Noam Chomsky - Arab Spring, American Winter

welcome my name is Anwar Majeed and I'm the director of the Center for global humanities a a public forum dedicated to the study and discussion of the critical issues facing our world today the standard reflects the University of New England's commitment to a robust civic culture one that is guided by the age tested insights of the humanities and the classical liberal arts tradition we believe that education and intellectual engagement are the only buffers we have left between chaos and civilization we need to invest in these endeavors not cut them out from our priorities as many a prone to do these in to do in this fiscally tough times we are proud partners of the Maine Humanities Council and the Portland Public Library everything everything we do is free and open to the public I struggled about how best to introduce noam chomsky and got the answer earlier this afternoon in the form of an email it is from Jan Fabian dull bomb is he here tonight somewhere probably in the audience this is what it says hello I would so much like to see professor Chomsky give a talk once in my life I am from Germany and came all the way from Mexico where I studied politics - boss I came from Germany from Mexico where I study politics to Boston to see him give a talk I only had three more days in the area then I would fly out and not come back for a long time I think and hope that I will be allowed to attend to talk tonight in Portland his secretary just printed out for me the information about the talk and gave me your email address can I please come and attend the talk I will now go to the main to the train station and buy a ticket because it's so important for me I hope I will be let in thanks a lot and sorry for the inconvenience and the strange email by Jan Fabian dole bomb Jan I'm not I'm not sure if you're here tonight and all who made tonight here's non-pom scheme thank you well the the title for tonight is very well chosen very topical each of the two tendencies in the title is of historical significance each is also a work in progress complex outcomes are highly uncertain sure to be of considerable significance for the future and they interact in in many ways one way in which they interact was illustrated dramatically earlier this year right in the middle of the huge demonstrations in Madison Wisconsin protesting the effort of the government of the governor to essentially destroy the public service unions they received last March they the demonstrators in Madison occupying the Statehouse tens of thousands in the streets received a message from Kemal Abbas as a labor activist and in Egypt he was expressing he was conveying the Solidarity of Egyptian workers in Tahrir Square to the people in Madison fighting the same battle the Arab Spring of course also inspired the quite remarkable Occupy movements that began in wall street have now spread literally thousands of places in the United States the trajectories in Egypt and the United States are intersecting but moving in opposite directions so the Arab Spring is an effort to gain rights that had been denied by the brutal western-backed dictatorships in the United States the projector is in a different direction it's an effort to protect rights that had been won and long and hard struggles and are now being dismantled and destroyed there's another point of contact which is significant in both cases Egypt all of the Middle East North Africa Maina region sometimes called in both the United States and the main our region the up the uprisings are a reaction to vigorous assault against the population that's been going on for 30 years worldwide it's under the neoliberal banner sometimes called the Washington Consensus sometimes it's called the IMF World Bank World Trade Organization unholy trinity sometimes called the World Bank IMF treasury complex all approximately the same thing and it's had similar results everywhere the rails have been harsher for the populations where the rules have been more rigorously applied Latin America and sub-saharan Africa or this of striking cases I'll just keep to Egypt in the u.s. Tahrir Square is not Zuccotti Park but the uprisings share many of the same roots in Egypt as is standard Mubarak's neoliberal programs since the early 80s have created vast wealth in very small sectors and have engendered a huge corruption while severely harming the large majority of the population as inequality soared all of this not surprisingly been accompanied by increasingly brutal repression of workers and others who sought elementary rights virtually up to the moment of the outburst of the Arab Spring the World Bank in the IMF were issuing glowing reports on the remarkable achievements of Egypt's economic and political managers that's again a routine practice right before the edifice collapses as it regularly does now all of that should be quite familiar here fed fat Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan who was known as st. Alan during his glory days he was hailed as one of the greatest economists of all time as he presided over what was claimed to be a miraculous economy in which all fundamental problems had been resolved thanks to the triumph of the market and also as he proudly explained the Congress thanks to what he called growing worker insecurity which reduces pressures for compensation and decent working conditions which are plainly Worthing worthy features of a decent economy and society meanwhile wealth concentrated in the pockets of a small fraction of 1% of the population a section so small that the census doesn't even pick it up - details sophisticated statistical analysis to identify them roughly a tenth of a percent of the population it counts for a substantial part of the enormous inequality in the United States and while that was happening for the majority for the past generation real incomes of largely stagnated declined for african-americans wealth is now practically zero after the collapse of the housing bubble people have tried to get by through increased working hours by now well beyond other industrial countries by debt which is of course unsustainable and by asset inflation it's temporary paper wealth that disappears with the collapse of the bubbles this has been a regular feature of the economy ever since the early Reagan years through the neoliberal years as the New Deal regulatory apparatus collapsed under bipartisan assault there were no financial crises until the early 80s after the Second World War the and the economy shifted dramatically from the 1970s to financialization and offshoring of production well the basic facts I think are probably too familiar to review in the United States the first major popular reaction to this era of what should be called vicious class war first major reaction is the Occupy movement that began in New York and have now spread to much of the country inspired by the dramatic developments in Egypt and other parts of Mena well not surprisingly all are facing repression its of four kinds of course and so the character of the society but the general tendencies are strikingly similar just as the global assault of the past generation has been similar in many of its fundamental aspects in Menna the outcomes are highly varied and quite uncertain the major successes so far have been in Tunisia and Egypt and there's a reason for that Joel Beynon who's the leading American scholar of our labor movements as pointed out that the successes of the Arab Spring are closely correlated to the existence of a militant labor movement in the case of Egypt militant labor activism has gone on for many years usually beaten back by the dictatorship gaining some successes the April 6th movement that sparked the this is kind of tech-savvy young professionals of you know about and sparked the February occupation in Tahrir Square and the huge movement that followed from it there called the April 6 movement for a reason they formed on April 6th 2008 at the time of a major set of labor actions at the mahalo textile conglomerate one of the biggest industrial conglomerates in Egypt elsewhere in the country popular demonstrations planned it was mostly crushed by the dictatorship but survived have been the April 6 movement remains and has continued and did initiate the current Arab Spring in Egypt the suez when the labor movement joined in as it shortly did it really became a mass movement inches well it got rid of the dictator the reigning system is still in place the military still rules pretty harshly about 12,000 people have been sentenced in military courts that's actually more than through the entire period of the Mubarak dictatorship and plenty of harsh conflict is going on but the struggle continues there have been real victories that one major victory has been for the freedom of speech press is much freer than it was before the dictatorship crumbled this month there's a lot of open discussion debate the labor movement has continued to be active independent labor movements have been formed for the first time and its strikes continue the crucial issues and the situation is very much in flux we don't know where it'll go well they sharp at contrast to this in the United States the labor movement has been declining under the same scrutiny see incidentally the in the United States labor movement has been under severe attack it's been declining in the private sector as I'm sure you know the union organizing is now down to about 7% public sector unions have been sustained they've been protected by labor laws that were basically