-Caveat Lector- [Here Chomsky confirms what was claimed by Larouche in "P2 and CIA-Sponsored "Terrorism" in Italy," from http://www.totse.com/files/FA020/p2masons.htm: "Italian probe could mean new woes for Oliver North." "Deterring Democracy" by Noam Chomsky Chapter 11: Democracy in the Industrial Societies >From Z Magazine, January 1989 No belief concerning U.S. foreign policy is more deeply entrenched than the one expressed by New York Times diplomatic correspondent Neil Lewis, quoted earlier: "The yearning to see American-style democracy duplicated throughout the world has been a persistent theme in American foreign policy." The thesis is commonly not even expressed, merely presupposed as the basis for reasonable discourse on the U.S. role in the world. The faith in this doctrine may seem surprising. Even a cursory inspection of the historical record reveals that a persistent theme in American foreign policy has been the subversion and overthrow of parliamentary regimes, and the resort to violence to destroy popular organizations that might offer the majority of the population an opportunity to enter the political arena. Nevertheless, there is a sense in which the conventional doctrine is tenable. If by "American-style democracy," we mean a political system with regular elections but no serious challenge to business rule, then U.S. policymakers doubtless yearn to see it established throughout the world. The doctrine is therefore not undermined by the fact that it is consistently violated under a different interpretation of the concept of democracy: as a system in which citizens may play some meaningful part in the management of public affairs. This framework of analysis of policy and its ideological image is well confirmed as a good first approximation. Adopting the basic outline, we do not expect that the United States will consistently oppose parliamentary forms. On the contrary, these will be accepted, even preferred, if the fundamental conditions are met. 1. The Preference for Democracy In the client states of the Third World, the preference for democratic forms is often largely a matter of public relations. But where the society is stable and privilege is secure, other factors enter. Business interests have an ambiguous attitude towards the state. They want it to subsidize research and development, production and export (the Pentagon system, much of the foreign aid program, etc.), regulate markets, ensure a favorable climate for business operations abroad, and in many other ways to serve as a welfare state for the wealthy. But they do not want the state to have the power to interfere with the prerogatives of owners and managers. The latter concern leads to support for democratic forms, as long as business dominance of the political system is secure. If a country satisfies certain basic conditions, then, the U.S. is tolerant of democratic forms, though in the Third World, where a proper outcome is hard to guarantee, often just barely. But relations with the industrial world show clearly that the U.S. government is not opposed to democratic forms as such. In the stable business-dominated Western democracies, we would not expect the U.S. to carry out programs of subversion, terror, or military assault as has been common in the Third World. There may be some exceptions. Thus, there is evidence of CIA involvement in a virtual coup that overturned the Whitlam Labor government in Australia in 1975, when it was feared that Whitlam might interfere with Washington's military and intelligence bases in Australia. Large-scale CIA interference in Italian politics has been public knowledge since the congressional Pike Report was leaked in 1976, citing a figure of over $65 million to approved political parties and affiliates from 1948 through the early 1970s. In 1976, the Aldo Moro government fell in Italy after revelations that the CIA had spent $6 million to support anti-Communist candidates. At the time, the European Communist parties were moving towards independence of action with pluralistic and democratic tendencies (Eurocommunism), a development that pleased neither Washington nor Moscow, Raymond Garthoff observes, neither of which may "have wanted to see an independent pan-Europe based on local nationalism arise between them." For such reasons, both superpowers opposed the legalization of the Communist Party of Spain and the rising influence of the Communist Party in Italy, and both preferred center-right governments in France. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger described the "major problem" in the Western alliance as "the domestic evolution in many European countries," which might make Western communist parties more attractive to the public, nurturing moves towards independence and threatening the NATO alliance. "The United States gave a higher priority to the defensive purpose of protecting the Western alliance and American influence in it than to offensive interests in weakening Soviet influence in the East" in those years, Garthoff concludes in his comprehensive study of the period; the phrase "defensive purpose of protecting the Western alliance" refers to the defense of existing privilege from an internal challenge. This was the context for renewed CIA interference with Italian elections, and possibly a good deal more. In July 1990, President Cossiga of Italy called for an investigation of charges aired over state television that the CIA had paid Licio Gelli to foment terrorist activities in Italy in the late 1960s and 1970s. Gelli was grandmaster of the secret Propaganda Due (P2) Masonic lodge and had long been suspected of a leading role in terrorism and other criminal activities. In those years, according to a 1984 report of the Italian Parliament, P2 and other neofascist groups, working closely with elements of the Italian military and secret services, were preparing a virtual coup to impose an ultra-right regime and to block the rising forces of the left. One aspect of these plans was a "strategy of tension" involving major terrorist actions in Europe. The new charges were made by Richard Brenneke*, who claims to have served as a CIA contract officer, and who alleged that the CIA-P2 connections extended over more than 20 years and involved a $10 million payoff. Close links between Washington and the Italian ultra-right can be traced to the strong support for Mussolini's fascist takeover in 1922. Nevertheless, the pattern has been one of general support for the industrial democracies. The historical evidence, to be sure, must be evaluated with some care. It is one thing to