In the US , the customs are different.
Instead of a milkmaid, the hidden hand selects an imposing-looking Texan
ex-governor, or a senator, or an ex-First Lady, who knows where restrooms in the
White House are and does not have to be toilet-trained. But the bottom line is
the same: they are just façade, the fall guy for the real people well behind
them.
http://www.chomsky. info/articles/ 20080101. htm We Own The
World Noam Chomsky ZNet, January 1,
2008 You all know, of course, there was an
election -- what is called "an election" in the United States --
last November. There was really one issue in the election, what to do about
U.S. forces in
Iraq and there was, by
U.S. standards, an
overwhelming vote calling for a withdrawal of U.S. forces on a
firm timetable. As few people know, a couple of
months earlier there were extensive polls in Iraq , U.S.-run
polls, with interesting results. They were not secret here. If you really looked
you could find references to them, so it's not that they were concealed. This
poll found that two-thirds of the people in Baghdad wanted the U.S. troops out immediately; the rest
of the country -- a large majority -- wanted a firm timetable for withdrawal,
most of them within a year or less. The figures are higher for Arab
Iraq in the areas where troops were actually deployed. A very large majority
felt that the presence of U.S. forces increased the level of violence and a
remarkable 60 percent for all of Iraq , meaning higher in the areas where the
troops are deployed, felt that U.S. forces were legitimate targets
of attack. So there was a considerable consensus between Iraqis and Americans on
what should be done in Iraq , namely troops should be
withdrawn either immediately or with a firm timetable. Well, the reaction in the
post-election U.S. government to that consensus was
to violate public opinion and increase the troop presence by maybe 30,000 to
50,000. Predictably, there was a pretext announced. It was pretty obvious what
it was going to be. "There is outside interference in Iraq , which we
have to defend the Iraqis against. The Iranians are interfering in
Iraq ." Then came the alleged evidence
about finding IEDs, roadside bombs with Iranian markings, as well as Iranian
forces in Iraq . "What can we do? We have to
escalate to defend Iraq from the outside intervention. "
Then came the "debate." We are a
free and open society, after all, so we have "lively" debates. On the one side
were the hawks who said, "The Iranians are interfering, we have to bomb them."
On the other side were the doves who said, "We cannot be sure the evidence is
correct, maybe you misread the serial numbers or maybe it is just the
revolutionary guards and not the government." So we had the usual kind of
debate going on, which illustrates a very important and pervasive distinction
between several types of propaganda systems. To take the ideal types,
exaggerating a little: totalitarian states' propaganda is that you better accept
it, or else. And "or else" can be of various consequences, depending on the
nature of the state. People can actually believe whatever they want as long as
they obey. Democratic societies use a different method: they don't articulate
the party line. That's a mistake. What they do is presuppose it, then encourage
vigorous debate within the framework of the party line. This serves two
purposes. For one thing it gives the impression of a free and open society
because, after all, we have lively debate. It also instills a propaganda line
that becomes something you presuppose, like the air you breathe. That was the case here. This is a
classic illustration. The whole debate about the Iranian "interference" in
Iraq makes sense only on one
assumption, namely, that "we own the world." If we own the world, then the only
question that can arise is that someone else is interfering in a country we have
invaded and occupied. So if you look over the debate
that took place and is still taking place about Iranian interference, no one
points out this is insane. How can Iran be interfering in a country that
we invaded and occupied? It's only appropriate on the presupposition that we own
the world. Once you have that established in your head, the discussion is
perfectly sensible. You read a lot of comparisons now
about Vietnam and
Iraq . For the most part they are
totally incomparable; the nature and purpose of the war, almost everything is
totally different except in one respect: how they are perceived in the
United
States . In both cases there is what is now
sometimes called the "Q" word, quagmire. Is it a quagmire? In
Vietnam it is now recognized that it
was a quagmire. There is a debate of whether Iraq , too, is a
quagmire. In other words, is it costing us too much? That is the question you
can debate. So in the case of
Vietnam , there was a debate. Not at
the beginning -- in fact, there was so little discussion in the beginning that
nobody even remembers when the war began -- 1962, if you're interested. That's
when the U.S. attacked
Vietnam . But there was no discussion,
no debate, nothing. By the mid-1960s, mainstream
debate began. And it was the usual range of opinions between the hawks and the
doves. The hawks said if we send more troops, we can win. The doves, well,
Arthur Schlesinger, famous historian, Kennedy's advisor, in his book in 1966
said that we all pray that the hawks will be right and that the current
escalation of troops, which by then was approaching half a million, will work
and bring us victory. If it does, we will all be praising the wisdom and
statesmanship of the American government for winning victory -- in a land that
we're reducing to ruin and wreck. You can translate that word by
word to the doves today. We all pray that the surge will work. If it does,
contrary to our expectations, we will be praising the wisdom and statesmanship
of the Bush administration in a country, which, if we're honest, is a total
ruin, one of the worst disasters in military history for the population.
