Noam Chomsky: We’re facing a new Cold War
The linguist and philosopher on the warped coverage of Putin's Russia and the
ways we whitewash our war crimes
By Noam ChomskyApril 16, 2015 "ICH"
- "Jacobin"
-Earlier this month, Dan Falcone and Saul Isaacson, both high school educators,
sat down with Noam Chomsky in his Cambridge, MA office. In a brief conversation,
edited and condensed here for clarity, they covered a wide range of topics — the
projection of US power abroad and the stories told to justify it; COINTELPRO and
domestic repression; the failures of the mainstream media; the West’s posture
toward Putin; and much more. As
always, we’re happy to publish Professor Chomsky’s invaluable insights.
Dan Falcone
I was recently in correspondence with a good friend of yours, Richard
Falk, and we were discussing Juan
Cole’s idea of “essentialism” as it pertains to the Muslim world. And this
led me to think about how essentialism is present in liberal education.
For instance, take a good and appropriate cause like education
for Muslim girls and how they face Taliban oppression. This is important to
fight, obviously, but often the struggle is taught without the mentioning of
American foreign policy or our own international crimes isolated from the
entirety of the phenomenon. This type of lesson planning in secondary education
gets laudatory reviews. Could you help me in contextualizing this?
Noam Chomsky
Well take, say, the Taliban education that comes out of
madrassas in Pakistan, and is funded by our main ally, Saudi Arabia, and was
supported by the Reagan administration — because it was part of the support of
Pakistan, primarily as a war against the Russians.
Well, the United States tried to keep the Russians in
Afghanistan, and the goal was very explicitly stated by the CIA station chief in
Islamabad, which got around the insurgency. What he said was, we don’t care
about the liberation of Afghanistan. We want to kill Russians. A large part of
that was to also support the worst dictatorship in Pakistan, the General
Zia-ul-Haq dictatorship, who was allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
The Reaganites pretended they didn’t know, but of course they
did, so that they could keep pouring funds in. The other thing that they were
doing was radically “Islamizing” Pakistani society. So, the Saudis are not only
the most extreme radical fundamentalists in the Islamic world and our main
allies, but also a kind of missionary, and they have plenty of money. They have
other wealthy sectors too, but they pour money into building mosques, Quranic
schools, and so on. That’s where a lot of the Taliban came from.
So yes, we had a big role in it — plus, it’s worse than that.
I mean if you take a look at the serious history after the Russians
withdrew, they left behind the Najibullah government,
which was pretty reasonable in many ways. In fact, for women, at least in Kabul
and places like that, they’re way better off than they’ve been any time since
the Russians.
And the Najibullah government, which was pretty popular,
maintained itself until two events took place. 1) The Russians withdrew, pulled
out, ended support, and 2) The US maintained support for the mujahideen, who are
mostly religious extremists and fundamentalists — guys who throw acid at women
if they aren’t wearing the right clothes and so on. And they devastated Kabul,
they practically destroyed it. They took over. Their rule was so awful that when
the Taliban came in, they were actually welcomed.
Well, that’s part of history too, you know? Plus a lot that’s
happened since isn’t very pretty. So yeah, if you want to study the education of
the Taliban, these are things to do. And it’s not that we can’t read things,
like you can read the story of Malala Yousafzai, which is very evocative.
She talks about the warlord society and so on, which the US
instituted. There are other things one could read. I mean, there’s a very good book by
Anand Gopal which came out recently. Although he’s pretty sympathetic to the US
position, so it’s mostly about what he calls “mistakes” — how the United States
essentially reconstructed the Taliban by misunderstanding the society.
But what he describes is very persuasive. He goes through, and
he knows the country very well. And he describes in great detail how the
gangsters and warlords and criminals manipulated the US forces. Some group would
say, you’ve got to attack these guys over there, they happen to be a personal
enemy claiming that they’re Taliban supporters. So the US would send in Special
Forces and bombers and beat the shit out of everyone — and upgraded Taliban
supporters.
Gopal says the Taliban basically withdrew when the US invaded.
But then we helped them come back by means like these; through reconstructing
the insurgency, which the government now can’t control.
DF
So, there’s a simultaneous support for the bandits . . .
NC
Part of it was purposeful by the Reagan administration. Part
of it is maybe just kind of arrogant ignorance. Assuming we understand how to do
things when you know actually nothing about the society and just hit it with a
sledgehammer and you end up supporting, maybe inadvertently, the most criminal
elements who then are using the sledgehammer for their own purposes. You know,
to smash up their personal enemies.
