Once more Chomsky the linguist cuts through the BS. Where will we be when he is no longer here to read for us?
REH ----- Original Message ----- From: "mcandreb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, January 18, 2003 2:07 PM Subject: [Futurework] FWD: recent Chomsky interview on Iraq > ZNet | Iraq > > Interview With Chomsky > > by Noam Chomsky; Schnews; December 28, 2002 > > Mark Thomas: If we can start with US foreign policy in relation to Iraq > and the War on Terror, what do you think is going on at the moment? > > Noam Chomsky: First of all I think we ought to be very cautious about > using the phrase 'War on Terror'. There can't be a War on Terror. It's a > logical impossibility. The US is one of the leading terrorist states in > the world. The guys who are in charge right now were all condemned for > terrorism by the World Court. They would have been condemned by the U.N. > Security Council except they vetoed the resolution, with Britain > abstaining of course. These guys can't be conducting a war on terror. > It's just out of the question. They declared a war on terror 20 years > ago and we know what they did. They destroyed Central America. They > killed a million and a half people in southern Africa. We can go on > through the list. So there's no 'War on Terror'. > > There was a terrorist act, September 11th, very unusual, a real historic > event, the first time in history that the west received the kind of > attack that it carries out routinely in the rest of the world. September > 11th did change policy undoubtedly, not just for the US, but across the > board. Every government in the world saw it as an opportunity to > intensify their own repression and atrocities, from Russia and Chechnya, > to the West imposing more discipline on their populations. > > This had big effects - for example take Iraq. Prior to September 11th, > there was a longstanding concern of the US toward Iraq - that is it has > the second largest oil reserves in the world. So one way or another the > US was going to do something to get it, that's clear. September 11th > gave the pretext. There's a change in the rhetoric concerning Iraq after > September 11th - 'We now have an excuse to go ahead with what we're > planning.' > > It kinda stayed like that up to September of this year when Iraq > suddenly shifted... to 'An imminent threat to our existence.' Condoleeza > Rice [US National Security Advisor] came out with her warning that the > next evidence of a nuclear weapon would be a mushroom cloud over New > York. There was a big media campaign with political figures - we needed > to destroy Saddam this winter or we'd all be dead. You've got to kind of > admire the intellectual classes not to notice that the only people in > the world who are afraid of Saddam Hussien are Americans. Everybody > hates him and Iraqis are undoubtedly afraid of him, but outside of Iraq > and the United States, no one's afraid of him. Not Kuwait, not Iran, not > Israel, not Europe. They hate him, but they're not afraid of him. > > In the United States people are very much afraid, there's no question > about it. The support you see in US polls for the war is very thin, but > it's based on fear. It's an old story in the United States. When my kids > were in elementary school 40 years ago they were taught to hide under > desks in case of an atom bomb attack. I'm not kidding. The country is > always in fear of everything. Crime for example: Crime in the United > States is roughly comparable with other industrial societies, towards > the high end of the spectrum. On the other hand, fear of crime is way > beyond other industrial societies... > > It's very consciously engendered. These guys now in office, remember > they're almost entirely from the 1980s. They've been through it already > and they know exactly how to play the game. Right through the 1980s they > periodically had campaigns to terrify the population. > > To create fear is not that hard, but this time the timing was so > obviously for the Congressional campaign that even political > commentators got the message. The presidential campaign is going to be > starting in the middle of next year. They've got to have a victory under > their belt. And on to the next adventure. Otherwise, the population's > going to pay attention to what's happening to them, which is a big > assault, a major assault on the population, just as in the 1980s. > They're replaying the record almost exactly. First thing they did in the > 1980s, in 1981, was drive the country into a big deficit. This time they > did it with a tax cut for the rich and the biggest increase in federal > spending in 20 years. > > This happens to be an unusually corrupt administration, kind of like an > Enron administration, so there's a tremendous amount of profit going > into the hands of an unusually corrupt group of gangsters. You can't > really have all this stuff on the front pages, so you have to push it > off the front pages. You have to keep people from thinking about it. And > there's only one way that anybody ever figured out to frighten people > and they're good at it. > > So there's domestic political factors that have to do with timing. > September 11th gave the pretext and there's a long term, serious > interest [in Iraq]. So they've gotta go to war... my speculation would > be that they would like to have it over with before the presidential > campaign. > > The problem