[Peace-discuss] Chomsky arguments.

[Morton K.Brussel]

It may be true that now, in retrospect, most Americans agree that the 
aggression in Iraq was a mistake (or, perhaps better, not the 
aggression, but the incompetence and shortsightedness of the 
aggression), but at the time, or shortly thereafter, they supported the 
war (same for the first Gulf war and in Yugoslavia, etc.), they bought 
into the propaganda so easily. Of course, one can say that they were 
deviously manipulated, but I have the sense that they were too ready to 
be manipulated by an education which is overly proud of the imperialist 
history of the United States, by a certain nationalist fundamentalism, 
and by a lack of empathy with, a dismissal of, the downtrodden of the 
world. U.S. citizens, generalizing of course,  haven't suffered enough 
recently. Probably one of the reasons the Europeans are more appalled 
at our actions is that their suffering from war is still not so remote. 
    Part of our cultural heritage is, despite Vietnam, triumphalism, 
"America uber alles". A sense that the almighty is conflated with us, 
i.e. Power, corrupts….

But yes, we have to work to change all this.

mkb


On Feb 1, 2005, at 9:16 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

> You're right, Mort: one should not be too sanguine (nor bloody-minded)
> about what the American people believe. One should be accurate.  A
> majority of Americans do *not* accept what the administration has been
> parroting.  The most recent CNN/USAToday/Gallup poll shows as other 
> polls
> have that a clear majority of Americans say that it was a mistake to 
> send
> troops to Iraq. Of course the Administration insists strenuously (as 
> we'll
> hear again in the State of the Union address) that it was not a mistake
> but a splendid triumph in the Global War on Terrorism.  But Americans 
> know
> it isn't so. Only those who mindlessly accept what the corporate media
> have been parroting about Americans think that they support this war.
>
> We have to distinguish the information that Americans think they know
> about the war from the principles they hold.  The latter are remarkably
> resistant to the corruption of the former by the corporate media.  How
> many trillions of dollars are spent each year in the greatest 
> propaganda
> system in history ("marketing")? It's hardly surprising that such a 
> system
> can produce programmatic ignorance about the war -- the existence of 
> WMD,
> the connection between Iraq and 911, that Iraq was in a "threat," etc.
> (But of course the US *is* trying to bring democracy to Iraq, if you
> define your terms right...). What's amazing is that Americans' 
> political
> principles endure under such a media barrage.
>
> A *large majority* of the public believe that the US should accept the
> jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the World Court, 
> sign
> the Kyoto protocols, allow the UN to take the lead in international
> crises, and rely on diplomatic and economic measures more than military
> ones in the "war on terror." Similar majorities believe the US should
> resort to force only if there is "strong evidence that the country is 
> in
> imminent danger of being attacked," thus rejecting the bipartisan
> consensus on "pre-emptive war" and adopting a rather conventional
> interpretation of the UN Charter. A majority even favor giving up the
> Security Council veto, hence following the UN lead even if it is not 
> the
> preference of US state managers.
>
> On the eve of the 2004 elections, "three quarters of Americans say that
> the US should not have gone to war if Iraq did not have WMD or was not
> providing support to al Qaeda, while nearly half still say the war was 
> the
> right decision" (Stephen Kull, reporting the PIPA study he directs). 
> But
> this is not a contradiction, Kull points out.  Despite the 
> quasi-official
> Kay and Duelfer reports undermining the claims, the decision to go to 
> war
> "is sustained by persisting beliefs among half of Americans that Iraq
> provided substantial support to al Qaeda, and had WMD, or at least a 
> major
> WMD program," and thus see the invasion as defense against an imminent
> severe threat.  Much earlier PIPA studies had shown that a large 
> majority
> believe that the UN, not the US, should take the lead in matters of
> security, reconstruction, and political transition in Iraq.
>
> Last March, Spanish voters were bitterly condemned for appeasing terror
> when they voted out of office the government that had gone to war over 
> the
> objections of about 90% of the population, taking its orders from
> Crawford, Texas, and winning plaudits for its leadership in the "New
> Europe" that is the hope of democracy.  Few if any commentators noted 
> that
> Spanish voters last March were taking about the same position as the 
> large
> majority of Americans: voting for removing Spanish troops unless they 
> were
> under UN direction.  The major differences between the two countries 
> are
> that in Spain, public opinion was known, while here it takes an 
> individual
> research project to discover it; and in Spain the issue came to a vote,
> almost unimaginable in the deteriorating formal democracy here.
>
> With the US media overwhelmingly trumpeting the Kerry-Bush 
> interpretation
> of the Iraq/GWOT, nevertheless 70% of Americans did not vote for George
> Bush in November.  It's unfortunate of course that the American 
> political
> system is so corrupt that there wasn't an alternative, but then we 
> never
> accepted one-party elections in eastern Europe a generation ago as an
> indication of the will of the people.  Nor should we now. It's better 
> to
> listen to people and talk about what they really think. That's what I
> think Chomsky's doing, the appropriate source of his sanguineness, if
> that's what it is.
>
> [Paragraphs 3-5 above are lifted directly from Chomsky, with emphasis
> added, and draw on surveys by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
> (CCFR) and the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the U. of
> Maryland (PIPA). Chomsky follows them immediately with the observation,
> "These results indicate that activists have not done their job
> effectively."  That, it seems to me, should be a vademecum for AWARE.]
>
> Regards, Carl
>
>
> On Mon, 31 Jan 2005, Morton K.Brussel wrote:
>
>>
>> No real disagreement here, but one should not be too sanguine, as
>> Chomsky tends to be, about the American people. After all a majority
>> does, mindlessly, accept what the administration has been parroting.
>> About 40% (a large proportion in any case) or more still believe that
>> WMD's existed in Iraq in 2003 and that Iraq WAS a real threat to the
>> U.S. ; moreover that Saddam was behind the 9/11 attacks, and that the
>> USA is trying to bring "democracy" to Iraq. So, despite reservations
>> about the Iraq disaster, a majority are still not ready to resist
>> current policies.
>>
>> The Germans in WWII also had their reservations about Hitler and his
>> policies, but went along. In a sense, living under a dictatorship,
>> they had more excuse.
>>
>> The world wanted a repudiation of the Bush cabal in the election, and
>> can't comprehend that it didn't happen, no matter how
>> bad/wimpy/haughty was Kerry. They saw the issues clearly, yet
>> Americans couldn't. Why?  Ignorance? Indifference? Misguided sense of
>> nationalism/patriotism?  Insecurity? …? Their mass news sources were
>> almost as bad as ours. As several have remarked, for the first time
>> majorities around the world are now assimilating Bush government
>> attitudes and actions with American attitudes. Simplistic of course,
>> but understandable.
>>
>> mkb
>>
>
>