If you get way to the left end of
mainstream discussion, you get somebody like Anthony Lewis who, at the end of
the Vietnam War in 1975, wrote in retrospect that the war began with benign
intensions to do good; that is true by definition, because it's us, after all.
So it began with benign intentions, but by 1969, he said, it was clear that the
war was a mistake. For us to win a victory would be too costly -- for us -- so
it was a mistake and we should withdraw. That was the most extreme criticism.
Very much like today. We could
withdraw from Vietnam because
the U.S. had already essentially obtained
its objective by then. Iraq we can't because we haven't
obtained our objectives. And for those of you who are old
enough to remember -- or have read about it -- you will note that the peace
movement pretty much bought that line. Just like the mainstream discussion, the
opposition of the war, including the peace movement, was mostly focused on the
bombing of the North. When the U.S. started bombing the North
regularly in February 1965, it also escalated the bombing of the South to triple
the scale -- and the South had already been attacked for three years by then. A
couple of hundred thousand South Vietnamese were killed and thousands, if not
tens of the thousands, had been driven into concentration camps. The
U.S. had been carrying out chemical
warfare to destroy food crops and ground cover. By 1965 South Vietnam
was already a total wreck. Bombing the South was costless
for the United
States because the South had no defense.
Bombing the North was costly -- you bomb the North, you bomb the harbor, you
might hit Russian ships, which begins to become dangerous. You're bombing an
internal Chinese railroad -- the Chinese railroads from southeast to southwest
China happen to go through
North
Vietnam -- who knows what they might do.
In fact, the Chinese were
accused, correctly, of sending Chinese forces into Vietnam , namely
to rebuild the railroad that we were bombing. So that was "interference" with
our divine right to bomb North Vietnam . So most of the focus
was on the bombing of the North. The peace movement slogan, "Stop the bombing"
meant the bombing of the North. In 1967 the leading specialist on
Vietnam, Bernard Fall, a military historian and the only specialist on Vietnam
respected by the U.S. government -- who was a hawk, incidentally, but who cared
about the Vietnamese -- wrote that it's a question of whether Vietnam will
survive as a cultural and historical entity under the most severe bombing that
has ever been applied to a country this size. He was talking about the South. He
kept emphasizing it was the South that was being attacked. But that didn't
matter because it was costless, therefore it's fine to continue. That is the
range of debate, which only makes sense on the assumption that we own the world.