DF
I remember some of your talks after September 11, 2001, you
were mentioning how there was a lot of praise for works in the social sciences
where authors were reviewing books that would say America’s really only flaw is
not doing enough in reaction to other people’s crimes.
NC
It goes on right now. Take a look at the current issue of Middle
East Journal. It is one of the more free, open, most critical of
professional journals. It’s been pretty good in the past, but there’s a
symposium. It’s a large part of the issue, and it includes ambassadors,
generals, and all kinds of big shots. They’re discussing the problems in the
Middle East, the total chaos and what can we do better than in the past to
stabilize the Middle East?
I mean, where did the chaos come from in Iraq and Libya? We
did it. But the only question you can ask is how can we perform better in
stabilizing the Middle East? Then of course there are these destabilizing
elements like Iran, a rogue state, and the greatest threat to world peace. How
are they to be stabilized in the Middle East?
If you take a look after the nuclear agreement, immediately
there’s a lot of commentary. The New York Times had a front page, a
think piece, from one of their big thinkers, Peter Baker. It says basically
in agreement, you can’t trust Iran. You know, they destabilize the Middle East,
and then he gives a list of reasons — each of them very interesting. But the
most interesting is that one of the main crimes of Iran is that they were
supporting militias that killed American soldiers.
In other words when we invade and destroy another country,
that’s stabilizing, and if someone defends themselves that is destabilizing.
That shows up in popular culture like this horrible film American
Sniper. Take a look at it. The memoir is worse than the film, but it
comes out that the first kill, the one he’s really proud of, is a woman and a
child who are holding a grenade when their town is being attacked by American
marines.
And they are savages, monsters, we hate them, they have to be
murdered, and everybody’s applauding. I mean, even the New York Times arts
pages was talking about what a wonderful film it was. It’s just mind-boggling.
DF
Speaking of mind-boggling, and international terror, I wanted
to ask about domestic terror. I wanted to ask you about COINTELPRO.
It does not get a lot of mentioning in the social science or historical
educational curriculum. Can you tell me about COINTELPRO and the importance of
teaching and learning about it in the democratic society?
NC
It’s an understatement to say it receives little attention.
COINTELPRO was a program by the national political police, the FBI, which is
basically what they are. It ran through four administrations, and it was
conscious. It began by going after the Communist Party in the 1950s. It then
extended into the Puerto Rican independence movement and the American Indian
movements, the women’s movement, and the whole New Left. But the main target was
the black movement.
It was a major program of disruption and went all the way to
direct political assassination. The worst case was Fred Hampton and Mark Clark,
who were simply murdered in a gestapo-style attack set up by the FBI. They were
very effective black organizers. The FBI didn’t care much about the criminals,
but they wanted to go after the effective organizers. It happened to have been
exposed in the courts at about the same time as Watergate. I mean, in comparison
to this program, Watergate is a tea party, nothing.
I was asked by the New York Review to write a brief
article and a symposium when Watergate was exposed. But I had just read about
this. I said look, Watergate is showing how famous people receive bad names in
private and that shakes the foundation of the republic? And at the very same
time you get the exposure of this incredible program, which went all the way to
political assassination so it’s far more significant.
DF
The following of the stories that are the petty crimes
insulate the powerful from the major crimes.
NC
If you look at yesterday’s New York Times, there’s a
very interesting comparison between two stories. One of them is a front-page
story, big continuation page. It’s about the journalistic malfeasance found
in the Rolling Stone article. It’s a huge statement about terrible
reporting. You know, they said the crime was a lack of skepticism, a terrible
journalistic crime.
They have another article on
Laos, which is quite interesting. It’s about an important woman, a Lao-American
woman who’s working on trying to do something about the unexploded bombs that
are killing people over in Northern Laos. And it cites a source, the right
source, Fred Branfman, and his book, Voices
from the Plain of Jars. And that’s where they get their information
from.
Then it says, for the United States, the target of the US
bombing was the Ho Chi Minh Trail where North Vietnamese were coming to South
Vietnam and the Lao collaborators with the North Vietnamese. What are the facts
in Fred Branfman’s book? The US was attacking Northern Laos. In fact, it’s shown
on the map they were attacking, and it had nothing to do with the Ho Chi Minh
Trail, no North Vietnamese.
