planned months in advance with
US backing), Chomsky wrote about "Viewing Lebanon as if through
a Bombsight." He noted in August, 2006 "a fragile truce remains
in effect," but it may be near a tipping point now in the wake
of days of savage fighting pitting the US-backed Fouad Sinora's Lebanese
army against non-Palestinian Fath al-Islam fighters holed up in the
northern Lebanese Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp. Dozens, maybe
hundreds, of soldiers, fighters and innocent civilians have been killed
and many thousands displaced risking this will spread to other parts
of the country reigniting a civil war like the one that raged from 1975
- 1990. It tore apart a country tormented as well by repeated Israeli
assaults and invasions including the infamous 1982 one killing 18,000
or more Lebanese and many Palestinians living there.
A year ago Chomsky wrote
about the "US-Israeli invasion of Lebanon, with only a cynical
pretense to legitimacy" because there was none. The reason for
it had nothing to do with the phony one given about the capture of two
Israeli soldiers. Never mentioned was that for decades Israel made a
practice of "kidnapping and killing civilians in Lebanon or on
the high seas, Lebanese and Palestinians, holding them in Israel for
long periods, sometimes as hostages, sometimes in secret torture chambers
like Camp 1391."
Israel's summer, 2006 assault
on Gaza was also planned well in advance just waiting for a convenient
pretext to unleash that happened to be the capture of one Israeli corporal,
hardly reason to declare war. Just like in Lebanon, Israel's reaction
was unjustifiable and savagely extreme, but as long as the US backed
and funded it, Western and Arab world complaints were barely audible
before ending altogether. It left targeted Lebanese and Palestinians
devastated to this day and now victims of new fighting.
Israel and the US want to
destroy Hezbollah and Hamas, but it's no secret they helped create them
both to use against other past enemies like Yasser Arafat and the PLO
in the 1980s until he was co-opted by the Oslo Accords in 1993 to become
Israel's enforcer. Today, conflict continues in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories (OPT), Lebanon is teetering on the edge of the unknown,
and Chomsky notes "new generations of bitter and angry jihadis"
likely are being created the way Israeli Chief of Staff, Dan Halutz's
said they would be. What else could warrior states like the US or Israel
expect, "view(ing) the world through a bombsight."
But Saad-Ghorayeb warned
a year ago what's as true today, stated in slightly different terms.
US and Israel's unending wars on Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians, Lebanese
and any other designated Arab or Muslim targets may cause "all
hell (to) be let loose (from) the Shiite community....seething with
resentment" and determined to get revenge violently. And Sunnis
may join them if the Muslim world unites against the US, Israel, and
the West. As Chomsky puts it: "viewing the world through a bombsight
will bring further misery and suffering, perhaps even in 'apocalyptic
terms.' "
The book's final essay was
written in July, 2006 called "The Great Soul of Power." In
it, Chomsky deals with two themes borrowed from the life and work of
the late Palestinian American scholar and activist Edward Said - the
"culture of empire (and) responsibility of intellectuals."
He condemns "obedient intellectuals" for what Hans Morgenthau
called "conformist subservience to those in power." He notes
a "clear doctrine....reign(ing) in Western journalism and almost
all scholarship, even among critics of policies - 'American exceptionalism'
(or) the thesis that the United States is unlike other great powers,
past and present, because it has a 'transcendent purpose:' 'the establishment
of equality and freedom in America' and....throughout the world."
Policy must then conform
to "interests," but not those of the population. It means
the "national interest" or those of the privileged who dominate
society running things. In America and the West, the major influence
is "internationally oriented business corporations," no surprise.
In contrast, public opinion has "little or no significant effect
on government officials" beholden solely to wealth and power.
"Interventions"
ends with Chomsky explaining how hard it is striking "a proper
balance between citizenship and common purpose, on the one hand, and
communal autonomy and cultural variety on the other." These questions
should be "high on the agenda of people who do not worship at the
shrine....of power." These are people, including Chomsky's readers,
wanting to "save the world from the destructive forces" threatening
our survival. They want to change it believing "a more civilized
society can be envisioned and even brought into existence." Why
not, if enough committed people become dedicated to achieving it.
Stephen Lendman
lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].
Also visit his blog site
at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman
News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US
central time.
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