The threat of democracy was not overcome until the 1965 Suharto coup and the huge slaughter that immediately followed establishing one of the most brutal regimes of the late twentieth century. There was no further concern about democracy or about awesome human rights violations and war crimes. Suharto remained ‘our kind of guy’ as the Clinton administration described him. ibid.
United States sought to block Iraqi democracy … The one thing every Iraqi agrees upon is that occupation should end soon which would be in direct conflict with the US objective of constructing a US-friendly democracy that would allow America to replace its military presence in Saudi Arabia with one in Iraq that would allow America to keep shaping the regional balance of power … Democracy would be welcomed as long as it is the traditional top-down kind. ibid.
71% of people rarely gets safe clean water; 47% never have enough electricity; 70% say their sewage system rarely works; and 40% of southern Iraqis are unemployed … 80% of Iraqis favoured near-term US troop withdrawal. ibid.
The most horrendous car bombing in Beirut in 1985 a huge explosion killing 80 people and wounding 200 mostly women and girls leaving the mosque exit where the bomb was placed, the attack aimed at a Muslim cleric was traced to the CIA. ibid.
Intifada: In its first month Israel killed 75 Palestinians … In response mostly to stone throwing using US helicopters to attack apartment complexes and other civilian targets. Clinton responded by making the biggest deal in a decade to send new military helicopters to Israel. The US population was protected from that information by the press. ibid.
It was not the villain Arafat who was the prime obstacle to the realization of a Palestinian state but rather the United States and Israel. ibid.
The guiding principles and facing the consequences: fomenting terror, crashing our own economy, inspiring hatred among oppressed populations that sooner or later are likely to explode. Noam Chomsky, lecture University of Tennessee 25th January 2011
The highly ramified Pentagon system has been the major instrument for achieving these goals at home and abroad, always on the pretext of defense against the Soviet menace. Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy introduction
We can, then, identify a period from World War II, continuing into the 1970s, in which the US dominated much of the world, confronting a rival superpower of considerably more limited reach. We may adopt conventional usage and refer to this as the Cold War era, as long as we are careful not to carry along, without reflection, the ideological baggage devised to shape understanding in the interests of domestic power. ibid.
The United States remains the only power with the will and the capacity to exercise force on a global scale – even more freely than before, with the fading of the Soviet deterrent. But the US no longer enjoys the preponderance of economic power that had enabled it to maintain an aggressive and interventionalist military posture since World War II. Military power not backed by a comparable economic base has its limits as a means of coercion and domination. It may well lead to adventurism, a tendency to lead with one’s strength, possibly with catastrophic consequences. ibid.
In the evolving world order, the comparative advantage of the United States lies in military force, in which it ranks supreme. Diplomacy and international law have always been regarded as an annoying encumbrance, unless they can be used to advantage against an enemy ... but when the veil is lifted, we commonly see that diplomacy is understood as a disguise for the rule of force. ibid.
In the past, the United States and its clients have often found themselves ‘politically weak’ ... Under such conditions, it is natural to prefer military force, terror, and economic warfare to the peaceful means dictated by international law. With lagging economic strength, the temptation to resort to force is only heightened. ibid.
We will therefore be ‘the world’s rent-a-cops’ and will be ‘able to charge handsomely’ for the service; the term ‘rent-a-thug’ would be less flattering but more appropriate. ibid.
Military spending nearly quadrupled shortly after, on the pretext that the invasion of South Korea was the first step in the Kremlin conquest of the world – despite the lack of compelling evidence, then or now, for Russian initiative in this phase of the complex struggle over the fate of Korea. ibid.
Relevant data are presented in such a way as to obscure direct comparisons and selected to exaggerate the enemy’s strength, the standard pattern throughout the Cold War era. ibid.
