Imperial Ambitions
Encyclopedia
Imperial Ambitions: Conversations with Noam Chomsky on the Post-9/11 World is a 2005
Metropolitan Books American Empire Project
publication of interviews with American linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky
conducted and edited by award-winning journalist David Barsamian
of Alternative Radio
.
In the interviews Chomsky offers his opinions on such topics as the occupation of Iraq, the doctrine of pre-emptive attack, and the threat to international peace posed by the U.S. drive for global domination, in which, according to Deirdre Fernand, writing in The Times
, He lambasts all forms of American colonisation.
This is the 6th volume is a series of interviews between Barsamian and Chomsky that began with the 1992
Common Courage Press publication Chronicles of Dissent and was preceded by the 2001
South End Press
publication Propaganda and the Public Mind; it is the first collection of interviews with Chomsky since the 2001 Seven Stories Press
publication 9-11.
The interviews in this volume were conducted between March 22, 2003 and February 8, 2005 for the most part in Chomsky's office at M.I.T. and had previously been published in part in International Socialist Review
, Monthly Review
, The Progressive
, The Sun
and Z Magazine.
in July 2005, Barsamian discusses what it is like to interview Chomsky, after having done so for the past 20 years, and states that, "It's to be in the presence of someone who insists that it's not so complicated to understand the truth or to know how to act." He goes on to conclude that, "it is my hope that the conversations in this book will spark thought, discussion, and, most of all, activism."
on March 22, 2003 Chomsky begins by stating that the U.S. invasion of Iraq demonstrates a new doctrine he defines as preventative war where the U.S. moves to destroy any perceived challenge to its domination and in order to create this norm Saddam Hussein
was falsely portrayed to the American people as a threat to their existence. If the establishment of a new regime in Iraq
is successful he postulates that the U.S. will target other nations such as Venezuela
or Iran
in order to establish control over oil production and that the build-up to a U.S.-Turkish-Israeli invasion of Iran is already underway with the Israeli airforce flying reconnaissance missions from U.S. bases in Turkey
and attempts to stir-up Azeri nationalist forces over the border. He adds however that this attack will only go ahead if Iran is perceived as unable to fight back and that this has encouraged Iran to undertake the development of nuclear weapons just as Iraq was encouraged to do so by the Israeli bombing of the Osirak reactor in 1981. He concludes by stating that anti-war protestors should not lose hope but prepare for the long haul like the abolitionist and civil rights movements did before.
to win U.S. backing in World War I
, then by Edward Bernays
and Walter Lippmann
in the 1920s to turn the on-job control of Taylorism into the off-job control, and in the elitist policies of Harold Laswell in the 1930s that had their origins in the Madisonian Model
and would re-appear in Adolf Hitler
's Mein Kampf
, before moving largely into the private sector with the abolition of U.S. President Reagan
's Office of Public Diplomacy
in the 1980s. He sees Karl Rove
as the inheritor of this legacy with the instigation of a campaign to instil fear in the American populous with false claims about Iraq and portray George W. Bush
as their saviour so that they will accept a domestic policy that goes against their own interests. He postulates that there is a propensity for fear particular to U.S. culture, possibly related to the country's history, that makes the American people especially susceptible to this form of propaganda and that it is necessary for them to develop an attitude of critical examination in order to overcome this.
was a tempting target due to its strategic location amidst the developing economies of Northeast Asia it had a deterrent (artillery pointed at Seoul
) that Iraq lacked and goes on to point out that Imperial occupation is actually quite costly although these costs are in effect gifts from the taxpayers to private corporations like Bechtel
and Halliburton
. He agrees with Nehru's analysis that Imperialism is inherently racist but points out that it is necessary for Imperialists to give their mission a moral basis and as John Stuart Mill
did this for the British Empire
so now Michael Ignatief and other intellectuals are doing it for the American Empire but the populace should ignore these apologists and speak the truth.
