By Noam Chomsky
-You all know, of course, there was an election --
what is called "an election" in the United States -- last November.
There was really one issue in the election, what to do about U.S.
forces in Iraq and there was, by U.S. standards, an overwhelming
vote calling for a withdrawal of U.S. forces on a firm timetable.
As few people know, a couple of months earlier there were extensive
polls in Iraq, U.S.-run polls, with interesting results. They were not
secret here. If you really looked you could find references to them,
so it's not that they were concealed. This poll found that two-thirds
of the people in Baghdad wanted the U.S. troops out immediately;
the rest of the country -- a large majority -- wanted a firm timetable
for withdrawal, most of them within a year or less.
The figures are higher for Arab Iraq in the areas where troops were
actually deployed. A very large majority felt that the presence of U.S.
forces increased the level of violence and a remarkable 60 percent for
all of Iraq, meaning higher in the areas where the troops are deployed,
felt that U.S. forces were legitimate targets of attack. So there was a
considerable consensus between Iraqis and Americans on what should
be done in Iraq, namely troops should be withdrawn either immediately
or with a firm timetable.
Well, the reaction in the post-election U.S. government to that
consensus was to violate public opinion and increase the troop presence
by maybe 30,000 to 50,000. Predictably, there was a pretext announced.
It was pretty obvious what it was going to be. "There is outside
interference in Iraq, which we have to defend the Iraqis against.
The Iranians are interfering in Iraq." Then came the alleged evidence
about finding IEDs, roadside bombs with Iranian markings, as well
as Iranian forces in Iraq. "What can we do? We have to escalate to
defend Iraq from the outside intervention."
Then came the "debate." We are a free and open society, after all,
so we have "lively" debates. On the one side were the hawks who
said, "The Iranians are interfering, we have to bomb them." On the
other side were the doves who said, "We cannot be sure the
evidence is correct, maybe you misread the serial numbers or maybe
it is just the revolutionary guards and not the government."
So we had the usual kind of debate going on, which illustrates a
very important and pervasive distinction between several types of
propaganda systems. To take the ideal types, exaggerating a little:
totalitarian states' propaganda is that you better accept it, or else.
And "or else" can be of various consequences, depending on the
nature of the state. People can actually believe whatever they
want as long as they obey. Democratic societies use a different
method: they don't articulate the party line. That's a mistake.
What they do is presuppose it, then encourage vigorous debate
within the framework of the party line. This serves two purposes.
For one thing it gives the impression of a free and open society
because, after all, we have lively debate. It also instills a propaganda
line that becomes something you presuppose, like the air you breathe.
That was the case here. This is a classic illustration. The whole
debate about the Iranian "interference" in Iraq makes sense only on
one assumption, namely, that "we own the world." If we own the
world, then the only question that can arise is that someone else is
interfering in a country we have invaded and occupied.
So if you look over the debate that took place and is still taking place
about Iranian interference, no one points out this is insane. How can
Iran be interfering in a country that we invaded and occupied? It's
only appropriate on the presupposition that we own the world.
Once you have that established in your head, the discussion is
perfectly sensible.
You read a lot of comparisons now about Vietnam and Iraq. For the
most part they are totally incomparable; the nature and purpose of the war,
almost everything is totally different except in one respect: how they are
perceived in the United States. In both cases there is what is now
sometimes called the "Q" word, quagmire. Is it a quagmire? In Vietnam
it is now recognized that it was a quagmire. There is a debate of whether
Iraq, too, is a quagmire. In other words, is it costing us too much? That is
the question you can debate.
So in the case of Vietnam, there was a debate. Not at the beginning -- in fact,
there was so little discussion in the beginning that nobody even remembers
when the war began -- 1962, if you're interested. That's when the U.S.
attacked Vietnam. But there was no discussion, no debate, nothing.
