Does the USA Intend to Dominate the World
Any Clark Interview Noam Chomsky for The Amsterdam Forum
Andy Clark:
Hello and welcome to Amsterdam Forum - Radio Netherlands' interactive
discussion programme.
Today a special edition featuring the world-famous author and political activist Noam Chomsky.
Professor Chomsky, once described by the New York Times as arguably the most important intellectual alive, is an outspoken critic of US foreign policy. He says, following the war in Iraq, the US is seeking to dominate the world by force, a dimension in which it rules supreme. And he warns this policy will lead to proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terror attacks based on a loathing of the US administration. He says the very survival of the species may be at stake.
Well professor Chomsky joins us to take questions from our listeners around the world. Welcome professor Chomsky.
The first e-mail is from Norberto Silva, from the Cape Verde islands, and he says: "Could the USA and president Bush lead the world into a nuclear war with their policy of pre-emptive attacks?"
Noam Chomsky:
They very definitely could. First of all we should be clear - it is not
a policy of pre-emptive attacks. Pre-emption means something in
international law. A pre-emptive attack is one that is taken in the case
of an imminent, on-going threat. For example, if planes were flying
across the Atlantic to bomb New York, it would be legitimate for the US
Air Force to shoot them down. That's a pre-emptive attack. This is what
is sometimes called preventive war. That's a new doctrine that was
announced last September in the National Security Strategy. It declares
the right to attack any potential challenge to the global dominance of
the United States. The potential is in the eye of the observer, so that,
in effect, gives the authorisation to attack essentially anyone. Could
that lead to a nuclear war? Very definitely. We've come very close in
the past. Just last October, for example, it was discovered, to the
shock and horror of those who paid attention, that, during the Cuban
missile crisis in 1962, the world was literally one word away from
probably terminal nuclear war. Russian submarines with nuclear weapons
were under attack by US destroyers. Several commanders thought a nuclear
war was on, and gave the order to shoot nuclear missiles. It was
countermanded by one officer. That's why we're around to talk. There
have been plenty of such cases since.
Andy Clark:
Are we in a more dangerous situation now, with this preventive doctrine
in place?
Noam Chomsky:
Sure. The preventive war doctrine is virtually an invitation to
potential targets to develop some kind of deterrent, and there are only
two kinds of deterrent. One is weapons of mass destruction, the other is
large-scale terror. That's been pointed out over and over again by
strategic analysts, the intelligence agencies and so on, so sure, it
raises the danger that something will get out of control.
Andy Clark:
This email is from Don Rhodes, from Melbourne, in Australia, and he
says: "I do not believe that the US wants to dominate the world. The
Americans have been attacked on several fronts, 9/11 being only one of
them. Someone has to bring into line rogue states and it is the USA
alone that has the capability to do this. Without such a 'world
policeman' the world would just disintegrate into warring factions. Look
at history for examples of this." What do you make of that sort of
statement?
Noam Chomsky:
The first sentence is simply factually incorrect. The National Security
Strategy states fairly explicitly that the US intends to dominate the
world by force, which is the dimension in which it rules supreme, and to
ensure that there is never any potential challenge to this domination.
That was not only stated explicitly, it has also been commented on
repeatedly, right away in the main establishment - the Foreign Affairs
journal in its next issue is pointing out that the United States is
declaring the right to be what it calls a "revisionist state", which
will use force to control the world in its own interests. The person who
sent the email may believe that the US has some unique right to run the
world by force. I don't believe that, and contrary to what was stated I
don't think history supports that at all. In fact the US record,
incidentally with the support of Australia, since the period of its
global dominance in the 1940s, is one of instigating war and violence
and terror on a very substantial scale. The Indochina War, just to take
one example in which Australia participated, was basically a war of
aggression. The United States attacked South Vietnam in 1962. The war
then spread to the rest of Indochina. The end result was several million
people killed, the countries devastated, and that's only one example. So
history does not support the conclusion and the principle that one state
should have a unique right to rule the world by force. That's an
extremely hazardous principle, no matter who the country is.