's comments about the World War II firebombing of Tokyo in The Fog of War
by pointing out that definition of a war crime at the Nuremberg Trials
was anything the enemy did that the Allies didn't do and goes on to point out that this logic is central to the Bush doctrine
. One of the key crimes prosecuted at the Trials was that of waging a war of aggression but Chomsky claims that the U.S. invasion of Iraq is the latest in a series of aggressive wars lead or backed by the U.S. that have not been legally questioned as the U.S. sets the law rather than follows it. He cites polls that state the majority of Iraqis view the U.S. forces as occupiers and points out that Iraqis have a far better understanding of Imperialism than the Western media, which criticises the implementation but not the basis of the invasion, as their country was artificially carved out as a British colony in 1920. He concludes that the U.S. and Israel's shortsighted stockpiling and development of nuclear weapons spurs proliferation and terrorism so that even if Iraq was found to have weapons of mass destruction
it would still not justify the invasion.
in the 1980s under a military junta supported by U.S. President Reagan and his 'proconsul' John Negroponte
, who with this history effaced was then being sent to Iraq, and goes on to discuss other actions of the administration including the invasions of Grenada and Nicaragua
that have been effaced by a post 1992 propaganda campaign. He uses the example of the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état to highlight the role of the Central Intelligence Agency
and the complicity of the media in this propaganda, which he claims is necessary for the public to allow the things done in its name and that public opposition back home resultant from the failure of this propaganda on Iraq was the reason for the recent restraint of U.S. forces in Falluja. He concludes that while it was the Reagan administration
that funded and trained the militants that would later develop in Al-Qaeda
it was the Clinton administration's cruise missile attack on Afghanistan and Sudan that turned them into anti-Western symbols and the actions of the George W. Bush administration that intensified their terrorist activities and that the only real difference between presidential candidates John Kerry
and George W. Bush
would be with regard to domestic policy.
idealism and hard-headed realism, which has become standard story in scholarship and the media regarding U.S. foreign policy and goes on to compare the invasion of Iraq with the Vietnam War
, both of which are said to have been mistakes undertaken with the best of intentions. He goes on to dismiss the concept of a Vietnam Syndrome
and claims that while the U.S.'s maximal objectives were not achieved it still achieved a substantial victory by ensuring that the country did not become a model for its neighbours. Such false conceptions, he claims, allow the U.S. to get away with major war crimes such as the 2004 occupation of the general hospital in Falluja and the turning back of civilians fleeing the city as the media focuses on minor war crimes committed by individual soldiers or units in the field, such as the My Lai massacre
, whilst ignoring the greater war crimes of the planners in Washington, D.C.
. He concludes by opposing the concept of an all-volunteer army as this amounts to a mercenary army of the disadvantaged whilst the draft encourages more civilising ties to the citizen culture to which he attributes in part the failure of U.S. Imperial aims in Vietnam
.
, which, he claims, is intended to undermine solidarity and atomise the population so that they are easy to control. He points out that the elite media
(e.g., BBC
and New York Times) and the business press (e.g., Wall Street Journal and Financial Times
) have a duty to report the facts to their primary constituency (economical, political and doctrinal managers) and all he has to do is deconstruct the doctrinal slant to discover the truth. These techniques of intellectual self-defense are, he claims, essential for people to understand their power over governments, which relies on their consent to govern and he uses the example of the changing role of women in modern society to demonstrate how the questioning of these underlying biases can lead to real social change. He concludes that these movements do not necessarily have to come from the oppressed but in fact oppressors who realise their guilt and more importantly attempt to do something about it can be even more effective.
on February 7, 2005 Chomsky begins by reminiscing about his early education in a Deweyite
school and his relationship with his father, a Hebrew scholar, who first introduced him to Semitic
linguistics. He goes on to recall his subsequent disappointment with the academic discipline of high school and college, which he only continued with under the influence of Zellig Harris
, who ran the linguistics department at the University of Pennsylvania
. He states that the academically unprestigious school allowed him an intellectual freedom that worked to his advantage but which means he is mostly self-educated with no formal training in any field, including linguistics
. He rejects the use of labels but accepts that he is an old fashioned conservative in regard to his taste in music, literature and classical liberal doctrines with political views that grow out of the anarcho-syndicalist tradition. He states that he finds the threatening of Enlightenment
ideals by extremist religious beliefs a very worrisome feature of U.S. culture that is unique amongst industrial countries and has undermined democracy. He concludes that his goal in teaching and research has been to understand something about the human mind whilst his goal in activism has been to help people become engaged in overcoming human suffering.
