Noam Chomsky, Interventions, Penguin, 2007

 ¢â‚¬ËœIf you speak the truth, hang a foot in the stirrup ¢â‚¬â„¢

~ Turkish proverb

Noam Chomsky is  ¢â‚¬Ëœthe world ¢â‚¬â„¢s greatest public intellectual ¢â‚¬â„¢ (The Observer),  ¢â‚¬ËœAmerica ¢â‚¬â„¢s leading voice of dissent ¢â‚¬â„¢ (back cover),  ¢â‚¬Ëœperhaps the most widely read voice on foreign policy on the planet ¢â‚¬â„¢ (NY Times Book Review).

Here are 44 short essays on the burning issues for the post 9/11 world, written September 4, 2002 to July 13, 2006  ¢â‚¬“ plus updates to 2007 – for the not-quite-mainstream American press (the  ¢â‚¬Ëœcorporate media barons ¢â‚¬â„¢ don ¢â‚¬â„¢t like him for some reason).

I ¢â‚¬â„¢ve just read it twice, and it got better the second time. What adjectives/ nouns would one use to describe him? These come to mind: acerbic, prophetic, invective, prescient, arrogant… Nowhere here does he admit to being wrong or changing his mind on something: my only reservation about radical thinkers like Chomsky is that they don ¢â‚¬â„¢t do themselves or their ideas a favour if they come across as uneven-handed: they ¢â‚¬â„¢ll be too-easily dismissed as just another angry prophet (who probably wasn ¢â‚¬â„¢t breast-fed, as we used to say in the 1960s when Freud  ¢â‚¬Ëœruled the world ¢â‚¬â„¢). Surely the US has done just a little good, somewhere (Peace Corps?… what/where else?).

Peter Hart, director of FAIR, a national US media watchdog, writes a scintillating Forward, castigating major US newspapers and other media for their pro-conservative right-wing bias. (I used to like George Will – read him for years. But in one fell swoop Hart has demolished any shred of respect I still have for him, with a devastating critique of Will ¢â‚¬â„¢s defence of  ¢â‚¬Ëœclimate scepticism ¢â‚¬â„¢ by manipulating evidence. I must get Hart ¢â‚¬â„¢s book The Oh Reilly? Factor (Fox News is the only TV channel I cannot watch for more than a millisecond).

My summary of Chomsky ¢â‚¬â„¢s main thesis: US foreign and domestic policy is determined by a cabal of powerful elites, mostly ignoring majority popular opinion in the US and virtually the entire rest of the world. If I ¢â‚¬â„¢d wanted a snappy title for this review-summary, I couldn ¢â‚¬â„¢t improve on Chomsky ¢â‚¬â„¢s  ¢â‚¬ËœInvasions and Evasions ¢â‚¬â„¢ (p. 175). His most-repeated refrain (I stopped counting at 15x): Of course the US invaded Iraq to control that region ¢â‚¬â„¢s energy resources (contra other rationales  ¢â‚¬“ eliminating WMDs, getting rid of Saddam Hussein, establishing  ¢â‚¬Ëœdemocracy ¢â‚¬â„¢ etc.).   95% of the  ¢â‚¬Ëœbad guys ¢â‚¬â„¢ waging wars in Latin America, the Middle East, Vietnam, you-name-the place, are American or US-sponsored. Israel (and to a just-slightly-lesser-extent the UK) are US puppets. ( ¢â‚¬ËœWashington Rules the World: Don ¢â‚¬â„¢t Argue ¢â‚¬â„¢ is another slogan I could have used for this article).

