hydrarchist writes:

"Iraq Is A Trial Run"

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Frontline India

April 02, 2003

On March 21, Chomsky spoke from his office for half an hour to V. K.
Ramachandran on the current attack on Iraq.

V. K. Ramachandran: Does the present aggression on
Iraq represent a continuation of United States'
international policy in recent years or a
qualitatively new stage in that policy?

Noam Chomsky: It represents a significantly new
phase. It is not without precedent, but significantly
new nevertheless.

This should be seen as a trial run. Iraq is seen as an
extremely easy and totally defenceless target. It is
assumed, probably correctly, that the society will
collapse, that the soldiers will go in and that the
U.S. will be in control, and will establish the regime
of its choice and military bases. They will then go on
to the harder cases that will follow. The next case
could be the Andean region, it could be Iran, it could
be others.

The trial run is to try and establish what the U.S.
calls a "new norm" in international relations. The new
norm is "preventive war" (notice that new norms are
established only by the United States). So, for
example, when India invaded East Pakistan to terminate
horrendous massacres, it did not establish a new norm
of humanitarian intervention, because India is the
wrong country, and besides, the U.S. was strenuously
opposed to that action.

This is not pre-emptive war; there is a crucial
difference. Pre-emptive war has a meaning, it means
that, for example, if planes are flying across the
Atlantic to bomb the United States, the United States
is permitted to shoot them down even before they bomb
and may be permitted to attack the air bases from
which they came. Pre-emptive war is a response to
ongoing or imminent attack.

The doctrine of preventive war is totally different;
it holds that the United States - alone, since
nobody else has this right - has the right to
attack any country that it claims to be a potential
challenge to it. So if the United States claims, on
whatever grounds, that someone may sometime threaten
it, then it can attack them.

The doctrine of preventive war was announced
explicitly in the National Strategy Report last
September. It sent shudders around the world,
including through the U.S. establishment, where, I
might say, opposition to the war is unusually high.
The National Strategy Report said, in effect, that the
U.S. will rule the world by force, which is the
dimension - the only dimension - in which it is
supreme. Furthermore, it will do so for the indefinite
future, because if any potential challenge arises to
U.S. domination, the U.S. will destroy it before it
becomes a challenge.

This is the first exercise of that doctrine. If it
succeeds on these terms, as it presumably will,
because the target is so defenceless, then
international lawyers and Western intellectuals and
others will begin to talk about a new norm in
international affairs. It is important to establish
such a norm if you expect to rule the world by force
for the foreseeable future.

This is not without precedent, but it is extremely
unusual. I shall mention one precedent, just to show
how narrow the spectrum is. In 1963, Dean Acheson, who
was a much respected elder statesman and senior
Adviser of the Kennedy Administration, gave an
important talk to the American Society of
International Law, in which he justified the U. S.
attacks against Cuba. The attack by the Kennedy
Administration on Cuba was large-scale international
terrorism and economic warfare. The timing was
interesting - it was right after the Missile
Crisis, when the world was very close to a terminal
nuclear war. In his speech, Acheson said that "no
legal issue arises when the United States responds to
challenges to its position, prestige or authority", or
words approximating that.

That is also a statement of the Bush doctrine.
Although Acheson was an important figure, what he said
had not been official government policy in the
post-War period. It now stands as official policy and
this is the first illustration of it. It is intended
to provide a precedent for the future.

Such "norms" are established only when a Western power
does something, not when others do. That is part of
the deep racism of Western culture, going back through
centuries of imperialism and so deep that it is
unconscious.

So I think this war is an important new step, and is
intended to be.

Ramachandran: Is it also a new phase in that the U. S.
has not been able to carry others with it?

Chomsky: That is not new. In the case of the Vietnam
War, for example, the United States did not even try
to get international support. Nevertheless, you are
right in that this is unusual. This is a case in which
the United States was compelled for political reasons
to try to force the world to accept its position and
was not able to, which is quite unusual. Usually, the
world succumbs.

Ramachandran: So does it represent a "failure of
diplomacy" or a redefinition of diplomacy itself?

Chomsky: I wouldn't call it diplomacy at all -
it's a failure of coercion.

Compare it with the first Gulf War. In the first Gulf
War, the U.S. coerced the Security Council into
accepting its position, although much of the world
opposed it. NATO went along, and the one country in
the Security Council that did not - Yemen - was
immediately and severely punished.

In any legal system that you take seriously, coerced
judgments are considered invalid, but in the
international affairs conducted by the powerful,
coerced judgments are fine - they are called
diplomacy.

What is interesting about this case is that the
coercion did not work. There were countries - in
fact, most of them - who stubbornly maintained the
position of the vast majority of their populations.

