How America Determines Friends and Foes- by Chomsky

[General Duke]

How America Determines Friends and Foes

Noam Chomsky

 

The Toronto Star, March 14, 2004

Every self-respecting president has a doctrine attached to his name. The core principle of the Bush II doctrine is that the United States must "rid the world of evil," as the president said right after 9/11.

 

A special responsibility is to wage war against terrorism, with the corollary that any state that harbours terrorists is a terrorist state and should be treated accordingly.

 

Let's ask a fair and simple question: What would the consequences be if we were to take the Bush doctrine seriously, and treat states that harbour terrorists as terrorist states, subject to bombardment and invasion?

 

The United States has long been a sanctuary to a rogues' gallery of people whose actions qualify them as terrorists, and whose presence compromises and complicates U.S. proclaimed principles.

 

Consider the Cuban Five, Cuban nationals convicted in Miami in 2001 as part of a spy ring.

 

To understand the case, which has prompted international protests, we have to look at the sordid history of U.S.-Cuba relations (leaving aside here the issue of the crushing, decades-long U.S. embargo).

 

The United States has engaged in large- and small-scale terrorist attacks against Cuba since 1959, including the Bay of Pigs invasion and the bizarre plots to kill Castro. Direct U.S. participation in the attacks ended during the late '70s — at least officially.

 

In 1989, the first president Bush granted a pardon to Orlando Bosch, one of the most notorious anti-Castro terrorists, accused of masterminding the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976. Bush overruled the Justice Department, which had refused an asylum request from Bosch, concluding: "The security of this nation is affected by its ability to urge credible other nations to refuse aid and shelter to terrorists, whose target we too often become."

 

Recognizing that the United States was going to harbour anti-Castro terrorists, Cuban agents infiltrated those networks. In 1998, high-level FBI officials were sent to Havana, where they were given thousands of pages of documentation and hundreds of hours of videotape about terrorist actions organized by cells in Florida.

 

The FBI reacted by arresting the people who provided the information, including a group now known as the Cuban Five.

 

The arrests were followed by what amounted to a show trial in Miami. The Five were sentenced, three to life sentences (for espionage; and the leader, Gerardo Hernandez, also for conspiracy to murder), after convictions that are now being appealed.

 

Meanwhile, people regarded by the FBI and Justice Department as dangerous terrorists live happily in the United States and continue to plot and implement crimes.

 

The list of terrorists-in-residence in the United States also includes Emmanuel Constant from Haiti, known as Toto, a former paramilitary leader from the Duvalier era. Constant is the founder of the FRAPH (Front for Advancement of Progress in Haiti), the paramilitary group that carried out most of the state terror in the early 1990s under the military junta that overthrew president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

 

At last report, Constant was living in Queens, N.Y.

 

The United States has refused Haiti's request for extradition. The reason, it is generally assumed, is that Constant might reveal ties between Washington and the military junta that killed 4,000 to 5,000 Haitians, with Constant's paramilitary forces playing the leading role.

 

The gangsters leading the current coup in Haiti include FRAPH leaders.

 

For the United States, Cuba has long been the primary concern in the hemisphere. A declassified 1964 State Department document declares Fidel Castro to be an intolerable threat because he "represents a successful defiance of the United States, a negation of our whole hemispheric policy of almost a century and a half," since the Monroe Doctrine declared that no challenge to U.S. dominance would be tolerated in the hemisphere.

 

Venezuela now presents a similar problem. A recent lead article in the Wall Street Journal says, "Fidel Castro has found a key benefactor and heir apparent to the cause of derailing the U.S.'s agenda in Latin America: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez."

 

As it happens, last month, Venezuela asked the United States to extradite two former military officers who are seeking asylum in the United States. The two had taken part in a military coup supported by the Bush administration, which backed down in the face of outrage throughout the hemisphere.

 

The Venezuelan government, remarkably, observed a ruling of the Venezuelan supreme court barring prosecution of the coup leaders. The two officers were later implicated in a terrorist bombing, and fled to Miami.