By the mid-1960s, mainstream debate began. And it was the usual range of
opinions between the hawks and the doves. The hawks said if we send more
troops, we can win. The doves, well, Arthur Schlesinger, famous historian,
Kennedy's advisor, in his book in 1966 said that we all pray that the hawks
will be right and that the current escalation of troops, which by then was
approaching half a million, will work and bring us victory. If it does, we
will all be praising the wisdom and statesmanship of the American
government for winning victory -- in a land that we're reducing
to ruin and wreck.
You can translate that word by word to the doves today. We all pray
that the surge will work. If it does, contrary to our expectations, we
will be praising the wisdom and statesmanship of the Bush
administration in a country, which, if we're honest, is a total ruin,
one of the worst disasters in military history for the population.
If you get way to the left end of mainstream discussion, you get
somebody like Anthony Lewis who, at the end of the Vietnam
War in 1975, wrote in retrospect that the war began with benign
intensions to do good; that is true by definition, because it's us,
after all. So it began with benign intentions, but by 1969, he said,
it was clear that the war was a mistake. For us to win a victory
would be too costly -- for us -- so it was a mistake and we should
withdraw. That was the most extreme criticism.
Very much like today. We could withdraw from Vietnam because
the U.S. had already essentially obtained its objective by then. Iraq
we can't because we haven't obtained our objectives.
And for those of you who are old enough to remember -- or have
read about it -- you will note that the peace movement pretty much
bought that line. Just like the mainstream discussion, the opposition
of the war, including the peace movement, was mostly focused on
the bombing of the North. When the U.S. started bombing the
North regularly in February 1965, it also escalated the bombing
of the South to triple the scale -- and the South had already been
attacked for three years by then. A couple of hundred thousand
South Vietnamese were killed and thousands, if not tens of the
thousands, had been driven into concentration camps. The U.S.
had been carrying out chemical warfare to destroy food crops and
ground cover. By 1965 South Vietnam was already a total wreck.
Bombing the South was costless for the United States because the
South had no defense. Bombing the North was costly -- you bomb
the North, you bomb the harbor, you might hit Russian ships, which
begins to become dangerous. You're bombing an internal Chinese
railroad -- the Chinese railroads from southeast to southwest China
happen to go through North Vietnam -- who knows what they might do.
In fact, the Chinese were accused, correctly, of sending Chinese
forces into Vietnam, namely to rebuild the railroad that we were
bombing. So that was "interference" with our divine right to bomb
North Vietnam. So most of the focus was on the bombing of the
North. The peace movement slogan, "Stop the bombing" meant the
bombing of the North.
In 1967 the leading specialist on Vietnam, Bernard Fall, a military
historian and the only specialist on Vietnam respected by the U.S.
government -- who was a hawk, incidentally, but who cared
about the Vietnamese -- wrote that it's a question of whether
Vietnam will survive as a cultural and historical entity under the
most severe bombing that has ever been applied to a country this
size. He was talking about the South. He kept emphasizing it was
the South that was being attacked. But that didn't matter because
it was costless, therefore it's fine to continue. That is the range of
debate, which only makes sense on the assumption that we own the world.
If you read, say, the Pentagon Papers, it turns out there was
extensive planning about the bombing of the North -- very detailed,
meticulous planning on just how far it can go, what happens if we go
a little too far, and so on. There is no discussion at all about the
bombing of the South, virtually none. Just an occasional
announcement, okay, we will triple the bombing, or something
like that.
If you read Robert McNamara's memoirs of the war -- by that time
he was considered a leading dove -- he reviews the meticulous
planning about the bombing of the North, but does not even mention
his decision to sharply escalate the bombing of the South at the same
time that the bombing of the North was begun.
I should say, incidentally, that with regard to Vietnam what I have
been discussing is articulate opinion, including the leading part of the
peace movement. There is also public opinion, which it turns out
is radically different, and that is of some significance. By 1969
around 70 percent of the public felt that the war was not a mistake,
but that it was fundamentally wrong and immoral. That was the
wording of the polls and that figure remains fairly constant up until
the most recent polls just a few years ago. The figures are pretty
remarkable because people who say that in a poll almost certainly
think, I must be the only person in the world that thinks this. They
certainly did not read it anywhere, they did not hear it anywhere.
