"The Bush Doctrine"

Noam Chomsky Interview, BBC

If George Bush were to be judged by the standards of the
Nuremberg Tribunals, he'd be hanged. So too, mind you, would
every single American President since the end of the second
world war, including Jimmy Carter.

The suggestion comes from the American linguist Noam
Chomsky. His latest attack on the way his country behaves in
the world is called Hegemony or Survival, America's Quest
for Global Dominance.

Jeremy Paxman met him at the British Museum, where they
talked in the Assyrian Galleries. He asked him whether he
was suggesting there was nothing new in the so-called Bush
Doctrine.NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, it depends. It is recognised to be
revolutionary. Henry Kissinger for example described it as a
revolutionary new doctrine which tears to shreds the
Westphalian System, the 17th century system of International
Order and of course the UN Charter. But nevertheless, and
has been very widely criticised within the foreign policy
elite. But on narrow ground the doctrine is not really new,
it's extreme.

JEREMY PAXMAN: What was the United States supposed to do
after 9/11? It had been the victim of a grotesque,
intentional attack, what was it supposed to do but try...?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Why pick 9/11? Why not pick 1993. Actually the
fact that the terrorist act succeeded in September 11th did
not alter the risk analysis. In 1993, similar groups, US
trained Jihadi's came very close to blowing up the World
Trade Center, with better planning, they probably would have
killed tens of thousands of people. Since then it was known
that this is very likely. In fact right through the 90's
there was technical literature predicting it, and we know
what to do. What you do is police work. Police work is the
way to stop terrorist acts and it succeeded.

JEREMY PAXMAN: But you are suggesting the United States in
that sense is the author of Its own Nemesis.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, first of all this is not my opinion.
It's the opinion of just about every specialist on
terrorism. Take a look, say at Jason Burke's recent book on
Al-Qaeda which is just the best book there is. He runs
through the record of how each act of violence has increased
recruitment financing mobilisation, what he says is, I'm
quoting him, that each act of violence is a small victory
for Bin Laden.

JEREMY PAXMAN: But why do you imagine George Bush behaves
like this?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Because I don't think they care that much
about terror, in fact we know that. Take say the invasion of
Iraq, it was predicted by just about every specialist in
intelligence agencies that the invasion of Iraq would
increase the threat of Al-Qaeda style terror which is
exactly what happened. The point is that . . .

JEREMY PAXMAN: Then why would he do it?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Because invading Iraq has value in itself, I
mean establishing . . .

JEREMY PAXMAN: Well what value?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Establishing the first secure military base in
a dependant client state at the heart of the energy
producing region of the world.

JEREMY PAXMAN: Don't you even think that the people of Iraq
are better off having got rid of a dictator?

NOAM CHOMSKY: They got rid of two brutal regimes, one that
we are supposed to talk about, the other one we are not
suppose to talk about. The two brutal regimes were Saddam
Hussein's and the US-British sanctions, which were
devastating society, had killed hundreds of thousands of
people, were forcing people to be reliant on Saddam Hussein.
Now the sanctions could obviously have been turned to
weapons rather than destroying society without an invasion.
If that had happened it is not at all impossible that the
people of Iraq would have sent Saddam Hussein the same way
to the same fate as other monsters supported by the US and
Britain. Ceausescu, Suharto, Duvalier, Marcos, there's a
long list of them. In fact the westerners who know Iraq best
were predicting this all along.

JEREMY PAXMAN: You seem to be suggesting or implying,
perhaps I'm being unfair to you, but you seem to be implying
there is some equivalence between democratically elected
heads of state like George Bush or Prime Ministers like Tony
Blair and regimes in places like Iraq.

NOAM CHOMSKY: The term moral equivalence is an interesting
one, it was invented I think by Jeane Kirkpatrick as a
method of trying to prevent criticism of foreign policy and
state decisions. It is a meaningless notion, there is no
moral equivalence what so ever.

JEREMY PAXMAN: If it is preferable for an individual to live
in a liberal democracy, is there benefit to be gained by
spreading the values of that democracy however you can?

NOAM CHOMSKY: That reminds me of the question that Gandhi
was once asked about western civilisation, what did he think
of it. He said yeah, it would be a good idea. In fact it
would be a good idea to spread the values of liberal
democracy. But that's not what the US and Britain are trying
to do. It's not what they've done in the past. Take a look
at the regions under their domination. They don't spread
liberal democracy. What they spread is dependence and
subordination. Furthermore it's well-known that this is a
large part of the reason for the great opposition to US
policy within the Middle East. In fact this was known in the
1950s.

JEREMY PAXMAN: But there is a whole slue of countries in
eastern Europe right now that would say we are better off
now than we were when we were living under the Soviet
Empire. As a consequence of how the west behaved.

NOAM CHOMSKY: And there is a lot of countries in US domains,
like Central America, the Caribbean who wish that they could
be free of American domination. We don't pay much attention
to what happens there but they do. In the 1980s when the
current incumbents were in their Reaganite phase. Hundreds
of thousands of people were slaughtered in Central America.
The US carried out a massive terrorist attack against
Nicaragua, mainly as a war on the church. They assassinated
an Archbishop and murdered six leading Jesuit intellectuals.
This is in El Salvador. It was a monstrous period. What did
they impose? Was it liberal democracies? No.

JEREMY PAXMAN: You've mentioned on two or three occasions
this relationship between the United States and Britain. Do
you understand why Tony Blair behaved as he did over
Afghanistan and Iraq?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, if you look at the British diplomatic
history, back in the 1940s, Britain had to make a decision.
Britain had been the major world power, the United States
though by far the richest country in the world was not a
major actor in the global scene, except regionally. By the
Second World War it was obvious the US was going to be the
dominant power, everyone knew that. Britain had to make a
choice. Was it going to be part of what would ultimately be
a Europe that might move towards independence, or would it
be what the Foreign Office called a junior partner to the
United States? Well it essentially made that choice to be a
junior partner to the United States.

So during the Cuban missile crisis for example, you look at
the declassified record, they treated Britain with total
contempt. Harold McMillan wasn't even informed of what was
going on and Britain's existence was at stake. It was
dangerous. One high official, probably Dean Acheson and he's
not identified, described Britain as in his words "Our
lieutenant, the fashionable word is partner". Well the
British would like to hear the fashionable word, but the
masters use the actual word. Those are choices Britain has
to make. I mean why Blair decided, I couldn't say.

JEREMY PAXMAN: Noam Chomsky, thank you.