[Peace-discuss] Interview with Michael Albert

[Morton K. Brussel]

I was impressed by this interview.
If the Left Debated the Campaign Issues
ELECTION DISSENSION

May, 01 2008
By Lydia Sargent


and Michael Albert
"Election Dissension" is part of a Z Magazine series on all things  
electoral. We welcome your contributions to the discussion; send to  
zmag at zmag.org. The previous interview with Michael Albert, "Serving  
the Dominant Elites," was published in the April issue. The full  
discussion is available on DVD via Z Video Productions  — Eds.
SARGENT: In the last session you established that presidential  
elections are mostly a PR campaign and that, sincere or not, the  
campaign has little to do with truth or with fundamental changes in  
existing institutions and a lot to do with getting elected, with the  
help of elite funding and false promises to voters. Let's turn to a  
few specific issues, starting with foreign policy. How would the left  
or a left candidate go about exposing U.S. foreign policy?

ALBERT: I don't think what the candidates say about foreign policy  
means much at all. They seek to appeal to funders, media, and various  
constituencies. They say what their pollsters tell them to say. At  
times they say what they believe while at other times they say what  
they don't believe. They sell themselves in the same way Proctor and  
Gamble sells toothpaste—by saying whatever needs to be said to find a  
way to get support.

To find out about candidates, the way to go about it is not by  
looking at what they say, but by looking at the history of American  
foreign policy. Since the logic of it changes barely at all, there's  
no reason to suspect it's going to change now—unless, of course,  
large constituencies force it to change.

As to what their foreign policy is it's relatively simple: U.S.  
foreign policy is elites in the United States— the Pentagon, the  
White House, the corporations—pursuing policies designed to enhance  
their own power, their own options, and their own wealth. So the  
policies are designed to extract wealth from other places in the  
world, whether by actual coercive behavior or, more often, just the  
power of threats.

A case in point is that the United States isn't in Iraq to take Iraqi  
oil and benefit from it directly, it's rather more in Iraq to be in  
control of Iraqi and Mideast oil and to be able to use that power,  
that threat, that position of dominance over a critical resource to  
coerce outcomes around the world that it wants. It's always been our  
policy to behave in that way.

So when candidates say that the U.S. should promote democracy and  
human rights around the world, what do they mean?

I have no idea what's in their heads, but it's a little bit like  
saying Iran should promote democracy and human rights around the  
world. It makes no sense. It's like saying domestically the Mafia  
should promote human rights and democracy in major urban areas of the  
United States.

The United States doesn't care what polls show the Iraqi people want;  
the United States doesn't care what polls show the population of any  
country in the world wants. When Turkey was going to oppose the war  
in Iraq because the Turkish population was so against war that the  
Turkish elites were afraid not to, American media described Turkey as  
a backward country, not a country that was exhibiting democratic  
behavior— which it was. And the same went for countries throughout  
Europe. The countries that opposed the war in Iraq, that were  
critical of it in response to overwhelming sentiments of their  
populations, the United States treated as somehow backward, peculiar,  
misbehaving. The countries that ignored their populations and  
supported the U.S. role in Iraq, the United States was happy about,  
describing them as enlightened. That's what American foreign policy  
is all about. The gap between reality and rhetoric is so huge that  
you can say things that are incredible. So to talk about the United  
States imposing democracy is like talking about the Mafia imposing  
non-violence or peace.

What kind of a foreign policy would you present and how should  
America behave toward the rest of the world?

I think a good leftist—my saying it doesn't mean much—but a good  
leftist who might be running for office would say something like, "As  
president, here are some of the things I would do: close American  
military bases around the world; reorient the funds that would be  
saved and spend some in parts of the world that have suffered due to  
policies of the United States and other wealthy first world  
countries; spend some of it inside the United States—raising the  
consciousness and a sense of solidarity with others—and improving the  
life of people in the United States."

I would simply remove from the docket of American behavior occupying,  
invading, or otherwise using violence to coerce other nations in any  
way whatsoever. I would make clear that there are several ways to  
deal with "terrorism" in the world. One is to pursue it, to actually  
be terrorists. That's what the United States does as its primary  
policy. That is, the United States engages in coercive violence  
around the world to pursue its own interests regardless of its effect  
on populations.



The second thing that the U.S. does is provoke terrorism. We have a  
foreign policy that is so callous toward, so dismissive of, and so  
denigrating to, people around the world that people naturally react  
hostilely. And then we have created an environment in which the only  
thing that matters is power. If the only thing that matters is power,  
and you're a third world country, you can't exercise power via a  
gigantic military apparatus like the United States, you have to do it  
via terrorism. It's the only avenue open.

I should clarify that terrorism is a real issue. It is possible for  
there to be a terrorist apparatus that exacts gigantic horror.

Besides the U.S., you mean?

Yes. The U.S. is first in nuclear weapons, first in violence, first  
in coercion. But you could imagine a situation in which some  
apparatus got possession of nuclear weapons and used them. So how do  
you prevent that? Well, one way would be Bush's way, by having a  
gigantic coercive cop on the beat who, ahead of any threat, goes in  
and exterminates what it takes to be the likely threat. The problem  
with that approach, aside from being immoral, is the idea that the  
U.S. should do it. Everybody in the U.S. would laugh if we said that  
the Iranians or North Koreans should be the cops of the world. Well,  
for the rest of the world the idea that the U.S. should be the cops  
of the world is like that.  It's ridiculous.