But that was popular opinion.
The same is true with regard to many other issues. But for
articulate opinion it's pretty much the way I've described --
largely vigorous debate between the hawks and the doves, all on
the unexpressed assumption that we own the world. So the only
thing that matters is how much is it costing us, or maybe for some
more humane types, are we harming too many of them?
Getting back to the election, there was a lot of disappointment
among anti-war people -- the majority of the population -- that
Congress did not pass any withdrawal legislation. There was a
Democratic resolution that was vetoed, but if you look at the
resolution closely it was not a withdrawal resolution. There was
a good analysis of it by General Kevin Ryan, who was a fellow
at the Kennedy School at Harvard. He went through it and he
said it really should be called a re-missioning proposal. It leaves
about the same number of American troops, but they have a
slightly different mission.
He said, first of all it allows for a national security exception.
If the president says there is a national security issue, he can do
whatever he wants -- end of resolution. The second gap is it allows
for anti-terrorist activities. Okay, that is whatever you like. Third,
it allows for training Iraqi forces. Again, anything you like.
Next it says troops have to remain for protection of U.S. forces
and facilities. What are U.S. forces? Well, U.S. forces are those
embedded in Iraqi armed units where 60 percent of their fellow
soldiers think that they -- U.S. troops, that is -- are legitimate
targets of attack. Incidentally, those figures keep going up, so
they are probably higher by now. Well, okay, that is plenty of
force protection. What facilities need protection was not explained
in the Democratic resolution, but facilities include what is called
"the embassy." The U.S. embassy in Iraq is nothing like any
embassy that has ever existed in history. It's a city inside the
green zone, the protected region of Iraq, that the U.S. runs. It's
got everything from missiles to McDonalds, anything you want.
They didn't build that huge facility because they intend to leave.
That is one facility, but there are others. There are "semi-permanent
military bases," which are being built around the country.
"Semi-permanent" means permanent, as long as we want.
General Ryan omitted a lot of things. He omitted the fact that the
U.S. is maintaining control of logistics and logistics is the core of
a modern Army. Right now about 80 percent of the supply is
coming in though the south, from Kuwait, and it's going through
guerilla territory, easily subject to attack, which means you have to
have plenty of troops to maintain that supply line. Plus, of course, it
keeps control over the Iraqi Army.
The Democratic resolution excludes the Air Force. The Air Force
does whatever it wants. It is bombing pretty regularly and it can
bomb more intensively. The resolution also excludes mercenaries,
which is no small number -- sources such as the Wall Street
Journal estimate the number of mercenaries at about 130,000,
approximately the same as the number of troops, which makes
some sense. The traditional way to fight a colonial war is with
mercenaries, not with your own soldiers -- that is the French
Foreign Legion, the British Ghurkas, or the Hessians in the
Revolutionary War. That is part of the main reason the draft
was dropped -- so you get professional soldiers, not people you
pick off the streets.
So, yes, it is re-missioning, but the resolution was vetoed because
it was too strong, so we don't even have that. And, yes, that did
disappoint a lot of people. However, it would be too strong to
say that no high official in Washington called for immediate
withdrawal. There were some. The strongest one I know of
-- when asked what is the solution to the problem in Iraq -- said
it's quite obvious, "Withdraw all foreign forces and withdraw all
foreign arms." That official was Condoleeza Rice and she was not
referring to U.S. forces, she was referring to Iranian forces and
Iranian arms. And that makes sense, too, on the assumption that
we own the world because, since we own the world U.S. forces
cannot be foreign forces anywhere. So if we invade Iraq or Canada,
say, we are the indigenous forces. It's the Iranians that are foreign
forces.
I waited for a while to see if anyone, at least in the press or journals,
would point out that there was something funny about this. I could not
find a word. I think everyone regarded that as a perfectly sensible
comment. But I could not see a word from anyone who said, wait
a second, there are foreign forces there, 150,000 American troops,
plenty of American arms.
