Noam Chomsky in What Uncle Sam Really Wants
On Free Trade:
Free trade is all about corporate subsidies
Nobody in the corporate world or government takes free trade seriously. The parts of the economy tht are able to compete internationally are primarily the state-subsidized ones: capital-intensive agriculture, high-tech industry, etc.The government has
the public pay for research and development and provides a state-guaranteed market for waste production. If something is marketable, the private sector takes it over. That system of public subsidy and private profit is what is called free enterprise.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 13
Jan 13, 1991
On Foreign Policy:
US historically opposes Third World nationalism and rights
US planners stated their view that the threat to the new US-led world order was “nationalistic regimes” that are responsive to “popular demand for immediate improvement in the low living standards of the masses.”
The planners’ basic goals, repeated over and over again, were to prevent such “ultranationalist” regimes from taking power-or if they did take power, to remove them and install governments that favor private investment of domestic and foreign capital,
production for export and the right to bring profits out of the country.
The US has been willing to tolerate social reform only when the rights of labor are suppressed and the climate for foreign investment is preserved.
We’ve consistently opposed democracy if its results cannot be controlled. The problem with real democracies is that they’re likely to fall prey to the heresy that governments should respond to the needs of the people instead of those of US investers.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 19-20
Jan 13, 1991
On Free Trade:
Trilateral world view means Latin America belongs to the US
From the early 1970s, the world has been drifting into what’s called tripolarism or trilateralism-3 major economic blocs that compete with each other. Thr first is a yen-based bloc with Japan at its center and the former Japanese colonies
at the periphery. There’s a lot of nonsense written about how the fact that Japan became a major competitor proves how honorable we are. The actual policy option was to restore Japan’s empire, but now all under our control.The second major competitive
bloc is based in Europe and is dominated by Germany. It’s taking a big step forward with the consolidation of the European Common Market.
The third bloc is the US-dominated, dollar-based one. It was recently extended to incorporate Canada, our major
trading partner, and will soon include Mexico and other parts of the hemisphere, by “free trade agreements” designed primarily for the interests of US investors and their associates. We’ve always assumed that Latin America belongs to us by right.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 25-28
Jan 13, 1991
On Foreign Policy:
US aid to Americas correlates with torture by governments
US aid has tended to flow to Latin American governments which torture their citizens. It has nothing to do with need, only with willingness to serve the interests of privilege. Broader studies reveal a correlation between torture and US aid and provide
the explanation: both correlate with improving the climate for business. The agro-export model produces an “economic miracle” where GNP goes up while the population starves. Popular opposition develops, which you then suppress with torture.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 29-30
Jan 13, 1991
On War & Peace:
Nicaragua: US destroyed Sandanistas & real hope for reform
The hatred that was elicited by the Sandanistas for trying to direct resources to the poor (and even succeeding at it) [was the basis for] the US launching a three-fold attack against Nicaragua. - We exerted extreme pressure to compel the World
Bank to terminate all projects and assistance.
- We launched the contra war along with an illegal economic war to terminate what Oxfam rightly called “the threat of a good example.”
- We used diplomatic fakery to crush Nicaragua. The US virutally
tripled CIA supply flights to the contras, and within a few months the peace plan and [a fair] election campaign were totally dead.
US achievements in Central America in the past 15 years are a major tragedy, not just because of the appalling human
cost, but because a decade ago there were prospects for real progress toward meaningful democracy and meeting human needs. These efforts might have worked and might have taught useful lessons-which if course was exactly what US planners feared.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 43-46
Jan 13, 1991
On War & Peace:
Panama: Noriega’s crime was independence, not drugs
The US government knew that Noriega was involved in drug trafficking since 1972. But he stayed on the CIA payroll. Yet, when Noriega was finally indicted in 1988, all the charges except one were related to activities that took place before 1984-
back when he was our boy, helping with the US war against Nicaragua, stealing elections and generally serving US interests. It’s all predictable. A tyrant crosses the line from friend to villain when he commits the crime of independence.
One mistake is to go beyond robbing the poor and to start interfering with the privileged. By the mid-1980s, Noriega was guilty of these crimes. He seems to have been dragging his feet about helping the US in the contra war.
His independence also threatened our interests in the Panama Canal. Since we could no longer trust Noriega to do our bidding, he had to go.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 51-52
Jan 13, 1991
On War & Peace:
Vietnam War about destroying “virus” of independence from US
Ho Chi Minh led the national movement of Vietnam. There was fear in the US that the Viet Minh might succeed, in which case “the rot would spread” and the “virus” would “infect” the region, to adopt the language the planners used year after year.
What do you do when you have a virus? First you destroy it, then you inoculate potential victims, so that the disease does not spread. That’s basically the US strategy in the Third World. If possible, it’s advisable to have the local military destroy the
virus for you. If they can’t, you have to move your own forces in. Vietnam was one of those places where we had to do it.Right into the late 1960s, the US blocked all attempts at political settlement of the conflict, even those advanced by Saigon
generals. If there were a political settlement, there might be progress toward successful development outside our influence-an unacceptable outcome.