violated openly since the Reagan years when Reagan pretty much informed employers that they weren't going to apply the laws and illegal firing of organizers sharply increased that continued through the Clinton years and of course on under w bush the public sector however has maintained itself it's now under a serious attack by partisan attack so for example when the President Obama declares a freeze on federal workers more accurate description would be a tax rise on federal workers that amounts to the same thing but the sound is good that way freeze on pay tax rise for federal workers is the same and in other ways the public sector unions are under severe attack sometimes as in Wisconsin by efforts to take away basic elementary labor rights like the rights of collective bargaining that's happening in many places even in Massachusetts the couple of days ago you may have seen there was a David Montgomery one of the major labor historians died Montgomery is one of Montgomery's main works is called the Fall of the House of labor he's actually referring to the 1920s to the crushing of the labor movement by extremely harsh repression under Woodrow Wilson his red square scare which almost destroyed a very vibrant labor movement well it arose again in the 1930s with Oregon organizing the CIO sit-down strikes the main impetus in fact beyond behind the New Deal legislations which significantly changed the country greatly improved the standards for most of the population that continued for some years but didn't take long for the attack to begin again and it's culminating in the what I described just to mention another book there's a important book by Jefferson Cowley called the 1970s and the last days of the working class he's describing the way at which this great neoliberal assault was taking off the late 1970s driven forward by Reagan Thatcher in England and carried on right until today and unless there's again a revival as there was in the 1930 the country's in for bad times typically over the long period an organized labor movement has been in the forefront of social progress one of the reasons it's under such a sharp attack consistently well it's worth remembering that this is not the first time that the trajectories of the United States and Egypt have crossed the first time is quite revealing was in the early 19th century at that time both Egypt and the United States were well placed to undertake rapid industrial development the economic development generally both Egypt in the United States had rich agriculture particularly cotton it cotton remember was essentially the fuel the oil of the early Industrial Revolution there was a difference unlike Egypt in the United States it was necessary to resort to conquest extermination of the indigenous population slavery in order to develop a huge cotton production industry not in Egypt they had a peasant class there was one consequences of course still resound one fundamental difference between Egypt in the United States at the time was that the United States had gained independence from England Egypt hadn't there therefore the United States was free to ignore the prescriptions of sound economic theory of those prescriptions were given to the colonies by no less than Adam Smith in terms that are quite similar to those that are preached by the unholy trinity to developing societies today Adam Smith's prescriptions were that the colonies should keep to what was later called comparative advantage produce primary products that's with the good add for export import superior British manufacturers and crucially that the colonies he warned them not to monopolize not to try to monopolize the major resources that they that they possessed most particularly cotton any other path cooked Smith any other path would instead of accelerating the further increase in the value of their annual product and would obstruct instead of promoting the progress of their country towards real wealth and greatness those are Smith's words and they're essentially the same prescriptions given to the third world the so called developing societies today well having gained their independence the American colonies were former colonies were free to ignore the laws of sound economics and they were able to follow England's own path of state directed industrial development that's including high tariffs to keep out superior British exports to develop first a textile industry later steel and others and made use of many other devices of state intervention to accelerate economic development that's pretty uniform through economic history the colonies also the former colonies now independent sought did seek to monopolize cotton this was done in the 1840s and 50s the Jacksonian presidents the goal was as Tyler put it to place other old place all other nations at our feet particularly the British enemy that was great enemy of the day that's part of the motivation a large part of the motivation for the conquest of Texas and half of Mexico it's kind of and it came pretty close to achievement not total but very significant the idea was if the US could monopolize cotton Britain would not be able to use its deterrent force to prevent the u.s. expansion growth rather strikingly this is very similar to the chart to what was charged the one realistically in 1990 against Saddam Hussein you recall that when Saddam invaded Kuwait there was a lot of fevered rhetoric about how he was trying to monopolize oil and bring the world to his feet that was sheer fantasy just an effort to try to build up support for the invasion but in the case of the u.s. president it wasn't fantasy in fact it pretty in pretty close to happening and had big effects well that's the United States independent could ignore the economic prescriptions what about Egypt well in Egypt which was poised for industrial development a comparable course was blocked by British power Lord Palmerston essentially farm secretary said that no ideas of fairness towards Egypt ought to stand in the way of such great and paramount interests of Britain as preserving its economic and political hegemony expressed as hate for the ignorant barbarian Muhammad Ali who dared to seek an independent course and deployed Britain's fleet and financial power at the terminate Egypt's quest for independence and economic development in France the other great imperial power went along after World War two and Egypt became Egypt not rising developing rich country like the United States which by the end of the 19th century had thee it was far and away the richest country in the world after world war ii the united states replaced britain as global hegemonic power and and washington adopted essentially the same stand made very clear to the egyptians that egypt would receive no aid unless egypt that here to the standard rules for the weak essentially adam smith's those are the unholy trinity the united states meanwhile continued to violate those rules it imposed high tariffs on Tabar egyptian cotton and other ways caused a severe dollar shortage in egypt which prevented egypt from picking up process of development after the second world war well that's actually the usual interpretation of market principles it's fine for you but not for me please a couple years after in 1958 President Eisenhower discussed with his staff a disturbing phenomenon what he called a campaign of hatred against us in the Arab world not among the goat not not the government's there okay but among the people and in the same year 1958 the National Security Council the main planning agency produced a study directed to this campaign of hatred and it explained that there's a perception in the Arab world that the United States supports harsh and brutal regimes and blocks economic and democratic development and that we do so because we want to maintain control of their energy resources and I went on to say that this perception is more or less accurate and furthermore that's pretty much what we ought to be doing echoing Lord Palmerston so it's and it's small wonder than the face of the policies that have just described that you'll recall I'm sure that after 9/11 the George W Bush issued a plaintiff request demand and plea asking why do they hate us and he said well they hate us because of our freedom and because we're so magnificent and so on the Pentagon actually commissioned right at that time a study by the defense Science Board as to why do they hate us and its conclusions and not surprisingly were exactly the same as those of the National Security Council in 1958 they hate us because we support dictatorships we block democracy and development and we do it because we want to make sure we control control their energy supplies nothing much has changed well going back to Adam Smith and his defense he recognized something that is highly pertinent today he recognized what would happen he discussed what would happen to Britain his topic of course what would happen to Britain if it adhered to the rules of sound economics so suppose he felt what's now called neoliberalism so suppose he said that the merchants and manufacturers in England decided that they could make more profit if they invested abroad produced abroad and imported from abroad and he concluded that they would profit but England would suffer in case that sounds familiar it is they would profit England would suffer but he said he didn't think this was going to happen because they would be guided by what sometimes called home bias just a commitment to your own country so they'd prefer to invest in England and get there get the