So it is reasonable that when British sailors were captured in the
Gulf by Iranian forces, there was debate, "Were they in Iranian borders
or in Iraqi borders? Actually there is no answer to this because there
is no territorial boundary, and that was pointed out. It was taken for
granted that if the British sailors were in Iraqi waters, then Iran was
guilty of a crime by intervening in foreign territory. But Britain is not
guilty of a crime by being in Iraqi territory, because Britain is a U.S.
client state, and we own the world, so they are there by right.
What about the possible next war, Iran? There have been very
credible threats by the U.S. and Israel -- essentially a U.S. client
-- to attack Iran. There happens to be something called the UN
Charter which says that -- in Article 2 -- the threat or use of force
in international affairs is a crime. "Threat or use of force."
Does anybody care? No, because we're an outlaw state by definition,
or to be more precise, our threats and use of force are not foreign,
they're indigenous because we own the world. Therefore, it's fine.
So there are threats to bomb Iran -- maybe we will and maybe
we won't. That is the debate that goes on. Is it legitimate if we
decide to do it? People might argue it's a mistake. But does
anyone say it would be illegitimate? For example, the Democrats in
Congress refuse to put in an amendment that would require the
Executive to inform Congress if it intends to bomb Iran -- to consult,
inform. Even that was not accepted.
The whole world is aghast at this possibility. It would be monstrous.
A leading British military historian, Correlli Barnett, wrote recently
that if the U.S. does attack, or Israel does attack, it would be
World War III. The attack on Iraq has been horrendous enough.
Apart from devastating Iraq, the UN High Commission on
Refugees reviewed the number of displaced people -- they
estimate 4.2 million, over 2 million fled the country, another
2 million fleeing within the country. That is in addition to the
numbers killed, which if you extrapolate from the last studies,
are probably approaching a million.
It was anticipated by U.S. intelligence and other intelligence agencies
and independent experts that an attack on Iraq would probably
increase the threat of terror and nuclear proliferation. But that went
way beyond what anyone expected. Well known terrorism
specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank estimated -- using
mostly government statistics -- that what they call "the Iraq effect"
increased terror by a factor of seven, and that is pretty serious.
And that gives you an indication of the ranking of protection of the
population in the priority list of leaders. It's very low.
So what would the Iran effect be? Well, that is incalculable. It
could be World War III. Very likely a massive increase in terror,
who knows what else. Even in the states right around Iraq, which
don't like Iran -- Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey -- even
there the large majority would prefer to see a nuclear armed Iran
to any U.S. military action, and they are right, military action could
be devastating. It doesn't mean we won't do it. There is very little
discussion here of the illegitimacy of doing it, again on the assumption
that anything we do is legitimate, it just might cost too much.
Is there a possible solution to the U.S./Iran crisis? Well, there
are some plausible solutions. One possibility would be an
agreement that allows Iran to have nuclear energy, like every
signer of the non-proliferation treaty, but not to have nuclear
weapons. In addition, it would call for a nuclear weapons free
zone in the Middle East. That would include Iran, Israel, which
has hundreds of nuclear weapons, and any U.S. or British forces
deployed in the region. A third element of a solution would be for
the United States and other nuclear states to obey their legal
obligation, by unanimous agreement of the World Court, to make
good-faith moves to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely.
Is this feasible? Well, it's feasible on one assumption, that the
United States and Iran become functioning democratic societies,
because what I have just quoted happens to be the opinion of the
overwhelming majority of the populations in Iran and the United
States. On everything that I mentioned there is an overwhelming
majority. So, yes, there would be a very feasible solution if these
two countries were functioning democratic societies, meaning
societies in which public opinion has some kind of effect on policy.
The problem in the United States is the inability of organizers to do
something in a population that overwhelmingly agrees with them and
to make that current policy. Of course, it can be done. Peasants in
Bolivia can do it, we can obviously do it here.
Can we do anything to make Iran a more democratic society?
Not directly, but indirectly we can. We can pay attention to the
dissidents and the reformists in Iran who are struggling
courageously to turn Iran into a more democratic society. And
we know exactly what they are saying, they are very outspoken
about it. They are pleading with the United States to withdraw
the threats against Iran. The more we threaten Iran, the more
we give a gift to the reactionary, religious fanatics in the government.
