XPost: soc.culture.british, soc.culture.canada, soc.culture.french   
   XPost: soc.culture.uk   
   From: nicolai.vladirmirescu@gmail.com   
      
   Khaleej Times Online   
   Doctrine of good intentions   
   BY NOAM CHOMSKY   
   3 September 2005   
      
   IT IS no easy task to gain some understanding of human   
   affairs. In some respects, it is harder than the natural   
   sciences. Mother Nature doesn't readily provide the answers,   
   but at least she doesn't go out of her way to set up   
   barriers to understanding.   
      
   In human affairs, it is necessary to detect and dismantle   
   barriers erected by doctrinal systems, which adopt a range   
   of devices that flow very naturally from concentration of power.   
      
   To facilitate the marketing effort, doctrinal systems   
   commonly portray the current enemy as diabolical by its very   
   nature. The characterisation is sometimes accurate, but the   
   crimes are rarely the source of the call for forceful   
   measures against some target that stands in the way of   
   current plans.   
      
   A recent illustration is Saddam Hussein -- a defenceless   
   target characterised as an awesome threat to our survival   
   who was responsible for Sept. 11 and about to attack us again.   
      
   In 1982, the Reagan administration dropped Saddam from the   
   list of states supporting terrorism so that the flow of   
   military and other aid to the murderous tyrant could begin.   
   It continued long after Saddam's worst atrocities and the   
   end of the war with Iran, and included the means to develop   
   weapons of mass destruction. The record, hardly obscure,   
   falls under the "general tacit agreement that 'it wouldn't   
   do' to mention that particular fact," in Orwell's phrase.   
      
   It is necessary to create misimpressions not only about the   
   current "Great Satan" but also about one's own unique   
   nobility. In particular, aggression and terror must be   
   portrayed as self-defence and dedication to inspiring visions.   
      
   Emperor Hirohito of Japan, in his surrender declaration in   
   August 1945, told his people, "We declared war on America   
   and Britain out of our sincere desire to ensure Japan's   
   self-preservation and the stabilisation of East Asia, it   
   being far from our thought either to infringe upon the   
   sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial   
   aggrandisement."   
      
   The history of international crimes overflows with similar   
   sentiments, including the lowest depths. Writing in 1935,   
   with the dark clouds of Nazism settling, Martin Heidegger   
   declared that Germany must now forestall "the peril of world   
   darkening" beyond the nation's borders. With its "new   
   spiritual energies" revived under Nazi rule, Germany is at   
   last able "to take on its historic mission" of saving the   
   world from "annihilation" by the "indifferent mass"   
   elsewhere, primarily America and Russia.   
      
   Even individuals of the highest intelligence and moral   
   integrity succumb to the pathology. At the peak of Britain's   
   crimes in India and China, of which he had an intimate   
   knowledge, John Stuart Mill wrote his classic essay on   
   humanitarian intervention, urging Britain to undertake the   
   enterprise vigorously -- even though it will be "held up to   
   obloquy" by backward Europeans who can't comprehend that   
   England is "a novelty in the world," a nation that acts only   
   "in the service of others," selflessly bearing the costs of   
   bringing peace and justice to the world.   
      
   The image of righteous exceptionalism appears to be close to   
   universal. For the United States, one constant theme is the   
   dedication to bring democracy and independence to a   
   suffering world.   
      
   The standard story in scholarship and in the media is that   
   US foreign policy contains two conflicting tendencies. One   
   is what is called Wilsonian idealism, which is based on   
   noble intentions. The other is sober realism, which says   
   that we have to realise the limitations of our good   
   intentions. Those are the only two options.   
      
   Whatever the operative rhetoric, it takes discipline not to   
   recognise the elements of truth in historian Arno Mayer's   
   observation that since 1947, America has been a major   
   perpetrator of "state terror" and other 'rogue actions,'   
   causing immense harm, "always in the name of democracy,   
   liberty and justice."   
      
   For the US the longtime enemy has been independent   
   nationalism, particularly when it threatens to become a   
   "virus," to borrow Henry Kissinger's reference to democratic   
   socialism in Chile after Salvador Allende was elected   
   president in 1970. The virus therefore had to be extirpated,   
   as it was, on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 1973, a date often called   
   "the first 9/ll" in Latin America.   
      
   On that date, after years of US subversion, Gen. Augusto   
   Pinochet's forces attacked the Chilean Presidential palace.   
   Allende died, an apparent suicide, unwilling to surrender to   
   the assault that demolished Latin America's oldest and most   
   vibrant democracy, and Pinochet established a brutal regime.   
   The official death toll of the first 9/11 is 3,200; the   
   actual toll is commonly estimated at about double that   
   figure. In per capita terms, that would amount to   
   50,000-100,000 killed in the US.   
      
   Washington firmly supported Pinochet's regime, and had no   
   slight role in its initial triumph. Pinochet soon moved to   
   integrate other US-backed Latin American military   
   dictatorships in the international state terrorist network,   
   Operation Condor, that wreaked havoc in Latin America.   
      
   This is one of all-too-many illustrations of "democracy   
   promotion" in the hemisphere and elsewhere. Now we are led   
   to believe that the US mission in Afghanistan and Iraq is to   
   bring democracy there.   
      
   "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather they hate our   
   policies," concludes a report last September by the Defence   
   Science Board, a Pentagon advisory panel, adding that "when   
   American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to   
   Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving   
   hypocrisy." As Muslims see it, the report continues,   
   "American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to   
   democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering."   
      
   In a Financial Times article in July, citing the DSB report,   
   David Gardner observes: "For the most part, Arabs plausibly   
   believe it was Osama bin Laden who smashed the status quo,   
   not George W. Bush, (because) the 9/11 attacks made it   
   impossible for the West and its Arab despot clients to   
   continue to ignore a political set-up that incubated blind   
   rage against them."   
      
   It should come as no surprise that the US is very much like   
   other powerful states, past and present, pursuing strategic   
   and economic interests of dominant sectors to the   
   accompaniment of rhetorical flourishes about its exceptional   
   dedication to the highest value.   
      
   Against the backdrop of the disaster unfolding in Iraq, an   
   uncritical faith in good intentions only delays a   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)