goods from England because they have a commitment to the country and this would be better for them so therefore he said as if by an invisible hand England will be saved from the ravages of markets global market systems global neoliberalism and today's words that's a passage in Wealth of Nations his famous book that's pretty hard to miss in fact it's the only occurrence of the phrase famous phrase invisible hand in Wealth of Nations in what amounts to a critique of what we call global neoliberalism his a the second major figure in classical economics David Ricardo had the same perception in fact he said he would he hoped that home bias would lead men of property to be satisfied I'm quoting him to be satisfied with the low rate of profit in their own country rather than to seek a more advantageous employment for their wealth in foreign nations and he said that these are feelings that I should be sorry to see weakened he recognized if they were weakened England would suffer though it's the masters of England would would gain and the instincts of the classical economists were sound in the United States and not here alone we were essentially living in a nightmare that they predicted producing offshore very profitable for the sea you know the owners of apple and Dell and many others very harmful to the American population and shifting the economy from production of useful goods that you do abroad rotten labor conditions no environmental constraints high profits shifting from that to financial Galatians the financialization of the economy has grown extraordinarily since this began in the late 70s and the consequences are about what you'd expect in fact exactly pretty much what the classical economists expected let's take a look at the American winter the other half of the title the current issue of the major establishment international relations journal the Journal of Foreign Affairs of the Council on Foreign Relations quarterly this current issue has big on the front cover rate asks the question is America over there referring to the theme of American decline as it's called very standard theme now of scholar and political science international relations scholarship and also a public discussion american decline so they're asking is america over and there's a corollary to this common theme namely that power is shifting continuing its long shift from east to west so from the east in the 17th and 18th century to northwest europe then across the atlantic to the united states and now across the Pacific to the rising economic Giants especially China the that's the kind of corollary well that's something true about the thesis American decline will come to it the corollary is extremely dubious the China is a very poor country India much more so China's has a spectacular growth but its economy is mainly as an assembly plant the parts and components and high-technology mostly come from surrounding industrial societies Japan one South Korea all of which have a favorable quite favorable trade balances with China the products are assembled in China not much value-added and shipped off to you no tea for you to buy on them all the China will surely sooner or later move up the technology ladder but it's not an easy climb in fact when you calculate trade deficits accurately us famous us-china trade deficit if you recalculate it in terms of value-added which is the right way it turns out that the trade deficit with China goes down by 25% and the trade deficit with the peripheral industrial countries goes up at about the same amount there's much discussion the last couple of days about the conference the international conference in Durban about global warming and the standard description is that the United States and China are the main responsible for most of the emissions actually China's past the United States that's a little misleading in a number of ways that one way of for obvious reasons is just per capita emissions which are far higher in the United States the other is that the emissions in China to a large extent are traceable to wealthy Western industrial societies West including the periphery of China the Western industrial societies who are shifting their production to places like Foxconn where they make Apple appliances under absolutely horrifying conditions and the produce emissions which are then called emissions of China actually should be traceable to the West including the surrounding societies at China and even more so India have enormous internal problems far worse than anything that the the rich countries face the they are there has been spectacular growth but enormous problems ahead demographic and others and it doesn't really seem to be any likelihood that anywhere in the foreseeable future there will be the China will be an alternative global power anywhere near comparable to the United States well nevertheless the decline of the United States is quite real and there are a few things that should be borne in mind about it one is that the decline is to a substantial extent self-inflicted this has to do with the changes in the economy that have been designed by the people who dominate the society small sector of power that dominates it and designed very consciously in the manner that I described shifting the economy radically towards financialization and production of useful goods offshore the Smith Ricardo nightmare that has consequences it sets off a vicious cycle it leads to sharp concentration of wealth concentrated wealth yield concentration of political power that leads to legislation fiscal measures taxation rules of corporate governance deregulation others which accelerate the cycle and you end up with where we are now meanwhile parallel to this the costs of Elections have gone sky-high the next election is just going to break wildly break all records that many billions of dollars already farmers already been spent than in past elections that has a consequence it means that the political organizations are driven into the pockets of the concentrations of wealth increasingly the financial institution parallel process discussed mainly by political economist Thomas Ferguson is that the part of the the the parties in Congress are increasingly ceasing to become to be traditional political parties Republicans sorry several decades by now Democrats the Democrats who are now what used to be called moderate Republicans that's they're not far behind one of the ways in which this is illustrated is in positions of influence within Congress so say a committee chair these used to be given by on the basis of seniority and service some sort of public service for a long time among the Republicans now increasingly the Democrats those positions are basically bought you have to put money into the party coffers which drives the members of Congress in the same direction so you get kind of a very narrow oligarchy along with the economic crisis this has many consequences in the country it's led to a high degree of anger of fear frustration it's pretty dangerous mix the Occupy movements are a response to it the first constructive response to it but I think it's very much in the balance and could be very dangerous well a second fact about American decline is that it may be in the headlines now but it's been going on for a long time the peak of American power was reached in 1945 the end of the Second World War the Second World War was the US had entered the war by far the richest country in the world in fact it was half a century earlier the war was very beneficial to the American economy it ended the depression industrial production zoomed correctly quadrupled meanwhile other industrial countries were devastated or severely weakened by the end of the war the united states had a position of power without any historical precedent it literally had half the world's wealth a position of overwhelming security the controlling the Western Hemisphere both oceans opposite sides of both oceans of the planners of the Roosevelt administration during the war that recognized that this was happening and knew that the war was going to end with the United States in a position of simply overwhelming power they developed plans to deal with the situation the plans were later implemented the plans the basic plan was that the United States should dominate control essentially control of course all the Western Hemisphere it's taken for granted the entire Far East and the former British Empire including crucially its Middle East energy resources and as much of Eurasia as possible surely the most significant industrial and commercial parts and Western Europe well that's the minimum the maximum is everything the the Middle East oil reserves were recognized to be of extreme significance 1940s they were described by high officials as a stupendous source of strategic power greatest material prize in world history President Eisenhower called them the most strategically important part of the world it was recognized that if we control the Middle East we can control the world for this reason well that was 1945 but it started to decline very quickly one major blow to these plans was just a few years later in 1949 when China independent now there's a name for that event in American political history it's called the loss of China that's a very interesting phrase if you think about it I can't lose your computer right I can only lose something I own but it's simply taken for granted that we possess China so therefore if it became independent we've lost it and therefore a uniform description to this from the late 40s til