[Peace] Chomsky on the war

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Chomsky in Newsweek, remarkably enough, but it's a pretty
good capsule summary of where we are now. (Note that Chomsky
explicitly denies the "quagmire" notion mentioned in the
title, though.)  --CGE]

   The Last Word: Noam Chomsky
   A Tale of Two Quagmires
   Newsweek International

Jan. 9, 2006 issue - Noam Chomsky has been called one of the
most influential intellectuals of the 20th century, but it's
an accolade the 77-year-old MIT professor doesn't take very
seriously. "People just want to hear something outside the
rigid dogma they're used to," he says. "They're not going to
hear it in the media." The linguistics prodigy turned
political theorist has been a leading mind in the antiwar
movement since the early '60s; he's also still a prolific
author, producing more than six books in the past five years.
He spoke to NEWSWEEK's Michael Hastings about the current
geopolitical climate. Excerpts:

Hastings: Where do you see Iraq heading right now?

Chomsky: Well, it's extremely difficult to talk about this
because of a very rigid doctrine that prevails in the United
States and Britain which prevents us from looking at the
situation realistically. The doctrine, to oversimplify, is
that we have to believe the United States would have so-called
liberated Iraq even if its main products were lettuce and
pickles and [the] main energy resource of the world were in
central Africa. Anyone who doesn't accept that is dismissed as
a conspiracy theorist or a lunatic or something. But anyone
with a functioning brain knows that that's not true—as all
Iraqis do, for example. The United States invaded Iraq because
its major resource is oil. And it gives the United States, to
quote [Zbigniew] Brzezinski, "critical leverage" over its
competitors, Europe and Japan. That's a policy that goes way
back to the second world war. That's the fundamental reason
for invading Iraq, not anything else.

Once we recognize that, we're able to begin talking about
where Iraq is going. For example, there's a lot of talk about
the United States bringing [about] a sovereign independent
Iraq. That can't possibly be true. All you have to do is ask
yourself what the policies would be in a more-or-less
democratic Iraq. We know what they're likely to be. A
democratic Iraq will have a Shiite majority, [with] close
links to Iran. Furthermore, it's right across the border from
Saudi Arabia, where there's a Shiite population which has been
brutally repressed by the U.S.-backed fundamentalist tyranny.
If there are any moves toward sovereignty in Shiite Iraq, or
at least some sort of freedom, there are going to be effects
across the border. That happens to be where most of Saudi
Arabia's oil is. So you can see the ultimate nightmare
developing from Washington's point of view.

Hastings: You were involved in the antiwar movement in the
1960s. What do you think of the Vietnam-Iraq analogy?

Chomsky: I think there is no analogy whatsoever. That analogy
is based on a misunderstanding of Iraq, and a misunderstanding
of Vietnam. The misunderstanding of Iraq I've already
described. The misunderstanding of Vietnam had to do with the
war aims. The United States went to war in Vietnam for a very
good reason. They were afraid Vietnam would be a successful
model of independent development and that would have a virus
effect -— infect others who might try to follow the same
course. There was a very simple war aim -— destroy Vietnam.
And they did it. The United States basically achieved its war
aims in Vietnam by [1967]. It's called a loss, a defeat,
because they didn't achieve the maximal aims, the maximal aims
being turning it into something like the Philippines. They
didn't do that. [But] they did achieve the major aims. It was
possible to destroy Vietnam and leave. You can't destroy Iraq
and leave. It's inconceivable.

Hastings: Was the antiwar movement more successful in the '60s
than it is today?

Chomsky: I think it's the other way around. The United States
attacked Vietnam in 1962. It took years before any protest
developed. Iraq is the first time in hundreds of years of
European and American history that a war was massively
protested before it was launched. There was huge protest in
February 2003. It had never happened in the history of the West.

Hastings: Where do you put George W. Bush in the pantheon of
American presidents?

Chomsky: He's more or less a symbol, but I think the people
around him are the most dangerous administration in American
history. I think they're driving the world to destruction.
There are two major threats that face the world, threats of
the destruction of the species, and they're not a joke. One of
them is nuclear war, and the other is environmental
catastrophe, and they are driving toward destruction in both
domains. They're compelling competitors to escalate their own
offensive military capacity -— Russia, China, now Iran. That
means putting their offensive nuclear missiles on hair-trigger
alert.

The Bush administration has succeeded in making the United
States one of the most feared and hated countries in the
world. The talent of these guys is unbelievable. They have
even succeeded at alienating Canada. I mean, that takes
genius, literally.

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

© 2006 MSNBC.com

URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10682403/site/newsweek/