is that when you're in a war, you don't know what's going to > happen. The chances are it'll be a pushover, it ought to be, there's no > Iraqi army, the country will probably collapse in two minutes, but you > can't be sure of that. If you take the CIA warnings seriously, they're > pretty straight about it. They're saying that if there's a war, Iraq may > respond with terrorist acts. > > US adventurism is just driving countries into developing weapons of mass > destruction as a deterrent - they don't have any other deterrent. > Conventional forces don't work obviously, there's no external deterrent. > The only way anyone can defend themselves is with terror and weapons of > mass destruction. So it's plausible to assume that they're doing it. I > suppose that's the basis for the CIA analysis and I suppose the British > intelligence are saying the same thing. > > But you don't want to have that happen in the middle of a presidential > campaign... There is the problem about what to do with the effects of > the war, but that's easy. You count on journalists and intellectuals not > to talk about it. How many people are talking about Afghanistan? > Afghanistan's back where it was, run by warlords and gangsters and who's > writing about it? Almost nobody. If it goes back to what it was no one > cares, everyone's forgotten about it. > > If Iraq turns into people slaughtering each other, I could write the > articles right now. 'Backward people, we tried to save them but they > want to murder each other because they're dirty Arabs.' By then, I > presume, I'm just guessing, they [the US] will be onto the next war, > which will probably be either Syria or Iran. > > The fact is that war with Iran is probably underway. It's known that > about 12% of the Israeli airforce is in south eastern Turkey. They're > there because they're preparing for the war against Iran. They don't > care about Iraq. Iraq they figure's a pushover, but Iran has always been > a problem for Israel. It's the one country in the region that they can't > handle and they've been after the US to take it on for years. According > to one report, the Israeli airforce is now flying at the Iranian border > for intelligence, provocation and so on. And it's not a small airforce. > It's bigger than the British airforce, bigger than any NATO power other > than the US. So it's probably underway. There are claims that there are > efforts to stir up Azeri separatism, which makes some sense. It's what > the Russians tried to do in 1946, and that would separate Iran, or > what's left of Iran, from the Caspian oil producing centres. Then you > could partition it. That will probably be underway at the time and then > there'll be a story about how Iran's going to kill us tomorrow, so we > need to get rid of them today. At least that's been the pattern. > > Campaign Against Arms Trade: How far do you see the vast military > production machine that is America requiring war as an advertisement for > their equipment? > > Chomsky: You have to remember that what's called military industry is > just hi-tech industry. The military is a kind of cover for the state > sector in the economy. At MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] > where I am, everybody knows this except maybe for some economists. > Everybody else knows it because it pays their salaries. The money comes > into places like MIT under military contract to produce the next > generation of the hi-tech economy. If you take a look at what's called > the new economy - computers, internet - it comes straight out of places > like MIT under federal contracts for research and development under the > cover of military production. Then it gets handed to IBM when you can > sell something. > > At MIT the surrounding area used to have small electronics firms. Now it > has small biotech firms. The reason is that the next cutting edge of the > economy is going to be biology based. So funding from the government for > biology based research is vastly increasing. If you want to have a small > start-up company that will make you a huge amount of money when somebody > buys it someday, you do it in genetic engineering, biotechnology and so > on. This goes right through history. It's usually a dynamic state sector > that gets economies going. > > One of the reasons the US wants to control the oil is because profits > flow back, and they flow in a lot of ways. Its not just oil profits, > it's also military sales. The biggest purchaser of US arms and probably > British arms is either Saudi Arabia or United Arab Emirates, one of the > rich oil producers. They take most of the arms and that's profits for > hi- tech industry in the Unites States. The money goes right back to the > US treasury and treasury securities. In various ways, this helps prop up > primarily the US and British economies. > > I don't know if you've looked at the records, but in 1958 when Iraq > broke the Anglo-American condominium on oil production, Britain went > totally crazy. The British at that time were still very reliant on > Kuwaiti profits. Britain needed the petrodollars for supporting the > British economy and it looked as if what happened in Iraq might spread > to Kuwait. So at that point Britain and the US decided to grant Kuwait > nominal autonomy, up to then it was just a colony. They said you can run > your own post office, pretend you have a flag, that sort of thing. The > British said