today major theme in American politics is the loss of China and what that means tells us a lot about our own culture and understanding by 1950 year later there were serious concerns about the loss of Southeast Asia the partially Indochina but much more significant was the threat to the possibility of losing Indonesia which had major resources on interesting history after that the the Vietnam War was largely fought to prevent this all of this from happening the conception which runs right through the second world the post-war period all over the world is that you've got to be careful about what were sometimes called viruses that might spread contagion Domino that would topple the dominoes the virus was the threat of successful independent development which could appeal to others to try to pursue the same course pretty soon you have contagion spreading and the system of domination begins to erode that's essentially what the Vietnam War was about how do you deal with the virus and spreading contagion where you destroy the virus and you inoculate potential victims from contagion destroying the virus means invasion bombing destruction military coos and so on preventing contagion means imposing military dictatorship sirs will control the population that's what was done in Southeast Asia all throughout the region and not only there by the early 1950s the threat of loss was beginning closer to home that Guatemala had its first democratic government overthrew a dictatorship the Eisenhower administration was deeply concerned that that would be another virus that would spread infection the Guatemalan there was a military it was carried out a military coup in Guatemala installed a brutal vicious murderous regime it's still people it's still one of the horror stories of the Western Hemisphere years later this went on over and over the most striking an instructive case was Cuba the Cuba had been in effect in American colony 1959 it gained its independence for the first time very quickly Washington began to make plans to overthrow the government bombing started a couple months later when John F Kennedy came over came in next year was escalated yet the Bay of Pigs invasion when that failed enormous terrorist operation run by Robert Kennedy his his biographer Arthur Schlesinger historian who was Kennedy's Latin American advisor he writes that in the biography that Robert Kennedy's task the task given to him was to bring the terrors of the earth to Cuba and in fact that was his prime responsibility they're quite an ugly development it almost led to a nuclear war and the Missile Crisis went on again right after that there was a harsh embargo the purpose was to destroy the virus or at least constrain it and it was very explicit the CIA warned that the major threat of Cuba was its successful defiance of the Monroe Doctrine 150 years earlier which had declared the American goal of dominating the hemisphere couldn't be implemented at the time because of British power Kennedy himself as he came into office intended to devote attention to Latin America he had a Latin American mission which was in fact headed by Arthur Schlesinger realizing his report to the president did of course discuss the problem of Cuba he said the problem of Cuba is the spread of the Castro idea of taking matters into your own hands which might influence others in surrounding countries which where people face the same problems so you have a virus and it might spread contagion and the methods that were used were the standard ones and effort to destroy the Cuban virus it was a plague of repression was set off all through Latin America beginning with a military coup in Brazil and spreading through the continent reached Central America in the 1980s worst plague of repression in Latin American history which did prevent contagion while the virus will not totally destroyed was contained and it was serious it's understood by scholarship at least so if you take a look at the latest Cambridge University history the Cold War is an article by a leading American Latin American scholar John cotesworth he points out that quoting him from the Kennedy years to the Soviet collapse in 1990 the numbers of political prisoners torture victims executions of non-violent political dissenters in Latin America vastly exceeded those in the Soviet Union and it's East European satellites all backed by Washington often initiated by a included many religious martyrs and mass slaughter the final bloody event just shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall was the assassination of six leading Latin American intellectuals Jesuit priests in El Salvador they were murdered on the orders of the High Command by which was in close contact with the u.s. they were murdered by an elite Salvadoran battalion which already had a bloody history of massacres and destruction they had just been they were just returning from the refresher courses at the John F Kennedy School of Special Warfare in North Carolina murdered on command the Jesuits and also their housekeeper and daughter so there wouldn't be anyone to report it it's denied for a long time effects of trickled out sins and it's kind of symbolic of what happened as the contagion was was constrained well all of this is out of history because no country is it's hard to find any society which looks at its own crimes you lament the crimes of others but not your own those you suppress well the decline continued the industrial countries reconstructed from the Second World War decolonization began to take place by 1970 the world was economically what was called tri-polar three major economic centres North America based in the United States Europe comparable economy based primarily in Germany and the dynamic growing region of East Asia at that point Japan center later later Japan China centered the other industrial countries by then the US share of world wealth had declined from 50% to 25% which is still extraordinary but not 50% then it remains roughly at that level today then won't run through everything but in the last decade there's been a very significant development Latin America broke away especially South America broke away and moved towards independence for the first time in five hundred years one also began to move towards addressing its horrifying internal economic problems very rich region but to every country after country ruled by tiny elite westernized often white sea of misery that's changing country by country they also thrown out every US military base the u.s. is no longer able to carry out regular crews in South America Central America they still can weaker societies but not South America the just a couple of days ago this a new organization was formed the c-loc which is the includes the all the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean except for the United States and Canada that would have been unheard of in earlier years it could become a substitute to the US dominated Organization of American States so that'll be the that already is recognized as the loss of of South America considered the backyard well this last year it's shifted to may not could be the loss of the main our country's Middle East North Africa which is much more dangerous than loss of South America because of the understanding of the enormous significance of the resources of that region well the u.s. reaction has been the expected one for the United States and its allies its Western European allies the worst threat in the Manor region is democratization of course everybody talks about how they love democracy but the Western countries will do anything they can to prevent it for very simple reasons if you want to know why just take a look at polls there are extensive careful Western run us run polls of the Arab world and they're revealing that I've reported but Planner certainly know them right on the eve of the Arab Spring that a year ago polls showed just take say Egypt the most important country that for 90 percent of the population the greatest threat they perceived was the United States and Israel opposition to US policy was so strong that about 80% of the population thought the region would be more secure if Iran had nuclear weapons they don't like Iran and they don't want to have nuclear weapons but the balance what they see is the major threat they felt that would make the region more secure maybe 10% regarded Iran as a threat figures are somewhat similar throughout the region obviously the United States and Western Europe France and Britain don't want those attitudes expressed in policy but if you insofar as you move towards functioning democracy you have public opinion expressed in policy that's what democracy means and in fact even the early steps very partial steps in democratization in Egypt have already had effects that the US and its allies regards extremely threatening so Egypt opened up transit in the Suez Canal to Iranian ships for the first time including military vessels which they don't threaten the u.s. 6th fleet in the Mediterranean but the Mediterranean supposed to be an American Lake else is allowed in there certainly not Iran the Egypt has moved to as attempted to bring about reconciliation of the two major Palestinian factions philosophy and the Gaza Strip of Palestine Fatah in the West Bank the US and Israel have been trying for it and working very hard for 20 years now to separate Gaza from the West Bank to break them apart for very good violation of the Oslo Accords but nobody cares about that the reason is straightforward if there's ever any kind of Independence