Znet June 2, 2003
ANDY CLARKHello and welcome to Amsterdam Forum - Radio Netherlands' interactive discussion programme.Today a special edition featuring the world-famous author and political activist Noam Chomsky.Professor Chomsky, once described by the New York Times as arguably the most important intellectual alive, is an outspoken critic of US foreign policy. He says, following the war in Iraq, the US is seeking to dominate the world by force, a dimension in which it rules supreme. And he warns this policy will lead to proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terror attacks based on a loathing of the US administration. He says the very survival of the species may be at stake.Well professor Chomsky joins us to take questions from our listeners around the world. Welcome professor Chomsky.The first e-mail is from Norberto Silva, from the Cape Verde islands, and he says: "Could the USA and president Bush lead the world into a nuclear war with their policy of pre-emptive attacks?"NOAM CHOMSKYThey very definitely could. First of all we should be clear - it is not a policy of pre-emptive attacks. Pre-emption means something in international law. A pre-emptive attack is one that is taken in the case of an imminent, on-going threat. For example, if planes were flying across the Atlantic to bomb New York, it would be legitimate for the US Air Force to shoot them down. That's a pre-emptive attack. This is what is sometimes called preventive war. That's a new doctrine that was announced last September in the National Security Strategy. It declares the right to attack any potential challenge to the global dominance of the United States. The potential is in the eye of the observer, so that, in effect, gives the authorisation to attack essentially anyone. Could that lead to a nuclear war? Very definitely. We've come very close in the past. Just last October, for example, it was discovered, to the shock and horror of those who paid attention, that, during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the world was literally one word away from probably terminal nuclear war. Russian submarines with nuclear weapons were under attack by US destroyers. Several commanders thought a nuclear war was on, and gave the order to shoot nuclear missiles. It was countermanded by one officer. That's why we're around to talk. There have been plenty of such cases since.ANDY CLARKAre we in a more dangerous situation now, with this preventive doctrine in place?NOAM CHOMSKYSure. The preventive war doctrine is virtually an invitation to potential targets to develop some kind of deterrent, and there are only two kinds of deterrent. One is weapons of mass destruction, the other is large-scale terror. That's been pointed out over and over again by strategic analysts, the intelligence agencies and so on, so sure, it raises the danger that something will get out of control.ANDY CLARK This email is from Don Rhodes, from Melbourne, in Australia, and he says: "I do not believe that the US wants to dominate the world. The Americans have been attacked on several fronts, 9/11 being only one of them. Someone has to bring into line rogue states and it is the USA alone that has the capability to do this. Without such a 'world policeman' the world would just disintegrate into warring factions. Look at history for examples of this." What do you make of that sort of statement?NOAM CHOMSKY The first sentence is simply factually incorrect. The National Security Strategy states fairly explicitly that the US intends to dominate the world by force, which is the dimension in which it rules supreme, and to ensure that there is never any potential challenge to this domination. That was not only stated explicitly, it has also been commented on repeatedly, right away in the main establishment - the Foreign Affairs journal in its next issue is pointing out that the United States is declaring the right to be what it calls a "revisionist state", which will use force to control the world in its own interests. The person who sent the email may believe that the US has some unique right to run the world by force. I don't believe that, and contrary to what was stated I don't think history supports that at all. In fact the US record, incidentally with the support of Australia, since the period of its global dominance in the 1940s, is one of instigating war and violence and terror on a very substantial scale. The Indochina War, just to take one example in which Australia participated, was basically a war of aggression. The United States attacked South Vietnam in 1962. The war then spread to the rest of Indochina. The end result was several million people killed, the countries devastated, and that's only one example. So history does not support the conclusion and the principle that one state should have a unique right to rule the world by force. That's an extremely hazardous principle, no matter who the country is.ANDY CLARK This is from Noel Collamer, from Bellingham, in Washington, in the USA, and he writes: "Noam says: 'The Bush administration intends to dominate the world by force, the one dimension in which it rules supreme, and to do so permanently.' To this I ask, if we, who can, do not act with force against tyrants, then what does he suggest be done? That the brutalized populace should use non-violent resistance against their tyrant even though this