The most dramatic case is Turkey. Turkey is a
vulnerable country, vulnerable to U.S. punishment and
inducements. Nevertheless, the new government, I think
to everyone's surprise, did maintain the position of
about 90 per cent of its population. Turkey is
bitterly condemned for that here, just as France and
Germany are bitterly condemned because they took the
position of the overwhelming majority of their
populations. The countries that are praised are
countries like Italy and Spain, whose leaders agreed
to follow orders from Washington over the opposition
of maybe 90 per cent of their populations.

That is another new step. I cannot think of another
case where hatred and contempt for democracy have so
openly been proclaimed, not just by the government,
but also by liberal commentators and others. There is
now a whole literature trying to explain why France,
Germany, the so-called "old Europe", and Turkey and
others are trying to undermine the United States. It
is inconceivable to the pundits that they are doing so
because they take democracy seriously and they think
that when the overwhelming majority of a population
has an opinion, a government ought to follow it.

That is real contempt for democracy, just as what has
happened at the United Nations is total contempt for
the international system. In fact there are now calls
- from The Wall Street Journal ,people in Government
and others - to disband the United Nations.

Fear of the United States around the world is
extraordinary. It is so extreme that it is even being
discussed in the mainstream media. The cover story of
the upcoming issue of Newsweek is about why the world
is so afraid of the United States. The Post had a
cover story about this a few weeks ago.

Of course this is considered to be the world's fault,
that there is something wrong with the world with
which we have to deal somehow, but also something that
has to be recognised.

Ramachandran: The idea that Iraq represents any kind
of clear and present danger is, of course, without any
substance at all.

Chomsky: Nobody pays any attention to that
accusation, except, interestingly, the population of
the United States.

In the last few months, there has been a spectacular
achievement of government-media propaganda, very
visible in the polls. The international polls show
that support for the war is higher in the United
States than in other countries. That is, however,
quite misleading, because if you look a little closer,
you find that the United States is also different in
another respect from the rest of the world. Since
September 2002, the United States is the only country
in the world where 60 per cent of the population
believes that Iraq is an imminent threat -
something that people do not believe even in Kuwait or
Iran.

Furthermore, about 50 per cent of the population now
believes that Iraq was responsible for the attack on
the World Trade Centre. This has happened since
September 2002. In fact, after the September 11
attack, the figure was about 3 per cent.
Government-media propaganda has managed to raise that
to about 50 per cent. Now if people genuinely believe
that Iraq has carried out major terrorist attacks
against the United States and is planning to do so
again, well, in that case people will support the war.

This has happened, as I said, after September 2002.
September 2002 is when the government-media campaign
began and also when the mid-term election campaign
began. The Bush Administration would have been smashed
in the election if social and economic issues had been
in the forefront, but it managed to suppress those
issues in favour of security issues - and people
huddle under the umbrella of power.

This is exactly the way the country was run in the
1980s. Remember that these are almost the same people
as in the Reagan and the senior Bush Administrations.
Right through the 1980s they carried out domestic
policies that were harmful to the population and
which, as we know from extensive polls, the people
opposed. But they managed to maintain control by
frightening the people. So the Nicaraguan Army was two
days' march from Texas and about to conquer the United
States, and the airbase in Granada was one from which
the Russians would bomb us. It was one thing after
another, every year, every one of them ludicrous. The
Reagan Administration actually declared a national
Emergency in 1985 because of the threat to the
security of the United States posed by the Government
of Nicaragua.

If somebody were watching this from Mars, they would
not know whether to laugh or to cry.

They are doing exactly the same thing now, and will
probably do something similar for the presidential
campaign. There will have to be a new dragon to slay,
because if the Administration lets domestic issues
prevail, it is in deep trouble.

Ramachandran: You have written that this war of
aggression has dangerous consequences with respect to
international terrorism and the threat of nuclear war.

Chomsky: I cannot claim any originality for that
opinion. I am just quoting the CIA and other
intelligence agencies and virtually every specialist
in international affairs and terrorism. Foreign
Affairs, Foreign Policy , the study by the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the high-level
Hart-Rudman Commission on terrorist threats to the
United States all agree that it is likely to increase
terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction.

The reason is simple: partly for revenge, but partly
just for self-defence.

There is no other way to protect oneself from U.S.
attack. In fact, the United States is making the point
very clearly, and is teaching the world an extremely
ugly lesson.

Compare North Korea and Iraq. Iraq is defenceless and
weak; in fact, the weakest regime in the region. While
there is a horrible monster running it, it does not
pose a threat to anyone else. North Korea, on the
other hand, does pose a threat. North Korea, however,
is not attacked for a very simple reason: it has a
deterrent. It has a massed artillery aimed at Seoul,
and if the United States attacks it, it can wipe out a
large part of South Korea.