EXCERPTS

• The invasion of Iraq led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis  ¢â‚¬“ perhaps more than have been slain by all the so-called weapons of mass destruction throughout history (3). There have been 650,000 post-invasion deaths in Iraq, plus millions of refugees and vast destruction and misery (Lancet, Oct 2006) (17). Chomsky ¢â‚¬â„¢s  ¢â‚¬Ëœmodest proposal ¢â‚¬â„¢  ¢â‚¬“ the US might have encouraged Iran to invade Iraq, while providing logistical and military support (9)
• Fawaz Gerges (Journey of the Jihadist, 2006): the 9/11 terrorist crimes were widely condemned by jihadis, offering the US an opportunity to split them from Bin Laden, but Bush ¢â‚¬â„¢s quick resort to violence, especially the invasion of Iraq, welded them together, in the end creating a much more serious terrorist threat (5). The US attack on Iraq is an answer to Bin Laden ¢â‚¬â„¢s prayers (20)
• Google Vasily Arkhipov: an individual who made the most important single decision in modern times (21). The Cuban missile crisis was the most dangerous event in human history (Arthur Schlesinger, former advisor to JFK) (36, 138  ¢â‚¬“ and in one or two other places)
• Israel is not so much a state with an army, but an army with a state (Ben Kaspit) (32)
• 9/11 is the first time a Western power was subjected to an atrocity of the kind that is too familiar elsewhere (Chomsky says this 2-3 times, beginning (35))
• The US has espoused the idea of  ¢â‚¬Ëœpreventive war ¢â‚¬â„¢  ¢â‚¬“ the supreme crime condemned by Nuremberg (36)
• North Korea was about to strike a deal with Israel to end missile exports to the Middle East in return for diplomatic recognition. But the US leaned on Israel to call off the missile deal. Soon afterwards North Korea retaliated by testing a medium-range missile (49)
• Nixon/Kissinger ¢â‚¬â„¢s efforts to destabilize a freely elected Marxist government in Chile were because  ¢â‚¬Ëœwe were determined to seek stability ¢â‚¬â„¢ (51)
• Thomas Jefferson:  ¢â‚¬ËœWe believe no more in Bonaparte ¢â‚¬â„¢s fighting for the liberty of the seas than in Great Britain ¢â‚¬â„¢s fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other nations ¢â‚¬â„¢ (54)
• UN humanitarian coordinators Halliday and Van Sponeck: if sanctions had not targeted the civilian population, Iraqis themselves might well have overthrown Saddam (74)
• Israel ¢â‚¬â„¢s plans for the West Bank are meant to lead to a patchwork of discontinuous walled-off Palestinian enclaves that reproduces the worst features of South Africa ¢â‚¬â„¢s apartheid Bantustans (82)
• In 1984 Nicaragua took its case against the US to the World Court in The Hague, which ordered the US to terminate the  ¢â‚¬Ëœunlawful use of force ¢â‚¬â„¢ (ie international terrorism) (90). Disregard for international law (applying the same standards to ourselves that we apply to others) is a point of pride for Bush ¢â‚¬â„¢s people (102-3). The US rarely ratifies human rights and other conventions, and when it does there is usually  ¢â‚¬“ maybe always  ¢â‚¬“ a reservation excluding itself. The Torture Convention was amended by the US Senate to make it more  ¢â‚¬Ëœinterrogation friendly ¢â‚¬â„¢ (108-9). When another nation ¢â‚¬â„¢s democracy clashes with other significant interests (eg. certain Latin American nations, the Hamas in Gaza etc.) it is downplayed or even ignored (115)
• In the 1960s the outburst of popular participation in democracy terrified sectors of privilege and power… leading to such candidates for the Presidency as Bush and Kerry being funded by concentrations of private power and creatures of the public relations industry (97)
• John Dewey: until industrial feudalism is replaced by industrial democracy, politics will remain the shadow cast by big business over society (108)
• Iraq: 69% of Shiites, 82% Sunnis in 2005 favored near-term US withdrawal (116)
• The UN ¢â‚¬â„¢s [Nuclear] Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty sought to block the dread threat of adding more nuclear bomb material to the vast amount already existing. The world in Nov 2004 voted in favor 147 to 1. The unilateral US vote was in fact a veto. The survival of the species apparently ranks lower on the US list of priorities (126). This threat is enhanced by Russia ¢â‚¬â„¢s early-warning system being in serious disrepair (127). Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell 50 years ago:  ¢â‚¬ËœShall we put an end to the human race or shall mankind renounce war? ¢â‚¬â„¢ (128)
• The US health system is one of the most inefficient in the industrialized world, with per capita costs far higher than other nations, and among the worst health outcomes. Health care is effectively rationed by wealth: enormous profits flow to the wealthy thanks to management practices geared to profit, not healthcare. About half of all US bankruptcies result from medical bills (131)
• A now-notorious leak From Blair ¢â‚¬â„¢s war-cabinet (July 23, 2002) of a memo by Sir Richard Dearlove, head of foreign intelligence, asserted that  ¢â‚¬Ëœthe intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy ¢â‚¬â„¢ of going to war in Iraq (134)
• US military expenditures approximate those of the rest of the world combined  ¢â‚¬“ they include 60% of all arms sales (up 25% 2002-2005) (137)Ex-president Jimmy Carter:  ¢â‚¬ËœThe US has abandoned past pledges and now threatens first use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states ¢â‚¬â„¢ (138)
• US terrorism specialist, Peter Bergen (Boston Globe): ‘ The president is right that Iraq is a main front in the war on terrorism, but this is a front we created’ (140)
