[Peace-discuss] From the Indian press

[C. G. Estabrook]

Chomsky's prognosis for 2010 and beyond
V V / December 04, 2010, 0:52 IST

Whether WikiLeaks will produce anything startling on the conduct of American 
foreign policy is an open question but if you have been reading Noam Chomsky on 
American abuse of power and assaults on democratic institutions, you can bet 
nothing much will come from the tapes except tawdry gossip. In an urgent book, 
Hopes and Prospects (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin, Special Indian Price Rs 599), the 
professor who is widely recognised as the greatest public intellectual today, 
surveys the dangers and prospects for the 21st century. Like his recent books, 
Hegemony or Survival, Failed States, Interventions and What We Say Goes, he now 
explores the challenges facing the century like the gap between the North and 
the South, American exceptionalism (including under President Obama), the 
fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US-Israel assault on Gaza, the recent 
financial bailouts. Given the overall scenario and American dominance of world 
politics, what are the hopes and prospects for a peaceful, democratic world in 
the next few decades?

Chomsky’s latest contribution to his own lengthy bibliography on American 
foreign policy — it goes all the way back to the Vietnam War — is a collection 
of essays and talks delivered or published between 2006 and 2009, all of which 
have been revised and updated up to 2010.

The selection that dissects the rhetoric and logic of American power and class 
domination at home and abroad is divided into two parts. First on Latin America 
with four essays and the second on North America with eight essays.

The essays tackle disparate subjects but are thematically bound together by 
several recurring and overlapping subjects — the economic wars conducted by the 
US, the threat posed by its continued dominance of the global financial system, 
the threat of nuclear weapons, the manipulation of its client states, 
particularly Israel, to further US strategic interests, and the continued 
economic and political violence against Latin America.

Regular readers of Chomsky will recognise his signature tunes: the double 
standards applied by the US, including mainstream media and intellectuals, the 
disconnect between American policies and public opinion which Chomsky describes 
as “a dysfunctional democracy”. Again and again, Chomsky goes back to his 
favourite theme that there is a strong contempt for democracy among those who 
consider themselves to be its greatest advocates.

But to his earlier refrain that America doesn’t give a damn for democracy if 
democratic forces elect a government inimical to its strategic interests (i.e. 
Iran, Iraq, Latin American states), Chomsky has added another factor: financial 
liberalisation and privatisation of services that have threatened the viability 
of democracy: “With services privatised, democratic institutions may exist, but 
they will be mostly formalities because the most important decisions… will have 
been removed from the public arena.”

To support his case against liberalisation and hasty privatisation, Chomsky 
delves into history, a subject that is scrupulously avoided by American 
political analysts. His research is so thorough that it is difficult not to be 
swept along by what he is driving at all the time. Which is that America doesn’t 
want to face the facts that are inconvenient to itself. And this 
head-in-the-sand weakness has manifested itself most clearly in the 
democracy-versus-dictatorship debate across the world.

Take Pakistan, for instance, where the US has supported dictators since the 
country’s independence. “The most extreme case was Reagan. His administration 
pretended not to see when Pakistan developed nuclear weapons outside the 
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), so as to ensure that congressional resolutions 
did not hinder Reagan’s “unstinting support” for the ruthless and vindictive 
dictator Zia ul-Haq whose rule had “the most long-lasting and dangerous effect 
on Pakistani society”, Chomsky says, quoting Ahmed Rashid, one of the most 
perceptive observers of Pakistan.

With Reagan’s firm backing and Saudi funding, Zia moved to impose “an 
ideological Islamic state upon the population”. Chomsky adds, quoting Pakistani 
sources, that these are the immediate roots of “today’s problems — the militancy 
of the religious parties, the mushrooming of madrassas and extremist groups, the 
spread of drug and Kalashnikov culture, the increase of sectarian violence”. 
Radical extremism is the illegitimate offspring of a union between the US under 
Reagan and Pakistan under General Zia ul-Haq. And to round off his analysis, 
Chomsky quotes CIA sources that “all the nightmares of the 21st century come 
together in Pakistan, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group responsible 
for the Mumbai attacks in 2008”.

Chomsky has always offered a treasure-trove of inconvenient truths that 
shouldn’t be buried in the sandpit of propaganda, lies and half-truths. This is 
the latest offering.

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/v-v-chomsky%5Cs-prognosis-for-2010beyond/417090/