that if anything goes wrong with this we will ruthlessly > intervene to ensure maintaining control and the US agreed to the same > thing in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. > > CAAT: There's also the suggestion that it's a way of America controlling > Europe and the Pacific rim. > > Chomsky: Absolutely. The smarter guys like George Kennen were pointing > out that control over the energy resources of the middle east gives the > US what he called 'veto power' over other countries. He was thinking > particularly of Japan. Now the Japanese know this perfectly well so > they've been working very hard to try to gain independent access to oil, > that's one of the reasons they've tried hard, and succeeded to an > extent, to establish relations with Indonesia and Iran and others, to > get out of the West-controlled system. > > Actually one of the purposes of the [post World War II] Marshall Plan, > this great benevolent plan, was to shift Europe and Japan from coal to > oil. Europe and Japan both had indigenous coal resources but they > switched to oil in order to give the US control. About $2bn out of the > $13bn Marshall Plan dollars went straight to the oil companies to help > convert Europe and Japan to oil based economies. For power, it's > enormously significant to control the resources and oil's expected to be > the main resource for the next couple of generations. > > The National Intelligence Council, which is a collection of various > intelligence agencies, published a projection in 2000 called 'Global > Trends 2015.' They make the interesting prediction that terrorism is > going to increase as a result of globalisation. They really say it > straight. They say that what they call globalisation is going to lead to > a widening economic divide, just the opposite of what economic theory > predicts, but they're realists, and so they say that it's going to lead > to increased disorder, tension and hostility and violence, a lot of it > directed against the United States. > > They also predict that Persian Gulf oil will be increasingly important > for world energy and industrial systems but that the US won't rely on > it. But it's got to control it. Controlling the oil resources is more of > an issue than access. Because control equals power. > > MT: How do you think the current anti-war movement that's building up > compares with Vietnam? What do you think we can achieve as people > involved in direct action and protest? Do you think there's a > possibility of preventing a war from occurring? > > NC: I think that's really hard because the timing is really short. You > can make it costly, which is important. Even if it doesn't stop, it's > important for the war to be costly to try to stop the next one. > > Compared with the Vietnam War movement, this movement is just > incomparably ahead now. People talk about the Vietnam War movement, but > they forget or don't know what it was actually like. The war in Vietnam > started in 1962, publicly, with a public attack on South Vietnam - air > force, chemical warfare, concentration camps, the whole business. No > protest... the protest that did build up four or five years later was > mostly about the bombing of the North, which was terrible but was a > sideshow. The main attack was against South Vietnam and there was never > any serious protest against that. > > This time there's protest before the war has even got started. I can't > think of an example in the entire history of Europe, including the > United States, when there was ever protest of any substantial level > before a war. Here you've got massive protest before war's even started. > It's a tremendous tribute to changes in popular culture that have taken > place in Western countries in the last 30 or 40 years. It's just > phenomenal. > > SchNEWS: It sometimes seems that as soon as protest breaks out of quite > narrow confines, a march every six months maybe, you get attacked. > People protesting against the war recently in Brighton were pepper > sprayed and batoned for just sitting down in a street. > > Chomsky: The more protest there is the more tightening there's going to > be, that's routine. When the Vietnam War protests really began to build > up, so did the repression. I was very close to a long jail sentence > myself and it was stopped by the Tet Offensive. After the Tet Offensive, > the establishment turned against the war and they called off the trials. > Right now a lot of people could end up in Guantanamo Bay and people are > aware of it. > > If there's protest in a country then there's going to be repression. Can > they get away with it? - it depends a lot on the reaction. In the early > 50s in the US, there was what was called Macarthyism and the only reason > it succeeded was that there was no resistance to it. When they tried the > same thing in the 60s it instantly collapsed because people simply > laughed at it so they couldn't do it. Even a dictatorship can't do > everything it wants. It's got to have some degree of popular support. > And in a more democratic country, there's a very fragile power system. > There's nothing secret about this, it's history. The question in all of > these things is how much popular resistance there's going to be. > > * This is an edited version. If you want to see the whole video, contact > Undercurrents 01865 203661, [EMAIL PROTECTED] . > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