will result in their own genocide?"NOAM CHOMSKY First of all - I don't say that, the Bush administration says it. I'm simply repeating what is stated quite explicitly, and that's not particularly controversial. As I mentioned, it was commented on, essentially in those words, in the first issue of Foreign Affairs immediately afterwards. As for countries suffering under tyranny - yes, it would be very good if somebody would help and support them. Take for example the current administration in Washington. They themselves - remember, these are mostly re-cycled Reaganites - they supported a series of monstrous dictators, who subjected their populations to vicious tyranny, including Saddam Hussein, Ceausescu, Suharto, Marcos, Duvalier. It's quite a long list. The best way to deal with that would have been to stop supporting them. Incidentally, support for terror and violence continues. The best way to stop it is to stop supporting them. Often, in fact in every one of those cases, they were overthrown by their own populations, even though the US was supporting the dictator. Ceausescu, for example, was a tyrant perfectly comparable to Saddam Hussein. He was overthrown in 1989 by his own population, while he was being supported by the current incumbents in Washington, and that continues. If there are people resisting oppression and violence, we should find ways to support them, and the easiest way is to stop supporting the tyrants. After that, complicated issues arise. There is no record, that I know of, of the US, or any other state - [there are] very rare examples - intervening to try to prevent oppression and violence. That's extremely rare.ANDY CLARKOK, another email. This is from H.P. Velten, who is from New Jersey, in the USA, and he says: "Why isn't there more controversy about Bush's motives in the US media?"NOAM CHOMSKY Well, actually there is plenty of controversy. One thing that was quite striking about the war in Iraq and the National Security Strategy, which is the framework for it, was that is was very strongly criticised, right at the core of the foreign policy elite - it was sharply criticised in the two major foreign affairs journals, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which rarely takes a position on current controversial issues, had a monograph condemning it. There's a whole series of other articles. It's partly reflected in the media, but not very much, because remember, the media tend to be quite supportive of power, for all sorts of reasons.ANDY CLARK OK, another email. This is from Rijswijk, in The Netherlands, from M.J. "Bob" Groothand. This message says: "Throughout history some nations have always tried to rule the world. Most recently Germany, Japan and Russia come to mind. If the US is now the latest 'would-be conqueror' then we can thank our lucky stars. It would be done with decency and honour for all mankind. The fact is that nothing like this is being considered by Bush or the American government. You forget that the US has a constitution and, unlike Stalin, Hitler, Hussein and other despots, Bush is up for re-election in two years and American voters are not dumb nor are they oppressed or intimidated. It's a secret ballot." Will electoral accountability rein in the US government, do you think, as this listener suggests?NOAM CHOMSKY First of all, the account of history is mostly fanciful, but let's put that aside. The fact that a country has a constitution and is internally democratic does not mean that it does not carry out violence and aggression. There is a long history of this. England, for example, was perhaps the most free country in the world in the 19th century and was carrying out horrifying atrocities throughout much of the world, and the case of the United States is similar. The record goes back very far. The United States was a democratic country, for example, when it invaded the Philippines a century ago, killing several hundred thousand people and leaving it devastated. It was a democratic country in the 1980s, when the current incumbents in Washington carried out a devastating war of terror in Nicaragua, leaving tens of thousands dead and the country practically ruined, an attack for which they incidentally were condemned by the World Court and the Security Council in a veto-ed resolution, but then escalated the attack, and so it continues. As to the democratic election, yes, true, there is an election, and the Republicans have explained very clearly how they intend to overcome the fact that their policies are pretty strongly opposed by the majority of the population. They intend to overcome it by driving the country into fear and panic, so that they will huddle under the umbrella of a powerful figure who will protect them. In fact, we've just seen that last September when the Security Strategy was announced and the drumbeat of propaganda for war began. There was a government media propaganda campaign, which was quite spectacular. It succeeded in convincing the majority of the population that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the security of the United States. No-one else believed that. Even Kuwait and Iran, where they despise him, didn't regard him as a threat. They knew he was the weakest country in the region. It also succeeded in convincing probably the majority of the population that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, in