ContentsRogues' Gallery: Who Qualifies?
Rogue States
Crisis in the Balkans
East Timor Retrospective
"Plan Colombia"
Cuba and the US Government: David vs. Goliath
Putting on the Pressure: Latin America
Jubilee 2000
"Recovering Rights": A Crooked Path
The United States and the "Challenge of Universality"
The Legacy of War
Millennium Greetings
Power in the Domestic Arena
Socioeconomic Sovereignty
Notes
Index
An Excerpt from Rogue States by Noam Chomsky
The concept of "rogue state" plays a pre-eminent role today in policy planning and analysis.
The current Iraq crisis is only the latest example. Washington and London declared Iraq a "rogue state," a threat to its neighbors and to the entire world, an "outlaw nation" led by a reincarnation of Hitler who must be contained by the guardians of world order, the United States and its British "junior partner," to adopt the term ruefully employed by the British foreign office half a century ago. The concept merits a close look.
[...]
A secret 1995 study of the Strategic Command, which is responsible for the strategic nuclear arsenal, outlines the basic thinking. Released through the Freedom of Information Act, the study, Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence, "shows how the United States shifted its deterrent strategy from the defunct Soviet Union to so-called rogue states such as Iraq, Libya, Cuba and North Korea," AP reports. The study advocates that the US exploit its nuclear arsenal to portray itself as "irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked." That "should be a part of the national persona we project to all adversaries," in particular the "rogue states." "It hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool-headed," let alone committed to such silliness as international law and treaty obligations. "The fact that some elements" of the US government "may appear to be potentially 'out of control' can be beneficial to creating and reinforcing fears and doubts within the minds of an adversary's decision makers." The report resurrects Nixon's "madman theory": our enemies should recognize that we are crazed and unpredictable, with extraordin
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One of the reasons for the US embargo on Cuba for the last 40 years is the fear that the “virus” of taking matters into one’s own hands might stimulate the poor and underprivileged to demand opportunities for a decent living. The new leading recipient of US military aid, Colombia, has the worst human rights record in the western hemisphere at the same time that US military aid and training are scheduled to increase. The US instigated a military coup in Guatemala in 1954, because the government’s agrarian reform program, which would aid peasants against the upper classes, had a strong appeal to its neighbors, where similar conditions prevail. Such a thing could not be allowed to happen (the Cuban “virus”). Contempt for the rule of law is deeply rooted in US practice and intellectual culture. When Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975, the UN Security Council ordered an immediate withdrawal. The US secretly increased arms shipments to Indonesia; meantime, UN Ambassador Daniel Moynihan rendered the UN “utterly ineffective in whatever measures they took”, beacuse the State Department wanted things to turn out exactly the way they did.
Chomsky also looks at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Kosovo, labor rights, Nicaragua, NAFTA/GATT/WTO, the international debt crisis, and the way all of these subjects have been reported, or not reported, in the US media.
This book deserves a rating higher than Must Read. Chomsky paints a devastating picture of US actions around the world, where the boom is lowered on countries who don’t do things the way the US wants. Highly recommended. (