Andy Clark:
This is from Noel Collamer, from Bellingham, in Washington, in the USA,
and he writes: "Noam says: 'The Bush administration intends to dominate
the world by force, the one dimension in which it rules supreme, and to
do so permanently.' To this I ask, if we, who can, do not act with force
against tyrants, then what does he suggest be done? That the brutalized
populace should use non-violent resistance against their tyrant even
though this will result in their own genocide?"
Noam Chomsky:
First of all - I don't say that, the Bush administration says it. I'm
simply repeating what is stated quite explicitly, and that's not
particularly controversial. As I mentioned, it was commented on,
essentially in those words, in the first issue of Foreign Affairs
immediately afterwards. As for countries suffering under tyranny - yes,
it would be very good if somebody would help and support them. Take for
example the current administration in Washington. They themselves -
remember, these are mostly re-cycled Reaganites - they supported a
series of monstrous dictators, who subjected their populations to
vicious tyranny, including Saddam Hussein, Ceausescu, Suharto, Marcos,
Duvalier. It's quite a long list. The best way to deal with that would
have been to stop supporting them. Incidentally, support for terror and
violence continues. The best way to stop it is to stop supporting them.
Often, in fact in every one of those cases, they were overthrown by
their own populations, even though the US was supporting the dictator.
Ceausescu, for example, was a tyrant perfectly comparable to Saddam
Hussein. He was overthrown in 1989 by his own population, while he was
being supported by the current incumbents in Washington, and that
continues. If there are people resisting oppression and violence, we
should find ways to support them, and the easiest way is to stop
supporting the tyrants. After that, complicated issues arise. There is
no record, that I know of, of the US, or any other state - [there are]
very rare examples - intervening to try to prevent oppression and
violence. That's extremely rare.
Andy Clark:
OK, another email. This is from H.P. Velten, who is from New Jersey, in
the USA, and he says: "Why isn't there more controversy about Bush's
motives in the US media?"
Noam Chomsky:
Well, actually there is plenty of controversy. One thing that was quite
striking about the war in Iraq and the National Security Strategy, which
is the framework for it, was that is was very strongly criticised, right
at the core of the foreign policy elite - it was sharply criticised in
the two major foreign affairs journals, Foreign Affairs and Foreign
Policy. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which rarely takes a
position on current controversial issues, had a monograph condemning it.
There's a whole series of other articles. It's partly reflected in the
media, but not very much, because remember, the media tend to be quite
supportive of power, for all sorts of reasons.
Andy Clark:
OK, another email. This is from Rijswijk, in The Netherlands, from M.J.
"Bob" Groothand. This message says: "Throughout history some nations
have always tried to rule the world. Most recently Germany, Japan and
Russia come to mind. If the US is now the latest 'would-be conqueror'
then we can thank our lucky stars. It would be done with decency and
honour for all mankind. The fact is that nothing like this is being
considered by Bush or the American government. You forget that the US
has a constitution and, unlike Stalin, Hitler, Hussein and other
despots, Bush is up for re-election in two years and American voters are
not dumb nor are they oppressed or intimidated. It's a secret ballot."
Will electoral accountability rein in the US government, do you think,
as this listener suggests?
Noam Chomsky:
First of all, the account of history is mostly fanciful, but let's put
that aside. The fact that a country has a constitution and is internally
democratic does not mean that it does not carry out violence and
aggression. There is a long history of this. England, for example, was
perhaps the most free country in the world in the 19th century and was
carrying out horrifying atrocities throughout much of the world, and the
case of the United States is similar. The record goes back very far. The
United States was a democratic country, for example, when it invaded the
Philippines a century ago, killing several hundred thousand people and
leaving it devastated. It was a democratic country in the 1980s, when
the current incumbents in Washington carried out a devastating war of
terror in Nicaragua, leaving tens of thousands dead and the country
practically ruined, an attack for which they incidentally were condemned by the World Court and the Security Council in a veto-ed resolution, but
then escalated the attack, and so it continues. As to the democratic
election, yes, true, there is an election, and the Republicans have
explained very clearly how they intend to overcome the fact that their
policies are pretty strongly opposed by the majority of the population.
