Chomsky On The Anti
War Movement
An Interview In The Guardian
February 04, 2003
Matthew Tempest
The Guardian
Tuesday February 4, 2003
Noam Chomsky:The
[peace] demonstrations
were another indication
of a quite remarkable
phenomenon. There is around
the world and in the United
States opposition to the
coming war that is at
a level that is completely
unprecedented in US or
European history both
in scope and the parts
of the population it draws
on.
There's never been a
time that I can think
of when there's been such
massive opposition to
a war before it was even
started. And the closer
you get to the region,
the higher the opposition
appears to be. In Turkey,
polls indicated close
to 90% opposition, in
Europe it's quite substantial,
and in the United States
the figures you see in
polls, however, are quite
misleading because there's
another factor that isn't
considered that differentiates
the United States from
the rest of the world.
This is the only country
where Saddam Hussein is
not only reviled and despised
but also feared, so since
September polls have shown
that something like 60-70%
of the population literally
think that Saddam Hussein
is an imminent threat
to their survival.
Now there's no objective
reason why the US should
be more frightened of
Saddam than say the Kuwaitis,
but there is a reason
- namely that since September
there's been a drumbeat
of propaganda trying to
bludgeon people into the
belief that not only is
Saddam a terrible person
but in fact he's going
to come after us tomorrow
unless we stop him today.
And that reaches people.
So if you want to understand
the actual opposition
to the war in the US you
have to extract that factor.
The factor of completely
irrational fear created
by massive propaganda,
and if you did I think
you'd find it's much like
everywhere else.
What is not pointed out
in the press coverage
is that there is simply
no precedent, or anything
like a precedent, for
this kind of public opposition
to a war. And it extends
itself far more broadly,
it's not just opposition
to war it's a lack of
faith in the leaderships.
You may have seen a study
released by the world
economic forum a couple
of days ago which estimated
trust in leaders, and
the lowest was in leaders
of the United States.
Trusted by little over
quarter of the population,
and I think that reflects
concerns over the adventurism
and violence and the threats
that are perceived in
the actions and plans
of the current administration.
These are things that
ought to be central. Even
in the United States there
is overwhelming opposition
to the war and that corresponding
decline in trust in the
leadership that is driving
the war. This has been
developing for some time
but it is now reaching
an unusual state, and,
just to get back to the
demonstrations over the
weekend, that's never
happened before. If you
compare it with the Vietnam
war, the current stage
of the war with Iraq is
approximately like that
of 1961 - that is, before
the war actually was launched,
as it was in 1962 with
the US bombing of South
Vietnam and driving millions
of people into concentration
camps and chemical warfare
and so on, but there was
no protest. In fact, so
little protest that few
people even remember.
The protests didn't begin
to develop until several
years later when large
parts of south Vietnam
were being subjected to
saturation bombing by
B-52s, hundreds of thousands
of troops where there,
hundreds of thousands
had been killed, and then
even after that, when
the protests finally did
develop in the US and
Europe it was mostly focused
on a side-issue - the
bombing of north Vietnam
which was undoubtedly
a crime, it was far more
intense in the south which
was always the US target,
and that's continued.
It's also, incidentally,
recognised by the government.
So when any administration
comes into office the
first thing it does is
have a worldwide intelligence
assessment - "What's
the state of the world?"
- provided by the intelligence
services. These are secret
and you learn about them
30 or 40 years later when
they're declassified.
When the first Bush administration
came in 1989 parts of
their intelligence assessment
were leaked, and they're
very revealing about what
happened in the subsequent
10 years about precisely
these questions.
The parts that were leaked
said that it was about
military confrontations
with much weaker enemies,
recognising they were
the only kind we were
going to be willing to
face, or even exist. So
in confrontations with
much weaker enemies the
United States must win
"decisively and rapidly"
because otherwise popular
support will erode, because
it's understood to be
very thin. Not like the
1960s when the government
could fight a long, brutal
war for years and years
practically destroying
a country without any
protest. Not now. Now
they have to win. They
have to terrify the population
to feel there's some enormous
threat to their existence
and carry out a mircaculous,
decisive and rapid victory
over this enormous foe
and march on to the next
one.
Remember the people now
running the show in Washington
are mostly recycled Reaganites,
essentially reliving the
script of the 1980s -
that's an apt analogy.