Imagine that six people decide they're going on a rampage and engage  
in some horrible violent activity against Las Vegas. And surveillance  
discovers they are from Phoenix, Arizona. So what should we do? We  
want to prosecute these people, we think they're in Phoenix—let's  
bomb Phoenix. Let's launch a massive air assault against the entire  
state, for that matter, because we believe these six terrorists are  
in Phoenix. What would the result be? Instead of 6 people, there  
would be 6,000 people hostile toward the rest of the country.

What should we do with the six people in Phoenix? We might try to  
catch them without killing everyone else in the city. What if Japan  
or India decided to bomb the U.S. and cut off food and medicine  
because there's a bunch of terrorists in Washington?

The idea of solving the problem of coercive violence by the exercise  
of even greater coercive violence has never and probably will never  
work. These policies are barbaric and they do not deal with  
terrorism. On the other hand, they aren't meant to deal with  
terrorism. They're meant to perpetuate and propel the will of America  
in the world as the chief sovereign that decides what can and can't  
be done.

So what's the alternative? The alternative would be international  
law. The alternative would be an environment in which international  
courts, international law, the UN, really meant something. The  
alternative would be an environment in which those who have power now— 
and it doesn't change overnight—would be restrained from and would  
restrict themselves from exercising it. That's what a left candidate  
would talk about.





Let's turn specifically to Iraq. In a candidates' debate, what would  
you say about our foreign policy there?

The United States should withdraw. But more than that, it should pay  
huge reparations. Why? Because we've destroyed the infrastructure of  
a country. We have harmed, perhaps irreparably, a society. We owe  
them reparations. We owe them support to get back to being a  
functioning polity, economy, and social system. So we should provide  
that, not just withdraw. But we should certainly withdraw. We are an  
occupying army.

Another area of concern in the debates is China. The talk there is  
about human rights violations and lack of democracy. How would a left  
candidate discuss China?

A left candidate might look and say not just what are the Chinese  
doing, but what are the Americans doing? For instance, American  
cigarette manufacturers are addicting the Chinese population to  
cigarettes. Why? In order to replace European and American  
populations' diminishing smoking. So we're exporting smoking to  
China. Let's compare that to cocaine from Colombia to the United  
States. Cocaine from Colombia to the United States kills about 3,000  
Americans a year. Cigarette addiction will kill millions, tens of  
millions, maybe hundreds of millions of Chinese over decades. That's  
what American policy does. What is China doing that remotely compares— 
and remember we're only looking at one industry in the U.S.?



So what I would do first is look at our behavior with respect to  
China and the rest of the world. Then, if we clean it up, if we begin  
to behave in a remotely responsible fashion, we would have more  
justification in criticizing violations  elsewhere.

Another country of great concern to the candidates is Cuba. Should we  
continue the sanctions, should we indict Castro, should we go in and  
get Castro's ally Chavez?

Again, it's American political culture vs. reality. So what we have  
in Cuba is a situation where, for decades, the United States has  
engaged in economic warfare, terrorism as well. The economic warfare  
is the embargo, the terrorism is the acts of terror committed with  
the support of, and even engaged in by, U.S. policy toward Cuba. Why?  
If the Cuban people want to do X and X is dangerous to the United  
States, it's not allowed. What is X in this case? X is to own their  
own resources. X is to administer their own society. X is to not have  
a distribution of wealth like that in the United States where a few  
percent of the population own the vast majority of the economic  
assets and the wealth accruing from them. The Cubans don't have that.  
The Cubans have a society where the tremendous centralization of  
wealth in the hands of the few was undone.

It's not my idea of an ideal society by a long shot, but that was a  
gigantic step forward. It's that step forward that makes Cuba  
anathema to the United States and which causes the U.S. to think that  
it makes sense to talk about what the future of Cuba should be. What  
if the Japanese started to talk about what the future of the U.S.  
should be? We can understand the idea that one nation doesn't have  
the right to dictate to another how it should function, except in the  
case of the United States.

And Chavez in Venezuela?

With respect to Chavez, it's even more ridiculous. For the U.S. to  
talk about Chavez as a dictator is a travesty. It's a travesty in the  
sense that they've had election after election in Venezuela which he  
handily wins. Then they have one recently, not about his being in  
office, but about a set of policies that he was backing, which lost.  
What was Chavez's response to that? "Okay, I lost." If he was a  
dictator he wouldn't lose; he wouldn't even have an election.

So why is the U.S. government upset about Venezuela? We're upset for  
the same reasons as in Cuba. It's because in Venezuela the government  
is looking around at society and saying, "You know what? We should  
change things. We should change things such that those who are  
poorest, those who are suffering, those who are denied their dignity,  
will get it all back. How will they get it all back? We'll  
redistribute wealth, we'll redistribute power. We'll think of new  
ways to organize the political system, new ways to organize the  
economy." That's what they're doing. But that's a horror from the  
point of view of the United States. What happens if they succeed?

The worst possible outcome for U.S. elites is not that Chavez is a  
dictator. In Washington each day the government gets up praying that  
he'll do something that, in fact, would be dictatorial. The worst  
conceivable outcome is that the Venezuelans succeed in improving the  
quality of life of the people of Venezuela and in creating a model  
that could be emulated elsewhere. That's why we go in and try to  
create turmoil and try to create a coup. And who knows what we'll try  
and do in the future.

And a left president would...?

A left president would say, "My gosh, what's going on in Venezuela is  
quite fascinating. Let's go down there and try to learn something."




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