 

Outrage over defiance is deeply ingrained in U.S. history. Thomas Jefferson bitterly condemned France for its "attitude of defiance" in holding New Orleans, which he coveted. Jefferson warned that France's "character (is) placed in a point of eternal friction with our character, which though loving peace and the pursuit of wealth, is high-minded."

 

France's "defiance (requires us to) marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation," Jefferson advised, reversing his earlier attitudes, which reflected France's crucial contribution to the liberation of the colonies from British rule.

 

Thanks to Haiti's liberation struggle of 1804, unaided and almost universally opposed, France's defiance soon ended. But, then as now, the guiding principles of American outrage over defiance remain in place, determining friend and foe.

[xiinfaniin]

This is a good read. Thanks General Duke.

As always, Chomsky offers a sharp critique of this president and exposes the inconsistency of his foreign policy and its moral bankruptcy!

[LANDER]

If this article interest you folk, I suggest checking out Hegemony or Survival . A good read. Also Manufacturing Consent and Pirates and Emperors as suggested by classique .

[Bess.]

Chomsky blasts U.S. government

 

Noam Chomsky spoke to a full house in Meany Theatre @ the university of washington about U.S. foreign policy.

By Abel Kerevel / Contributing writer

April 21, 2005

the uw daily

 

Seattleites filled Meany Theatre last night to see the controversial scholar and university professor, Noam Chomsky. Chomsky is well known for his critical stance against U.S. foreign policy, and last night was no exception.

 

The topic of his lecture was the legitimacy of international use of force.

 

"Any state's use of force without the sanction of the United Nation's Security Council is a war crime," said Chomsky, referring to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and other U.S. political activities in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

 

Drawing applause from the audience, Chomsky mentioned the need for all states to adhere to international law and promote the elimination of nuclear weapons. He disagreed with the U.S. government's stated reason for the Iraq invasion, which he called "anticipatory self-defense" against weapons of mass destruction.

 

"The propriety of the use of force has the heavy burden of proof," he added, criticizing the United States for not finding nuclear weapons in Iraq.

 

"The justification for the war in Iraq has become President Bush's messianic vision to bring democracy to the world," said Chomsky.

 

Chomsky said the international community understands the war differently, seeing "the United States as the dominant threat to every one else."

 

Calling the Iraqi elections "an amazing triumph of non-violent resistance to the American invasion," Chomsky gave a different tone to the topic of democracy in the Middle East.

 

He did not dwell on the war in Iraq, instead criticizing the NATO bombing of Kosovo in 1999. Considering the bombing another example of the abuse of force, Chomsky argued that not enough effort was made at diplomacy.

it was great lecture to attend....he had a lot to say about the incompetence of the bush regime....it was very interesting....there were there alot of ppl questioning his "americaness"....and some even called him an anti-semite...because he spoke about the US involvement in palestine and isreali occupation...it was weird to call him an anti-semite as he is a practicing jew.....

[xiinfaniin]

Originally posted by LANDER:

If this article interest you folk, I suggest checking out

Hegemony or Survival

. A good read. Also

Manufacturing Consent

and

Pirates and Emperors

Lander, Thanks for the recommendation. Good to know though that nomads read the works of this scholar.

[General Duke]

^^^ This one should interest you Xiin.. Also Lander thats a wonderful book.

 

Understanding the Bush Doctrine

Noam Chomsky

 

Information Clearing House, October 2, 2004

Perhaps the most threatening document of our time is the U.S. National Security Strategy of September 2002. Its implementation in Iraq has already taken countless lives and shaken the international system to the core.

 

In the fallout from the war on terror is a revived Cold War, with more nuclear players than ever, across even more dry-tinder landscapes around the world.

 

As Colin Powell explained, the NSS declared that Washington has a "sovereign right to use force to defend ourselves" from nations that possess weapons of mass destruction and cooperate with terrorists, the official pretexts for invading Iraq.

 

The obvious reason for invading Iraq is still conspicuously evaded: establishing the first secure US military bases in a client state at the heart of the world’s major energy resources.