You make threats, you strengthen them. That is exactly what is
happening. The threats have lead to repression, predictably.
Now the Americans claim they are outraged by the repression,
which we should protest, but we should recognize that the
repression is the direct and predictable consequence of the
actions that the U.S. government is taking. So if you take actions,
and then they have predictable consequences, condemning the
consequences is total hypocrisy.
Incidentally, in the case of Cuba about two-thirds of Americans
think we ought to end the embargo and all threats and enter into
diplomatic relations. And that has been true ever since polls have
been taken -- for about 30 years. The figure varies, but it's
roughly there. Zero effect on policy, in Iran, Cuba, and elsewhere.
So there is a problem and that problem is that the United States
is just not a functioning democracy. Public opinion does not
matter and among articulate and elite opinion that is a principle
-- it shouldn't matter. The only principle that matters is we own
the world and the rest of you shut up, you know, whether you're
abroad or at home.
So, yes, there is a potential solution to the very dangerous problem,
it's essentially the same solution: do something to turn our own
country into a functioning democracy. But that is in radical
opposition to the fundamental presupposition of all elite discussions,
mainly that we own the world and that these questions don't arise
and the public should have no opinion on foreign policy, or any policy.
Once, when I was driving to work, I was listening to NPR. NPR
is supposed to be the kind of extreme radical end of the spectrum.
I read a statement somewhere, I don't know if it's true, but it was
a quote from Obama, who is the hope of the liberal doves, in
which he allegedly said that the spectrum of discussion in the United
States extends between two crazy extremes, Rush Limbaugh and
NPR. The truth, he said, is in the middle and that is where he is
going to be, in the middle, between the crazies.
NPR then had a discussion -- it was like being at the Harvard
faculty club -- serious people, educated, no grammatical errors,
who know what they're talking about, usually polite. The
discussion was about the so-called missile defense system that the
U.S. is trying to place in Czechoslovakia and Poland -- and the
Russian reaction. The main issue was, "What is going on with
the Russians? Why are they acting so hostile and irrational? Are
they trying to start a new Cold War? There is something wrong with
those guys. Can we calm them down and make them less paranoid?"
The main specialist they called in, I think from the Pentagon or
somewhere, pointed out, accurately, that a missile defense
system is essentially a first-strike weapon. That is well known
by strategic analysts on all sides. If you think about it for a minute,
it's obvious why. A missile defense system is never going to stop
a first strike, but it could, in principle, if it ever worked, stop a
retaliatory strike. If you attack some country with a first strike, and
practically wipe it out, if you have a missile defense system, and
prevent them from retaliating, then you would be protected, or
partially protected. If a country has a functioning missile defense
system it will have more options for carrying out a first strike.
Okay, obvious, and not a secret. It's known to every strategic
analyst. I can explain it to my grandchildren in two minutes and
they understand it.
So on NPR it is agreed that a missile defense system is a first-strike
weapon. But then comes the second part of the discussion. Well,
say the pundits, the Russians should not be worried about this.
For one thing because it's not enough of a system to stop their
retaliation, so therefore it's not yet a first-strike weapon against
them. Then they said it is kind of irrelevant anyway because it is
directed against Iran, not against Russia.
Okay, that was the end of the discussion. So, point one,
missile defense is a first-strike weapon; second, it's directed
against Iran. Now, you can carry out a small exercise in logic.
Does anything follow from those two assumptions? Yes, what
follows is it's a first-strike weapon against Iran. Since the U.S.
owns the world what could be wrong with having a first-strike
weapon against Iran. So the conclusion is not mentioned. It is not
necessary. It follows from the fact that we own the world.
Maybe a year ago or so, Germany sold advanced submarines
to Israel, which were equipped to carry missiles with nuclear
weapons. Why does Israel need submarines with nuclear armed
missiles? Well, there is only one imaginable reason and everyone
in Germany with a brain must have understood that -- certainly their
military system does -- it's a first-strike weapon against Iran. Israel
can use German subs to illustrate to Iranians that if they respond to an
Israeli attack they will be vaporized.