there has been a conscious takeover of the electoral system by the public relations industry, which sells candidates as Bible-fearing evangelical Christians, and that this process can be observed in other aspects of American life as an undeniable aspect of U.S. exceptionalism, which he attributes in part to the country's strong sense of insecurity. He then turns his attention to the planning of the U.S. economy, which he claims has over the preceding 30 years shifted to benefit the corporations and the superrich at the cost of the general population and future generations. He theorises that economists have highly ideological ways of measuring costs which by concentrating on productivity shifts costs to the consumer creating what is in actuality an extremely inefficient system as a whole. He concludes that the U.S. is a failed state with basic institutions that are totally illegitimate, but he hopes one-day it will become as democratic as Brazil
or Haiti
.
writing in Political Affairs Magazine
commends Barsamian for consistently asking, penetrating and provocative questions, and states that this book is an, ideal place to start, for readers not familiar with Chomsky whilst those that are will still be surprised by his, analyses of recent events.
Swanson comments on Chomsky philosophical background but states that this book, "contains none of Chomsky the philosopher," rather it is, "purely the political activist," and when he, "turns to politics he forswears not only pretentious language but also metaphysical theories of history," so that in these interviews he, "is completely down to earth and pragmatic."
The reviewer in the South China Morning Post
also comments on the plain language in these interviews commenting that, "Those who have tackled Chomsky's latest book, Hegemony or Survival
, may be excused for thinking otherwise, but Barsamian's skilful editing makes [him] accessible."
Laurence Phelan writing in The Independent
also comments on this and goes on to state that, "These transcripts find [Chomsky] in a sprightly and sometimes even playful mood, able to draw upon a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of world affairs and history, making connections, alighting on unexpected topics of conversation and arguing with persuasive logic."
Barry Weisleder writing in Socialist Voice
also makes comparisons to Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival stating that the, "'fast flowing dialog", in these interviews, "traces some of the same ground", "but delves more into strategic questions, though not always rewardingly", and goes on to criticise, "the extreme limitation of his outlook", which, "is the tragedy that dulls the brilliance of Chomsky's body of work".
Swanson references Chomsky's example of the Mexican ambassador's comment to U.S. President Kennedy
that, "If we publicly declare that Cuba is a threat to our security, forty million Mexicans will die laughing," in his concluding comment that, "The danger in reading Chomsky is that millions of Americans will die laughing every time they turn on their televisions."
2005 in literature
The year 2005 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*February 25 - Canada Reads selects Rockbound by Frank Parker Day as the novel to be read across the nation....
Metropolitan Books American Empire Project
American Empire Project
The American Empire Project is a book series that deals with the recent imperialist and exceptionalist tendencies in U.S. foreign policy. The series is published by Metropolitan Books and includes contributions by notable authors such as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Chalmers Johnson.The project's...
publication of interviews with American linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
conducted and edited by award-winning journalist David Barsamian
David Barsamian
David Barsamian is an Armenian-American radio broadcaster, writer, and the founder and director of Alternative Radio, the Boulder, Colorado-based syndicated weekly talk program heard on some 125 radio stations in various countries....
of Alternative Radio
Alternative Radio
Alternative Radio is an internationally syndicated, one-hour, weekly radio program, featuring serious interviews with humanitarian and progressive thinkers. Begun in 1986, it evolved from a program that journalist David Barsamian hosted on community radio station KGNU-FM, in Boulder, Colorado. AR...
.
In the interviews Chomsky offers his opinions on such topics as the occupation of Iraq, the doctrine of pre-emptive attack, and the threat to international peace posed by the U.S. drive for global domination, in which, according to Deirdre Fernand, writing in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, He lambasts all forms of American colonisation.
This is the 6th volume is a series of interviews between Barsamian and Chomsky that began with the 1992
1992 in literature
The year 1992 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Ben Aaronovitch - Transit*Julia Álvarez - How the García Girls Lost Their Accents*Paul Auster - Leviathan*Iain Banks - The Crow Road...
Common Courage Press publication Chronicles of Dissent and was preceded by the 2001
2001 in literature
The year 2001 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The film version of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic book, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, is released to movie theaters...