for some sort of fragment of the West Bank if they're separated from Gaza they're imprisoned they have no access to the outside world take a look at a map and you'll see it they're imprisoned between the Jordanian dictatorship in Israel Gaza is the outlet so you got to separate them despite the fact that the Oslo accord says that there are territorial integrity which cannot be separate separated has been going on for 20 years and the effort to bring them together whether it will succeed or not we don't know is itself very threatened there's also concern that Egypt might they might be compelled by popular opinion to revise the 1979 Israel Egypt treaty not really to revise it but the revised us interpretation Egypt immediately interpreted the treaty as did Israel in the United States as essentially a license to Israel to do anything at once the Egyptian deterrent is removed Israel's therefore free to invade its northern neighbor Lebanon as it did almost immediately and to extend its colonization of the occupied territories that was understood explicitly by Israeli strategists Egypt Egyptian dictatorships green population didn't like it and they are already making threats to revise that interpretation real knows it well that's what's happening that's in the background if you look at the actual policies the US has followed to the Arab Spring it works out pretty much this way as you'd expect so in the first place the oil dictatorships the really important parts there are given carte launched do anything they like so there's no Arab Spring in Saudi Arabia the most extreme radical fundamentalist state the major US ally and the sort place where most of the oil is there was an effort weak effort to have demonstrations you know arab spring type demonstrations in saudi arabia but the police presence security presence was so enormous that people were afraid to go out in the streets of riyadh nothing happened that pretty much same in quate bahrain is a interesting case it's not doesn't produce a lot of oil but it's significant that's as you know i'm sure there's been a very harsh repression in bahrain and in fact there was a saudi-led invasion to ensure that the demonstrations would be crushed they were pretty brutally with a kind of tap on the wrists by the western US and its allies the reason is a befriend is about 70 percent shiite it's right across the causeway from eastern saudi arabia which is largely Shiite and which happens to be where most of saudi saudi oil is and there's been a real concern by western planners for a long time that there could develop a kind of a tacit shiite alliance the dictatorships are sunni tacit shiite alliance of eastern saudi arabia's southern iraq and western iran right around the northern part of the end of the the gulf which happens to have the major concentration of energy reserves in the world that would be a nightmare so that's anything do anything like that the horns also the home base of the u.s. 5th fleet the major military force in the region so that's all pretty predictable the second major category is the non-oil dictatorships like say Egypt Tunisia what's been followed there is a very standard game plan it's applied over and over again there's case after case where it's become impossible to support your favorite dictator usually because the army turns against him or something like that or it just gets overthrown Somoza Marcos and the Philippines it's shown in South Korea and Suharto in Indonesia abouttwo in the Congo Ceausescu in Romania at one after another of the West's favorite dictators have gotten to a point where they CH can't be sustained well the game plan in those cases is to support them as long as possible no matter what kind of atrocities they're carrying out if it can't be sustained send them off somewhere and issue ringing declarations about your love of democracy and then try to restore the old system as much as possible and that's pretty much what's happening in the non-oil dictatorships in Egypt for example pretty much as expected other cases are varied there's one major case that's different looks different that's Libya in Libya the Western powers were pretty strongly supporting Qaddafi right up to the Arab Spring weeks before a interesting story in itself we'll go into it but it was recognized that it would be better to replace an unpredictable kind of erratic figure by a more reliable regime in Libya as distinct from the other countries there was direct military intervention actually two interventions the first one which lasted about five of minutes that was under the authority of the United Nations the UN did pass a resolution calling for a no-fly zone and protection of civilians well okay that was used as the pretext for bombing but it was immediately disregarded by the three traditional imperial powers Britain and France in front the United States backing them they immediately turned to a different intervention and no relation to the UN resolution simply joining the side of the rebels to overthrow the government that it's a other word it should be recognized that this second intervention is very isolated in world opinion had very little virtually no support and alternatives were proposed right away even before the first UN resolution they were proposed by the International Crisis Group that's the main neutral body that all over the world monitors such matters a lot of expertise they presented alternatives the so-called BRICS countries rising industrial powers Britain Russia Brazil Russia India China South Africa the African Union's an African country they all made turkey basically all made the same proposals namely that there should be a ceasefire as called for in the UN resolution and moves towards negotiation and diplomacy to see if it would be possible to head off head off a serious humanitarian crisis which in fact took place if you look at the developments and particularly at the last month and sira the-- happens to be the home base of the largest tribe in libya the tribal society was a monstrosity so the imperial triumvirate was almost alone particularly interesting it was the African Union now since Africa is come quickly African opinion is completely ignored in the West it's worth quoting what they said I'm quoting from a leading journal in India where it was reported the African Union I'm quoting it called for dialogue even before the UN resolutions that authorized intervention and after those resolutions ignoring the African Union for three months and going on with the bombing of the sacred land of Africa has been high-handed arrogant and provocative an attack on Libya or any other member of the African Union without express agreement by the African Union is a dangerous provocation sovereignty has been a tool of emancipation of the peoples of Africa who are beginning to chart transformational paths for most of the African countries after centuries of predation by the slave trade colonialism and neocolonialism careful assaults on the sovereignty of careless assaults on the sovereignty of African countries are therefore tantamount to inflicting fresh wounds on the destiny of the African peoples well you can understand when none of that gets reported in the United States or the West but we ought to know about it and it's also as a background to this Qadhafi was the major backer of the African National Congress Mandela's and see right at the time when the United States was supporting the apartheid regime in its war against the ANC that went on right through the Reagan years late 80s 1988 the Reagan administration declared the African National Congress to be one of the more notorious terrorist groups in the world so therefore supported South Africa by that time was even violating congressional sanctions may not be remembered here but it's understood by the victims in fact Nelson Mandela himself just was removed from the terrorist list about two years ago he can now come to United States without special dispensation well such things are of no interest to the powerful but they're not so quickly forgotten by the victims in Libya itself there are many prizes for the triumvirate the Imperial for amber one major one is that the invasion the intervention removed a Chinese competition there were about several dozen maybe 75 Chinese companies working in Libya 35,000 personnel mostly they were working in infrastructure development projects well they were evicted that's part of a much larger struggle over African resources Libyan resources are quite significant Libyan oil is very important it's light oil very easily refined that Libya is right next to Europe you know the pipelines and so on and there the transitional National Council the new government is made very clear they're going to give priority to the Imperial triumvirate primarily France and Britain actually the French press had an interesting article I don't know if they intended the irony or not the article was called total victory in Libya and among other things it cited the fact that the new government promised 35 percent of the Libyan Confession concession to the French oil company which is called total so it was a total victory maybe they meant that maybe they didn't another major resource in Libya which isn't discussed much it's water Libya has huge underground water resources there had been incipient efforts to try to use them for the very arid regions to the south they are mainly controlled by French oil companies now French oil water companies which are the main international water companies that's a very significant resource for the future