[Peace-discuss] Fw: Chomsky on what to expect next (fwd)

[Lisa Chason]

: Monday, March 10, 2003 9:33 AM
Subject: Chomsky on what to expect next (fwd)


>
>
>
>
> Action, not speculation
> Cynthia Peters interviews Noam Chomsky
> 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 super hawks 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, England.  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
> 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.
>
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