Is it because I have good sense that I agree with Noam Chomsky: or
does Noam Chomsky make good sense which causes me to agree with him?
Oh well, either way we are in trouble. Too bad I can't just wrap up
my loved ones in a protective Force Field and let the world go to Hell
in a Basket.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/24/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Noam Chomsky: US Is the "Most Dangerous Country in the World"
Monday, April 24, 2017
By Dan Falcone, Truthout | Interview
World renouned intellectual Noam Chomsky. (Photo: Andrew Rusk)
Nuclear proliferation and climate change are subjects of acute concern in
the current moment, driven into an all-out state of emergency by the new
Trump administration. In this exclusive interview for Truthout,
world-renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky discusses the media coverage of
these two major issues, highlighting US tensions with Russia, Iran and
North
Korea, as well as discussing the recent US airstrike on Syria's Air Force
base.
Daniel Falcone: What do you make of the distressing lack of discussion on
climate change and nuclear proliferation in the mainstream media?
Noam Chomsky: If you want to learn something about nuclear weapons and why
these issues are not being reported, take a look at the March 1 issue of
the
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, where there is an absolutely spectacular
article by two real experts -- Hans M. Kristensen and Ted Postol from MIT.
They discuss the new targeting systems that have been invented under the
Obama Modernization Program that's now being escalated by Trump, and it's
extremely dangerous. What they claim based on disclosed information is that
the US missile systems have been improved by such a huge factor that they
are now capable of instantly wiping out the Russian deterrent.
This is massive overkill and nuclear stability is gone, and of course, the
Russians know this. What that implies is that if they ever feel a threat,
they're just going to be compelled to launch a preemptive strike because
otherwise they're dead, you know? And that means we're all dead. This is
the
most important news that's come out in I don't know how long.
The New York Times and other mainstream outlets followed through on their
conventional habits of praising the US and Trump's latest strike of Syria
but went on to lament that his foreign policy doctrine is improvisational.
And, in some ways, based on the Cabinet appointments, it reminds me of Bush
43, where they select defenseless targets. Meanwhile they claim they're
trying to fight terrorism and nuclear proliferation, but it seems like
they're just enhancing it.
They certainly are not fighting nuclear proliferation. Well, if they want
to
fight nuclear proliferation, there are things they can do. Iran, which was
never really an issue, could have been settled years ago. There's an
interesting book by the former Brazilian ambassador Celso Amorim. In 2010,
he initiated an effort along with Turkey to settle the whole Iran issue.
Nobody outside of the United States takes it to be much of an issue.
Here, it's the worst threat in human history, but they made a deal with
Iran
for Iran to essentially give away its low enriched uranium to Turkey for
storage, and in return, the Western powers (meaning the US) would provide
them with ice tubs for their medical reactors. That basically would have
ended it. It was immediately scratched by Obama and Clinton. And the main
reason was they didn't want anybody else to be involved in it. We were
supposed to run things, but we didn't say that. The ostensible reason was
that Clinton was just on the verge of pressing for additional sanctions
against Iran at the Security Council and didn't want it undermined, so that
shows the attitude toward proliferation. And the same is happening with
North Korea. [Recently] they announced more offensive actions against North
Korea.
Naval missiles are going to raise the level of [danger], [but] is there a
diplomatic option? Yes, there is. North Korea and China have proposed what
sounds like a pretty sensible option that North Korea should end its
development of nuclear weapons -- just no more, just keep it the way it is
-- and in return, the US should stop carrying out hostile military
maneuvers
on the North Korean border -- nuclear capable B-52s and so on. The US
immediately rejected it. And the press and everyone else said [little]..
This modernization program is a very clear example of how security doesn't
matter. There is no gain in security but massive overkill of the
adversary's
deterrent capacity. The only consequence of it is to elicit the likelihood
of a preemptive attack. And a preemptive attack leads to a nuclear winter
world.