fact instigated it and carried it out, and was planning further attacks. Again, there isn't a particle of evidence for this, and there is no intelligence agency or security analyst in the world who believes it.ANDY CLARKWhere is the political opposition in the US then - the Democrats? Why don't they seek to make inroads into the Republican camp? Obviously, there is a substantial peace movement - we saw hundreds of thousands of people on the streets in the US who were opposed to the military action. Where is the political opposition in the US now?NOAM CHOMSKY The Democratic political opposition is very tepid. There has been very little debate, traditionally, over foreign policy issues. That's recognised right in the mainstream. Political figures are reluctant to put themselves in a position where they can be condemned as calling for the destruction of the United States and supporting its enemies and presenting fantasies, and be subjected to fantasies of the kind that in fact were included in that email. Politicians are unwilling to subject themselves to that, and the result is that the voice of a large portion of the population simply is barely represented, and the Republicans recognise it. Karl Rove, the Republican campaign manager, made it clear before the last election in 2002 that the Republicans would have to try to run the election on a security issue, because if they faced it on issues of domestic policy they would lose. So they frightened the population into obedience, and he has already announced that they are going to have to do the same thing next time in the 2004 election. They are going to have to present it as voting for a war president who will defend you from destruction. Incidentally, they are simply rehearsing a script that runs right through the 1980s, the first time they were in office - the same people, approximately. If you look, the policies they implemented were unpopular. The population was opposed, but they kept pressing the panic button, and it worked. In 1981 Libya was going to attack us. In 1983 Grenada was going to set up an airbase from which the Russians would bomb us. In 1985 Reagan declared a national emergency because the security of the United States was threatened by the government of Nicaragua. Somebody watching from Mars would have collapsed in laughter. And so it went on through the 1980s. They managed to keep the population intimidated and frightened enough so that they could maintain a thin grasp on political power, and that's the effort since. They didn't invent that tactic, incidentally, but it unfortunately has its effects, and political figures and others are reluctant to stand up and face the torrent of abuse and hysteria that will immediately come from trying to bring matters back to the level of fact.ANDY CLARKOK, another email. This is from Boris Karaman, from Wyoming in the USA, and he says: "Peace can only come from strength and often comes after a just war. The Pax Romana resulted from the strength of the Roman Empire, not from any pacifist ideology. There is more to criticize in U.S. history when we failed to act soon enough. As examples, Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot rose to power because of a lack of aggression against them. Your criticisms of a power-based approach to foreign policy are either naive or disingenuous. Those who act against threats make possible a world where arrogant leftists enjoy the freedom of speech to exhibit their errors in reasoning. Long may it be so. Peace to you, but peace through strength." What do you make of that email?NOAM CHOMSKY Well, we can begin by looking at the facts. Take, say, Hitler. Hitler did rise to power with the support of the United States and Britain. As late as 1937, the State Department was describing Hitler as a moderate standing between the extremes of right and left, who we must support, or else the masses of the population might take power and move in a leftist direction. In fact, the United States did not enter the war until it was attacked by Japan, and Germany declared war on the United States. In the case of Stalin, the United States didn't bring him to power, and they also didn't particularly oppose him. As late as 1948, Harry Truman, the president, was stating that he thought Stalin was a decent man, who was honest, [but] being misled by his advisers, and so on and so forth. In the case of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge developed in the early 1970s - they were virtually unknown in 1970 - and they developed in the context of a massive US bombing campaign in Cambodia. About 600,000 people died, according to the CIA, but it helped energise a fierce, vicious resistance, which took over in 1975. After it took over, the United States did nothing to try to stop it, but when Vietnam did eliminate Pol Pot, in 1978-1979, by invading and driving him out, Vietnam was bitterly attacked by the United States for the crime of getting rid of Pol Pot. The US supported a Chinese invasion to punish Vietnam, and imposed harsh sanctions on them, and in fact turned to direct support of the remnants of the Pol Pot armies in Thailand. So, if you want to talk about history, get it straight. Then we can start with the tirades.ANDY CLARKDo you think there is a point where force can be justified? We heard a lot of arguments about the Iraq war - that this was the