The fundamental premises of Western imperialism are extremely deep.
The West owns the world and now the U.S. runs the West, so, of
course, they go along. The fact that they are providing a first-strike
weapon for attacking Iran probably, I'm guessing now, raised no
comment because why should it?
You can forget about history, it does not matter, it's kind of "old
fashioned," boring stuff we don't need to know about. But most
countries pay attention to history. So, for example, for the United
States there is no discussion of the history of U.S./Iranian relations.
Well, for the U.S. there is only one event in Iranian history -- in 1979
Iranians overthrew the tyrant that the U.S. was backing and took some
hostages for over a year. That happened and they had to be punished
for that.
But for Iranians their history is that for over 50 years, literally
without a break, the U.S. has been torturing Iranians. In 1953 the
U.S. overthrew the parliamentary government and installed a
brutal tyrant, the Shah, and kept supporting him while he
compiled one of the worst human rights records in the world -
- torture, assassination, anything you like. In fact, President
Carter, when he visited Iran in December 1978, praised the Shah
because of the love shown to him by his people, and so on and
so forth, which probably accelerated the overthrow. Of course,
Iranians have this odd way of remembering what happened to
them and who was behind it. When the Shah was overthrown,
the Carter administration immediately tried to instigate a military
coup by sending arms to Iran through Israel to try to support
military force to overthrow the government. We immediately turned
to supporting Iraq, that is Saddam Hussein, and his invasion of Iran.
Saddam was executed for crimes he committed in 1982, by his
standards not very serious crimes -- complicity in killing 150 people.
Well, there was something missing in that account -- 1982 is a very
important year in U.S./Iraqi relations. That is the year in which Ronald
Reagan removed Iraq from the list of states supporting terrorism so
that the U.S. could start supplying Iraq with weapons for its invasion
of Iran, including the means to develop weapons of mass destruction,
chemical and nuclear weapons. That is 1982. A year later Donald
Rumsfeld was sent to firm up the deal. Well, Iranians may very well
remember that this led to a war in which hundreds of thousands of
them were slaughtered with U.S. aid going to Iraq. They may well
remember that the year after the war was over, in 1989, the U.S.
government invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to come to the United
States for advanced training in developing nuclear weapons.
What about the Russians? They have a history too. One part of
the history is that in the last century Russia was invaded and
practically destroyed three times through Eastern Europe. You
can look back and ask, when was the last time that the U.S.
was invaded and practically destroyed through Canada or Mexico?
That doesn't happen. We crush others and we are always safe. But
the Russians don't have that luxury. Now, in 1990 a remarkable
event took place. I was kind of shocked, frankly. Gorbachev agreed
to let Germany be unified, meaning join the West and be militarized
within a hostile military alliance. This is Germany, which twice in that
century practically destroyed Russia. That's a pretty remarkable
agreement.
There was a quid pro quo. Then-president George Bush I agreed
that NATO would not expand to the East. The Russians also
demanded, but did not receive, an agreement for a nuclear-free
zone from the Artic to the Baltic, which would give them a little
protection from nuclear attack. That was the agreement in 1990.
Then Bill Clinton came into office, the so-called liberal. One of the
first things he did was to rescind the agreement, unilaterally, and
expand NATO to the East.
For the Russians that's pretty serious, if you remember the history.
They lost 25 million people in the last World War and over 3 million
in World War I. But since the U.S. owns the world, if we want to
threaten Russia, that is fine. It is all for freedom and justice, after all,
and if they make unpleasant noises about it we wonder why they
are so paranoid. Why is Putin screaming as if we're somehow
threatening them, since we can't be threatening anyone,
owning the world.