South End Press
South End Press
South End Press is a non-profit book publisher run on a model of participatory economics. It was founded in 1977 by Michael Albert, Lydia Sargent, John Schall, Pat Walker, Juliet Schor, Mary Lea, Joe Bowring, and Dave Millikan, among others, in Boston's South End...
publication Propaganda and the Public Mind; it is the first collection of interviews with Chomsky since the 2001 Seven Stories Press
Seven Stories Press
Seven Stories Press is an independent publishing company. Located in New York City, the company was founded by editor Dan Simon in 1995 after he parted company with Four Walls Eight Windows. The company was named for its seven founding authors: Annie Ernaux, Gary Null, the estate of Nelson Algren,...
publication 9-11.
The interviews in this volume were conducted between March 22, 2003 and February 8, 2005 for the most part in Chomsky's office at M.I.T. and had previously been published in part in International Socialist Review
International Socialist Review
International Socialist Review may refer to:*International Socialist Review *International Socialist Review *International Socialist Review...
, Monthly Review
Monthly Review
Monthly Review is an independent Marxist journal published 11 times per year in New York City.-History:The publication was founded by Harvard University economics instructor Paul Sweezy, who became the first editor...
, The Progressive
The Progressive
The Progressive is an American monthly magazine of politics, culture and progressivism with a pronounced liberal perspective on some issues. Known for its pacifism, it has strongly opposed military interventions, such as the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The magazine also devotes much coverage...
, The Sun
The Sun (magazine)
The Sun is a monthly American magazine of essays, interviews, short stories, poems, and photography.In 1974, Sy Safransky began publishing the Chapel Hill Sun and selling copies for $0.25 each....
and Z Magazine.
Introduction
In his introduction, written in Boulder, ColoradoBoulder, Colorado
Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...
in July 2005, Barsamian discusses what it is like to interview Chomsky, after having done so for the past 20 years, and states that, "It's to be in the presence of someone who insists that it's not so complicated to understand the truth or to know how to act." He goes on to conclude that, "it is my hope that the conversations in this book will spark thought, discussion, and, most of all, activism."
One: Imperial Ambitions
In this interview conducted in Cambridge, MassachusettsCambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
on March 22, 2003 Chomsky begins by stating that the U.S. invasion of Iraq demonstrates a new doctrine he defines as preventative war where the U.S. moves to destroy any perceived challenge to its domination and in order to create this norm Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
was falsely portrayed to the American people as a threat to their existence. If the establishment of a new regime in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
is successful he postulates that the U.S. will target other nations such as Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
or Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
in order to establish control over oil production and that the build-up to a U.S.-Turkish-Israeli invasion of Iran is already underway with the Israeli airforce flying reconnaissance missions from U.S. bases in Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
and attempts to stir-up Azeri nationalist forces over the border. He adds however that this attack will only go ahead if Iran is perceived as unable to fight back and that this has encouraged Iran to undertake the development of nuclear weapons just as Iraq was encouraged to do so by the Israeli bombing of the Osirak reactor in 1981. He concludes by stating that anti-war protestors should not lose hope but prepare for the long haul like the abolitionist and civil rights movements did before.
Two: Collateral Language
In this interview conducted in Boulder, Colorado on April 5, 2003 Chomsky begins by musing on the progress of co-ordinated propaganda first used by the British and later U.S. President Woodrow WilsonWoodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
to win U.S. backing in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, then by Edward Bernays
Edward Bernays
Edward Louis Bernays , was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda along with Ivy Lee, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations"...
and Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann was an American intellectual, writer, reporter, and political commentator famous for being among the first to introduce the concept of Cold War...
in the 1920s to turn the on-job control of Taylorism into the off-job control, and in the elitist policies of Harold Laswell in the 1930s that had their origins in the Madisonian Model
Madisonian Model
The Madisonian Model is a fundamental philosophy of Presidential conduct that adheres primarily to the denoted powers of the executive branch in the U.S. Constitution...
and would re-appear in Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
, before moving largely into the private sector with the abolition of U.S. President Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
's Office of Public Diplomacy
Office of Public Diplomacy
The Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean was an intra-agency propaganda organization established in the United States during the administration of Ronald Reagan...
in the 1980s. He sees Karl Rove
Karl Rove
Karl Christian Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives...
as the inheritor of this legacy with the instigation of a campaign to instil fear in the American populous with false claims about Iraq and portray George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
as their saviour so that they will accept a domestic policy that goes against their own interests. He postulates that there is a propensity for fear particular to U.S. culture, possibly related to the country's history, that makes the American people especially susceptible to this form of propaganda and that it is necessary for them to develop an attitude of critical examination in order to overcome this.