If you read, say, the Pentagon
Papers, it turns out there was extensive planning about the bombing of the North
-- very detailed, meticulous planning on just how far it can go, what happens if
we go a little too far, and so on. There is no discussion at all about the
bombing of the South, virtually none. Just an occasional announcement, okay, we
will triple the bombing, or something like that. If you read Robert McNamara's
memoirs of the war -- by that time he was considered a leading dove -- he
reviews the meticulous planning about the bombing of the North, but does not
even mention his decision to sharply escalate the bombing of the South at the
same time that the bombing of the North was begun. I should say, incidentally, that
with regard to Vietnam what I have been discussing
is articulate opinion, including the leading part of the peace movement. There
is also public opinion, which it turns out is radically different, and that is
of some significance. By 1969 around 70 percent of the public felt that the war
was not a mistake, but that it was fundamentally wrong and immoral. That was the
wording of the polls and that figure remains fairly constant up until the most
recent polls just a few years ago. The figures are pretty remarkable because
people who say that in a poll almost certainly think, I must be the only person
in the world that thinks this. They certainly did not read it anywhere, they did
not hear it anywhere. But that was popular opinion. The same is true with regard to
many other issues. But for articulate opinion it's pretty much the way I've
described -- largely vigorous debate between the hawks and the doves, all on the
unexpressed assumption that we own the world. So the only thing that matters is
how much is it costing us, or maybe for some more humane types, are we harming
too many of them? Getting back to the election,
there was a lot of disappointment among anti-war people -- the majority of the
population -- that Congress did not pass any withdrawal legislation. There was a
Democratic resolution that was vetoed, but if you look at the resolution closely
it was not a withdrawal resolution. There was a good analysis of it by General
Kevin Ryan, who was a fellow at the Kennedy School at Harvard. He went through it and
he said it really should be called a re-missioning proposal. It leaves about the
same number of American troops, but they have a slightly different mission.
He said, first of all it allows
for a national security exception. If the president says there is a national
security issue, he can do whatever he wants -- end of resolution. The second gap
is it allows for anti-terrorist activities. Okay, that is whatever you like.
Third, it allows for training Iraqi forces. Again, anything you like.
Next it says troops have to
remain for protection of U.S. forces and facilities. What are
U.S. forces? Well,
U.S. forces are those
embedded in Iraqi armed units where 60 percent of their fellow soldiers think
that they -- U.S. troops, that is -- are
legitimate targets of attack. Incidentally, those figures keep going up, so they
are probably higher by now. Well, okay, that is plenty of force protection. What
facilities need protection was not explained in the Democratic resolution, but
facilities include what is called "the embassy." The U.S. embassy in Iraq is nothing
like any embassy that has ever existed in history. It's a city inside the green
zone, the protected region of Iraq , that the U.S. runs. It's
got everything from missiles to McDonalds, anything you want. They didn't build
that huge facility because they intend to leave. That is one facility, but there
are others. There are "semi-permanent military bases," which are being built
around the country. "Semi-permanent" means permanent, as long as we want.
General Ryan omitted a lot of
things. He omitted the fact that the U.S. is maintaining control of
logistics and logistics is the core of a modern Army. Right now about 80 percent
of the supply is coming in though the south, from Kuwait, and it's going through
guerilla territory, easily subject to attack, which means you have to have
plenty of troops to maintain that supply line. Plus, of course, it keeps control
over the Iraqi Army. The Democratic resolution
excludes the Air Force. The Air Force does whatever it wants. It is bombing
pretty regularly and it can bomb more intensively. The resolution also excludes
mercenaries, which is no small number -- sources such as the Wall Street Journal
estimate the number of mercenaries at about 130,000, approximately the same as
the number of troops, which makes some sense. The traditional way to fight a
colonial war is with mercenaries, not with your own soldiers -- that is the
French Foreign Legion, the British Ghurkas, or the Hessians in the Revolutionary
War. That is part of the main reason the draft was dropped -- so you get
professional soldiers, not people you pick off the streets. So, yes, it is re-missioning, but
the resolution was vetoed because it was too strong, so we don't even have that.
And, yes, that did disappoint a lot of people. However, it would be too strong
to say that no high official in Washington called for immediate withdrawal.
There were some. The strongest one I know of -- when asked what is the solution
to the problem in Iraq -- said it's quite obvious,
"Withdraw all foreign forces and withdraw all foreign arms." That official was
Condoleeza Rice and she was not referring to U.S. forces, she
was referring to Iranian forces and Iranian arms. And that makes sense, too, on
the assumption that we own the world because, since we own the world
U.S. forces cannot be foreign forces
anywhere. So if we invade Iraq or Canada , say, we are the indigenous
forces. It's the Iranians that are foreign forces. I waited for a while to see if
anyone, at least in the press or journals, would point out that there was
something funny about this. I could not find a word. I think everyone regarded
that as a perfectly sensible comment. But I could not see a word from anyone who
said, wait a second, there are foreign forces there, 150,000 American troops,
plenty of American arms. So it is reasonable that when
British sailors were captured in the Gulf by Iranian forces, there was debate,
"Were they in Iranian borders or in Iraqi borders? Actually there is no answer
to this because there is no territorial boundary, and that was pointed out. It
was taken for granted that if the British sailors were in Iraqi waters, then
Iran was guilty of a crime by
intervening in foreign territory. But Britain is not guilty of a crime by being in
Iraqi territory, because Britain is a U.S. client
state, and we own the world, so they are there by right. What about the possible next war,
Iran ? There have been very credible
threats by the U.S. and
Israel -- essentially a
U.S. client -- to attack
Iran . There happens to be something
called the UN Charter which says that -- in Article 2 -- the threat or use of
force in international affairs is a crime. "Threat or use of force."