They intend to overcome it by driving the country into fear and panic,
so that they will huddle under the umbrella of a powerful figure who
will protect them. In fact, we've just seen that last September when the
Security Strategy was announced and the drumbeat of propaganda for war
began. There was a government media propaganda campaign, which was quite
spectacular. It succeeded in convincing the majority of the population
that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the security of the United
States. No-one else believed that. Even Kuwait and Iran, where they
despise him, didn't regard him as a threat. They knew he was the weakest
country in the region. It also succeeded in convincing probably the
majority of the population that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, in fact
instigated it and carried it out, and was planning further attacks.
Again, there isn't a particle of evidence for this, and there is no
intelligence agency or security analyst in the world who believes it.
Andy Clark:
Where is the political opposition in the US then - the Democrats? Why
don't they seek to make inroads into the Republican camp? Obviously,
there is a substantial peace movement - we saw hundreds of thousands of
people on the streets in the US who were opposed to the military action.
Where is the political opposition in the US now?
Noam Chomsky:
The Democratic political opposition is very tepid. There has been very
little debate, traditionally, over foreign policy issues. That's
recognised right in the mainstream. Political figures are reluctant to
put themselves in a position where they can be condemned as calling for
the destruction of the United States and supporting its enemies and
presenting fantasies, and be subjected to fantasies of the kind that in
fact were included in that email. Politicians are unwilling to subject
themselves to that, and the result is that the voice of a large portion
of the population simply is barely represented, and the Republicans
recognise it. Karl Rove, the Republican campaign manager, made it clear
before the last election in 2002 that the Republicans would have to try
to run the election on a security issue, because if they faced it on
issues of domestic policy they would lose. So they frightened the
population into obedience, and he has already announced that they are
going to have to do the same thing next time in the 2004 election. They
are going to have to present it as voting for a war president who will
defend you from destruction. Incidentally, they are simply rehearsing a
script that runs right through the 1980s, the first time they were in
office - the same people, approximately. If you look, the policies they
implemented were unpopular. The population was opposed, but they kept
pressing the panic button, and it worked. In 1981 Libya was going to
attack us. In 1983 Grenada was going to set up an airbase from which the
Russians would bomb us. In 1985 Reagan declared a national emergency
because the security of the United States was threatened by the
government of Nicaragua. Somebody watching from Mars would have
collapsed in laughter. And so it went on through the 1980s. They managed
to keep the population intimidated and frightened enough so that they
could maintain a thin grasp on political power, and that's the effort
since. They didn't invent that tactic, incidentally, but it
unfortunately has its effects, and political figures and others are
reluctant to stand up and face the torrent of abuse and hysteria that
will immediately come from trying to bring matters back to the level of
fact.
Andy Clark:
OK, another email. This is from Boris Karaman, from Wyoming in the USA,
and he says: "Peace can only come from strength and often comes after a
just war. The Pax Romana resulted from the strength of the Roman Empire,
not from any pacifist ideology. There is more to criticize in U.S.
history when we failed to act soon enough. As examples, Hitler, Stalin
and Pol Pot rose to power because of a lack of aggression against them.
Your criticisms of a power-based approach to foreign policy are either
naive or disingenuous. Those who act against threats make possible a
world where arrogant leftists enjoy the freedom of speech to exhibit
their errors in reasoning. Long may it be so. Peace to you, but peace
through strength." What do you make of that email?
Noam Chomsky:
Well, we can begin by looking at the facts. Take, say, Hitler. Hitler
did rise to power with the support of the United States and Britain. As
late as 1937, the State Department was describing Hitler as a moderate
standing between the extremes of right and left, who we must support, or
else the masses of the population might take power and move in a leftist
direction. In fact, the United States did not enter the war until it was
attacked by Japan, and Germany declared war on the United States. In the
case of Stalin, the United States didn't bring him to power, and they
also didn't particularly oppose him. As late as 1948, Harry Truman, the
president, was stating that he thought Stalin was a decent man, who was
honest, [but] being misled by his advisers, and so on and so forth. In
the case of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge developed in the early 1970s - they
were virtually unknown in 1970 - and they developed in the context of a
massive US bombing campaign in Cambodia. About 600,000 people died,
according to the CIA, but it helped energise a fierce, vicious
resistance, which took over in 1975. After it took over, the United
States did nothing to try to stop it, but when Vietnam did eliminate Pol
Pot, in 1978-1979, by invading and driving him out, Vietnam was bitterly
attacked by the United States for the crime of getting rid of Pol Pot.