One of the other big issues on the front pages now is Chinese
"aggressiveness." There is a lot of concern about the fact that the
Chinese are building up their missile forces. Is China planning to
conquer the world? Big debates about it. Well, what is really
going on? For years China has been in the lead in trying to prevent
the militarization of space. If you look at the debates and the
Disarmament Commission of the UN General Assembly, the
votes are 160 to 1 or 2. The U.S. insists on the militarization of
space. It will not permit the outer space treaty to explicitly bar military
relations in space.
Clinton's position was that the U.S. should control space for military
purposes. The Bush administration is more extreme. Their position is
the U.S. should own space, their words, We have to own space for
military purposes. So that is the spectrum of discussion here. The
Chinese have been trying to block it and that is well understood. You
read the most respectable journal in the world, I suppose, the Journal
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and you find leading
strategic analysts, John Steinbrunner and Nancy Gallagher, a couple of
years ago, warning that the Bush administration's aggressive militarization
is leading to what they call "ultimate doom." Of course, there is going to
be a reaction to it. You threaten people with destruction, they are
going to react. These analysts call on peace-loving nations to counter
Bush's aggressive militarism. They hope that China will lead peace-loving
nations to counter U.S. aggressiveness. It's a pretty remarkable comment
on the impossibility of achieving democracy in the United States. Again, the
logic is pretty elementary. Steinbrunner and Gallagher are assuming that the
United States cannot be a democratic society; it's not one of the options, so
therefore we hope that maybe China will do something.
Well, China finally did something. It signaled to the United States that
they noticed that we were trying to use space for military purposes,
so China shot down one of their satellites. Everyone understands why
-- the mili- tarization and weaponization of space depends on satellites.
While missiles are very difficult or maybe impossible to stop, satellites
are very easy to shoot down. You know where they are. So China is
saying, "Okay, we understand you are militarizing space. We're going to
counter it not by militarizing space, we can't compete with you that way,
but by shooting down your satellites." That is what was behind the satellite
shooting. Every military analyst certainly understood it and every lay person
can understand it. But take a look at the debate. The discussion was about,
"Is China trying it conquer the world by shooting down one of its own satellites?"
About a year ago there was a new rash of articles and headlines
on the front page about the "Chinese military build-up.
" The Pentagon claimed that China had increased its offensive
military capacity -- with 400 missiles, which could be nuclear armed.
Then we had a debate about whether that proves China is trying to
conquer the world or the numbers are wrong, or something.
Just a little footnote. How many offensive nuclear armed missiles
does the United States have? Well, it turns out to be 10,000.
China may now have maybe 400, if you believe the hawks. That
proves that they are trying to conquer the world.
It turns out, if you read the international press closely, that the reason
China is building up its military capacity is not only because of U.S.
aggressiveness all over the place, but the fact that the United States
has improved its targeting capacities so it can now destroy missile
sites in a much more sophisticated fashion wherever they are, even if
they are mobile. So who is trying to conquer the world? Well,
obviously the Chinese because since we own it, they are
trying to conquer it.
It's all too easy to continue with this indefinitely. Just pick your topic.
It's a good exercise to try. This simple principle, "we own the world,"
is sufficient to explain a lot of the discussion about foreign affairs.
I will just finish with a word from George Orwell. In the introduction
to Animal Farm he said, England is a free society, but it's not
very different from the totalitarian monster I have been
describing. He says in England unpopular ideas can be
suppressed without the use of force. Then he goes on to give
some dubious examples. At the end he turns to a very brief
explanation, actually two sentences, but they are to the point. He
says, one reason is the press is owned by wealthy men who have
every reason not to want certain ideas to be expressed. And the
second reason -- and I think a more important one -- is a good
education. If you have gone to the best schools and graduated
from Oxford and Cambridge, and so on, you have instilled in you
the understanding that there are certain things it would not do to say;
actually, it would not do to think. That is the primary way to prevent
unpopular ideas from being expressed.
The ideas of the overwhelming majority of the population, who
don't attend Harvard, Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge, enable
them to react like human beings, as they often do. There is a
lesson there for activists.
Noam Chomsky is a professor of linguistics at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author,
most recently, of Hegemony or Survival Americas Quest
for Global Dominance.
