[Peace-discuss] Action, not speculation

[C. G. Estabrook]

Action, not speculation

Cynthia Peters interviews Noam Chomsky
 
by Noam Chomsky and Cynthia Peters; ZNet; March 09, 2003

  1. Do you have any predictions about what we might expect in the coming
weeks?

  If anything's obvious from the history of warfare, it's that very little
can be predicted.  But what's going to happen is not war.  The disparity
of force is so extraordinary that the term "war" doesn't apply.  We
wouldn't call it a boxing match if the world champion were in a ring with
a kindergarten child.  So this one is fairly predictable, just as it was
predictable, and predicted (right here, for example), that the Taliban
would be easily defeated.

  My guess is that the superhawks are right.  There'll be a devastating
blow, and the society will collapse.  What happens then in Iraq is
anybody's guess.  Or elsewhere, including here.  There is no reason to
doubt the near-universal judgment that an attack on Iraq will increase the
threat of terror and development and use of weapons of mass destruction.
And the threat is serious, as has been known for many years, long before
9-11.  Perhaps it is enough to quote the primary conclusion of the
high-level Hart-Rudman task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign
Relations: America -- Still Unprepared, Still in Danger: The threat of
"catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S. soil" is grave, and "the need for
immediate action [to counter the threat] is made more urgent by the
prospect of the United States's going to war with Iraq." The reasons have
been repeatedly explained, and are pretty obvious without reliance on
experts.

  2. Is there any chance of Blair backing out at this point, and if so do
you think Bush would consider proceeding solo?

Blair is under a lot of internal pressure, and the same is true of other
members of "the coalition of the willing." It can hardly have escaped
notice that the huge February demonstrations reached by far the largest
scale and intensity where the governments were lining up with Washington,
in every case over enormous popular opposition: Spain, Italy, Engand.  In
Italy, it's reached almost 90 percent opposition to war under any
conditions, and close to that in Spain.  In the international Gallup poll
released in January, support for the Bush-Powell war scarcely reached 10
percent anywhere, meaning that it is essentially non-existent among the
public.  Even totalitarian states have to pay some attention to public
opinion, more democratic societies even more so.  If Britain backs down,
which is unlikely but not inconceivable, the Bush administration will face
some difficult choices, which they have attempted to pre-empt by making it
almost impossible for them not to go to war.  Still, nothing is certain in
human affairs.

  3. Assuming that war comes, should the anti-war movement be depressed
about its ineffectuality?

That's like suggesting that abolitionists, or advocates of rights of
working people or women, or others concerned with freedom and justice,
should have been depressed about their inability to attain their goals, or
even make progress towards them, over very long periods.  The right
reaction is to intensify the struggle.  In this case, we should recognize
that the anti-war movement was unprecedented in scale, so that there is a
better base for proceeding further.  And that the goals should be far more
long-term.  A large part of the opposition to Bush's war is based on
recognition that Iraq is only a special case of the "imperial ambition"
that is widely condemned and rightly feared; that's the source of a good
part of the unprecedented opposition to Bush's war right at the heart of
the establishment here, and elsewhere as well.  Even the mainstream press
now reports the "urgent and disturbing" messages sent to Washington from
US embassies around the world, warning that "many people in the world
increasingly think President Bush is a greater threat to world peace" than
Saddam Hussein (Washington Post lead story).  That actually goes back to
the Clinton years, but it has become far more significant today.  With
good reasons.  The threat is real, and the right place to counter it is
here.  Whatever happens in Iraq, the popular movements here should be
invigorated to confront this far larger and continuing threat, which is
sure to take new forms, and is quite literally raising issues of the fate
of the human species.  That aside, the popular movements should be
mobilized to support the best outcomes for the people of Iraq, and not
only there of course.  There's plenty of work to do.

  4. Does the US agenda include democracy in Iraq and beyond?

If it's left to Washington, the best that can realistically be hoped is
the kind of "democracy" that the current political leadership -- mainly,
recycled Reaganites -- and others in power have instituted elsewhere in
their domains: Central America and the Caribbean, to take the region that
provides the richest evidence the last time they controlled the
government, through the 1980s, and in fact over a century.  But under
popular influence, other outcomes are possible.  We don't live in a a
military dictatorship, after all.  We are highly privileged, by
comparative standards.  There are plenty of opportunities to shape "the US
agenda."

  5. How do you think the U.S. ability to carry out that agenda will be
affected by the opposition of traditional U.S. allies to the war?

Hard to say.  I presume they will be even more reluctant to deal with the
wreckage left by a US assault than they have been elsewhere, which does
not bode well for Iraq or the region.  But speculation about that should
not be our highest priority.  The more significant question is how we can
shape the agenda.

  6. Can you describe what, if any, shifts there might be in the alignment
of power among nations as the U.S. pursues this unilateral course?  What
might be the implications for NATO?

