[Peace-discuss] Liberal Star?

[C. G. Estabrook]

[There was much moaning in Canada (listen closely) when the "liberal"
publisher of the Toronto Star was replaced.  But since then they've been
publishing stuff like this, which we're not seeing elsewhere in the
for-profit press. (I'm talking about Canada -- it's not even an issue in
the US.)  And this is important.  --CGE]

	Mar. 23, 2004. 01:00 AM
	Does U.S. want democracy?

There are at least two ways that the future might unfold in Iraq -- the
democratic way and the American way.

According to Noam Chomsky, these are not the same thing at all.

"The issue is, who's going to run Iraq? The struggle is between the
steadfast Iraqi demand for democracy and the bitter U.S. insistence on
resisting it. That's the crucial issue now."

The linguist, pundit, and left-leaning political gadfly, who has been
subverting popular wisdom in the United States for several decades now,
spoke with the Star yesterday from his office in Boston.

His interpretation of recent events in Iraq will likely come as a surprise
to many Americans, and no small number of Canadians, who may well have
been under the impression that Washington's purposes in invading the
Middle Eastern country a year ago included the toppling of dictator Saddam
Hussein and his replacement by a government of the Iraqi people's choosing
-- in other words, a democratic government.

The U.S. interim administration in Baghdad is scheduled to hand over power
to a transitional government on June 30, with national elections to be
held under a new constitution at some future point.

Political leaders in both Washington and London, which assisted in last
year's American-led invasion, insist that what they want to establish in
Iraq is a government that answers to the wants, needs and goals of its own
people.

Chomsky doesn't believe it.

"Is there any evidence that the U.S. or Britain has tried to do that
anywhere?" he asked.

"They're imperial powers."

What Washington wants in Iraq, said Chomsky, is a government it can
control.

If U.S. President George W. Bush really wanted to turn Iraq's future over
to Iraq's people, then the United States would be ready to withdraw from
the country come July 1, he said. But look at what is happening instead.

"The U.S. is building the biggest diplomatic mission in the world in
Baghdad, with 3,000 people," he said.

"Is the purpose to restore `sovereignty?'"

A thorough-going opponent of the war, Chomsky nonetheless concedes the
invasion accomplished some good.

"It finally ended the sanctions," he said, referring to an array of
punitive economic measures imposed against Iraq by the United Nations
beginning in the early 1990s, aimed at bringing Saddam into compliance
with a variety of international demands.

"Of course, that could have been done without a war."

He also noted that the invasion got rid of "a murderous tyrant," although
he speculates the Iraqi people might have been able to do that themselves,
had they not been hobbled by 10 years of punitive economic sanctions (see
above).

For Chomsky, the war's somewhat equivocal benefits do not remotely
outweigh its many costs. Far from discouraging international terrorism by
radical Muslims -- another of Washington's avowed purposes for the
operation -- he says the invasion of Iraq has merely added to their ranks
and enhanced the appeal of their cause.

"Every act of violence increases the recruitment of terrorists," he said.
"Iraq has been turned into a base of terror."

Rather than invading countries it doesn't like, he said, the United States
should be combating international terrorism through a combination of
police work (to round up the ringleaders) and sophisticated diplomacy (to
address the legitimate grievances of their supporters).

"Terrorists are a small group. They see themselves as a vanguard. The big
issue is the potential reservoir of support."

As for Iraq and its prospects of genuine self-rule, Chomsky said the
future depends partly on Iraqis themselves and their determination to
shape their own future and partly on ordinary people in the West, who have
the voices and the votes to hold their own governments to account.

"It's pretty much up to us," he said.

"Will the people in the West pressure their governments to allow Iraqis to
have freedom?"

That would be the democratic way.

***