 

As old pretexts collapsed, President Bush and his colleagues adaptively revised the doctrine of the NSS to enable them to resort to force even if a country does not have WMD or programmes to develop them. The "intent and ability" to do so is sufficient.

 

Just about every country has the ability, and intent is in the eye of the beholder. The official doctrine, then, is that anyone is subject to attack.

 

In September 2003, Bush assured Americans that "the world is safer today because our coalition ended an Iraqi regime that cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction." The president’s handlers know that lies can become Truth, if repeated insistently enough.

 

The war in Iraq incited terror worldwide. In November 2003, Middle East expert Fawaz Gerges found it "simply unbelievable how the war has revived the appeal of a global jihadi Islam that was in real decline after 9-11." Iraq itself became a "terrorist haven" for the first time, and suffered its first suicide attacks since the 13th century CK assassins.

 

Recruitment for Al Qaeda networks has risen. "Every use of force is another small victory for bin Laden," who "is winning," writes British journalist Jason Burke in Al-Qaida, his 2003 study of this loose array of radical Islamists, now mostly independent.

 

For them, bin Laden is hardly more than a symbol. He may be even more dangerous after he is killed, becoming a martyr who will inspire others to join his cause. Burke sees the creation of "a whole new cadre of terrorists," enlisted in what they see as a "cosmic struggle between good and evil," a vision shared by bin Laden and Bush.

 

The proper reaction to terrorism is two-pronged: directed at the terrorists themselves, and at the reservoir of potential support. The terrorists see themselves as a vanguard, seeking to mobilise others. Police work, an appropriate response, has been successful worldwide. More important is the broad constituency that the terrorists seek to reach, including many who hate and fear them but nevertheless see them as fighting for a just cause.

 

We can help the terrorist vanguard mobilise this reservoir of support, by violence. Or we can address the "myriad grievances," many legitimate, that are "the root causes of modern Islamic militancy," Burke writes.

 

That basic effort can significantly reduce the threat of terror, and should be undertaken independently of this goal.

 

Violent actions provoke reactions that risk catastrophe. US analysts estimate that Russian military expenditures have tripled during the Bush-Putin years, in large measure a predicted response to Bush administration bellicosity. On both sides, nuclear warheads remain on hair-trigger alert. The Russian control systems, however, have deteriorated. The dangers ratchet up with the threat and use of force.

 

As anticipated, US military plans have provoked a Chinese reaction as well. China has announced plans to "transform its military into a technology-driven force capable of projecting power globally by 2010," Boston Globe correspondent Jehangir Pocha reported last month, "replacing its land-based nuclear arsenal of about 20 1970s-era intercontinental ballistic missiles with 60 new multiple-warhead missiles capable of reaching the United States."

 

China’s actions are likely to touch off a ripple effect through India, Pakistan and beyond. Nuclear developments in Iran and North Korea, also in part at least a response to US threats, are exceedingly ominous. The unthinkable becomes thinkable.

 

In 2003, at the UN General Assembly, the United States voted alone against implementation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and alone with its new ally India against steps toward the elimination of nuclear weapons.

 

The United States also voted alone against "observance of environmental norms" in disarmament and arms control agreements, and alone with Israel and Micronesia against steps to prevent nuclear proliferation in the Middle East -- the pretext for invading Iraq. Presidents commonly have "doctrines," but Bush II is the first to have "visions" as well, possibly because his handlers recall the criticism of his father as lacking "the vision thing."

 

The most exalted of these, conjured up after all pretexts for invasion of Iraq had to be abandoned, was the vision of bringing democracy to Iraq and the Middle East. By November 2003, this vision was taken to be the real motive for the war.

 

The evidence for faith in the vision consists of little more than declarations of virtuous intent. To take the declarations seriously, we would have to assume that our leaders are accomplished liars: While mobilising their countries for war, they were declaring that the reasons were entirely different. Mere sanity dictates scepticism about what they produce to replace pretexts that have collapsed.