lesser of two evils. The recent history of Iraq was well-known, but now it was a stage whereby something had to be done to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Lots of Iraqi people themselves - within the country - seemed to support that argument.NOAM CHOMSKY First of all, we don't know that Iraqis were calling out to be invaded, but if that was the goal, what was the point of all the lying? What you are saying is that Tony Blair, George Bush, Colin Powell and the rest are fanatic liars - they were pretending until the last minute that the goal was to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. If the goal was to liberate the Iraqi people, why not say so? Why the lies?ANDY CLARK President Bush did say that in the very last weeks [before the war]. He started talking about a war of liberation.NOAM CHOMSKY At the last minute, at the Azores summit, he said that, even if Saddam Hussein and his associates leave the country, the United States is going to invade anyway - meaning the US wants to control it. Now, in fact, there is a serious issue behind this. It has nothing to do with liberating the Iraqi people. You might ask the question why Iraqis did not overthrow Saddam the way, say, Romanians overthrew Ceausescu... and so on through a long series of others. Well, you know it's pretty well understood. The westerners who know Iraq best - Dennis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, the heads of the UN oil for food programme - they had hundreds of investigators running through the country. They knew the country intimately, and they have been pointing out, as have plenty of others, that what has prevented any kind of uprising in Iraq is the murderous sanctions regime, which killed hundreds of thousands of people by conservative estimates, strengthened Saddam Hussein, and made the population completely reliant on him for survival. So the first step in allowing Iraqis to liberate themselves would have been to stop preventing it, by permitting the society to reconstruct, so that then they could take care of their own affairs. If that failed, if Iraqis were unable to do what other populations have done under the rule of comparable tyrants, at that point the question of the use of force might arise, but until they have been at least given an opportunity, and haven't been prevented by US-British action from undertaking it, we can't seriously raise that question, and in fact it was not raised by Britain and the United States during the build-up to war. The focus was on weapons of mass destruction. Just look at the record.ANDY CLARK This is an email from Bob Kirk, in Israel. He says: "Why is Professor Chomsky so opposed to the spread of democracy and the liberation of most of the world's peoples (by the US if necessary, since the EU has abandoned challenging dictators), and what means other than persuasion and sometimes justifable force would he propose in order to liberate the unfree societies of the world?"NOAM CHOMSKY I would be strongly in favour of bringing democracy to the world, and I am opposed to preventing democracy. One of the reasons - it's very striking, if you look at the last few months - [is that] I have never seen, that I can recall, such clear and brazen contempt and hatred for democracy as has been expressed by US elites. Just have a look. Europe, for example, was divided into what was called Old and New Europe. There was a criterion - Old Europe were the countries where the governments, for whatever reason, took the same positions as the vast majority of their populations. That's called democracy. New Europe - Italy, Spain, Hungary - were the countries where the governments overrode an even larger percentage of their populations. The population was more opposed in those countries than in Old Europe, but the governments disregarded their populations - maybe 80 or 90 percent of them - and followed orders from Washington, and that's called good! Turkey is the most striking example. Turkey was bitterly attacked by US commentators and elites, because the government took the same position as about 95 percent of the population. Paul Wolfowitz, who is described as the great exponent of democratisation, a few weeks ago condemned the Turkish military for not intervening to compel the government to, as he put it, "help Americans", instead of paying attention to 95 percent of their own population. This expresses brazen contempt for democracy, and the record supports it. It's not that the United States is uniquely bad, it's like any other powerful state, but take a look at the record in the areas where the US has controlled the region for a long time - Central America and the Caribbean. It's about a hundred years. The US has been willing to tolerate democracy, but as they themselves put it, only if it is - I'm quoting from a Reagan administration advocate of democracy - "top-down democracy", in which traditional elites remain in power, elites that have been associated with the United States and run their societies the way the US wants. In that case, the US will tolerate democracy. They are very similar to other powerful states, but let's not have any illusions about it. The sender is writing from the Middle East, if I remember...ANDY CLARKFrom Israel.NOAM CHOMSKY...and there the United States has supported brutal, oppressive dictatorships for a long time, and it has known for