Noam Chomsky and Gilbert Achcar's New Book: Perilous Power - by Stephen Lendman
Noam Chomsky needs no introduction. He's MIT Institute Professor Emeritus of linguistics and a leading anti-war critic and voice for over 40 years for social equity and justice. He's also one of the world's most influential and widely cited intellectuals on the Left. Gilbert Achcar is a Lebanese-French academic, author, social activist, Middle East expert and professor of politics and international relations at the University of Paris. Their new book, Perilous Power, is based on 14 hours of dialogue between them over three days in January, 2006 and updated six months later in July in a separate Epilogue at the end. It covers US foreign policy in the most volatile and turbulent region in the world, the Middle East, and discusses the wars in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and Afghanistan as well as such key issues as terrorism, fundamentalism, oil, democracy, possible war against Iran and much more. Chomsky and Achcar collaborated with Stephen Shalom, Professor of Political Science at William Paterson University acting as moderator to pose questions and keep the discussion on track.
The book is divided into five chapters. This review will cover each of them in enough detail to give the reader a good sense of their flavor and content.
Chapter One - Terrorism and Conspiracies
The underlying raison d'etre used to justify the post-9/11 Middle East and Central Asian wars is the so-called "war on terror" and claimed overall threat therefrom, and that's how the dialogue between the two authors begins with moderator Stephen Shalom asking them to define terrorism. Chomsky explained he's been writing about it since Ronald Reagan was elected and declared "war on international terrorism" using rhetoric like the "scourge of terrorism" and "the plague of the modern age." It was clear what the administration had in mind was its own planned Contra war of terrorism against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the one west of it against the FMLN opposition in El Salvador with US regional head of state terrorism John Negroponte (now US Director of National Intelligence in charge of "homeland" terrorism against the public) directing it all through his US Ambassador's office in Hondurus situated between the two conflict zones. The idea was to crush the outlier Nicaraguan government (that wouldn't play by US-imposed rules) and the opposition resistance to the fascist government in El Salvador to establish or solidify reliable right wing client dictators who always understand "who's boss."
Chomsky provides a useful definition of "terrorism" from the US Code. It's "the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature....through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear." Chomsky then observes that by that standard the US is the world's leading terrorist state, but this is unacceptable to any US administration so all of them go by the undebated notion that terrorism excludes what "we" do to "them" and is only what only what "they" do to "us." What "we" do is always benign humanitarian intervention even when it's done through the barrel of a gun the way we're doing it in Iraq, Afghanistan and in partnership with Israel in Palestine and against the Lebanese. Condoleezza Rice's rhetoric explains this, without a touch of irony, as "democracy (being) messy."
Achcar expands the concept of terrorism to what the European Union (EU) has used since 2002 that includes "causing extensive destruction to a Government or public facility....a public place or private property likely to....result in major economic loss (or even) threatening to commit" such acts. He acknowledges this broader notion is a dangerous enlargement of the concept as it could include almost any act of civil disobedience a government wishes to label an act of terrorism.
The discussion then covers whether or not a credible terror threat exists, and Chomsky believes a serious one does unrelated to 9/11. He notes the comments of two former US Defense Secretaries who see the likelihood of a nuclear detonation on a US target in the next decade as greater than 50% while US intelligence thinks it's almost certain unless current US policy changes. Chomsky also mentions the possibility of other forms of terror attacks against us all stemming from the 1954 CIA notion of "blowback" that referred to the unintended consequences from US hostile acts abroad like overthrowing legitimate governments as it did against Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 ushering in the 25 year terror reign of the Shah. It finally led to the "blowback" 1979 revolution, and it causes similar examples of retaliation now evident in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Achcar agrees that terrorism is a reality and can also be homegrown like the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City first blamed on Muslim "terrorists" who even then were part of the anti-Muslim attitude in the country that became hysterical post-9/11.
The issue then is what's to be done about the threat, and that's a subject Chomsky has written and spoken about often - "reduce the reasons for it." In the case of the Middle East, stop attacking Muslim countries, and that will reduce "blowback" repercussions. Achcar goes further and says there's an economic aspect to the equation as well relating to the neoliberal globalization direction the West took since the Carter years. It's caused a steady erosion of the social fabric and safety net that's most apparent in the US that Achcar believes eventually "leads to forms of violent assertions of 'identity,' extremism or fanaticism, whether religious or political..." Chomsky agrees and cites projections of US intelligence agencies that the process of globalization "will be rocky, marked by chronic financial volatility and a widening economic divide." This will "foster political, ethnic, ideological and religious extremism, along with the violence that often accompanies it." The solution both authors agree on is "political justice, the rule of law, social justice (and) economic justice."
Conspiracies
The crucial issue regarding the likelihood of a conspiracy relating to the 9/11 terror attack is then addressed which both authors dismiss out of hand and Chomsky says is "almost beyond comprehension" that the Bush administration was responsible for it. Despite considerable evidence that at the least it knew about it well in advance, he argues that the notion of administration involvement even indirectly doesn't hold water in his view. For one thing, he explains "A lot of people (had to be) involved in the planning" of this and for certain there would have been leaks. He also believes claims of administration involvement divert "attention from the real crimes" and threats from them that's "welcomed by the administration."
Achcar agrees but admits Washington did nothing to prevent the attack supporting the notion that administration officials wanted a terrorist attack they could exploit to their advantage. What happened on 9/11 served US imperial interests the same way Iraq's invasion of Kuwait did in 1990. The attack in 2001 was the "catastrophic and catalyzing event (of a) new Pearl Harbor" the neocon Project for the New American Century (PNAC) think tank said it needed at its formation in 1997 to advance the kind of radical transformation its members advocated. These are the same key people who took power in 2001, and based on their agenda since then, it's hard to dismiss their not being up to almost anything including complicitity in an attack on US soil. It's likely on the evening of 9/11 they were drinking champaign celebrating "their good fortune" in the White House.
A second conspiracy relates to the possible US role in Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Achcar says there's no way to prove it even though the US did nothing to prevent it. Chomsky, on the other hand, believes it happened because Saddam Hussein simply "misinterpreted" the message he got from US Ambassador April Glaspie, and that the US was providing aid to him right up to the time of the invasion which it only would have done for an ally that wasn't planning to attack another ally. Achcar has another view stressing that if the US wanted the invasion as a pretext for the Gulf war that followed in January, 1991, the GHW Bush administration would have maintained normal relations with Saddam right to the end so as not to tip its hand.
There's good reason to suspect the US may have wanted it. The cold war had just ended, the US needed a new enemy to justify maintaining a high military budget to avoid the "peace dividend" spoken of then, it also needed a way to reestablish a US military presence in the region because of its immense oil reserves, and since 1975 this country wanted to "bury the Vietnam syndrome" to be free again to engage in military action abroad with public consent. The Gulf war was the gift Washington hawks hoped for. The relatively simple Operation Just Cause in December, 1989 to remove Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega because he forgot who really runs his country hadn't done it, so in Achcar's words: "If Saddam Hussein did not exist at the time, they would have had to invent him." Achcar also believes the US was concerned about Saddam's military power then. His history in the region proved he was an aggressor, and that worried his neighbors like Israel and the Saudis.
If there was a plan to entrap Saddam, he walked right into it. Chomsky has another view that Saddam only became a "bad guy" after he "broke the rules." A little leeway is always permissible, but "imperial management" works by establishing reliable client states run by leaders who know who's "the boss." Saddam broke the rules by his act of "disobedience" - the same "sin" Manuel Noriega committed that led to his undoing.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
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