Not to mention we have a presence there militarily. I remember once you
said
something about how the deterrent wasn't nuclear weapons, it was North
Korean militarization pointed toward Seoul and the US military.
If the US were to attack North Korea, they'd certainly destroy North Korea,
but South Korea would be pretty well wiped out too. They have amassed
artillery aimed at Seoul that nobody can do anything about.
In regards to US relations to Syria, are there political solutions? Last
time Medea Benjamin was on "Democracy Now!" she was saying how there are
political options for the US and Syria and they're never tried.
There were some suggestions in 2012. The Russian ambassador at the United
Nations did make some proposals for a political settlement in which Assad
would be slowly eased out. The West dismissed it immediately, and we don't
know if it was real, because it didn't come from the Kremlin, and it was
informal. But the point is every such proposal is immediately scotched. And
you just don't know if they're real.
It's kind of like 9/11. The Taliban, after all, did indicate that they
might
extradite Osama bin Laden, but the US wouldn't hear of it. You've got to
use
force. Well, one of the reasons, the Taliban did ask for evidence and one
of
the problems was they didn't have any evidence.
How do climate change and climate science intersect with the issue of
nuclear weapons and those capabilities? It seems like a chance to talk
about
both.
One of the few institutions that's worried about climate change is the
Pentagon, because they're going to be in trouble, like the Navy -- the
Norfolk Naval Base will be inundated when the sea level rises, and they're
worried about the fact that just plain sea level rise and other dangerous
weather systems are going to cause huge floods of refugees.
Just take a look at Bangladesh. It's a coastal plain -- a couple hundred
million people. What are they going to do if this gets worse -- what's
going
to happen then, you know?
With the emergence of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, it looks like
business as usual with the cabinet members and their institutional roles.
Is
this cabinet in particular especially dangerous to the planet?
It's incredible what's happening, and what's more astounding still is that
there's no comment. By now -- since November 8 -- the United States is
literally alone in the world in first of all refusing to join in efforts to
do something about it -- but even worse, dedicated to making the situation
worse. Every part of [the world] is trying to do something. The United
States alone is trying to destroy it, and it's not just Trump, it's the
whole Republican Party. You just can't find words for it. And it's not
reported. It's not discussed.
The US is the wrecking machine that is destroying everything. The world is
hoping that China will somehow come to the rescue.
I mean the most important event on November 8 -- which I've talked about a
couple times, but nobody will listen -- is that as you may know, at that
time, there was an international conference going on in Morocco that was a
follow up for the Paris conference -- to put some teeth in the Paris
agreements. But on November 8, the conferences stopped. The question was,
Will we survive? Not a word about it. Even more amazing, the world is
looking to China to save them. The US is the wrecking machine that is
destroying everything. The world is hoping that China will somehow come to
the rescue.
What does that mean about our establishment -- that we look to China?
What it means is the United States is absolutely the most dangerous country
in the world.
It doesn't say a good thing about democracy or a hope for it.
It doesn't have much to do with democracy, because a democracy barely
functions under the neoliberal system. But most of the population is
disenfranchised. It doesn't matter what they think. Just look at the
passionate rhetoric about how we can't stand by when a country uses weapons
to kill innocent civilians.
Right now, the United States is supporting Saudi Arabian military attacks
and a famine policy -- a starvation policy -- overt policy of starvation in
Yemen that is going to kill tens of thousands of people; it already is, in
fact. But is anybody saying anything about it? Gareth Porter writes about
[it] and a couple other people.
What do you think about the Trump administration in terms of the direction
it is going, and what would the foreign policy look like? Is it just
unpredictable because he is so unpredictable? Or will it follow a
trajectory?
I think the foreign policy is really not their concern. Like the Syria
strike. I mean, it meant almost nothing. They hit an empty air base. Within
a day, it was functioning again. Planes were flying off it. It was for a
domestic show, you know -- show what a tough guy I am; I'm not Obama. And
then go back to the "normal" -- I think the real things that are happening
are basically the Ryan budget and the Ryan legislative programs.
