-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: April 17, 2007 12:42:20 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: In a Totalitarian State, There MUST NOT BE Any Alternative
to the Party Line
RULERS AND THE RULED: DANGEROUS DISCONNECT
By Noam Chomsky
Apr 12, 2007
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ID12Ak01.html
Not surprisingly, US President George W Bush's announcement of a
"surge" in Iraq came despite the firm opposition to any such move
of Americans and the even stronger opposition of the (thoroughly
irrelevant) Iraqis. It was accompanied by ominous official leaks
and statements - from Washington and Baghdad - about how Iranian
intervention in Iraq was aimed at disrupting America's mission to
gain victory, an aim that is (by definition) noble. What then
followed was a solemn debate about whether serial numbers on
advanced roadside bombs (improvised explosive devices, or IEDs)
were really traceable to Iran; and, if so, to that country's
Revolutionary Guards or to some even higher authority.
This "debate" is a typical illustration of a primary principle of
sophisticated propaganda.
In crude and brutal societies, the Party Line is publicly
proclaimed and must be obeyed - or else. What you actually believe
is your own business and of far less concern. In societies where
the state has lost the capacity to control by force, the Party Line
is simply presupposed; then, vigorous debate is encouraged within
the limits imposed by unstated doctrinal orthodoxy.
The cruder of the two systems leads, naturally enough, to
disbelief; the sophisticated variant gives an impression of
openness and freedom, and so far more effectively serves to instill
the Party Line. It becomes beyond question, beyond thought itself,
like the air we breathe.
The debate over Iranian interference in Iraq proceeds without
ridicule on the assumption that the United States owns the world.
We did not, for example, engage in a similar debate in the 1980s
about whether the US was interfering in Soviet-occupied
Afghanistan, and I doubt that Pravda, probably recognizing the
absurdity of the situation, sank to outrage about that fact (which
American officials and the US media, in any case, made no effort to
conceal).
Perhaps the official Nazi press also featured solemn debates about
whether the Allies were interfering in sovereign Vichy France,
though if so, sane people would then have collapsed in ridicule.
In this case, however, even ridicule - notably absent - would not
suffice, because the charges against Iran are part of a drumbeat of
pronouncements meant to mobilize support for escalation in Iraq and
for an attack on Iran, the "source of the problem".
The world is aghast at the possibility. Even in neighboring Sunni
states, no friends of Iran, majorities, when asked, favor a nuclear-
armed Iran over any military action against that country. From what
limited information we have, it appears that significant parts of
the US military and intelligence communities are opposed to such an
attack, along with almost the entire world, even more so than when
the Bush administration and Tony Blair's Britain invaded Iraq,
defying enormous popular opposition worldwide.
The Iran effect
The results of an attack on Iran could be horrendous. After all,
according to a recent study of "the Iraq effect" by terrorism
specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, using government and
Rand Corporation data, the Iraq invasion has already led to a
sevenfold increase in terror. The "Iran effect" would probably be
far more severe and long-lasting. British military historian
Corelli Barnett speaks for many when he warns that "an attack on
Iran would effectively launch World War III".
What are the plans of the increasingly desperate clique that
narrowly holds political power in the United States? We cannot
know. Such state planning is, of course, kept secret in the
interests of "security". Review of the declassified record reveals
that there is considerable merit in that claim - though only if we
understand "security" to mean the security of the Bush
administration against its domestic enemy, the population in whose
name it acts.
Even if the White House clique is not planning war, naval
deployments, support for secessionist movements and acts of terror
within Iran, and other provocations could easily lead to an
accidental war. Congressional resolutions would not provide much of
a barrier. They invariably permit "national security" exemptions,
opening holes wide enough for the several aircraft-carrier battle
groups soon to be in the Persian Gulf to pass through - as long as
an unscrupulous leadership issues proclamations of doom (as then
national security adviser Condoleezza Rice did with those "mushroom
clouds" over US cities back in 2002).
And the concocting of the sorts of incidents that "justify" such
attacks is a familiar practice. Even the worst monsters feel the
need for such justification and adopt the device: Adolf Hitler's
defense of innocent Germany from the "wild terror" of the Poles in
1939, after they had rejected his wise and generous proposals for
peace, is but one example.
The most effective barrier to a White House decision to launch a
war is the kind of organized popular opposition that frightened the
political-military leadership enough in 1968 that they were
reluctant to send more troops to Vietnam - fearing, we learned from
the Pentagon Papers, that they might need them for civil-disorder
control.
Doubtless Iran's government merits harsh condemnation, including
for its recent actions that have inflamed the crisis. It is,
however, useful to ask how the US would act if Iran had invaded and
occupied Canada and Mexico and was arresting US government
representatives there on the grounds that they were resisting the
Iranian occupation (called "liberation", of course). Imagine as
well that Iran was deploying massive naval forces in the Caribbean
and issuing credible threats to launch a wave of attacks against a
vast range of sites - nuclear and otherwise - in the United States,
if the US government did not immediately terminate all its nuclear-
energy programs (and, naturally, dismantle all its nuclear weapons).
Suppose that all of this happened after Iran had overthrown the
government of the US and installed a vicious tyrant (as the US did
to Iran in 1953), then later supported a Russian invasion of the US
that killed millions of people (just as the US supported Saddam
Hussein's invasion of Iran in 1980, killing hundreds of thousands
of Iranians, a figure comparable to millions of Americans). Would
we watch quietly?
It is easy to understand an observation by one of Israel's leading
military historians, Martin van Creveld. After the US invaded Iraq,
knowing it to be defenseless, he noted, "Had the Iranians not tried
to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy."