Does anybody care? No, because
we're an outlaw state by definition, or to be more precise, our threats and use
of force are not foreign, they're indigenous because we own the world.
Therefore, it's fine. So there are threats to bomb Iran -- maybe we
will and maybe we won't. That is the debate that goes on. Is it legitimate if we
decide to do it? People might argue it's a mistake. But does anyone say it would
be illegitimate? For example, the Democrats in Congress refuse to put in an
amendment that would require the Executive to inform Congress if it intends to
bomb Iran -- to consult, inform. Even that
was not accepted. The whole world is aghast at this
possibility. It would be monstrous. A leading British military historian,
Correlli Barnett, wrote recently that if the U.S. does attack, or Israel does
attack, it would be World War III. The attack on Iraq has been
horrendous enough. Apart from devastating Iraq , the UN
High Commission on Refugees reviewed the number of displaced people -- they
estimate 4.2 million, over 2 million fled the country, another 2 million fleeing
within the country. That is in addition to the numbers killed, which if you
extrapolate from the last studies, are probably approaching a million.
It was anticipated by
U.S. intelligence and other
intelligence agencies and independent experts that an attack on
Iraq would probably increase the
threat of terror and nuclear proliferation. But that went way beyond what anyone
expected. Well known terrorism specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank
estimated -- using mostly government statistics -- that what they call "the
Iraq effect" increased terror by a
factor of seven, and that is pretty serious. And that gives you an indication of
the ranking of protection of the population in the priority list of leaders.
It's very low. So what would the
Iran effect be? Well, that is
incalculable. It could be World War III. Very likely a massive increase in
terror, who knows what else. Even in the states right around Iraq, which don't
like Iran -- Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey -- even there the large majority
would prefer to see a nuclear armed Iran to any U.S. military action, and they
are right, military action could be devastating. It doesn't mean we won't do it.
There is very little discussion here of the illegitimacy of doing it, again on
the assumption that anything we do is legitimate, it just might cost too much.
Is there a possible solution to
the U.S./Iran crisis? Well, there are some plausible solutions. One possibility
would be an agreement that allows Iran to have nuclear energy, like
every signer of the non-proliferation treaty, but not to have nuclear weapons.
In addition, it would call for a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East . That would include Iran , Israel , which has hundreds of nuclear weapons,
and any U.S. or British forces deployed in
the region. A third element of a solution would be for the United States
and other nuclear states to obey their legal obligation, by unanimous agreement
of the World
Court , to make good-faith moves to eliminate nuclear
weapons entirely. Is this feasible? Well, it's
feasible on one assumption, that the United
States and Iran become functioning democratic societies,
because what I have just quoted happens to be the opinion of the overwhelming
majority of the populations in Iran and the United States .
On everything that I mentioned there is an overwhelming majority. So, yes, there
would be a very feasible solution if these two countries were functioning
democratic societies, meaning societies in which public opinion has some kind of
effect on policy. The problem in the United States is the inability of
organizers to do something in a population that overwhelmingly agrees with them
and to make that current policy. Of course, it can be done. Peasants in
Bolivia can do it, we can obviously
do it here. Can we do anything to make
Iran a more democratic society? Not
directly, but indirectly we can. We can pay attention to the dissidents and the
reformists in Iran who are
struggling courageously to turn Iran into a more democratic society.