another major active development of major significance has to do with AFRICOM that's the new us Africa Command it when Qaddafi took over in 1969 he kicked the United States out of its major base wheels air base the Africa has no base in Africa they're looking for a base very likely we'll get one in Libya that's part of the recolonization that the African Union is warning about right now they're in Stuttgart in Germany as you probably saw a couple of weeks ago Obama sent small military forces to Uganda under a pretext that makes no sense at all to combat the Lord's Resistance Army which has been a murderous force for years now on its last legs but it's generally speculated that those forces are really aimed at South Sudan which has plenty of oil newly newly liberated a lot of competition again with China well all of this is part of the race for African resources there is one more case in the Arab Spring there are a couple of others but another major case is the countries that are still under military occupation foreign occupation there are two the first where actually the Arab Spring began about a year ago is Western Sahara Western Sahara is the last colony it's technically a colony under UN of UN supervision it was supposed to receive independence in 1975 it was invaded by Morocco Morocco sent has been sending a large number of people into the Western Sahara try to nominate Sahrawis population as a long history that I won't run through Morocco is basically a French dependency the French have been intervening regularly to prevent the United Nations from responding to Moroccan crimes and atrocities actually transshipment of populations itself a major crime war crime in fact but and last November there was there were protests there have been many protests there were more last November tent cities and so on they were very quickly crushed by the Moroccans there were efforts to bring it to the Security Council France intervened to block it the US backed them and that's kind of nobody pays attention but that's before what happened in Tunis a couple of weeks later and before Egypt that's one case the second case of course is Palestine Palestine remains under foreign occupation the as you know the Palestinian Authority approached the United Nations to try to gain admission as a state to the United Nations public opinion around the world is highly supportive of this in Egypt ninety percent in Europe it's about two to one even in the United States pretty amazingly almost a half the population supports the Palestinian statehood bid that's pretty remarkable when you look at the media coverage Congress and so on which treats this is utter anathema so with any open discussion possible those figures would surely be much higher meanwhile the White House and Congress quickly moved to punish both the Palestinians and the United Nations for daring to think about this Palestine was admitted to UNESCO the United States immediately defunded it the United States is defunded in Congress and has legislation to defend the palestinian administration if they dare to do anything like this Israel did the same they reacted to the UN bid by immediately initiating new settlements in what they call Jerusalem's a huge area much bigger than traditional Jerusalem which Israel and next the settlements between Bethlehem and Jerusalem which going to close the circle and prevent any contact between them should be mentioned that the settlements themselves are all illegal there's no question about that every International Authority has made it very clear and the settlements in Jerusalem are doubly illegal because they're not only like all the others but they're also in violation of explicit Security Council demands but it goes on Israel also for a time withheld customs and taxes that it's legally obliged obliged to provide but all of this is punishment to the Palestinians for seeking to break out of the system which guarantees that nothing will ever happen well there are lots of I'll finish with this there are plenty of hard problems in the world so if you try to think of a possible solution for problems like say Kashmir or eastern Congo worst monstrosities in the world it's not so simple Palestine in Israel is quite different there's a very simple solution there's overwhelming agreement on it and there has been for 35 years the first formulation of an official formulation at the United Nations was in a proposal in 1976 brought by the major Arab states Jordan Egypt and Syria to the Security Council calling for what is now just an overwhelming international consensus a two-state settlement on the international border with guarantees for the right of every state in the region to exist in peace and security within secure and recognized borders that's the basic wording of UN 242 which everyone recognizes to be the basic document that would include Israel and a new Palestinian state in the territories that Israel was occupying well that was vetoed by the United States similar resolution vetoed in 1980 won't run through the rest of the history but it continues that way US and Israel virtually alone in blocking this continues to the present last February they actually a u.s. veto last February did receive some attention because it was so outlandish Obama vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for implementation of official US policy official US policy you know in words at least is that Israel shouldn't expand its settlement that's the least of the problem it's the settlements that are criminal but the u.s. vetoed even that one that caused some flurry of attention the last last couple of weeks at the at the United Nations the Obama has simply been ridiculed I mean if you look at the international commentary it's like a joke in Israel for example after Obama's speech to the General Assembly hi Israeli diplomat said that Prime Minister Netanyahu is going to have to rewrite a speech because Obama already gave it to him for him and which is approximately true the the US and Israel you read the press it says they say the US and Israel are calling for negotiations without preconditions Palestinians are insisting on preconditions truth is exactly the opposite the US and Israel insist on strict preconditions crucial ones designed to ensure that nothing will happen the first precondition is that negotiations have to be run by the United States well you know if there were that we if there were real negotiations going on they'd be run by some neutral party that has some international respect that maybe Brazil and the two sides would be the US and Israel on one side and the rest of the world on the other side that's the way it's been lined up pretty much for 35 years but the u.s. is not going to abandon its control over this crucial region to anybody no matter what votes there are in the UN or anywhere else so first precondition the US has to run it which pretty much guarantees that nothing will happen the second precondition is that Israel must be free to expand settlements that's nine question anymore I mean the us occasionally makes a couple of words about it but then says basically go ahead well a third precondition is that Israel's already announced what it's going to annex illegally of course well obviously under those conditions negotiations will get nowhere that's why the Palestinians made it may be desperate effort to try to get around this system to the United Nations you can argue about whether there was a wise move or not but it's understandable as things now stand there are several options what's usually the usual description which i think is highly misleading is this they'll either be a two-state settlement in terms of the international consensus or else israel will take over all the territories and the Palestinians can wage a civil rights struggle like an anti-apartheid struggle and in fact many Palestinian activists and even Palestinian leaders and are advocating that at this time but that's very misleading that's not the second option it's not an option at all that Israel will never accept that in the US will never accept it and they're the ones that matter the other option is that the US and Israel will continue doing exactly what they're doing what they're doing is implementing policy basically what was called the show run Israel takes over the parts of the territories that are value to it leaves the rest kind of Canton eyes what RL show run called banter stands separated from Gaza which will remain under siege and the past the rest of the Palestinians can just remind don't take any have no commitment they don't want them to they don't want to introduce them under Israeli jurisdiction they'll just be off in a hill somewhere or they'll leave which many of the say the Christian communities and others are just doing and that will continue that's the second option so it's either some version of a two-state settlement and the basic outlines of that have been clear for years or else this well is there a solution to all of this yeah there's a very simple one u.s. policy has to change already a majority of the population majority the population supports it we're now back to the American decline that I was talking about there's a growing gap between the public will and public policy a huge number of issues there's always a gap but by now it's kind of a chasm this is one case and unless there is some process of real democratization in the United States towards a functioning democracy where public opinion has them do with policy everything is going to be in deep trouble and this in particular