The US supported a Chinese invasion to punish Vietnam, and imposed harsh
sanctions on them, and in fact turned to direct support of the remnants
of the Pol Pot armies in Thailand. So, if you want to talk about
history, get it straight. Then we can start with the tirades.
Andy Clark:
Do you think there is a point where force can be justified? We heard a
lot of arguments about the Iraq war - that this was the lesser of two
evils. The recent history of Iraq was well-known, but now it was a stage
whereby something had to be done to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Lots of
Iraqi people themselves - within the country - seemed to support that
argument.
Noam Chomsky:
First of all, we don't know that Iraqis were calling out to be invaded,
but if that was the goal, what was the point of all the lying? What you
are saying is that Tony Blair, George Bush, Colin Powell and the rest
are fanatic liars - they were pretending until the last minute that the
goal was to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. If the goal was to
liberate the Iraqi people, why not say so? Why the lies?
Andy Clark:
President Bush did say that in the very last weeks [before the war]. He
started talking about a war of liberation.
Noam Chomsky:
At the last minute, at the Azores summit, he said that, even if Saddam
Hussein and his associates leave the country, the United States is going
to invade anyway - meaning the US wants to control it. Now, in fact,
there is a serious issue behind this. It has nothing to do with
liberating the Iraqi people. You might ask the question why Iraqis did
not overthrow Saddam the way, say, Romanians overthrew Ceausescu... and
so on through a long series of others. Well, you know it's pretty well
understood. The westerners who know Iraq best - Dennis Halliday and Hans
von Sponeck, the heads of the UN oil for food programme - they had
hundreds of investigators running through the country. They knew the
country intimately, and they have been pointing out, as have plenty of
others, that what has prevented any kind of uprising in Iraq is the
murderous sanctions regime, which killed hundreds of thousands of people
by conservative estimates, strengthened Saddam Hussein, and made the
population completely reliant on him for survival. So the first step in
allowing Iraqis to liberate themselves would have been to stop
preventing it, by permitting the society to reconstruct, so that then
they could take care of their own affairs. If that failed, if Iraqis
were unable to do what other populations have done under the rule of
comparable tyrants, at that point the question of the use of force might
arise, but until they have been at least given an opportunity, and
haven't been prevented by US-British action from undertaking it, we
can't seriously raise that question, and in fact it was not raised by
Britain and the United States during the build-up to war. The focus was
on weapons of mass destruction. Just look at the record.
Andy Clark:
This is an email from Bob Kirk, in Israel. He says: "Why is Professor
Chomsky so opposed to the spread of democracy and the liberation of most
of the world's peoples (by the US if necessary, since the EU has
abandoned challenging dictators), and what means other than persuasion
and sometimes justifable force would he propose in order to liberate the
unfree societies of the world?"
Noam Chomsky:
I would be strongly in favour of bringing democracy to the world, and I
am opposed to preventing democracy. One of the reasons - it's very
striking, if you look at the last few months - [is that] I have never
seen, that I can recall, such clear and brazen contempt and hatred for
democracy as has been expressed by US elites. Just have a look. Europe,
for example, was divided into what was called Old and New Europe. There
was a criterion - Old Europe were the countries where the governments,
for whatever reason, took the same positions as the vast majority of
their populations. That's called democracy. New Europe - Italy, Spain,
Hungary - were the countries where the governments overrode an even
larger percentage of their populations. The population was more opposed
in those countries than in Old Europe, but the governments disregarded
their populations - maybe 80 or 90 percent of them - and followed orders
from Washington, and that's called good! Turkey is the most striking
example. Turkey was bitterly attacked by US commentators and elites,
because the government took the same position as about 95 percent of the
population. Paul Wolfowitz, who is described as the great exponent of
democratisation, a few weeks ago condemned the Turkish military for not
Andy Clark:
President Bush did say that in the very last weeks [before the war]. He
started talking about a war of liberation.