All of that's going on right under the cover of the Trump/Spicer media
extravaganzas. Those guys do one thing after another to keep the media
attention focused on them. And it works. Turn on CNN and that's what you
hear, and meanwhile, these legislative achievements are being made which
are
chipping away at anything the government has that's of any use to anybody.
Ryan, I think, is the most dangerous guy in the government. He knows what
he's doing. And it's very systematic. I presume he's behind the cabinet
appointments, but it's pretty amazing that every single cabinet appointment
is somebody devoted to destroying that part of government. Or making sure
it
doesn't work. That's put a lot of focus on the EPA, which is bad enough,
but
the most significant environmental programs are in the Department of Energy
and they fall short because of that.
So the cabinet appointments in particular look like people deliberately
chosen to undermine the function of the agencies?
Every single one: education, environment, labor -- every single one is
selected to undermine any aspect of government that's of any help to
people,
and that doesn't benefit the super-rich. And it's absolutely systematic.
The
interesting question will be how long Trump's constituency can fall for the
con game. I mean, they're being kicked in the face more than anybody else.
But they still have faith in their man. If that collapses -- which I
suppose
it will sooner or later -- the Trump administration is going to have to
turn
to something pretty radical to try to maintain control.
What do you suppose is Russia's attitude toward the Syrian strike? Do they
see it as theater?
Well, there are some interesting questions there -- you can understand why
Assad would have been pretty crazy [to provoke a US intervention] because
they're winning the war. The worst thing for him is to bring the United
States in. So why would he turn to a chemical weapons attack? You can
imagine that a dictator with just local interests might do it, maybe if he
thought he had a green light. But why would the Russians allow it? It
doesn't make any sense. And in fact, there are some questions about what
happened, but there are some pretty credible people -- not conspiracy types
-- people with solid intelligence credentials that say it didn't happen.
Lawrence Wilkerson said that the US intelligence picked up a plane and
followed that it probably hit an Al-Qaeda warehouse which had some sort of
chemical weapon stored in it and they spread. I don't know. But it
certainly
calls for at least an investigation. And those are not insignificant people
[coming to this conclusion].
Could you talk about how the left is divided on the Syrian question?
The left is awful on this. For one thing, a large part of the left is
pro-Assad. [In those circles], you can't criticize Assad, but you know he's
a monstrous war criminal. And anyone who criticizes Assad is joining the US
imperialists. That's just ludicrous. I mean, whatever you think about this
event, Assad is certainly responsible for the overwhelming mass of the
atrocities. And it's a horror story. So that's part of the left. In fact,
that's about the only visible part of the left.
There are others who say we just shouldn't get involved in another war,
certainly. I mean, if in fact, the US story is correct, if it is true that
Syria used chemical weapons, then it wouldn't be a major crime to send a
kind of shot across the bow saying you can't do this anymore. Not the best
thing in the world, but not a major crime, either. So, I think at the very
least there should have been an inquiry into what happened. But just
joining
the bandwagon about how we're finally standing up to crimes in Syria,
that's
ridiculous.
I don't agree with US intervention in Syria, but I also oppose Assad. How
can one be opposed to Assad and be wary of US intervention at the same
time?
There are people on the left who say, Look, we can't let these atrocities
go
on, so let's enter the war and get rid of Assad. The problem with that is
you get into a nuclear war with Russia. And Syria gets wiped out along with
everything else. So, it's fine to say, OK, let's stop the crimes, but how
exactly?
NOTE: This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
Dan Falcone
Daniel Falcone is an independent journalist, interviewer, researcher,
activist and teacher. He has a graduate degree in modern American history
and first started interviewing public intellectuals Howard Zinn and Noam
Chomsky after September 11, 2001. He writes for several publications that
cover current affairs, political science, history and education. He teaches
and resides in New York City.