[Peace-discuss] Chomsky on New American Imperialism

[C. G. Estabrook]

It is certainly good for us to understand the dynamics of wars, who gains what 
from them, and how they're sustained, in order to be able to fit arguments 
against them. Saying that to our friends and neighbors would seem to me to be 
the primary task of AWARE.

But to say that the strongest thing sustaining our Af/Pak war is US "political 
necessity" is just to say that the major political parties have agreed on a 
continuous policy for more than a generation - control of Mideast energy 
resources - that is supported by the major parties but is not in the interest of 
most Americans.

What we should be doing is stripping away the propaganda - now notably Obama's - 
about why they're doing it. It's not to "stop terrorism." The USG needs the 
terrorist threat as it once needed the Communist threat, in order to defend its 
actions against the only enemy it really fears - an aroused US populace.

The most important job of the US commander-in-chief is in fact to be the 
mystifier-in-chief.


On 6/28/10 3:40 PM, Stuart Levy wrote:
> Right -- it's nothing like an excuse.  But it is good for us to understand
> the dynamics of wars, who gains what from them, and how they're sustained,
> in order to be able to fit arguments against them.
>
> If the strongest thing sustaining our Af/Pak war is US "political necessity",
> that actually seems encouraging, because a raucous movement saying that
> it's a war that the American people don't want could change that political fact.

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