Noam Chomsky:
At the last minute, at the Azores summit, he said that, even if Saddam
Hussein and his associates leave the country, the United States is going
to invade anyway - meaning the US wants to control it. Now, in fact,
there is a serious issue behind this. It has nothing to do with
liberating the Iraqi people. You might ask the question why Iraqis did
not overthrow Saddam the way, say, Romanians overthrew Ceausescu... and
so on through a long series of others. Well, you know it's pretty well
understood. The westerners who know Iraq best - Dennis Halliday and Hans
von Sponeck, the heads of the UN oil for food programme - they had
hundreds of investigators running through the country. They knew the
country intimately, and they have been pointing out, as have plenty of
others, that what has prevented any kind of uprising in Iraq is the
murderous sanctions regime, which killed hundreds of thousands of people
by conservative estimates, strengthened Saddam Hussein, and made the
population completely reliant on him for survival. So the first step in
allowing Iraqis to liberate themselves would have been to stop
preventing it, by permitting the society to reconstruct, so that then
they could take care of their own affairs. If that failed, if Iraqis
were unable to do what other populations have done under the rule of
comparable tyrants, at that point the question of the use of force might
arise, but until they have been at least given an opportunity, and
haven't been prevented by US-British action from undertaking it, we
can't seriously raise that question, and in fact it was not raised by
Britain and the United States during the build-up to war. The focus was
on weapons of mass destruction. Just look at the record.
Andy Clark:
This is an email from Bob Kirk, in Israel. He says: "Why is Professor
Chomsky so opposed to the spread of democracy and the liberation of most
of the world's peoples (by the US if necessary, since the EU has
abandoned challenging dictators), and what means other than persuasion
and sometimes justifable force would he propose in order to liberate the
unfree societies of the world?"
Noam Chomsky:
I would be strongly in favour of bringing democracy to the world, and I
am opposed to preventing democracy. One of the reasons - it's very
striking, if you look at the last few months - [is that] I have never
seen, that I can recall, such clear and brazen contempt and hatred for
democracy as has been expressed by US elites. Just have a look. Europe,
for example, was divided into what was called Old and New Europe. There
was a criterion - Old Europe were the countries where the governments,
for whatever reason, took the same positions as the vast majority of
their populations. That's called democracy. New Europe - Italy, Spain,
Hungary - were the countries where the governments overrode an even
larger percentage of their populations. The population was more opposed
in those countries than in Old Europe, but the governments disregarded
their populations - maybe 80 or 90 percent of them - and followed orders
from Washington, and that's called good! Turkey is the most striking
example. Turkey was bitterly attacked by US commentators and elites,
because the government took the same position as about 95 percent of the
population. Paul Wolfowitz, who is described as the great exponent of
democratisation, a few weeks ago condemned the Turkish military for not
intervening to compel the government to, as he put it, "help Americans",
instead of paying attention to 95 percent of their own population. This
expresses brazen contempt for democracy, and the record supports it.
It's not that the United States is uniquely bad, it's like any other
powerful state, but take a look at the record in the areas where the US
has controlled the region for a long time - Central America and the
Caribbean. It's about a hundred years. The US has been willing to
tolerate democracy, but as they themselves put it, only if it is - I'm
quoting from a Reagan administration advocate of democracy - "top-down
democracy", in which traditional elites remain in power, elites that
have been associated with the United States and run their societies the
way the US wants. In that case, the US will tolerate democracy. They are
very similar to other powerful states, but let's not have any illusions
about it. The sender is writing from the Middle East, if I remember...
Andy Clark:
>From Israel.
Noam Chomsky:
...and there the United States has supported brutal, oppressive
dictatorships for a long time, and it has known for a long time that
that is the major reason for popular opposition. Back in the 1950s, we
know from internal records, president Eisenhower discussed with his
staff what he called the "campaign of hatred against us" among the
people of the Middle East, and the reason was that the US was supporting
oppressive and undemocratic regimes and blocking democracy and
development because of our interest in controlling near-east oil. Well
that continues until the present day. You hear the same thing from
wealthy westernised Muslims interviewed in the Wall Street Journal at
this very moment. There is a long record of opposing democracy, unless
it is under control, and for reasons that are rooted in familiar great
power politics.