The US has always been ambivalent about European unification.  It has
obvious advantages for US economic and strategic power, but there has
always been concern that Europe might move towards an independent course.
Furthermore, the social market system in Europe has always been regarded
as a threat, rather in the way that Canada's health care system has been
feared: these are "viruses" that might "infect" the US population, to
borrow the terminology of US planners when they moved to crush independent
social and economic development throughout the third world.  These
concerns have motivated US policies towards Europe (and Japan, and
elsewhere) since World War II, constantly taking new forms.  They were,
for example, expressed by Henry Kissinger in his "Year of Europe" address
in 1973, when he instructed Europe that it had only "regional
responsibilities" within an "overall framework of order" managed by the US
government.  NATO was conceived, in part, as a way to ensure US control
over Europe -- not without support from sectors of European elites, who
despise the social market system, and fear European independence, for much
the same reasons as their counterparts here.  The US is strongly in favor
of the accession of the Eastern European countries to the European Union
for these reasons.  Washington expects to have enough control over them so
that they will dilute tendencies towards independence in Europe.  And
there is quite unconcealed exultation that their reservoir of cheap and
easily exploited labor will undermine the European welfare state and the
rights of working people, and will drive Europe to the US model of low
wages, high workload, limited benefits and job security, high
concentration of wealth -- and general economic performance pretty similar
to Europe's by most measures.  And that has obvious appeal to the
corporate sector in Europe as well.

These are long-term factors.  How they will play out, and how they will be
affected by popular movements, no one can say with any confidence.

That's just Europe, not the world.  For about 30 years, the world has been
"tripolar" economically, with three major power centers, including
Japan-based Asia and now the growing role particularly of China.  That
raises all sorts of other questions, too intricate to try to pursue here.

  7. Is there anything different that the broad global movement for peace
and justice should be doing as we enter this new post-Iraq era?

Its priorities should be about the same as before, as far as I can see.  
I also think it's an exaggeration to speak of a "new post-Iraq era,"
except with regard to the region itself, and the further affirmation of
the "imperial ambition" that is a cause of deep concern in the world,
rightly, and even within the US establishment.

  8. If the Bush administration proceeds with its war plans, along with a
"coalition of the willing," what will it mean for the future of the UN?

Like other questions, that's really for us to decide.  Speculation is
pretty idle, if only because the answers will depend a lot on what we do
inside the most powerful country in world history.

The UN has never been able to act beyond the limits imposed by the great
powers, which means primarily the US.  The current administration, in its
Reaganite phase, announced very clearly and explicitly that the UN, the
World Court, international law, and other institutions of world order are
irrelevant unless they support Washington's resort to violence.  The State
Department explained that since other countries do not agree with us, we
will reserve to ourselves the decision as to what lies within the
"domestic jurisdiction" of the US: in the specific case in question,
Washington's international terrorist campaign against Nicaragua.  The
Reaganites were not breaking entirely new ground of course, but this was
an unusually brazen articulation of the reigning doctrine of contempt for
anyone who gets in the way.  The fact that all of this is wiped out of
official history (and never reported at the time) doesn't make it unreal.
If freedom and democracy were considered to be values by elite sectors
here, all of this would be taught in elementary school.  Pretty much the
same political leadership is back in power, and in their current phase,
they even more extreme and forthright in telling the world to get lost:
either you authorize us to do what we want and remain "relevant," or you
refuse to do so, in which case we will do what we want anyway and you will
be kicked into the ashcan of history.  They could hardly be more clear,
and it's well understood around the world.  Whether these
clearly-announced plans can be implemented -- that is for us to determine.
There's no point in speculation.

  9. Do you think we would be seeing the same policies had Gore become
president following the 2000 election?

Not easy to say.  Take the peak moments of American liberalism, the
Kennedy-Johnson administrations.  Were they less violent and aggressive,
less prone to risking global destruction, than their predecessors and
followers?  Not easy to reach that conclusion.  I think there would have
been some differences in the present case, mostly reflecting domestic
policies.  The Bush administration is escalating the assault on the
general population that they carried out in the 1980s.  Just as then,
these policies are naturally very unpopular, and they can retain their
hold on power only by keeping the population frightened -- very much as in
the 80s.  They are following the same script very closely.  That leads to
more aggressive and violent policies, and a confrontational stance in
world affairs.  With a somewhat different domestic agenda, "new Democrats"
of the Gore variety would be less prone to adopt such means to keep the
population under control.  On the other hand, they are less resistant to
attacks from the reactionary statist elements (called "conservative" in
political rhetoric).  That might drive them towards more aggressive
policies to fend off charges of lack of "vigor" or "patriotism" and the
rest of the familiar tirade.  So, hard to say.  And again, a large part of
the answer to the question is for us to determine, not speculate about.

<http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=51&ItemID=3206>