and in a way as far as Israel Palestine is concerned I think that's pretty optimistic conclusion that means the easy well understood solution is within reach that's furthermore within our control to bring it about Thanks we have about four questions where are you are they're gonna come this way and they're gonna ask them I don't see where the oh you're coming up here I see okay hello my name is Dan I'm a junior at the University of New England in the political science program and my question today is do you believe that the states involved at the Arab Spring will experience a period of modernization after stable governments are established and if so what changes can we expect well as I pointed out for close to 200 years almost 200 years the United States and Britain have been trying to push Britain than the United States have been trying to prevent modernization in maena Egypt and I mentioned Egypt but it's all over the region now first was Britain since the early 19th century then us took over after 1945 when it displaced England I read you a few things from the internal record that continues the same happened in South America first it was mostly European influence then US influence in the last century and for pretty good understandable reasons the ones that the National Security Council spelled out so will it take place and I'm a bit as well or to a certain extent it's up to us I mean first this question for them can they succeed in overthrowing dictatorial regimes the way that was finally done pretty much in Latin America and South America at least and move on on their own well that's can they do it second is will we let them do it a very significant question the imperial triumvirate is quite powerful it's been at this for centuries shifting from Britain and France to the US but Britain and France still very active will we allow our own states to act to prevent democracy and development well the answer your question is those two questions some of its not in our hands some of it is in our hands part that we should be mostly concerned about but I don't think anyone can predict its taking various forms in different main countries roughly along the lines that I outlined this very uncertain prospects there's certain to be a lot of conflict and controversy and what we do is going to have a substantial impact on it hi my name is Eddie and I'm from und College of Pharmacy my question is in your book you talk a lot about the the first be the second conflict in Iraq and how we're occupying it right now and you don't approve of it what do you think do you think the initial invasion of Iraq in the early 90s the first conflict was justified well the first the second conflict was just an outright aggression it was just you know it's caught it was what was called in the Nuremberg Tribunal the supreme international crime which include differs from other war crimes in that it includes all the evil that follows that's the second invasion I don't see what there is discuss about that the total horror story the first invasion is more controversial but good and it's kind of interesting to look at if you're interested of going into the details including the internal record and shortly after it in a book called deterring democracy mores appeared since but roughly the same story what happened is that in the United States was very strongly supporting Saddam Hussein remember that began in 1982 under Reagan we have this thing called a terrorist list which is just an outrage it's a list invented by the government it's not under any review if someone's put on it like say Nelson Mandela there's nothing to say about it the Mandela case illustrates the way it works but a very said it's being used right now remember that's being used to attack American groups and so on the one striking illustration of how it works was in 1982 Saddam Hussein had been on Iraq had been on the terrorist list but the Reagan administration wanted to support Iraq in its aggression against Iran the bigger enemy so it was necessary to remove Iraq from the terrorist list so they were removed shortly after Donald Rumsfeld made a famous trip to Baghdad shaking hands with Saddam ranging for aid to be given and so on there incidentally was a gap on the terrorist list and so I had to be filled so they decided to put Cuba on the terrorist list the reason presumably was because Cuba was far and away the leading victim of international terrorism which in fact had been expanding right through the late seventies and go through the details so that was the terrorist list u.s. strongly supported Saddam during the iran-iraq war the Reagan administration even went so far as to block protests against Saddam's worst atrocities the massacres of the Kurds you know Al Anfal massacre the Reagan administration blocked any action in fact tried to blame them on Iran basically won the war for Iraq that by the end ran finally capitulated after the war was over the US continues to strongly support Iraq and this is now Georgia first Bush George HW Bush he increased aid to Iraq he actually invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the United States for advanced training and nuclear weapons development that was 1989 goes on into early 1990 the Bush administration sent a delegation to Iraq led by Robert dole Center Senate Majority Leader later presidential candidate including Senator Simpson other dignitaries they went there to Iraq to bring the president's greetings to his friends that I'm Hussein the transcript that that meeting is available and I urge reading it they were and basically informing Saddam that he should disregard critics and the American press we have this Free Press business we can't shut him up but but they said they would remove somebody from The Voice of America who was criticizing Saddam and so on all of that was I think April 1990 a great friend August 1990 Saddam made his first mistake he either violated or probably misunderstood orders and invaded Kuwait well there were all kind of reasons for that I won't go into them whatever they were he invaded Kuwait very quick the Bush administration immediately recognized that this is an opportunity not only to switch sides but they're finally you know crushing that they liked them but it's better to have somebody loyal Sadam immediately recognized he'd been made a big mistake and within weeks he began to produce offers to withdraw the in Washington you look back at the debates the concern was this chief of staff Powell put it that Saddam will withdraw and leave a puppet regime in place and all the Arab states will be happy in other words Saddam would do what the United States had just done in Panama look at the reports on Noriega today and you'll notice something's missing how the United States got rid of Noriega and Panama Panama Noriega had also been a big buddy the United States but he also kind of stopped obeying orders they turned against him invaded Panama killed hundreds or maybe thousands of people nobody counts when their victims attacked the Vatican embassy where Noriega was tonight he gets asylum and finally kidnapped got him out of the country took him to Florida where he was tried and convicted for real crimes which he had committed while he was on the CIA payroll like if you read the papers today they talk about how the family of Spada for one of his victims are calling for the compensation they failed to mention that Spadaro was murdered while the United States was supporting Noriega under Reagan and in fact praising him for the wonderful things he was doing that out of history again anyhow they were afraid that Iraq would do just what the u.s. had done in Panama and invade the country install a puppet regime and leave the difference was that the Latin American countries were infuriated they weren't happy about it but they thought that the Arab countries would be happy with this well they wanted to block that they wanted a chance to invade and in fact if you look over the next couple of months the media reporting is quite interesting there were people in the government were leaking regularly leaking offers from Saddam Hussein to negotiate a withdrawal and the press wasn't covering them they were finally they were being published interestingly mainly by a small suburban newspaper the Long Island Newsday it's a Long Island newspaper which happened to be distributed in New York so you could get a the newsstands in New York would have a no cover of the Wyland news day with Newsday with a big headline saying saddam says let's talk us says no well you know after that the New York Times had to have a comment on page 28 at the bottom of a page the next day saying State Department the NIH's rumors or something but these things were almost certainly being leaked to the New York Times nobody leaks things to Newsday and presumably they just wouldn't publish them so they were leaked the news that this went on for a couple of months finally by January we're now in January 1990 so I made a pretty definite offer to withdraw on conditions which were in fact supported by about two-thirds of the American population withdrawal from Kuwait total withdrawal from kuwait in the context of a regional conference on security issues okay that's code words for Israel's occupation of Palestine so of course the US wasn't having any of that and that also essentially wasn't reported a couple of lines here and there then the u.s. invaded crushed Iraq easily destroyed the infrastructure that carry out a really brutal war I'm in Iraq of course withdrew from queit but it looked as if that