So the United States is telling the countries of the
world: if you are defenceless, we are going to attack
you when we want, but if you have a deterrent, we will
back off, because we only attack defenceless targets.
In other words, it is telling countries that they had
better develop a terrorist network and weapons of mass
destruction or some other credible deterrent; if not,
they are vulnerable to "preventive war".

For that reason alone, this war is likely to lead to
the proliferation of both terrorism and weapons of
mass destruction.

Ramachandran: How do you think the U.S. will manage
the human - and humanitarian - consequences of
the war?

Chomsky: No one knows, of course. That is why honest
and decent people do not resort to violence -
because one simply does not know.

The aid agencies and medical groups that work in Iraq
have pointed out that the consequences can be very
severe. Everyone hopes not, but it could affect up to
millions of people. To undertake violence when there
is even such a possibility is criminal.

There is already - that is, even before the war -
a humanitarian catastrophe. By conservative
estimates, ten years of sanctions have killed hundreds
of thousands of people. If there were any honesty, the
U.S. would pay reparations just for the sanctions.

The situation is similar to the bombing of
Afghanistan, of which you and I spoke when the bombing
there was in its early stages. It was obvious the
United States was never going to investigate the
consequences.

Ramachandran: Or invest the kind of money that was
needed.

Chomsky: Oh no. First, the question is not asked, so
no one has an idea of what the consequences of the
bombing were for most of the country. Then almost
nothing comes in. Finally, it is out of the news, and
no one remembers it any more.

In Iraq, the United States will make a show of
humanitarian reconstruction and will put in a regime
that it will call democratic, which means that it
follows Washington's orders. Then it will forget about
what happens later, and will go on to the next one.

Ramachandran: How have the media lived up to their
propaganda-model reputation this time?

Chomsky: Right now it is cheerleading for the home
team. Look at CNN, which is disgusting - and it is
the same everywhere. That is to be expected in
wartime; the media are worshipful of power.

More interesting is what happened in the build-up to
war. The fact that government-media propaganda was
able to convince the people that Iraq is an imminent
threat and that Iraq was responsible for September 11
is a spectacular achievement and, as I said, was
accomplished in about four months. If you ask people
in the media about this, they will say, "Well, we
never said that," and it is true, they did not. There
was never a statement that Iraq is going to invade the
United States or that it carried out the World Trade
Centre attack. It was just insinuated, hint after
hint, until they finally got people to believe it.

Ramachandran: Look at the resistance, though. Despite
the propaganda, despite the denigration of the United
Nations, they haven't quite carried the day.

Chomsky: You never know. The United Nations is in a
very hazardous position.

The United States might move to dismantle it. I don't
really expect that, but at least to diminish it,
because when it isn't following orders, of what use is
it?

Ramachandran: Noam, you have seen movements of
resistance to imperialism over a long period -
Vietnam, Central America, Gulf War I. What are your
impressions of the character, sweep and depth of the
present resistance to U.S. aggression? We take great
heart in the extraordinary mobilisations all over the
world.

Chomsky: Oh, that is correct; there is just nothing
like it. Opposition throughout the world is enormous
and unprecedented, and the same is true of the United
States. Yesterday, for example, I was in
demonstrations in downtown Boston, right around the
Boston Common. It is not the first time I have been
there. The first time I participated in a
demonstration there at which I was to speak was in
October 1965. That was four years after the United
States had started bombing South Vietnam. Half of
South Vietnam had been destroyed and the war had been
extended to North Vietnam. We could not have a
demonstration because it was physically attacked,
mostly by students, with the support of the liberal
press and radio, who denounced these people who were
daring to protest against an American war.

On this occasion, however, there was a massive protest
before the war was launched officially and once again
on the day it was launched - with no
counter-demonstrators. That is a radical difference.
And if it were not for the fear factor that I
mentioned, there would be much more opposition.

The government knows that it cannot carry out
long-term aggression and destruction as in Vietnam
because the population will not tolerate it.

There is only one way to fight a war now. First of
all, pick a much weaker enemy, one that is
defenceless. Then build it up in the propaganda system
as either about to commit aggression or as an imminent
threat. Next, you need a lightning victory. An
important leaked document of the first Bush
Administration in 1989 described how the U.S. would
have to fight war. It said that the U.S. had to fight
much weaker enemies, and that victory must be rapid
and decisive, as public support will quickly erode. It
is no longer like the 1960s, when a war could be
fought for years with no opposition at all.

In many ways, the activism of the 1960s and subsequent
years has simply made a lot of the world, including
this country, much more civilised in many domains.