The US did achieve its major objective in Indochina. Our basic goal was to destroy the virus.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 56-60
Jan 13, 1991
On War & Peace:
Gulf War had nothing to do with principles
When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the US government-media told us that Iraq’s aggression was a unique crime and merited a harsh reaction. “America stands against aggression, against those who would use force to replace the rule of law”-
so we were informed by President Bush. The media and the educated classes repeated the lines.Second, these same authorities proclaimed in a litany that the UN was now at last functioning as it was designed to.
They claimed this was impossible before the end of the Cold War.
The US wasn’t upholding any high principle in the Gulf. The reason for the response to Saddam Hussein was because he stepped on the wrong toes. Hussein is a murderous gangster-
exactly as he was before the war, when he was our friend and trading partner. His invasion of Kuwait was an atrocity, but well within the range of many similar crimes conducted by the US and allies and nowhere near as terrible as some.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 60-61
Jan 13, 1991
On War & Peace:
Israeli nukes should preclude foreign aid
Israel is the only country in the Mideast with nuclear weapons. But “Israeli nuclear weapons” is a phrase that can’t be written or uttered by an official US government source.
That phrase would raise the question of why all aid to Israel is not illegal, since foreign aid legislation from 1977 bars funds to any country that secretly develops nuclear weapons.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 65
Jan 13, 1991
On War & Peace:
Gulf War: US refused diplomacy & forced violence in Iraq
The US was concerned that the energy resources of the Middle East remain under our control, and that the enormous profits they produce help support the US. The US also reinforced its dominant position, and taught the lesson that the world is to be
ruled by force. Washington proceeded to maintain “stability,” barring any threat of democratic change in the Gulf tyrannies and lending tacit support to Saddam Hussein as he crushed the popular uprising of the Shi’ites in the South.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 67-68
Jan 13, 1991
On Foreign Policy:
West plans to exploit Eastern Europe
I think the prospects are pretty dim for Eastern Europe. The West has a plan for it-they want to turn large parts of it into a new, easily exploitable part of the Third World.There used to be a colonial relationship between Western and Eastern Europe.
Now, there’s a serious conflict over who’s going to win the race for robbery and exploitation. Is it going to be German-led Western Europe or Japan? There are a lot of resources to be taken and lots of cheap labor.
But first we have to impose the capitalist model on them. We don’t accept it for ourselves-but for the Third World, we insist on it. If we can get them to accept that, they’ll be easily exploitable and will move toward a new role as a Brazil or Mexico.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 71-72
Jan 13, 1991
On Foreign Policy:
US prefers force to diplomacy in Third World
Because the USSR used to support governments the US was trying to destroy, there was a danger that US intervention in the Third World might explode into a nuclear war. Now, the US is much more free to use violence around the world.
Diplomacy is a particularly unwelcome option. The US has very little popular support for its goals in the Third World. This isn’t surprising, since it’s trying to impose structure of domination and exploitation.
A diplomatic settlement is bound to respond to the interests of the other participants, and that’s a problem when your positions aren’t popular.
Negotiations are something the US commonly tries to avoid. That has been true in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Central America.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 74-76
Jan 13, 1991
On Homeland Security:
Cold War fear of USSR was played to control US population
The Cold War was a kind of tacit arrangement between the Soviet Union and the US under which the US conducted its wars against the Third World and controlled its allies in Europe,
while the Soviets kept an iron grip on their own internal empire and their satellites in Eastern Europe-each side using the other to justify repression and violence.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 80
Jan 13, 1991
On Drugs:
Drug War is an excuse for US military intervention abroad
Now when some client state complains that the US isn’t sending it enough money, they no longer say “we need it to stop the Russians,”-rather, “we need it to stop drug trafficking.”
Like the Soviet threat, this enemy provides a good excuse for a US military presence where there’s rebel activity or other unrest.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 82-83
Jan 13, 1991
On Drugs:
Target tobacco & alcohol instead of marijuana
At the time the drug war was launched, deaths from tobacco were estimated at about 300,000 a year, with perhaps another 100,000 from alcohol. But these aren’t the drugs the Bush administration targeted.
It went after illegal drugs, which had caused many fewer deaths-3,500 a year. The administration also targeted marijuana, which hadn’t caused any known deaths among some 60 million users. In fact, the crackdown exacerbated the drug problem.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 83-84
Jan 13, 1991
On War & Peace:
Peace process ignores non-US-approved efforts
Take the term peace process. The naive might think that it refers to efforts to seek peace.
Under this meaning, we would say that the peace process in the Middle East includes the offer of a full peace treaty to Israel by Sadat of Egypt, along lines advocated by the entire world, including official US policy;
the Security Council resolution of January, 1976 introduced by major Arab states with the backing of the PLO, which called for a two state-settlement; PLO offers to negotiate with Israel for mutual recognition; and annual votes at the UN General Assembly
calling for an international conference on the problem.The peace process is restricted to US initiatives, which call for a unilateral US-determined settlement with no recognition of Palestinian rights. That’s the way it works.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 88-89
Jan 13, 1991
On Government Reform:
Dissent publicly against investors ruling government
It’s not a secret where power lies in the US. It lies in the hands of people who determine investment decisions. They want a passive population. So one of the things that you can do to make life uncomfortable for them is not be passive.
If you go to one demonstration, and then go home, the people in power can live with that. What they can’t live with is sustained pressure that keeps building, people that keep learning lessons from last time and doing it better the next time.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 98
Jan 13, 1991
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