And we know exactly what they are saying, they are very outspoken about it. They
are pleading with the United
States to withdraw the threats against Iran . The more
we threaten Iran , the more we give a gift to the
reactionary, religious fanatics in the government. You make threats, you
strengthen them. That is exactly what is happening. The threats have lead to
repression, predictably. Now the Americans claim they are
outraged by the repression, which we should protest, but we should recognize
that the repression is the direct and predictable consequence of the actions
that the U.S. government is taking. So if you
take actions, and then they have predictable consequences, condemning the
consequences is total hypocrisy. Incidentally, in the case of
Cuba about two-thirds of Americans
think we ought to end the embargo and all threats and enter into diplomatic
relations. And that has been true ever since polls have been taken -- for about
30 years. The figure varies, but it's roughly there. Zero effect on policy, in
Iran , Cuba , and
elsewhere. So there is a problem and that
problem is that the United
States is just not a functioning democracy.
Public opinion does not matter and among articulate and elite opinion that is a
principle -- it shouldn't matter. The only principle that matters is we own the
world and the rest of you shut up, you know, whether you're abroad or at home.
So, yes, there is a potential
solution to the very dangerous problem, it's essentially the same solution: do
something to turn our own country into a functioning democracy. But that is in
radical opposition to the fundamental presupposition of all elite discussions,
mainly that we own the world and that these questions don't arise and the public
should have no opinion on foreign policy, or any policy. Once, when I was driving to work,
I was listening to NPR. NPR is supposed to be the kind of extreme radical end of
the spectrum. I read a statement somewhere, I don't know if it's true, but it
was a quote from Obama, who is the hope of the liberal doves, in which he
allegedly said that the spectrum of discussion in the United States
extends between two crazy extremes, Rush Limbaugh and NPR. The truth, he said,
is in the middle and that is where he is going to be, in the middle, between the
crazies. NPR then had a discussion -- it
was like being at the Harvard faculty club -- serious people, educated, no
grammatical errors, who know what they're talking about, usually polite. The
discussion was about the so-called missile defense system that the
U.S. is trying to place in
Czechoslovakia and
Poland -- and the Russian reaction.
The main issue was, "What is going on with the Russians? Why are they acting so
hostile and irrational? Are they trying to start a new Cold War? There is
something wrong with those guys. Can we calm them down and make them less
paranoid?" The main specialist they called
in, I think from the Pentagon or somewhere, pointed out, accurately, that a
missile defense system is essentially a first-strike weapon. That is well known
by strategic analysts on all sides. If you think about it for a minute, it's
obvious why. A missile defense system is never going to stop a first strike, but
it could, in principle, if it ever worked, stop a retaliatory strike. If you
attack some country with a first strike, and practically wipe it out, if you
have a missile defense system, and prevent them from retaliating, then you would
be protected, or partially protected. If a country has a functioning missile
defense system it will have more options for carrying out a first strike. Okay,
obvious, and not a secret. It's known to every strategic analyst. I can explain
it to my grandchildren in two minutes and they understand it. So on NPR it is agreed that a
missile defense system is a first-strike weapon. But then comes the second part
of the discussion. Well, say the pundits, the Russians should not be worried
about this. For one thing because it's not enough of a system to stop their
retaliation, so therefore it's not yet a first-strike weapon against them. Then
they said it is kind of irrelevant anyway because it is directed against
Iran , not against
Russia . Okay, that was the end of the
discussion. So, point one, missile defense is a first-strike weapon; second,
it's directed against Iran . Now, you can carry out a small
exercise in logic. Does anything follow from those two assumptions? Yes, what
follows is it's a first-strike weapon against Iran . Since the
U.S. owns the world what
could be wrong with having a first-strike weapon against Iran . So the
conclusion is not mentioned. It is not necessary. It follows from the fact that
we own the world. Maybe a year ago or so,
Germany sold advanced
submarines to Israel , which were equipped to carry
missiles with nuclear weapons. Why does Israel need submarines with nuclear
armed missiles? Well, there is only one imaginable reason and everyone in
Germany with a brain must
have understood that -- certainly their military system does -- it's a