Why were they doing it? Fred documented it. He quotes Monteagle
Stearns, who was asked in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, why are we
bombing this remote area of Northern Laos and wiping it out? And he gives the
answer. He says there was a bombing halt over North Vietnam. And we had all
these planes around and we didn’t have anything to do with them. So we destroyed
Northern Laos.
That’s transmuted in the New York Times into straight
government propaganda. And that’s an absolutely colossal lie. Is that going to
beinvestigated by
the Columbia Journalism Review? We’re going to have front-page stories?
No. It’s an amazing comparison, and it’s every day.
Saul Isaacson
Stephen Cohen has argued that we’re
closer to war with Russia than we have been since the Cuban missile crisis. Do
you think he’s overstating the crisis in Ukraine?
NC
I don’t think so. I mean the government of Ukraine that came
in after the coup, the parliament, voted almost
unanimously to pursue membership in NATO. As Cohen and many others have pointed
out, that is something utterly intolerable to any Russian leader. It’s kind of
as if the Warsaw Pact had taken over South America and was now going to include
Mexico and Canada. So, yeah, that’s serious.
It’s interesting the way Putin is treated. I think it is maybe
in the same Middle East Journal I read recently, talking about
supporting the US position on the Ukraine, and some serious person saying this
will be opposed by North Korea, the Islamic state, and Stephen Cohen. [To
question the US position on Ukraine means you will receive threats from]
Stalinist apologists and get a bitter pronunciation of dismissal and ridicule.
SI
He also suggests that we’re on the verge of a new Cold War.
NC
It’s serious. I mean, look, Gorbachev agreed to the
unification of Germany — and even its incorporation with NATO, which is an
amazing concession if you look at history. But there was a quid pro quo: that
NATO would “not expand one inch to the east,” that was the phrase, meaning to
East Germany.
Once NATO had expanded to East Germany, Gorbachev was
infuriated. He was informed by the Bush 41 administration that it was only a
verbal promise. It wasn’t on paper, and the implication is if you’re dumb enough
to accept a gentleman’s agreement with us, that’s your problem. Then Clinton
came in, expanded NATO to the borders of Russia. And now it’s gone further, even
to Ukraine which is right at the heart of, apart from historical connections, of
Russian geo-strategic concerns. That’s very serious.
SI
And it’s getting so little press, so little coverage in the
US.
NC
Not only little coverage but what there is, is insane. I mean
it’s all about what a lunatic Putin is. There’s an article in one of the
psychology journals about how he must have Asperger’s or some other articles
about how he has brain damage. I mean, you can like him or not, but his position
is perfectly understandable.
DF
Finally, can you comment on the Holocaust Memorial and how the
museum connects itself to the doctrine of the “Responsibility to Protect?” (R2P)
What is America’s interest with R2P or the “Responsibility to Protect?”
NC
The Holocaust Memorial Museum was established in the 1970s,
part of a huge expansion of Holocaust studies, memorials, etc. The date is of
some significance. The right time would have been decades earlier, but that was
before US relations with Israel were established in their current
form (after the 1967 war), and inconvenient questions might have been raised
about the US’s attitudes towards the Holocaust and particularly towards
survivors.
Also striking is the absence of any remotely comparable
reaction to enormous US crimes, such as virtual elimination of the indigenous
population and the vicious slave labor camps that had an enormous role in the
prosperity of the country. The lesson seems to be clear: we can lament the
hideous crimes of others, when it is convenient to do so, but only the crimes of
others.
As for R2P, there are two versions of the doctrine. One was
adopted by the UN General Assembly. Changes from earlier UN resolutions are
slight, and crucially, it maintains the essential provisions of the UN Charter
barring the use of force without Security Council authorization (or in response
to armed attack, irrelevant here).
The second version, in a report by a commission headed by
Gareth Evans, is almost the same, but with one crucial difference: it authorizes
regional groups to intervene with force within what they take to be their
domains without Security Council authorization. There is only one regional group
that can act this way: NATO.
So the Evans version essentially allows NATO (meaning the US)
to resort to force when it chooses to do so. That is the operative version.
Appeal is made to the innocuous UN version to justify the resort to force.
The case that was in everyone’s mind was the NATO attack on
Serbia in the Kosovo conflict, bitterly condemned by most of the world but
applauded by the NATO countries as a wonderful tribute to their magnificence.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor (retired) at MIT. He is
the author of many books and articles on international affairs and
social-political issues, and a long-time participant in activist movements.