Andy Clark:
Let's take another email. This is from Vera Gottlieb, from British
Columbia, in Canada, and she says: "Under the guise of 'fighting
terrorism', the US Bill of Rights is being strongly curtailed, not to
say decimated. I can't understand why the average American is not up in
arms over it. Does the average American know, or care, what is really
going on?"
Noam Chomsky:
Very few are well aware of what's going on. The Patriot Act, and the
new, planned Patriot 2 Act, it is true, undermine - in principle at
least, in words, and partially in actions - fundamental civil liberties
to a remarkable extent. So, the current justice department has claimed
the right to arrest people, including American citizens, put them in
confinement indefinitely, without charge, without access to lawyers and
families, until the president declares that the war on terror is over.
They have even gone beyond that. The new plans include plans to actually
take away citizenship if the attorney general decides to do so. This has
been very harshly condemned by civil rights lawyers, law professors,
others, but very little of it leaks into the media. It's not really
well-known. These moves are quite dramatic. President Bush is supposed
to have on his desk a bust of Winston Churchill, given to him by his
friend Tony Blair, and in fact Churchill had something to say about
this. He said, and this is virtually a quote, [that] for a government to
put a person in prison without trial by his peers is in the highest
degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian governments,
whether nazi or communist. He said that in 1943, condemning proposals of
a similar nature in England, which weren't enacted. Remember, in 1943
England was in pretty desperate straits - it was under attack and facing
destruction by the most vicious military force in history, and
nevertheless Churchill rightly described measures like these as "in the
highest degree odious", and "the foundation of totalitarian
governments". Yes, people should be very upset about it.
Andy Clark:
Why isn't this an issue of common debate in the USA then? And why isn't
there grassroots opposition against the Patriot Act and these things
you've just been describing?
Noam Chomsky:
First of all, to know these things you have to do a bit of a research
project. I don't say that it is hidden - you can find the facts if you
look, but they are certainly not common knowledge. To the extent they
are common knowledge, there is opposition, but you have to recall the
great success of the government media propaganda campaign, since last
September, to convince the population of the United States that they are
in imminent threat of destruction by the monster Saddam Hussein, and
next week it will be someone else who we have to protect ourselves
against. Incidentally, the majority, who were convinced by those
propaganda lies, their attitudes correlate very closely with support for
war, and you can understand why - if you really believe that, you're
willing to see civil liberties erode. Of course, it was fabrication, one
of the most spectacular examples of propaganda fabrication known, as
many have pointed out, but it did work. When people are frightened they
will - sometimes - be willing not to defend the rights that they have
won.
Andy Clark:
OK, another email. This is from Venezuela. This is from Alberto
Villasmil Raven, and he says: "I would like to know if Professor Chomsky
thinks it possible that the US will invade Venezuela."
Noam Chomsky:
Well, I don't think they'll directly invade, but among the regions that
are targeted for so-called preventive war, one of them is almost
certainly the Andes region. It's a region of substantial resources. It
is, to a certain degree, out of control. The US already has extensive
military resources - a large military basing system in Ecuador, the
Dutch islands, El Salvador - surrounding the region, and quite a few
forces on the ground. My suspicion is that the US will probably, in
Venezuela, once again support a coup as it did last year. But if that
doesn't work, direct intervention is not impossible. Remember, this has
long been planned. One of the very good things about the United States
is it's a very free society, uniquely so. We have extensive records of
internal planning. Right in the middle of the Cuban missile crisis,
where we have the records, president Kennedy and his brother were
discussing the threat of the Cuban missiles, and they said one of the
big problems they posed was: "They might deter an invasion of Venezuela,
if we decide to invade." That was 1962. These are old policies, deeply
rooted.
Andy Clark:
OK, this is from Berrada M. Ali, from Rabat, in Morocco, and his
question is as follows: "Do you think that, after the unjustified and
unjustifiable war against Iraq, the world will lose the meaning of its
existence, like in the field of language, when we lose the gramatical
rules? Will we automatically lose the reference of the meaning of
sentences, and consequently the meaning of the world around us?"