first-strike weapon against Iran . Israel can use
German subs to illustrate to Iranians that if they respond to an Israeli attack
they will be vaporized. The fundamental premises of
Western imperialism are extremely deep. The West owns the world and now the
U.S. runs the West, so, of course,
they go along. The fact that they are providing a first-strike weapon for
attacking Iran probably, I'm guessing now, raised no comment because why should
it? You can forget about history, it
does not matter, it's kind of "old fashioned," boring stuff we don't need to
know about. But most countries pay attention to history. So, for example, for
the United
States there is no discussion of the history of
U.S./Iranian relations. Well, for the U.S. there is only one event in Iranian history
-- in 1979 Iranians overthrew the tyrant that the U.S. was backing
and took some hostages for over a year. That happened and they had to be
punished for that. But for Iranians their history is
that for over 50 years, literally without a break, the U.S. has been
torturing Iranians. In 1953 the U.S. overthrew the parliamentary
government and installed a brutal tyrant, the Shah, and kept supporting him
while he compiled one of the worst human rights records in the world -- torture,
assassination, anything you like. In fact, President Carter, when he visited
Iran in December 1978, praised the
Shah because of the love shown to him by his people, and so on and so forth,
which probably accelerated the overthrow. Of course, Iranians have this odd way
of remembering what happened to them and who was behind it. When the Shah was
overthrown, the Carter administration immediately tried to instigate a military
coup by sending arms to Iran
through Israel to try to support military
force to overthrow the government. We immediately turned to supporting
Iraq , that is Saddam Hussein,
and his invasion of Iran . Saddam was executed for crimes
he committed in 1982, by his standards not very serious crimes -- complicity in
killing 150 people. Well, there was something missing in that account -- 1982 is
a very important year in U.S./Iraqi relations. That is the year in which Ronald
Reagan removed Iraq from the
list of states supporting terrorism so that the U.S. could start supplying Iraq with weapons for its invasion of
Iran , including the means to develop
weapons of mass destruction, chemical and nuclear weapons. That is 1982. A year
later Donald Rumsfeld was sent to firm up the deal. Well, Iranians may very well
remember that this led to a war in which hundreds of thousands of them were
slaughtered with U.S. aid
going to Iraq . They may well remember that the
year after the war was over, in 1989, the U.S. government invited Iraqi nuclear engineers
to come to the United
States for advanced training in developing
nuclear weapons. What about the Russians? They
have a history too. One part of the history is that in the last century
Russia was invaded and
practically destroyed three times through Eastern
Europe . You can look back and ask, when was the last time that the
U.S. was invaded and
practically destroyed through Canada or Mexico ? That
doesn't happen. We crush others and we are always safe. But the Russians don't
have that luxury. Now, in 1990 a remarkable event took place. I was kind of
shocked, frankly. Gorbachev agreed to let Germany be
unified, meaning join the West and be militarized within a hostile military
alliance. This is Germany ,
which twice in that century practically destroyed Russia . That's a
pretty remarkable agreement. There was a quid pro quo.
Then-president George Bush I agreed that NATO would not expand to the East. The
Russians also demanded, but did not receive, an agreement for a nuclear-free
zone from the Artic to the Baltic, which would give them a little protection
from nuclear attack. That was the agreement in 1990. Then Bill Clinton came into
office, the so-called liberal. One of the first things he did was to rescind the
agreement, unilaterally, and expand NATO to the East. For the Russians that's pretty
serious, if you remember the history. They lost 25 million people in the last
World War and over 3 million in World War I. But since the U.S. owns the world, if we want to threaten
Russia , that is fine. It is all for
freedom and justice, after all, and if they make unpleasant noises about it we
wonder why they are so paranoid. Why is Putin screaming as if we're somehow
threatening them, since we can't be threatening anyone, owning the world.
One of the other big issues on
the front pages now is Chinese "aggressiveness. " There is a lot of concern about
the fact that the Chinese are building up their missile forces. Is
China planning to conquer the world?
Big debates about it. Well, what is really going on? For years
China has been in the lead in trying
to prevent the militarization of space. If you look at the debates and the
Disarmament Commission of the UN General Assembly, the votes are 160 to 1 or 2.