Surely no sane person wants Iran (or any nation) to develop nuclear
weapons. A reasonable resolution of the present crisis would permit
Iran to develop nuclear energy, in accord with its rights under the
Non-Proliferation Treaty, but not nuclear weapons. Is that outcome
feasible? It would be, given one
condition: that the US and Iran were functioning democratic
societies in which public opinion had a significant impact on
public policy.
As it happens, this solution has overwhelming support among
Iranians and Americans, who generally are in agreement on nuclear
issues. The Iranian-American consensus includes the complete
elimination of nuclear weapons everywhere (82% of Americans); if
that cannot yet be achieved because of elite opposition, then at
least a "nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East that would
include both Islamic countries and Israel" (71% of Americans).
Seventy-five percent of Americans prefer building better relations
with Iran to threats of force.
In brief, if public opinion were to have a significant influence on
state policy in the US and Iran, resolution of the crisis might be
at hand, along with much more far-reaching solutions to the global
nuclear conundrum.
Promoting democracy - at home
These facts suggest a possible way to prevent the current crisis
from exploding, perhaps even into some version of World War III.
That awesome threat might be averted by pursuing a familiar
proposal: democracy promotion - this time at home in the United
States, where it is badly needed.
Democracy promotion at home is certainly feasible and, although we
cannot carry out such a project directly in Iran, we could act to
improve the prospects of the courageous reformers and
oppositionists who are seeking to achieve just that. Among such
figures who are, or should be, well known would be Saeed Hajjarian,
Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, and Akbar Ganji, as well as those who,
as usual, remain nameless, among them labor activists about whom we
hear very little; those who publish IranianWorkersBulletin.org may
be a case in point.
We can best improve the prospects for democracy promotion in Iran
by sharply reversing state policy in the US so that it reflects
popular opinion. That would entail ceasing to make the regular
threats that are a gift to Iranian hardliners. These are bitterly
condemned by Iranians truly concerned with democracy promotion
(unlike those "supporters" who flaunt democracy slogans in the West
and are lauded as grand "idealists" despite their clear record of
visceral hatred for democracy).
Democracy promotion in the United States could have far broader
consequences. In Iraq, for instance, a firm timetable for
withdrawal would be initiated at once, or very soon, in accord with
the will of the overwhelming majority of Iraqis and a significant
majority of Americans. US federal budget priorities would be
virtually reversed. Where spending is rising, as in military
supplemental bills to conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it
would sharply decline. Where spending is steady or declining
(health, education, job training, the promotion of energy
conservation and renewable energy sources, veterans benefits,
funding for the United Nations and its peacekeeping operations, and
so on), it would sharply increase. Bush's tax cuts for people with
incomes over US$200,000 a year would be immediately rescinded.
The US would have adopted a national health-care system long ago,
rejecting the privatized system that sports twice the per capita
costs found in similar societies and some of the worst outcomes in
the industrial world. It would have rejected what is widely
regarded by those who pay attention as a "fiscal train wreck" in
the making. The US would have ratified the Kyoto Protocol to reduce
carbon-dioxide emissions and undertaken still-stronger measures to
protect the environment. It would allow the UN to take the lead in
international crises, including in Iraq. After all, according to
opinion polls, since shortly after the 2003 invasion, a large
majority of Americans have wanted the UN to take charge of
political transformation, economic reconstruction, and civil order
in that land.
If public opinion mattered, the US would accept UN Charter
restrictions on the use of force, contrary to a bipartisan
consensus that the United States, alone, has the right to resort to
violence in response to potential threats, real or imagined,
including threats to US access to markets and resources. The US
(along with others) would abandon the UN Security Council veto and
accept majority opinion even when in opposition to it. The UN would
be allowed to regulate arms sales, while the US would cut back on
such sales and urge other countries to do so, which would be a
major contribution to reducing large-scale violence in the world.
Terror would be dealt with through diplomatic and economic
measures, not force, in accord with the judgment of most
specialists on the topic but again in diametric opposition to
present-day US policy.
Furthermore, if public opinion influenced policy, the US would have
diplomatic relations with Cuba, benefiting the people of both
countries (and, incidentally, US agribusiness, energy corporations,
and others), instead of standing virtually alone in the world in
imposing an embargo (joined only by Israel, the Republic of Palau,
and the Marshall Islands). Washington would join the broad
international consensus on a two-state settlement of the Israel-
Palestine conflict, which (with Israel) it has blocked for 30 years
- with scattered and temporary exceptions - and which it still
blocks in word, and more importantly in deed, despite fraudulent
claims of its commitment to diplomacy. The US would also equalize
aid to Israel and Palestine, cutting off aid to either party that
rejected the international consensus.
Evidence on these matters is reviewed in my book Failed States as
well as in The Foreign Policy Disconnect by Benjamin Page (with
Marshall Bouton), which also provides extensive evidence that
public opinion on foreign (and probably domestic) policy issues
tends to be coherent and consistent over long periods. Studies of
public opinion have to be regarded with caution, but they are
certainly highly suggestive.
Democracy promotion at home, while no panacea, would be a useful
step toward helping the United States become a "responsible
stakeholder" in the international order (to adopt the term used for
adversaries), instead of being an object of fear and dislike
throughout much of the world. Apart from being a value in itself,
functioning democracy at home holds real promise for dealing
constructively with many current problems, international and
domestic, including those that literally threaten the survival of
our species.
Noam Chomsky is the author of Failed States: The Abuse of Power and
the Assault on Democracy (Metropolitan Books), just published in
paperback, among many other works.
AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's
free from AOL at AOL.com.
www.ctrl.org
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/
<A HREF="http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