overthrow the democratic government of Guatemala and to maintain the rule of an array of murderous gangsters for over three decades, or to help lay the groundwork for a coup and successful mass slaughter in Indonesia. It would be quite a different matter to duplicate these successes in relatively well-established societies; U.S. power does not reach that far. Still, it would be a mistake to suppose that only lack of means prevents the United States from overturning democratic governments in the industrial societies in favor of military dictatorships or death squad democracies on the Latin American model. The aftermath of World War II is revealing in these respects. With unprecedented economic and military advantages, the U.S. was preparing to become the first truly global power. There are extensive records of the careful thinking of corporate and state managers as they designed a world order that would conform to the interests they represent. While subject to varying interpretations, the evidence nonetheless provides interesting insight into the complex attitudes of U.S. elites towards democracy at a time when the U.S. was in a position to influence the internal order of the industrial societies. __________________________ *Brenneke, TG 1 (Italian TV), July 2; "il Manifesto," July 3, 1990. AP, Boston Globe, July 23, 1990. On U.S.-Italian covert relations in the 1970s and the P2-security services plans, see Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead, "The Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection" (Sheridan Square, 1986), chapter 4. As they observe, extensive right-wing terrorism in Europe has been largely ignored in the general literature of terrorology, much of it a transparent propaganda exercise. Also William Blum, "The CIA" (Zed, 1986). On the early postwar years, see also John Ranelagh, "The Agency: the Rise and Decline of the CIA" (Simon and Schuster, 1986). On the U.S. and Mussolini, and the quick return by the Allies to a pro-Fascist stance during the War, see chapter 1, section 4, above. Brenneke had achieved some notoriety out of the mainstream when he claimed that while working for the CIA, he had taken part in an October 1980 meeting in Paris in which representatives of the Reagan-Bush campaign, including later CIA chief William Casey, Bush aide Donald Gregg, and possibly Bush himself, had bribed Iran to hold the U.S. hostages until after the election, to ensure Reagan's victory. The government brought him to court (directly from a cardiac intensive care ward) to try him on charges of having falsely made these claims. He was acquitted in Federal Court of these and other charges by a jury "that made no secret of its disbelief in the truthfulness of government witnesses, particularly Gregg," ex-CIA agent David MacMichael observes -- noting also that the whole matter was virtually suppressed in the national media; "Lies of Our Times," August 1990. In the independent press, the story was covered (Houston Post, Nation, "In These Times," and others). _______________________________ 2. The General Outlines Taking as general background the sketch in chapter 1, section 5, let us turn to the central concern of global planners as they confronted the problem of reconstructing a world ravaged by war: the industrial societies that were to be at the core of the world system. What can we learn from this experience about the concept of democracy as understood by the architects of the new global order and their inheritors? One problem that arose as areas were liberated from fascism was that traditional elites had been discredited, while prestige and influence had been gained by the resistance movement, based largely on groups responsive to the working class and poor, and often committed to some version of radical democracy. The basic quandary was articulated by Churchill's trusted adviser, South African Prime Minister Jan Christiaan Smuts, in 1943, with regard to southern Europe: "With politics let loose among those peoples," he said, "we might have a wave of disorder and wholesale Communism." Here the term "disorder" is understood as threat to the interests of the privileged, and "Communism," in accordance with usual convention, refers to failure to interpret "democracy" as elite dominance, whatever the other commitments of the "Communists" may be. With politics let loose, we face a "crisis of democracy," as privileged sectors have always understood. Quite apart from the superpower confrontation, the United States was committed to restoring the traditional conservative order. To achieve this aim, it was necessary to destroy the anti-fascist resistance, often in favor of Nazi and fascist collaborators, to weaken unions and other popular organizations, and to block the threat of radical democracy and social reform, which were live options under the conditions of the time. These policies were pursued worldwide: in Asia, including South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Indochina, and crucially Japan; in Europe, including Greece, Italy, France, and crucially Germany; in Latin America, including what the CIA took to be the most severe threats at the time, "radical nationalism" in Guatemala and Bolivia. Sometimes the task required considerable brutality. In South Korea, about 100,000 people were killed in the late 1940s by security forces installed and directed by the United States. This was before the Korean war, which Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings describe as "in essence" a phase -- marked by massive outside intervention -- in "a civil war fought between two domestic forces: a revolutionary nationalist movement, which had its roots in tough anti-colonial struggle, and a conservative movement tied to the status quo, especially to an unequal land system," restored to power under the U.S. occupation. In Greece in the same years, hundreds of thousands were killed, tortured, imprisoned or expelled in the course of a counterinsurgency operation, organized and directed by the United States, which restored traditional elites to power, including Nazi collaborators, and suppressed the peasant- and worker-based Communist-led forces that had fought the Nazis. In the industrial societies, the same essential goals were realized, but by less violent means. In brief, at that moment in history the United States faced the classic dilemma of Third World intervention in large parts of the industrial world as well. The U.S. position was "politically weak" though militarily and economically strong. Tactical choices are determined by an assessment of strengths and