Failed States, by Noam Chomsky: on Homeland Security

Doctrine of anticipatory self-defense is hypocritical

Among the most elementary of moral truisms is the principle of universality: we must apply to ourselves the same standards we do to others, if not more stringent ones. It is a remarkable comment on Western intellectual culture that this principle is so often ignored and, if occasionally mentioned, condemned as outrageous. This is particularly shameful on the part of those who flaunt their Christian piety, and therefore have presumably at least heard of the definition of the hypocrite in the Gospels.

THEIR terror is evil; OUR terror against them does not exist

One clear illustration is Washington's terrorist war against Nicaragua in the 1980s. The State Department confirmed that the US-run forces attacking Nicaragua from US bases in Honduras had been authorized to attack "soft targets," that is, undefended civilian targets. The International Court of Justice and the UN Security Council condemned the US. [The US] response [describing] terrorist attacks on civilian targets: a "sensible policy [should] meet the test of cost-benefit analysis" of "the amount of blood & misery that will be poured in, and the likelihood that democracy will emerge at the other end"--"democracy" as defined by US elites

US companies account for 60% of all of world's arms sales

When asked why "should the US spend massively on arms and China refrain?" senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations provided a simple answer: "we guarantee the security of the world, protect our allies, keep critical sea-lanes open and lead the war of terror," while China threatens others and "could ignore an arms race" --actions inconceivable for the US. Surely no one but a crazed "conspiracy theorist" might mention that the US controls sea-lanes in pursuit of US foreign policy objectives, hardly for the benefit of all, or that much of the world regards Washington (particularly since the beginning of the Bush II presidency) as the leading threat to world security.