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Article 934 of misc.activism.progressive:
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From: notes@igc.org
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: Chomsky: LOOT 5/91
Message-ID: <1991Oct5.081804.27095@pencil.cs.missouri.edu>
Date: 5 Oct 91 08:18:04 GMT
Sender: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
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Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
The following piece by Noam Chomsky was published in:
Lies of Our Times (LOOT), May 1991
and it's reprinted here with their permission.
_Lies of Our Times_ is a magazine of media criticism. "Our Times"
are the times we live in but they are also the words of the _New
York Times_, the most cited news medium in the United States,
our paper of record. Our "Lies" are more than just literal
falsehoods; they encompass subjects that have been ignored,
hypocrisies, misleading emphases, and hidden premises - all of
the biases which systematically shape reporting.
Published by Sheridan Square Press, Inc. Produced and distributed
by Institute for Media Analysis, Inc. Subscription rate: $24
(US); $32 (Canada, Mexico, W. Europe); $36 (Other). Payable to
the order of Sheridan Square Press. 11 issues a year (combined
July-August issue) of 24 pages each, except December issue is 28
pages -- includes yearly index. Lies Of Our Times, 145 West 4th
Street, New York, NY 10012, (212) 254-1061, Fax: (212) 254-9598
=================================================================
Letter from Lexington
April 12, 1991
Dear LOOT,
"When this war is over," George Bush announced in January, "the
United States, its credibility and its reliability restored, will
have a key leadership role in helping to bring peace to the rest
of the Middle East" (Andrew Rosenthal, "Bush Vows to Tackle
Middle East Issues," _NYT_, Jan. 29, A13). With the war over,
James Baker flew at once to the region, meeting with Israel and
the Arab allies: the six family dictatorships that manage Gulf
oil production, the bloody tyrant who rules Syria, and Egypt. In
a "watershed event," they "endorsed President Bush's broad
framework for dealing with the Middle East," Thomas Friedman
reported (_NYT_, March 11).
Even critics were impressed. Anthony Lewis wrote that the
President is "at the height of his powers" and "has made very
clear that he wants to breathe light into that hypothetical
creature, the Middle East peace process" (_NYT_, March 15).
Helena Cobban found "great inspiration" in Bush's statement that
"The time has come to put an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict,"
words "spoken with commitment by an American president at the
height of his powers" and forming part of his "broad vision of
Middle East peace-building" (_Christian Science Monitor_, March
12, p. 18). John Judis praised James Baker as the hope for
peace, a dove who "has stood for multilateral and diplomatic
solutions" and has "emphasized that the U.S. would have to work
on resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians"
(_In These Times_, Feb. 27).
The _New York Times_ editors saw "a rare window for peace."
"The P.L.O's Iraqi debacle...could bring forward acceptable
negotiating partners" among the Palestinians, permitting "direct
bargaining between Israel and representative Palestinians" (March
11) -- "representative" being a code word for "acceptable to us."
The _Washington Post_ agreed that talks between Israel and the
Arab states were preferable to an "unprepared and unwieldy
international conference," and offer "the best way to make sure
that the Palestinians, once they locate representative and
plausible spokesmen, will receive their regional due" (editorial,
_WP weekly_, March 11-17). The _Wall Street Journal_
announced that although "Bush Hopes for a Solution," "the PLO's
Leaders Must Want One as Well" (headline, p. 1, March 6). The
editors of the _Los Angeles Times_ admonished the Palestinians
that they "will have to do better than" Arafat, even if he is
"their sincere choice." They must abandon the "leadership that
has habitually opted for no-compromise dogmatism at the expense
of conciliation, frequently using assassination to silence
moderate opposition voices within Palestinian ranks" (Feb. 26).
The next day, Israel arrested yet another leading Arab advocate
of Palestinian-Arab dialogue, Dr. Mamdouh al-Aker, subjecting him
to torture as usual and keeping him from his attorney for a month
(_Mideast Mirror_, 27 March) -- the real story about "moderate
opposition voices" for many years, regularly suppressed in favor
of convenient fictions, such as the "no-compromise dogmatism" of
those who have been far closer to the international consensus on
a political settlement than Washington-media rejectionists for 15
years.