a long time that that is the major reason for popular opposition. Back in the 1950s, we know from internal records, president Eisenhower discussed with his staff what he called the "campaign of hatred against us" among the people of the Middle East, and the reason was that the US was supporting oppressive and undemocratic regimes and blocking democracy and development because of our interest in controlling near-east oil. Well that continues until the present day. You hear the same thing from wealthy westernised Muslims interviewed in the Wall Street Journal at this very moment. There is a long record of opposing democracy, unless it is under control, and for reasons that are rooted in familiar great power politics.ANDY CLARK Let's take another email. This is from Vera Gottlieb, from British Columbia, in Canada, and she says: "Under the guise of 'fighting terrorism', the US Bill of Rights is being strongly curtailed, not to say decimated. I can't understand why the average American is not up in arms over it. Does the average American know, or care, what is really going on?"NOAM CHOMSKY Very few are well aware of what's going on. The Patriot Act, and the new, planned Patriot 2 Act, it is true, undermine - in principle at least, in words, and partially in actions - fundamental civil liberties to a remarkable extent. So, the current justice department has claimed the right to arrest people, including American citizens, put them in confinement indefinitely, without charge, without access to lawyers and families, until the president declares that the war on terror is over. They have even gone beyond that. The new plans include plans to actually take away citizenship if the attorney general decides to do so. This has been very harshly condemned by civil rights lawyers, law professors, others, but very little of it leaks into the media. It's not really well-known. These moves are quite dramatic. President Bush is supposed to have on his desk a bust of Winston Churchill, given to him by his friend Tony Blair, and in fact Churchill had something to say about this. He said, and this is virtually a quote, [that] for a government to put a person in prison without trial by his peers is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian governments, whether nazi or communist. He said that in 1943, condemning proposals of a similar nature in England, which weren't enacted. Remember, in 1943 England was in pretty desperate straits - it was under attack and facing destruction by the most vicious military force in history, and nevertheless Churchill rightly described measures like these as "in the highest degree odious", and "the foundation of totalitarian governments". Yes, people should be very upset about it.ANDY CLARKWhy isn't this an issue of common debate in the USA then? And why isn't there grassroots opposition against the Patriot Act and these things you've just been describing?NOAM CHOMSKY First of all, to know these things you have to do a bit of a research project. I don't say that it is hidden - you can find the facts if you look, but they are certainly not common knowledge. To the extent they are common knowledge, there is opposition, but you have to recall the great success of the government media propaganda campaign, since last September, to convince the population of the United States that they are in imminent threat of destruction by the monster Saddam Hussein, and next week it will be someone else who we have to protect ourselves against. Incidentally, the majority, who were convinced by those propaganda lies, their attitudes correlate very closely with support for war, and you can understand why - if you really believe that, you're willing to see civil liberties erode. Of course, it was fabrication, one of the most spectacular examples of propaganda fabrication known, as many have pointed out, but it did work. When people are frightened they will - sometimes - be willing not to defend the rights that they have won.ANDY CLARKOK, another email. This is from Venezuela. This is from Alberto Villasmil Raven, and he says: "I would like to know if Professor Chomsky thinks it possible that the US will invade Venezuela."NOAM CHOMSKY Well, I don't think they'll directly invade, but among the regions that are targeted for so-called preventive war, one of them is almost certainly the Andes region. It's a region of substantial resources. It is, to a certain degree, out of control. The US already has extensive military resources - a large military basing system in Ecuador, the Dutch islands, El Salvador - surrounding the region, and quite a few forces on the ground. My suspicion is that the US will probably, in Venezuela, once again support a coup as it did last year. But if that doesn't work, direct intervention is not impossible. Remember, this has long been planned. One of the very good things about the United States is it's a very free society, uniquely so. We have extensive records of internal planning. Right in the middle of the Cuban missile crisis, where we have the records, president Kennedy and his brother were discussing the threat of the Cuban missiles, and they said one of the big problems they posed was: "They might deter an invasion of Venezuela, if we decide to invade." That was 1962. These are old policies, deeply rooted.ANDY CLARK OK, this is from Berrada M. Ali, from Rabat, in Morocco, and his