From jad@ckuxb.att.com Ukn Jan 6 12:03:34 1993 Received: from att-out.att.com by css.itd.umich.edu (5.67/2.2) id AA00569; Wed, 6 Jan 93 12:03:28 -0500 Message-Id: <9301061703.AA00569@css.itd.umich.edu> To: pauls@css.itd.umich.edu Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 12:00:43 EST From: jad@ckuxb.att.com (John A Dinardo) Status: RO X-Status: Article 18797 of alt.conspiracy: Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,alt.activism,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.individualism,alt.censorship,misc.headlines,soc.culture.usa,misc.activism.progressive Subject: Part 1, NOAM CHOMSKY: The New World Order Message-ID: <1993Jan4.221740.1562@mont.cs.missouri.edu> Followup-To: alt.conspiracy Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu Keywords: Noam Chomsky: The New World Order Sender: news@mont.cs.missouri.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu Organization: The Turing Project, Public Access Internet Host Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu Lines: 158 THE NEW WORLD ORDER: The Middle East and Central America Lecture by Professor Noam Chomsky Given at George Washington University November 23, 1991 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NOAM CHOMSKY: ..... against the heat of those television lights. In fact, I'll start believing in the miracles of Japanese technology when they figure out a way to televise without roasting the person who's standing up in front. The announced topic was "The New World Order: Central America and the Middle East" which touches quite a few bases. And a title like that leaves essentially two options. One option is to speak in general terms about "the new world order" which, as far as I'm aware, is the old world order adapted to changing contingencies, as happens all the time -- the most important of these changing contingencies having been about twenty years ago when the post-war national economic system was essentially torn apart and has been reconstructed. A second option would be to pick some crucial issues -- some particular topics -- and to use them to illustrate the way the general contours of the "new world order" (and that means the old world order) [operates]. And in thinking about it, it seemed to me that the second tack might be more informative. In fact, almost any current issue could be used because they all illustrate the same essential features of policy. And, given U.S. power, U.S. policy has an overriding and often determinative influence. Furthermore, they all illustrate the same aspects of the ideological cover within which policy is presented to us, some examples of which you just heard from our illustrious leader. The two examples that are listed in the announcement, Central America and the Middle East, are perfectly natural ones. Both regions -- Latin America and the Middle East -- are covered by what has been the long-standing central doctrine of U.S. policy, the Monroe Doctrine, which says, in effect, that certain regions of the world are U.S. turf. No one else raises their head. No foreign entry, certainly, but crucially, no indigenous groups. If they do, their heads are cut off "if they get out of control," as the doves like to put it. The Monroe Doctrine was, of course, devised for the Western Hemisphere in less ambitious days. It's meaning for the Western Hemisphere was recently clarified in the Gates hearings. Maybe the only interesting thing that happened in the Gates hearings, as far as I noticed, was a memorandum that was released from December, 1984 (it was addressed from Gates to William Casey, the head of the CIA) on U.S. policy toward Nicaragua. And it opened by saying that we have to start talking tough about Nicaragua. Let's stop the pretenses about preventing arms [shipments] to El Salvador and all of this other nonsense which is so easily exposed (although, I should say that the media continued to trot it out when it was useful), and let's start talking tough. And then he said: We have to rid the hemisphere of this regime by any means necessary -- any means that we could use, up to bombing. And he pointed out correctly that if we don't accept this commitment to rid the hemisphere of anybody we don't like, we will have abandoned the Monroe Doctrine which confers upon us that right. Well, it was interesting. Actually, the day that appeared I happened to be talking to someone in Detroit, and I suggested to the audience that they keep their eyes open to see what the reaction will be to this memorandum predicting that there would be a null reaction. And, in fact, that's true. It never came up in Congress. The media didn't mention it. It wasn't considered one of the big issues. And that's exactly correct because essentially, everyone agrees. Across the spectrum, it's agreed that we have the right to rid the hemisphere -- or, for that matter, the world -- of anybody we don't like, by any means that we find feasible and possible. And he is quite right in saying that is the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine. In this particular sense (meaning, we have the right to rid any area of anyone we don't like) the Monroe Doctrine was extended to large parts of the world after the Second World War. That's just a reflection of the extraordinary power of the U.S., at the time. In particular, it was extended to the Middle East which was described by the State Department, right after the Second World War, as the most important area in the world in the field of foreign investment. As General Eisenhower described it: "the stategically most important area in the world because of its enormous energy reserves," which have two crucial features. First of all, whoever has influence and control over them has a considerable amount of leverage in world affairs. And secondly, there's a huge flow of capital that comes from the profits of oil production in the cheapest and most abundant areas. And that has to flow back to prop up both the corporations and the general economy of the United States and the country that in internal discussion is called "our lieutenant"; namely, Britain. The fashionable word is "partner", as Mike Mansfield put it in the Kennedy years. So we have to prop up the economy of "our lieutenant" and, of course, ourselves, more crucially. Control of the energy resources and the profits that flow from them is a major factor. In fact, that's discussed in internal, declassified top secret planning documents. But it's also very evident in policy. And we saw examples of that a few months ago. So, in other words, Latin America and the Middle East are the obvious areas to discuss if you want to consider the core of U.S. foreign policy interests. Both areas reveal to us quite a lot about ourselves. The reason is because of our overwhelming influence in Latin America for over a century, and in the Middle East for over a century. And what we find there can tell us a good deal about who we are -- a topic which should be of interest to any honest person. Well, discussion of Latin America could open, for example, with a Latin American strategy development workshop. In Washington -- the Pentagon -- just a year ago, which involved noted academic specialists and others ... they concluded (mostly quotes) that current relations with Mexico (the Mexican dictatorship; that means it's a rather brutal dictatorship with a democratic cover) ... current relations with the Mexican dictatorship they said are extraordinarily positive. That means that they are untroubled by such trivialities as stolen elections, death squads, endemic torture, scandalous treatment of workers and peasants, ecological destruction in the interests of private power, and so on. But, they said that everything is not rosy. There are some problems on the horizon. And the only problem they note is (I'll quote): "a democracy opening up in Mexico could test the special relationship by bringing into office a government more interested in challenging the United States on economic and nationalist grounds." But right now, everything is fine because it's just a brutal and murderous dictatorship. But if there's a democracy opening, we may have some problems, because a democracy opening might mean that various popular interests might be reflected, and that would be harmful to the U.S. concern, which is, of course, investment opportunities and the local wealthy classes, and so on. (to be continued) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Transcribed by John DiNardo The documentary video, from which this transcript was made, is available exclusively from JCOME. The video contains the entire lecture, plus background information on Noam Chomsky and on JCOME, the only Jewish American organization for which Chomsky is a member of the Advisory Committee. Please contact: The Jewish Committee on the Middle East P.O. Box 18367 Washington, D.C. 20036 Phone: (202) 362-JCOME (202) 362-5266 E-mail: jcome@mcimail.com FAX: (202) 362-6965 JCOME would be grateful to you for posting the installments of this transcript on computer bulletin boards as well as in public places, both on and off campus. For BBS dial-in numbers, consult the Usenet newsgroup, alt.bbs.lists.