Three: Regime Change
In this interview conducted in Cambridge, Massachusetts on September 11, 2003 Chomsky begins by outlining the U.S's long standing policy of instigating regime change back to the 1953 Iranian coup and then compares Iraq's U.S. installed regime, under Paul Bremmer, with that the British installed after World War I, under Lord Curzon, highlighting the similarities of foreign domination behind an Iraqi façade. He states that the drive for resources is an important factor in U.S's imperial policy but not the only one and that whilst North KoreaNorth Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
was a tempting target due to its strategic location amidst the developing economies of Northeast Asia it had a deterrent (artillery pointed at Seoul
Seoul
Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
) that Iraq lacked and goes on to point out that Imperial occupation is actually quite costly although these costs are in effect gifts from the taxpayers to private corporations like Bechtel
Bechtel
Bechtel Corporation is the largest engineering company in the United States, ranking as the 5th-largest privately owned company in the U.S...
and Halliburton
Halliburton
Halliburton is the world's second largest oilfield services corporation with operations in more than 70 countries. It has hundreds of subsidiaries, affiliates, branches, brands and divisions worldwide and employs over 50,000 people....
. He agrees with Nehru's analysis that Imperialism is inherently racist but points out that it is necessary for Imperialists to give their mission a moral basis and as John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
did this for the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
so now Michael Ignatief and other intellectuals are doing it for the American Empire but the populace should ignore these apologists and speak the truth.
Four: Wars of Aggression
In this interview conducted in Cambridge, Massachusetts on February 12, 2004 Chomsky starts by responding to Robert McNamaraRobert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, during which time he played a large role in escalating the United States involvement in the Vietnam War...
's comments about the World War II firebombing of Tokyo in The Fog of War
The Fog of War
The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara is a 2003 American documentary film about the life and times of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara as well as illustrating his observations of the nature of modern warfare...
by pointing out that definition of a war crime at the Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
was anything the enemy did that the Allies didn't do and goes on to point out that this logic is central to the Bush doctrine
Bush Doctrine
The Bush Doctrine is a phrase used to describe various related foreign policy principles of former United States president George W. Bush. The phrase was first used by Charles Krauthammer in June 2001 to describe the Bush Administration's unilateral withdrawals from the ABM treaty and the Kyoto...
. One of the key crimes prosecuted at the Trials was that of waging a war of aggression but Chomsky claims that the U.S. invasion of Iraq is the latest in a series of aggressive wars lead or backed by the U.S. that have not been legally questioned as the U.S. sets the law rather than follows it. He cites polls that state the majority of Iraqis view the U.S. forces as occupiers and points out that Iraqis have a far better understanding of Imperialism than the Western media, which criticises the implementation but not the basis of the invasion, as their country was artificially carved out as a British colony in 1920. He concludes that the U.S. and Israel's shortsighted stockpiling and development of nuclear weapons spurs proliferation and terrorism so that even if Iraq was found to have weapons of mass destruction
Weapons of mass destruction
A weapon of mass destruction is a weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures , natural structures , or the biosphere in general...
it would still not justify the invasion.
Five: History and Memory
In this interview conducted in Cambridge, Massachusetts on June 11, 2004 Chomsky begins by relating the bloody history of El SalvadorEl Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
in the 1980s under a military junta supported by U.S. President Reagan and his 'proconsul' John Negroponte
John Negroponte
John Dimitri Negroponte is an American diplomat. He is currently a research fellow and lecturer in international affairs at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs...
, who with this history effaced was then being sent to Iraq, and goes on to discuss other actions of the administration including the invasions of Grenada and Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
that have been effaced by a post 1992 propaganda campaign. He uses the example of the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état to highlight the role of the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
and the complicity of the media in this propaganda, which he claims is necessary for the public to allow the things done in its name and that public opposition back home resultant from the failure of this propaganda on Iraq was the reason for the recent restraint of U.S. forces in Falluja. He concludes that while it was the Reagan administration
Reagan Administration
The United States presidency of Ronald Reagan, also known as the Reagan administration, was a Republican administration headed by Ronald Reagan from January 20, 1981, to January 20, 1989....
that funded and trained the militants that would later develop in Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
it was the Clinton administration's cruise missile attack on Afghanistan and Sudan that turned them into anti-Western symbols and the actions of the George W. Bush administration that intensified their terrorist activities and that the only real difference between presidential candidates John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
and George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
would be with regard to domestic policy.