Noam Chomsky:
In my opinion, the most honest commentary on this point has been made by
strong supporters of the war in Iraq. For example, if you take a look at
the current issue of Foreign Affairs, the main establishment journal,
there is a lead article by a well-known specialist on international law,
Michael Glennon, who argues that we should recognise that international
law and international institutions are what he calls "hot air". They
have proven their inapplicability by the fact that the United States
disregards them, and he says it is right to disregard them, and the
United States must maintain the right to use force as it chooses,
independent of these institutions, which we simply have to dismiss and
disregard. Well that's at least an honest statement. I think it's a
terrible threat to the world, and it's part of the reason why the US
government has become an object of massive fear around the world. The
international polls on this are remarkable, and it's understandable.
When a country takes that position, of course people are going to be
frightened, and furthermore, as again has been pointed out over and over
by intelligence agencies and analysts and so on, they'll do something
about it. They'll try to find means of deterrence. The United States is
calling on the world to proliferate weapons of mass destruction and
terror, if only as a deterrent.
Andy Clark:
One final email. This is from John Blessen, in Beverly Hills, in the
United States, and his message is: "How can the United States best
protect itself from rogue states like North Korea? And from nuclear,
chemical, and biological threats from outlaw states? Cataclysmic threats
to the United States are real and some say imminent, so how would you,
Dr Chomsky, fashion a defense policy for the United States?"
Noam Chomsky:
Well, let's take the one example that was mentioned - North Korea. You
can't make a general comment, it depends on the case. Take the case of
North Korea. Here there is a strong consensus among the states of the
region - South Korea, Japan, China and Russia - that a diplomatic path
should be followed, a path of negotiations to reduce the threat, which
is real, and to integrate North Korea slowly back into the region in
some fashion, and that's a wise move. Actually, Clinton made moves in
that direction. He didn't actually implement them, but he made them.
They were pretty successful, and I think that consensus is correct. The
way to defend yourself against such threats is to prevent them from
arising. There are many ways to do that, and the same is true in other
cases that were mentioned. In the case of Iraq, it was a horrible
regime. That's why I was always opposed to the fact that the United
States supported Saddam Hussein, and also was opposed to the sanctions
regime, which prevented a revolt against him, but, horrible as it was,
it was not a threat. Kuwait and Iran, which despise Saddam Hussein -
they were both invaded by him - nevertheless didn't regard him as a
threat, and there was good reason for that. Iraq was the weakest state
in the region. Its military expenditures were about a third those of
Kuwait, which has ten percent of its population. It had been decimated
by the sanctions, virtually disarmed - a horrible place, but not a
threat. This was propaganda - grotesque, ugly propaganda. If you want to
look at other cases that one has a reason to be worried about - yes,
then make up appropriate plans for them. Take, say, the threat of
terror. That's very real and very dangerous. The threat of terror has
been increased by actions of the Bush administration. For example,
intelligence agencies are pointing out that recruitment for terrorist
organisations like al-Qaeda has risen very sharply since the threat to
invade Iraq began, and then the invasion, and that's to be anticipated
for good reasons. It's understood why.
Andy Clark:
You are somebody who seeks to debunk this propaganda that you say the US
government is pushing onto the population. What sort of attitudes do
people take towards you now - someone who speaks out against current US
policy?
Noam Chomsky:
I probably spend an hour a night just very reluctantly writing letters
turning down invitations to talk all over the country - huge audiences,
tremendous interest. The United States is not different from other
countries in the world in this respect. There is great fear and concern
about the policies that the Bush administration is pursuing. If you
eliminate the element of panic, which was induced by the propaganda,
which is unique to the United States, then opposition to the war and to
the security strategy here are approximately the same as elsewhere. I
and in fact other people who are willing to speak publicly are simply
overwhelmed by requests and demands to discuss these issues.
Andy Clark:
Professor Noam Chomsky, author, political activist and linguistics
professor from the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, thank you
very much for joining us.
Noam Chomsky:
Thank you.
Andy Clark:
And thank you all very much for listening.