And in the 1980s they
were imposing domestic
programmes which were
quite harmful to the general
population and which were
unpopular. People opposed
most of their domestic
programmes. And the way
they succeeded in ramming
it through was by repeatedly
keeping the population
in a state of panic.
So one year it was an
airbase in Grenada which
the Russians were going
to use to bomb the United
States. It sounds ludicrous
but that was the propaganda
lie and it worked.
Nicaragua was "two
days' marching time from
Texas" - a dagger
pointed at the heart of
Texas, to borrow Hitler's
phrase. Again, you'd think
the people would collapse
with laughter. But they
didn't. That was continually
brought up to frighten
us - Nicargua might conquer
us on it's way to conquer
the hemisphere. A national
emergency was called because
of the threat posed to
national security by Nicargua.
Libyan hitmen were wandering
the streets of Washington
to assassinate our leader
- hispanic narco-terrorists.
One thing after another
was conjured up to keep
the population in a state
of constant fear while
they carried out their
major terrorist wars.
Remember, the same people
declared a war on terror
in 1981 that was going
to be the centrepiece
of US foreign policy focused
primarily on central America,
and they carried out a
war on terror in central
America where they ended
up killing about 200,000
people, leaving four countries
devastated. Since 1990,
when the US took them
over again, they've declined
still further into deep
poverty. Now they're doing
the same thing for the
same purposes - they are
carrying out domestic
programmes to which the
population is strongly
opposed because they're
being harmed by them.
But the international
adventurism, the conjuring
up of enemies that are
about to destroy us, that's
second nature, very familiar.
They didn't invent it,
others have done the same
thing, others have done
it in history but they
became masters of this
art and are now doing
it again.
I don't want to suggest
that they have no reasons
for wanting to take over
Iraq. Of course they do
- long-standing reasons
that everyone knows. Controlling
Iraq will put the US in
a very powerful position
to extend it domination
of the major energy resources
of the world. That's not
a small point.
But look at the specific
timing. It's rather striking
that the propaganda drumbeat
began in September - what
happened in September?
Well, it's when the Congressional
campaign began and it
was certain that the Republicans
were not going to win
it by allowing social
and economic issues to
dominate. They would have
been smashed. They had
to do exactly what they
did in the '80s. Replace
them by security issues
and in the case of a threat
to security people tend
to rally around the president
- a strong figure who'll
protect us from horrible
dangers.
The more likely direction
this will take [after
a war with Iraq] will
be Iran, and possibly
Syria. North Korea is
a different case. What
they are demonstrating
to the world with great
clarity is that if you
want to deter US aggression
you better have weapons
of mass destruction [WMD],
or else a credible threat
of terror. There's nothing
else that will deter them
- they can't be deterred
by conventional forces.
That's a terrible lesson
to teach, but it's exactly
what's being taught.
For years, experts in
the mainstream have been
pointing out that the
US is causing weapons
proliferation by its adventures
since others cannot protect
themselves except by WMD
or the threat of terror.
Kenneth Waltz is one who
recently pointed this
out. But years ago, even
before the Bush administration,
leading commentators like
Samuel Huntington in Foreign
Affairs, the main establishment
journal, were pointing
out that the United States
is following a dangerous
course. He was talking
about the Clinton administration
but he pointed out that,
for much of the world,
the US is now regarded
as a rogue state and the
leading threat to their
existence. In fact one
of the striking things
about the opposition to
the war now, again unprecedented,
is how broadly it extends
across the political spectrum,
so the two major foreign
policy journals, Foreign
Affairs and Foreign Policy
have just in their recent
issues run very critical
articles by distinguished
mainstream figures opposing
the resort to war in this
case.
The American Academy
of Arts and Sciences rarely
takes a position on controversial
current issues has just
published a long monogram
on this issue by its committee
on international security
giving as sympathetic
as possible an account
of the Bush administration
position then simply dismantling
it line by line on very
narrow grounds - much
narrower than I would
prefer - but nevertheless
successfully.
[There is] just a lot
of fear and concern about
this adventurism, what
one analyst called "sillier
armchair fantasies".
My concern is more "What's
it going to do to the
people of Iraq" and
"What's it going
to do to the region?"
but these concerns are
"What's it going
to do to us?"
Matthew
Tempest: Will
the propeganda rebound
if democracy is not established
in Iraq after "liberation"?