It did not pass without notice that a few problems remain. After
hailing the "watershed event," Thomas Friedman added that "The
Arab ministers clearly differed with Mr. Baker on one very
important detail: how to make peace with Israel." They called for
"an international conference under the auspices of the United
Nations" while "Mr. Baker, by contrast, said an international
conference would not be appropriate at this time." "On secondary
issues, such as the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, [the Arab
states] still prefer the safety of the Arab lowest common
denominator -- at least for now."
The official Arab statement after the "watershed event" reveals
another "detail," recorded without comment (Excerpts, _NYT_,
March 12): the Arab allies "demand the full and unconditional
implementation of Security Council Resolution 425" of March 1978,
the first of several calling for Israel's immediate withdrawal
from Lebanon. The plea was renewed by the government of Lebanon
in February 1991, ignored as usual while Israel and its clients
terrorize the region and bomb elsewhere at will (see my "Letter
from Lexington," August 1990).
In the real world, the Arab allies have some company in calling
for an international conference. The matter arises regularly at
the UN, most recently in December 1990, when the call for such a
conference passed 144-2 (US, Israel). In the preceding session,
the Assembly had voted 151-3 (US, Israel, Dominica) for an
international conference to realize the terms of UN Resolution
242, along with "the right to self-determination" for the
Palestinians (UN Draft A/44/L.51, 6 Dec. 1989). A Security
Council resolution in similar terms had been offered by Syria,
Jordan, and Egypt as far back as January 1976 with the support of
the PLO and indeed initiated by it according to Israel. It was
vetoed by the US. Europe, the USSR, the Arab states, and the
world generally have been united for years on such a political
settlement, but the US will not permit it. The facts are
unacceptable, thus eliminated from history.
For twenty years, the US has backed Israeli rejectionism. For
that clear but inexpressible reason, the peace process remains a
"hypothetical creature." There is one simple reason why an
international conference is "unwieldy": participants will support
"the right to self-determination" for the indigenous population.
Friedman observed further that Washington is exploring the idea
event'" hosted by the
US and USSR. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir would find
this preferable to an "open-ended, gang-up-on-Israel
international conference" (_NYT_, March 28, A6). Judis
detected Baker's benign hand in this move towards peace.
In the real world, Washington is willing to allow the Soviet
Union to co-host a ceremonial "event" on the assumption that in
its current straits, it will follow orders. But as Kissinger
warned years ago, Europe and Japan must be kept out of the
diplomacy; they are too independent. The President of the
European Community and its official in charge of Middle East
affairs recently reiterated the EC position expressed in the UN
Resolutions, declaring that "The outside powers should not let
Israel get off the hook once again"; Israel should withdraw from
Lebanon and the occupied territories, and reach a settlement with
Syria on the Syrian Golan Heights (annexed in defiance of a
Security Council resolution and a General Assembly vote of
149-1). But, they added, the EC would have no major role in the
diplomatic process, a US monopoly (Jacques Poos, Eberhard Rhein,
_Mideast Mirror_, 28 March).
In their own quaint way, the media acknowledge these realities.
The _New York Times_ has mentioned that the US is alone in the
world in endorsing Israel's Shamir plan. But "the Soviet Union
has moved away from a policy of confrontation with the United
States and now indicates that it prefers partnership with
Washington in the diplomacy of the region," the _Times_ later
added hopefully under the headline "Soviets Trying to Become Team
Player in Mideast." This "shift away from confrontation" brings
the Soviet Union "closer to the mainstream of Mideast diplomacy"
(Joel Brinkley, _NYT_, Sept. 8, 1989; Alan Cowell, _NYT_,
Dec. 12, 1989). To translate from Newspeak: The Soviet Union may
join Washington off the spectrum of world opinion, becoming a
"team player" in "the mainstream." "The team" is the United
States, "the mainstream" is the position occupied by "the team,"
and the "peace process" is whatever "the team" is doing.
Since 1989, the official "peace process" has been the Baker plan,
which, as Baker announced loud and clear, is identical to the
Shamir plan, more accurately, the coalition plan of Israel's two
major political blocs, Labor and Likud. Palestinians will be
limited to discussing its modalities, with the PLO excluded. The
current pretense is that when "The Palestinians supported Iraq
during the gulf war and endorsed its missile attacks on Israel,
Mr. Baker's response was to freeze the Palestine Liberation
Organization out of his talks" (Friedman, _NYT_, April 14,
"Week in Review," 1). All of Baker's conditions were explicit
long before the gulf war.