The underlying assumption is that the US system of social organization and power, and the ideology that accompanies it, must be universal. Anything short of that is unacceptable. ibid. p16
For the United States, the Cold War has been a history of subversion, aggression and state terrorism. ibid. pp20-21
The threat of Soviet aggression was exaggerated, the problems were misconstrued, and the idealism that guided the actions was misplaced. But the requisite beliefs remained prominently on the shelf. However fanciful, they could be served up to the public when needed – often with perfect sincerity. ibid. p23
Also understandable is the otherwise rather mysterious fact that security policy has been only weakly correlated with realistic security concerns. Threats have regularly been concocted on the flimsiest evidence and with marginal credibility at best. ibid. pp23-24
One early example was in 1952, when the Kremlin put forth a proposal for reunification and neutralization of Germany, with no conditions on economic policies and with guarantees for ‘the rights of man and basic freedoms, including freedom of speech, press, religious persuasion, political conviction and assembly’ ... The US and its allies objected. ibid. p24
In the mid-1970s Soviet military spending began to level off, as later conceded, while the US lead in strategic bombs and warheads widened through the decade. President Carter proposed a substantial increase in military spending and a cutback on social programs. ibid. p26
Current arguments for intervention forces, as in the National Security report, reveal that the ideological system is running out of pretexts for the resort to subversion and overt force in international affairs, and military Keynesian measures at home. ibid. p32
When Woodrow Wilson invaded Mexico and Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) – where his warriors murdered and destroyed, reestablished virtual slavery, demolished the political system, and placed the countries firmly in the hands of US investors – these actions were in self-defence against the Huns. ibid. p34
From an early stage in the Cold War, and for deep-seated reasons, the United States was set on a course against self-determination and democracy, rhetorical commitments aside. ibid. p48
In the Middle East, the major concern was (and remains) the incomparable energy reserves of the region, primarily in the Arabian peninsula. These were to be incorporated within the US-dominated system. ibid. p53
The United States did not then need Middle East oil for itself. Rather, the goal was to dominate the world system, ensuring that others would not strike an independent course. ibid.
The Nixon Doctrine had established Iran under the Shah and Israel as the ‘cops on the beat’ in the region. ibid.
Few issues in world affairs are so important as control of the world’s energy system – or so threatening to world peace ... As long as it was possible, the ‘Soviet threat’ was brandished to justify US actions to ensure its dominance over Middle East oil. ibid.
One is the striking correlation between US aid and human rights abuses that has been noted in several studies. The reason is not that US policymakers like torture. Rather, it is an irrelevance. What matters is to bar independent development and the wrong priorities. For this purpose it is often necessary (regrettably) to murder priests, torture union leaders, ‘disappear’ peasants, and otherwise intimidate the general population. ibid. p58
The third consequence is the extreme elite hostility to democracy. The reason is plain: a functioning democracy will be responsive to appeals from the masses of the population, and likely to succumb to excessive nationalism. ibid. p58
Its apparent termination is an ideological construction more than a historical face, based on an interpretation that masks some of its essential functions. For the United States, much of the basic framework of the Cold War remains intact. ibid. p59
The removal of the limited Soviet deterrent frees the United States in the exercise of violence. Recognition of these welcome effects has been explicit in public discourse since the early stages of the Soviet withdrawal from the international arena. ibid. p59
We should not move on, however, without at least a word on how easily we refrain from seeing piles of bones and rivers of blood when we are the agents of misery and despair. ibid. p70
One persistent problem is that the enemy is hard to take seriously. In takes some talent to portray Greece, Guatemala, Laos, Nicaragua, or Grenada as a threat to our survival. ibid. p91
1985-6, the US and its Israeli ally was responsible for the most serious acts of international terrorism in this region, not to speak of the leading role of the United States in international terrorism elsewhere in the world, and in earlier years. The worst single terrorist act in the region in 1985 was a car-bombing in Beirut that killed 80 people and wounded 250. ibid. p113
The World Health Organization estimates that eleven million children die every year in the world of the Cold War victors (‘the developing world’) because of the unwillingness of the rich to help them. The catastrophe could be brought to a quick end, the WHO study concludes, because the diseases from which the children suffer and die are easily treated. Four million die from diarrhea; about two-thirds of them could be saved from the lethal dehydration it causes by sugar and salt tablets that cost a few pennies. ibid. p241