The U.S. insists on the militarization of
space. It will not permit the outer space treaty to explicitly bar military
relations in space. Clinton 's position was that the U.S. should
control space for military purposes. The Bush administration is more extreme.
Their position is the U.S. should own space, their words,
We have to own space for military purposes. So that is the spectrum of
discussion here. The Chinese have been trying to block it and that is well
understood. You read the most respectable journal in the world, I suppose, the
Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and you find leading
strategic analysts, John Steinbrunner and Nancy Gallagher, a couple of years
ago, warning that the Bush administration' s aggressive militarization is leading
to what they call "ultimate doom." Of course, there is going to be a reaction to
it. You threaten people with destruction, they are going to react. These
analysts call on peace-loving nations to counter Bush's aggressive militarism.
They hope that China will
lead peace-loving nations to counter U.S. aggressiveness. It's a pretty
remarkable comment on the impossibility of achieving democracy in the
United
States . Again, the logic is pretty elementary.
Steinbrunner and Gallagher are assuming that the United States cannot be a democratic society;
it's not one of the options, so therefore we hope that maybe China will do
something. Well, China finally
did something. It signaled to the United
States that they noticed that we were trying to use space
for military purposes, so China shot down one of their
satellites. Everyone understands why -- the mili- tarization and weaponization
of space depends on satellites. While missiles are very difficult or maybe
impossible to stop, satellites are very easy to shoot down. You know where they
are. So China is saying, "Okay, we understand
you are militarizing space. We're going to counter it not by militarizing space,
we can't compete with you that way, but by shooting down your satellites." That
is what was behind the satellite shooting. Every military analyst certainly
understood it and every lay person can understand it. But take a look at the
debate. The discussion was about, "Is China trying it conquer the world by
shooting down one of its own satellites?" About a year ago there was a new
rash of articles and headlines on the front page about the "Chinese military
build-up." The Pentagon claimed that China had increased its offensive
military capacity -- with 400 missiles, which could be nuclear armed. Then we
had a debate about whether that proves China is trying to conquer the world
or the numbers are wrong, or something. Just a little footnote. How many
offensive nuclear armed missiles does the United States
have? Well, it turns out to be 10,000. China may now have maybe 400, if you
believe the hawks. That proves that they are trying to conquer the world.
It turns out, if you read the
international press closely, that the reason China is building up its military
capacity is not only because of U.S. aggressiveness all over the place, but the
fact that the United States has improved its targeting capacities so it can now
destroy missile sites in a much more sophisticated fashion wherever they are,
even if they are mobile. So who is trying to conquer the world? Well, obviously
the Chinese because since we own it, they are trying to conquer it.
It's all too easy to continue
with this indefinitely. Just pick your topic. It's a good exercise to try. This
simple principle, "we own the world," is sufficient to explain a lot of the
discussion about foreign affairs. I will just finish with a word
from George Orwell. In the introduction to Animal Farm he said,
England is a free society, but it's
not very different from the totalitarian monster I have been describing. He says
in England unpopular ideas can be
suppressed without the use of force. Then he goes on to give some dubious
examples. At the end he turns to a very brief explanation, actually two
sentences, but they are to the point. He says, one reason is the press is owned
by wealthy men who have every reason not to want certain ideas to be expressed.
And the second reason -- and I think a more important one -- is a good
education. If you have gone to the best schools and graduated from Oxford and Cambridge , and so on, you have instilled in you
the understanding that there are certain things it would not do to say;
actually, it would not do to think. That is the primary way to prevent unpopular
ideas from being expressed. The ideas of the overwhelming
majority of the population, who don't attend Harvard, Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge , enable them to react like human
beings, as they often do. There is a lesson there for activists
In the much despised Soviet Union , there was a quaint custom of electing an
excellent milkmaid or a good blacksmith into the state parliament. Actually, in
my view, milkmaids and steelmakers are perfectly able to manage a country, even
better than politicians, but these paragons of labor were selected by the hidden
hand of party bosses, approved by masses, and never were given a chance to
manage the country. When the workers were dissatisfied with Gorbachev’s turn for
privatization, the bosses quickly dismissed the parliament, and had sent the
milkmaids and steelmakers home.