Noam
Chomsky:
You're right to call it
propaganda. If this is
a war aim, why don't they
say so? Why are they lying
to the rest of the world?
What is the point of having
the UN inspectors? According
to this propaganda, everything
we are saying in public
is pure farce - we don't
care about the weapons
of mass destruction, we
don't care about disarmament,
we have another goal in
mind, which we're not
telling you, and that
is, all of a sudden, we're
going to bring democracy
by war. Well, if that's
the goal, let's stop lying
about it and put an end
to the whole farce of
inspections and everything
else and just say now
we're on a crusade to
bring democracies to countries
that are suffering under
miserable leadership.
Actually that is a traditional
crusade, that's what lies
behind the horrors of
colonial wars and their
modern equivalents, and
we have a very long rich
record to show just how
that worked out. It's
not something new in history.
In this particular case
you can't predict what
will happen once a war
starts. In the worst case
it might be what the intelligence
agencies and the aid agencies
are predicting - namely
an increase in terror
as deterence or revenge,
and for the people of
Iraq, who are barely on
the edge of survival,
it could be the humanitarian
catastrophe of which the
aid agencies and the UN
have been warning.
On the other hand, it's
possible it could be what
the hawks in Washington
hope - a quick victory,
no fighting to speak of,
impose a new regime, give
it a democratic façade,
make sure the US has big
military bases there,
and effectively controls
the oil.
The chances that they
will allow anything approximating
real democracy are pretty
slight. There's major
problems in the way of
that - problems that motivated
Bush No 1 to oppose the
rebellions in 1991 that
could have overthrown
Saddam Hussein. After
all, he could have been
overthrown then if the
US had not authorised
Saddam to crush the rebellions.
One major problem is
that roughly 60% of the
population is Shi'ite.
If there's any form of
democratic government,
they're going to have
a say, in fact a majority
say, in what the government
is. Well they are not
pro-Iranian but the chances
are that a Shi'ite majority
would join the rest of
the region in trying to
improve relations with
Iran and reduce the levels
of tension generally in
the region by re-integrating
Iran within it. There
have been moves in that
direction among the Arab
states and Shi'ite majority
in Iraq is likely to do
that. That's the last
thing the US wants. Iran
is its next target.
It doesn't want improved
relations. Furthermore
if the Shi'ite majority
gets for the first time
a real voice in the government,
the Kurdish minority will
want something similar.
And they will want a realisation
of their quite just demands
for a degree of autonomy
in the northern regions.
Well Turkey is not going
to tolerate that. Turkey
already has thousands
of troops in Northern
Iraq basically to prevent
any such development.
If there' s move towards
Kirkuk, which they regard
as their capital city,
Turkey will move to block
it, the US will surely
back them, just as the
United States has strongly
supported Turkey in its
massive atrocities against
the Kurds in the 1990s
in the south-eastern regions.
What you're going to be
left with is either a
military dictatorship
with some kind of democratic
façade, like maybe
a parliament that votes
while the military runs
it behind the scenes -
it's not unfamiliar -
or else putting power
back into the hands of
something like the Sunni
minority which has been
running it in the past.
Nobody can predict any
of this. What happens
when you start a war is
unknown. The CIA can't
predict it, Rumsfeld can't
predict it, nobody can.
It could be anywhere over
this range. That's why
sane people refrain from
the use of violence unless
there are overwhelming
reasons to undertake it
- the dangers are simply
far too great. However
it's striking that neither
Bush nor Blair present
anything like this as
their war aim. Have they
gone to the security council
and said let's have a
resolution for the use
of force to bring democracy
to Iraq? Of course not.
Because they know they'd
be laughed at.
Bush and his administration
were telling the security
council back in November
very openly and directly
that the UN will be "relevant"
if it grants us the authority
to do what we want, to
use force when we want,
and if the UN does not
grant us that authority
it will be irrelevant.
It couldn't be clearer.
They said we already
have the authority to
do anything we want, you
can come along and endorse
that authorisation or
else you're irrelevant.
There could not have been
a more clear and explicit
way of informing the world
that we don't care what
you think, we'll do what
we want. That's one of
the primary reasons why
US leaders' authority
collapsing in the World
Economic Forum poll.
Other countries will
presumably go along with
the US war - but out of
fear
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