NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/9584

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From: [e-mail] (John DiNardo)
Subject: Chomsky:NWO-Mideast & C.Amer/Pt.1
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Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit


     THE NEW WORLD ORDER: The Middle East and Central America

                Lecture by Professor Noam Chomsky
                   George Washington University
                        November 23, 1991


... 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). And in thinking about it, it seemed to me that the
second tack might be more informative and, 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 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.

Its 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 in which Gates (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.

And control of the energy resources and the profits that flow from
them is a major factor. And, in fact, that's discussed in internal
declassified top secret plannng 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 -- these 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 half 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)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

   The documentary video from which this transcript was made is
   available exclusively from JCOME. The video contains background
   information about Noam Chomsky and JCOME -- the only Jewish-American
   organization for which Chomsky is a member of the Advisory Committee
   -- and the complete presentation of this lecture.

   Please contact The Jewish Committee on the Middle East
                  P.O. Box 18367
                  Washington, D.C. 20036
                  Phone: (202) 234-JEWS
                  E-mail: [e-mail]
                  FAX:   [phone]

   JCOME would be grateful to you for posting the installments of
   this transcript to computer bulletin boards as well as on the
   wall-mounted kind, both on and off campus. For BBS dial-in
   numbers, consult the Usenet newsgroup, alt.bbs.lists.

Transcribed for JCOME by John DiNardo.



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