question is as follows: "Do you think that, after the unjustified and unjustifiable war against Iraq, the world will lose the meaning of its existence, like in the field of language, when we lose the gramatical rules? Will we automatically lose the reference of the meaning of sentences, and consequently the meaning of the world around us?"NOAM CHOMSKY In my opinion, the most honest commentary on this point has been made by strong supporters of the war in Iraq. For example, if you take a look at the current issue of Foreign Affairs, the main establishment journal, there is a lead article by a well-known specialist on international law, Michael Glennon, who argues that we should recognise that international law and international institutions are what he calls "hot air". They have proven their inapplicability by the fact that the United States disregards them, and he says it is right to disregard them, and the United States must maintain the right to use force as it chooses, independent of these institutions, which we simply have to dismiss and disregard. Well that's at least an honest statement. I think it's a terrible threat to the world, and it's part of the reason why the US government has become an object of massive fear around the world. The international polls on this are remarkable, and it's understandable. When a country takes that position, of course people are going to be frightened, and furthermore, as again has been pointed out over and over by intelligence agencies and analysts and so on, they'll do something about it. They'll try to find means of deterrence. The United States is calling on the world to proliferate weapons of mass destruction and terror, if only as a deterrent.ANDY CLARK One final email. This is from John Blessen, in Beverly Hills, in the United States, and his message is: "How can the United States best protect itself from rogue states like North Korea? And from nuclear, chemical, and biological threats from outlaw states? Cataclysmic threats to the United States are real and some say imminent, so how would you, Dr Chomsky, fashion a defense policy for the United States?"NOAM CHOMSKY Well, let's take the one example that was mentioned - North Korea. You can't make a general comment, it depends on the case. Take the case of North Korea. Here there is a strong consensus among the states of the region - South Korea, Japan, China and Russia - that a diplomatic path should be followed, a path of negotiations to reduce the threat, which is real, and to integrate North Korea slowly back into the region in some fashion, and that's a wise move. Actually, Clinton made moves in that direction. He didn't actually implement them, but he made them. They were pretty successful, and I think that consensus is correct. The way to defend yourself against such threats is to prevent them from arising. There are many ways to do that, and the same is true in other cases that were mentioned. In the case of Iraq, it was a horrible regime. That's why I was always opposed to the fact that the United States supported Saddam Hussein, and also was opposed to the sanctions regime, which prevented a revolt against him, but, horrible as it was, it was not a threat. Kuwait and Iran, which despise Saddam Hussein - they were both invaded by him - nevertheless didn't regard him as a threat, and there was good reason for that. Iraq was the weakest state in the region. Its military expenditures were about a third those of Kuwait, which has ten percent of its population. It had been decimated by the sanctions, virtually disarmed - a horrible place, but not a threat. This was propaganda - grotesque, ugly propaganda. If you want to look at other cases that one has a reason to be worried about - yes, then make up appropriate plans for them. Take, say, the threat of terror. That's very real and very dangerous. The threat of terror has been increased by actions of the Bush administration. For example, intelligence agencies are pointing out that recruitment for terrorist organisations like al-Qaeda has risen very sharply since the threat to invade Iraq began, and then the invasion, and that's to be anticipated for good reasons. It's understood why.ANDY CLARK You are somebody who seeks to debunk this propaganda that you say the US government is pushing onto the population. What sort of attitudes do people take towards you now - someone who speaks out against current US policy?NOAM CHOMSKY I probably spend an hour a night just very reluctantly writing letters turning down invitations to talk all over the country - huge audiences, tremendous interest. The United States is not different from other countries in the world in this respect. There is great fear and concern about the policies that the Bush administration is pursuing. If you eliminate the element of panic, which was induced by the propaganda, which is unique to the United States, then opposition to the war and to the security strategy here are approximately the same as elsewhere. I and in fact other people who are willing to speak publicly are simply overwhelmed by requests and demands to discuss these issues.ANDY CLARK Professor Noam Chomsky, author, political activist and linguistics professor from the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, thank you very much for joining us.NOAM CHOMSKY Thank you.ANDY CLARK And thank you all very much for listening.