weaknesses. The preference has, quite naturally, been for the arena of force and for measures of economic warfare and strangulation, where the U.S. has ruled supreme. In the early post-war period, this was a global problem. Tactical choices largely observed these general conditions, adapted to particular circumstances. These topics are central to a serious understanding of the contemporary world. The actual history can be discovered in specialized studies devoted to particular instances of what was, in fact, a highly systematic pattern. But it is not readily available to the general public, which is offered a very different version of the general picture and particular cases within it. Take the case of Greece, the first major postwar intervention and a model for much that followed. The U.S. and world market are flooded with such material as the best-selling novel and film "Eleni" by Nicholas Gage, reporting the horrors of the Communist-led resistance. But Greek or even American scholarship that gives a radically different picture, and seriously questions the authenticity even of Gage's special case, is unknown. In England, an independent TV channel attempted in 1986 to allow the voices of the Communist-led anti-Nazi Greek resistance, defeated by the postwar British and American campaigns, to be heard for the first time, to present their perception of these events. This effort evoked a hysterical establishment response, calling for suppression of this "one-sided" picture inconsistent with the official doctrine that had hitherto reigned unchallenged. The former head of British political intelligence in Athens, Tom McKitterick, supported the broadcast, observing that "for years we have been treated to a one-sided picture, and the series was a brave attempt to restore the balance." But the establishment counterattack prevailed in an impressive display of the totalitarian mentality and its power in the liberal West. The documentary was barred from rebroadcast or overseas marketing, particularly in Greece, only one example of a long history of suppression. In the international system envisioned by U.S. planners, the industrial powers were to reconstruct, essentially restoring the traditional order and barring any challenge to business dominance, but now taking their places within a world system regulated by the United States. This world system was to take the form of state-guided liberal internationalism, secured by U.S. power to bar interfering forces and managed through military expenditures, which proved to be a critical factor stimulating industrial recovery. The global system was designed to guarantee the needs of U.S. investors, who were expected to flourish under the prevailing circumstances. This was a plausible expectation at the time, and one that was amply fulfilled. It was not until the late 1950s that Europe, primarily the Federal Republic of Germany, became a significant factor in world production and trade. And until the Vietnam war shifted the structure of the world economy to the benefit of its industrial rivals, the problem faced by the U.S. government with regard to Japan was how to ensure the viability of its economy. Highly profitable foreign investment rapidly grew and transnational corporations, primarily U.S.-based in the earlier period, expanded and flourished. 4. The "Great Workshops": Germany Germany posed many of the same problems, compounded by four-power control. After the consolidation of the three Western zones in 1947, the U.S. began to move towards the partition of Germany. These steps were undertaken at the same time as the reverse course in Japan, and for similar reasons. One reason was the fear of democracy, understood in the sense of popular participation. Eugene Rostow argued in 1947 that "the Russians are much better equipped than we are to play the game in Germany," referring to the "political game"; therefore we must prevent the game from being played. Kennan had noted a year earlier that a unified Germany would be vulnerable to Soviet POLITICAL penetration, so we must "endeavor to rescue Western zones of Germany by walling them off against Eastern penetration" -- a nice image -- "and integrating them into an international pattern of Western Europe rather than into a united Germany," in violation of wartime agreements. Like George Marshall and Dean Acheson, and knowledgeable analysts generally, Kennan did not expect a Soviet military attack, but rather "described the imbalance in Russian `political power' rather than `military power' as the immediate risk faced by the United States" (Schaller). The main problem, again, was the labor movement and other popular organizations that threatened conservative business dominance. Surveying the declassified record, Carolyn Eisenberg concludes that the fear -- indeed "horror" -- was "a unified, centralized, politicized labor movement committed to a far-reaching program of social change." After the war, German workers began to form works councils and trade unions, and to develop co-determination in industry and democratic grass roots control of unions. The State Department and its U.S. labor associates were appalled by these moves towards democracy in the unions and the larger society, with all the problems these developments would pose for the plan to restore the corporate- controlled economic order ("democracy"). The problem was heightened by the fact that in the Soviet zone, semi-autonomous works councils had been established which exercised a degree of managerial authority in de-Nazified enterprises. The British Foreign Office also feared "economic and ideological infiltration" from the East, which it perceived as "something very like aggression." It preferred a divided Germany, incorporating the wealthy Ruhr/Rhine industrial complex within the Western alliance, to a united Germany in which "the balance of advantage seems to lie with the Russians," who could exercise "the stronger pull." In interdepartmental meetings of the British government in April 1946, the respected official Sir Orme Sargent described moves towards establishing a separate Western Germany within a Western bloc as necessary, though it was agreed that they might lead to war: "the only alternative to [partition] was Communism on the Rhine," with the likely eventuality of "a German Government that would be under Communist influence." In the major scholarly monograph on the British role, Anne Deighton describes his intervention as of "critical" significance. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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