Six: The Doctrine of Good Intentions
In this interview conducted in Cambridge, Massachusetts on November 30, 2004 Chomsky begins by dismissing the false conflict between WilsonianWilsonian
Wilsonianism or Wilsonian are words used to describe a certain type of ideological perspectives on foreign policy. The term comes from the ideology of United States President Woodrow Wilson and his famous Fourteen Points that he believed would help create world peace if implemented.Common...
idealism and hard-headed realism, which has become standard story in scholarship and the media regarding U.S. foreign policy and goes on to compare the invasion of Iraq with the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, both of which are said to have been mistakes undertaken with the best of intentions. He goes on to dismiss the concept of a Vietnam Syndrome
Vietnam Syndrome
Vietnam Syndrome is a term used in the United States, in public political rhetoric and political analysis, to describe the perceived impact of the domestic controversy over the Vietnam War on US foreign policy after the end of that war in 1975....
and claims that while the U.S.'s maximal objectives were not achieved it still achieved a substantial victory by ensuring that the country did not become a model for its neighbours. Such false conceptions, he claims, allow the U.S. to get away with major war crimes such as the 2004 occupation of the general hospital in Falluja and the turning back of civilians fleeing the city as the media focuses on minor war crimes committed by individual soldiers or units in the field, such as the My Lai massacre
My Lai Massacre
The My Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of 347–504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Most of the victims were women, children , and...
, whilst ignoring the greater war crimes of the planners in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
. He concludes by opposing the concept of an all-volunteer army as this amounts to a mercenary army of the disadvantaged whilst the draft encourages more civilising ties to the citizen culture to which he attributes in part the failure of U.S. Imperial aims in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
.
Seven: Intellectual Self-Defense
In this interview conducted in Cambridge, Massachusetts on December 3, 2004 Chomsky begins by stating that his analysis work is largely the detailed routine of finding and decoding the internalised assumptions of the educated elite and highlights this indoctrinated bias with the example of the attack on Social SecuritySocial Security (United States)
In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program.The original Social Security Act and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs...
, which, he claims, is intended to undermine solidarity and atomise the population so that they are easy to control. He points out that the elite media
Elite media
The elite media is a term used to describe newspapers, radio stations, TV channels and other media that influence the political agenda of other mass media...
(e.g., BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
and New York Times) and the business press (e.g., Wall Street Journal and Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
) have a duty to report the facts to their primary constituency (economical, political and doctrinal managers) and all he has to do is deconstruct the doctrinal slant to discover the truth. These techniques of intellectual self-defense are, he claims, essential for people to understand their power over governments, which relies on their consent to govern and he uses the example of the changing role of women in modern society to demonstrate how the questioning of these underlying biases can lead to real social change. He concludes that these movements do not necessarily have to come from the oppressed but in fact oppressors who realise their guilt and more importantly attempt to do something about it can be even more effective.
Eight: Democracy and Education
In this interview conducted in Lexington, MassachusettsLexington, Massachusetts
Lexington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 31,399 at the 2010 census. This town is famous for being the site of the first shot of the American Revolution, in the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775.- History :...
on February 7, 2005 Chomsky begins by reminiscing about his early education in a Deweyite
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
school and his relationship with his father, a Hebrew scholar, who first introduced him to Semitic
Semitic
In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...
linguistics. He goes on to recall his subsequent disappointment with the academic discipline of high school and college, which he only continued with under the influence of Zellig Harris
Zellig Harris
Zellig Sabbettai Harris was a renowned American linguist, mathematical syntactician, and methodologist of science. Originally a Semiticist, he is best known for his work in structural linguistics and discourse analysis and for the discovery of transformational structure in language...