• Emperor Hirohito of Japan: ‘[The war] was our sincere desire to ensure Japan’s self-preservation and the stabilization of East Asia.[not] to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark on territorial aggrandizement’ (142)
• For the US the enemy is ‘independent nationalism’  [any nation’s, particularly those in the Middle East and Latin America] especially when it threatens to become a ‘virus’ that might spread   contagion, to borrow Kissinger’s reference to democratic socialism in Chile after Allende was elected president in 1970. The virus therefore has to be extirpated, as it was, on September 11, 1973, a date often called ‘the first 9/11’ in Latin America. The official death toll of Chile’s 9/11 – 3200, the actual toll is commonly estimated at double that figure.In per capita terms – 50,000 – 100,000 in the US. Victims of hideous torture were later estimated at 30,000 (= 700,000 per capita in the US). (143-4)
• In 2002 Washington embraced President Bush’s vision of democracy by supporting a military coup that very briefly overturned the Chavez government in Venezuela. The Bush administration had to back down,however because of opposition to the coup throughout Latin America, and the quick reversal of the coup by a popular uprising (156)
• Fourteen years in a row (to 2004) the UN General Assembly voted against the US embargo against Cuba. The vote on the resolution: 182 to 4, the US, Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau, Micronesia abstained. In reality 182 to 1. (158)
• A poll for the British Ministry of Defense (August 2005), leaked to the press, found that 82% of Iraqis are ‘strongly’ opposed to the presence of coalition troops, and less than 1% believe they are responsible for any improvement in security… ‘We’re supposed to believe that the US would have invaded Iraq if it were an island in the Indian Ocean and its main export were pickles, not petroleum’ (162)
• After the terrible earthquake in Pakistan October 2005, Cuba provided the largest contingent of doctors and paramedics, paying all costs (perhaps with Venezuelan funding) – more than 1000 trained personnel, 44% of them women, who remained to work in remote mountain villages, ‘living in tents in freezing weather and in an alien culture’ after Western teams had been withdrawn’ (172)
• In 1976 the Ford Administration endorsed Iranian plans to build a massive nuclear energy industry, and also worked hard to complete a multi-billion dollar deal that would have given Tehran control of large quantities of plutonium and enriched uranium – the two pathways to a nuclear bomb. Bush II denounced these programs , but these denouncers were previously in key national security posts – Chaney,  Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz (182)
• For decades Israel captured or killed civilians in Lebanon or on the high seas, holding them in Israel for long periods, sometimes as hostages, sometimes in secret torture chambers like Camp 1391… After the capture of Corporal Gilad Shalit when Israel attacked Gaza, they destroyed a power plant to deprive the population of electricity, water, and sewage disposal… [plus] regular sonic booms at night to terrorize children (188)
• Polls during the July 2006 invasion of Lebanon by Israel revealed that 87% of Lebanese supported Hezbollah’s resistance, including 80% of Christians and Druze (190)
• The International Monetary Fund is virtually a branch of the US Treasury Department… Bolivia was an obedient student of the IMF for about 25 years and ended up with a per capita income lower than when it started (199)
• The real reason for the invasion: Iraq has the world’s second-largest oil reserves, very cheap to exploit, and is at the heart of the world’s major hydrocarbon resources (Chomsky repeats his key thesis about 10-15 times: here, p. 202)
• An article ‘Bombs over Cambodia’, in Walrus, Canada, October 2006, revealed that the bombing of Cambodia was five times as great as the incredible level reported earlier: meaning that the bombing of rural Cambodia exceeded the total bombing by allied forces in World War II. Civilian casualties drove an enraged populace into the arms of an insurgency that enjoyed relatively little support until the bombing began, setting in motion the rapid rise of the Khmer Rouge, and ultimately the Cambodian genocide (204)
• Respected British military historian Corelli Barnett: ‘An attack on Iran would effectively launch World War III’ (209)
• There are two categories of intellectuals: (a) conformist/subservient, technocratic/policy oriented – responsible, sober, constructive, and (b) ‘value-oriented’ intellectuals, a sinister group (!) which poses a threat to democracy as they ‘devote themselves to the derogation of leadership, the challenging of authority, and the unmasking of established institutions’ (cf the biblical prophets). [From a report by the 1975 study of the Trilateral Commission – liberal internationalists from the US, Europe and Japan, reflecting on the ‘crisis in democracy’   in the1960s, when normally passive and apathetic sectors of the population (the ‘special interests’) entered the political arena to advance their concerns]. (214-5)
• Throughout history [State] policy conforms to expressed ideals only if it also conforms to interests. The term ‘interests’ does not refer to the interests of the population, but to the ‘national interest’ – the interests of the concentrations of power that dominate the society. Public opinion has little or no significant effect on government officials (216-7)