could have been easily arranged just by diplomacy negotiations then comes the sanctions regime that's a huge issue in the Arab nothing here after 9/11 polls here taken here about you know why did they hate us that kind of thing show that one of the main reasons was the Iraq sanctions even among people very supportive of the United States the sanctions were really murders they killed hundreds of thousands of people they devastated the civilian population they strengthened Saddam they compelled the population to rely on him for survival they probably protected him from the fate of other monsters those I mentioned who were overthrown from within yo Somoza and Marcos the rest of them he was protected from that and this this was known the people who knew mo the Westerners who knew most about Iraq by far were the two international diplomats who administered the oil-for-food program distinguished international diplomats at Dennis holiday from Ireland Hans von sponeck from Germany a very outspoken both resigned on grounds that the sanctions were as they put it genocide 'el they had a lot of information about Iraq they had investigators all over the country they were getting all sorts of information sending it back to the Security Council where the US wouldn't let it be presented both resigned on grounds of the they were genocide 'el fun sponeck published a major book on it I urge you to read it it's called a different kind of war carefully documented scholarly account of what the sanctions were doing I don't things ever been mentioned in the United States or in England not that I can find at least that's what was happening that protected Saddam and then we get to the second invasion so there's a lot to say about the first invasion I mean you can argue about it at least it's debatable unlike in my opinion the second one but I don't think it stands up very well to scrutiny and I didn't think so at the time for the kind of reasons I mentioned you can check them out and see what you think I my name is Alex and I was a bio major and now I'm a student at the College of Pharmacy with an interest in like in my free time for political economy economics that sort of stuff and in many of you works illustrate the economic doctrines that America imposes and other countries like ace hate sorry asymmetric free trade agreements and overthrowing leaders outright to just exploit resources and labor power so what I was wondering is is it necessary for us to do this if we want the American economy to prosper so well first of all remember it's the u.s. is just following on the paths of every other imperial power it's not you know new circumstances but it's doing what Britain did what France did with other great powers have done in their day in the Sun and it's easily understandable the question that you're raising is quite an interesting one so what's the impact of this on the American population does the American population gain from it well you know it's pretty hard to measure precisely but in the case of the British Empire which is a much longer history there have been attempts by economic historians to try to do a cost-benefit analysis of the British Empire so like how much did they gain how much did it cost its imprecise you can't put much faith in the figures there's too many variables but the rough conclusion rather rough conclusion seems to be that the cost and benefits more or less balance that there's a lot of benefits there's a lot of costs and they're kind of in the same range roughly so why have an empire well the answer to that comes out as soon as you ask who paid the costs who got the gains okay if you look at that it turns out that the British Empire is essentially class war internal to England the people who had the gains you know are the people who had shares in East India Company you know the the banks in the city of London and so on and so forth enormous gains who paid the costs well you know the sailors who were dragoon into the British Navy the the poor or the poor population and so on so it's essentially a form of class war I think if you look at the American dominated system it's pretty similar so take say the war in Vietnam which I discussed for for Center today the planners understood what they were doing they wanted to destroy that virus before it spread contagion same reasons why they imposed dictatorships at the same time and Indonesia in Thailand Philippines and so on kind of like South America so from their point of view it was a success they killed the virus they prevented contagion the region didn't move towards independent development little a long way from it and it remains pretty much under Western domination not exactly everything they wanted but pretty much how about the costs well you know sixty thousand American soldiers were killed severe economic problems within the country let the stagflation fact it laid the basis for the developments that took place in the 1970s by severely harming the economy then comes all the things that follow and I think if you take a look case by case it's sort of like that I'll take the Iraq invasion it's probably several trillion dollars a thousand soldiers killed pretty big you know it sharply increased terrorism I don't know how you put in measure on that but as predicted it was predicted that the Iraq invasion would increase terrorism intelligence agencies predicted that the British and American of independent experts and it did a terrorism went up by a factor of seven that's big the year after the invasion and it's spread well beyond it led to it it let it increase the perception in the Muslim world which is very high that the US isn't a war with Islam you take a look at polls in the Arab world Muslim world there's an overwhelming feeling that the u.s. is at war with Islam and that you know that not only provides a basis kind of a reservoir for terrorism we got to defend ourselves but also just strong and anti-us feelings which show up in all kinds of ways how do you measure that you know you can't put a number on it but it's certainly harmful to the people of the country and their future well that's the downside the upside is you know whatever you win from it it was not most of the population but others and I think that if you look I think it's a very important question it should be looked at frankly I don't think that it's the right criterion to determine whether an invasion is correct or whether Terror is correct like you don't ask suppose Hitler had actually won the war well would it have benefited the German population that's not the right question you know but nevertheless though it's not the right question you can ask it and you can ask it for the British Empire for French atrocities in Africa which are horrendous US policy and so on and I think if you look at it it usually turns out to be something roughly like this it's kind of internal class war within the Imperial Society I thank you again for coming my name is Erica I'm a junior biochemistry major here you seem to have a lot of strong opinions about the United States foreign policy my question was is there anything the nation is here the last port is there anything you like about Washington's foreign policy take all the countries we haven't invaded I like that I let me repeat this is I mean I happen to be particularly interested in US foreign policy for two reasons elementary moral reasons for one thing it's by far the most powerful state in the world so what it does is far more important that when anyone else does for another one another reason which is sufficient even if it wasn't the most powerful state in the world I'm here I have a share of responsibility for what the US government does and to extent I can do something about it especially in a pretty free country like this one now we understand that very well with regard to enemies so for example it takes a Iranian dissidents like shereena body and Akbar Gandhi and others nobody asks them is there anything good about Iranian foreign policy it's not their job to say what's good about Iranian foreign policy you know there's some things that aren't bad but that's not their task their task is to condemn the crimes of their own state and we honor them for that it doesn't matter what they say about the United States or what they say about Israel like if it rannian dissidents criticize Israeli crimes and maybe they're right but we don't give them any respect for that and the same ought to be true about Americans who criticize Iranian crimes you want to do it okay but it's like criticizing the crimes of Genghis Khan you can't do anything about it so it's just a way of you know supporting domestic power or your own reputation what matters is what you can do something about and overwhelmingly that means what you're involved in either directly or indirectly and we understand that in the case of enemies we go to apply the same criteria to ourselves if you try to do an evaluation of British actions us actions French actions and so on yeah you can find things that sometimes are even helpful so for example take george w bush not my favorite person but of his policies with regard to say diseases in africa we're pretty positive i think okay that's fine but uh I don't think it's a huge issue frankly so thank you so much

Channel: UNE Center for Global Humanities

Views: 75,206

Rating: 4.7022471 out of 5

Keywords: Noam Chomsky, UNE, University of New England, Arab Spring, CGH, Center for Global Humanities

Id: 7pfGRSDZs1M

Length: 106min 25sec (6385 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 29 2011