, who ran the linguistics department at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
. He states that the academically unprestigious school allowed him an intellectual freedom that worked to his advantage but which means he is mostly self-educated with no formal training in any field, including linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
. He rejects the use of labels but accepts that he is an old fashioned conservative in regard to his taste in music, literature and classical liberal doctrines with political views that grow out of the anarcho-syndicalist tradition. He states that he finds the threatening of Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
ideals by extremist religious beliefs a very worrisome feature of U.S. culture that is unique amongst industrial countries and has undermined democracy. He concludes that his goal in teaching and research has been to understand something about the human mind whilst his goal in activism has been to help people become engaged in overcoming human suffering.
Nine: Another World Is Possible
In this interview conducted in Lexington, Massachusetts on February 8, 2005 Chomsky begins by stating that the U.S. has been a deeply religious country since its settlement by fundamentalists and that the typical inverse correlation between extremist religious belief and industrialization breaks down in this case. He states that since U.S. President CarterJimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
there has been a conscious takeover of the electoral system by the public relations industry, which sells candidates as Bible-fearing evangelical Christians, and that this process can be observed in other aspects of American life as an undeniable aspect of U.S. exceptionalism, which he attributes in part to the country's strong sense of insecurity. He then turns his attention to the planning of the U.S. economy, which he claims has over the preceding 30 years shifted to benefit the corporations and the superrich at the cost of the general population and future generations. He theorises that economists have highly ideological ways of measuring costs which by concentrating on productivity shifts costs to the consumer creating what is in actuality an extremely inefficient system as a whole. He concludes that the U.S. is a failed state with basic institutions that are totally illegitimate, but he hopes one-day it will become as democratic as Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
or Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
.
Reviews
David SwansonDavid Swanson
David L. Swanson is an American activist, blogger and author.-Education:Swanson obtained a Master of Philosophy degree from the University of Virginia in 1997.-Career:...
writing in Political Affairs Magazine
Political Affairs Magazine
Political Affairs Magazine is a monthly, online Marxist publication. It aims to provide an analysis of events from a working class point of view. Political Affairs Magazine is a publication of the Communist Party USA. It was founded in 1944 upon the closure of its predecessor, The Communist, which...
commends Barsamian for consistently asking, penetrating and provocative questions, and states that this book is an, ideal place to start, for readers not familiar with Chomsky whilst those that are will still be surprised by his, analyses of recent events.
Swanson comments on Chomsky philosophical background but states that this book, "contains none of Chomsky the philosopher," rather it is, "purely the political activist," and when he, "turns to politics he forswears not only pretentious language but also metaphysical theories of history," so that in these interviews he, "is completely down to earth and pragmatic."
The reviewer in the South China Morning Post
South China Morning Post
The South China Morning Post , together with its Sunday edition, the Sunday Morning Post, is an English-language Hong Kong newspaper, published by the SCMP Group with a circulation of 104,000....
also comments on the plain language in these interviews commenting that, "Those who have tackled Chomsky's latest book, Hegemony or Survival
Hegemony or Survival
Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance is a book by Noam Chomsky published November 2003. It is a macroscopic view of United States foreign policy from World War II to the post-Iraq War reconstruction...
, may be excused for thinking otherwise, but Barsamian's skilful editing makes [him] accessible."
Laurence Phelan writing in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
also comments on this and goes on to state that, "These transcripts find [Chomsky] in a sprightly and sometimes even playful mood, able to draw upon a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of world affairs and history, making connections, alighting on unexpected topics of conversation and arguing with persuasive logic."
Barry Weisleder writing in Socialist Voice
Socialist Voice
Socialist Voice is a Canada-based web-based publication that describes itself as "Marxist perspectives for the 21st century."It is produced by loose network of Marxists who circulate it at movement events in Canada. Most were formerly members of the Communist League, the sister organization to the...
also makes comparisons to Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival stating that the, "'fast flowing dialog", in these interviews, "traces some of the same ground", "but delves more into strategic questions, though not always rewardingly", and goes on to criticise, "the extreme limitation of his outlook", which, "is the tragedy that dulls the brilliance of Chomsky's body of work".
Swanson references Chomsky's example of the Mexican ambassador's comment to U.S. President Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
that, "If we publicly declare that Cuba is a threat to our security, forty million Mexicans will die laughing," in his concluding comment that, "The danger in reading Chomsky is that millions of Americans will die laughing every time they turn on their televisions."