The Baker-Shamir-Peres plan had three "Basic Premises." First,
there can be no "additional Palestinian state," Jordan already
being one; there is no issue of Palestinian self-determination,
whatever the foolish and irresponsible world may think. Second,
no PLO; Palestinians may not choose their own representatives.
Third, "There will be no change in the status of Judea, Samaria
and Gaza other than in accordance with the basic guidelines of
the Government" of Israel. The plan then calls for "free
elections" under Israeli military occupation with much of the
Palestinian leadership in prison. The outcome, as Israeli
officials have made clear, is that Palestinians may be allowed to
set local tax rates in Nablus and collect garbage in Ramallah.
Unlike US commentators, the semi-official Egyptian press finds
little "inspiration" in the Bush-Baker rhetoric. Any hopes
evaporated after Baker's March visit, when he underscored
traditional US rejectionism (_al-Ahram_, cited in _Mideast
Mirror_, 27 March). There were no grounds for optimism in the
first place, given that the great power that has long barred any
meaningful peace process has now established that "what we say
goes," as the President put it a few days after "staking out the
high ground."
A central task of the educated classes is to fix clearly the
bounds of opinion. At one extreme, we have Yitzhak Shamir, who
holds that the "land for peace" formula of UN 242 has already
been satisfied. At the other, we have the opposition Labor
Party, which sees advantages for Israel in "territorial
compromise" along the lines of Labor's Allon plan, leaving Israel
in control of the useful land and resources but without
responsibility for most of the Arab population. The US is an
honest broker, merely seeking peace and justice, trying to steer
a path between "the conditions the Arab nations and Israel have
put on their possible participation in any peace conference"
(Friedman, _NYT_, April 13). The world is off the spectrum
entirely.
One technique is to attribute to "good Arabs" positions held by
the Washington-media alliance. Thus in Friedman's version of
history, in Jerusalem in 1977 President Sadat "offered the
Israeli people full peace in return for a full withdrawal from
the Sinai desert" (_NYT_, April 14, "Week in Review"). This
was Menahem Begin's position, while Sadat reiterated the
international consensus. And now, Friedman writes, "The Arab
countries have been demanding that Israel commit itself to an
interpretation of 242 that leaves open the possibility of trading
land for peace" (_NYT_, April 10, 1991). As he knows, they
reject this US-Israeli formula, joining the world in an
interpretation of 242 that calls for political settlement on the
internationally recognized (pre-June 1967) border. Palestinians
and authentic Israeli doves have commonly regarded the Labor-US
"territorial compromise" variety of rejectionism as "much worse
than the Likud's autonomy plan" (Shmuel Toledano, endorsing the
observation of Palestinian moderate Attorney Aziz Shehadah,
_Ha'aretz_, March 8, 1991). The reasons are well-known, but
must remain as deeply buried as the true history.
Washington's rejectionist stance must be adopted as the basis for
reporting and discussion, while its advocates are lauded as doves
who intend to breathe light on the problems of suffering
humanity. The US and Israel can then proceed with the policy
articulated in February 1989 by Defense Secretary Yitzhak Rabin
of the Labor Party, when he informed Peace Now leaders that the
US-PLO dialogue was only a means to divert attention while Israel
suppresses the Intifada by force. The Palestinians "will be
broken," he assured them, reiterating the prediction of Israeli
Arabists 40 years earlier: the Palestinians will "be crushed,"
will die or "turn into human dust and the waste of society, and
join the most impoverished classes in the Arab countries." Or
they will leave, while Russian Jews, now barred from the US by
policies designed to deny them a free choice, flock to an
expanded Israel, leaving the diplomatic issues moot, as the
Baker-Shamir-Peres plan envisions.
New excuses will be devised for old policies, which will be
hailed as generous and forthcoming. Failure will be attributed
to the "no-compromise dogmatism" of the extremists who fail to
adapt to Washington's "broad framework for dealing with the
Middle East," which is by definition right and just.
Sincerely,
Noam Chomsky
Article 947 of misc.activism.progressive:
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From: notes@igc.org
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: Chomsky: LOOT 9/91
Message-ID: <1991Oct7.225657.29939@pencil.cs.missouri.edu>
Date: 7 Oct 91 22:56:57 GMT
Sender: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Organization: PACH
Lines: 269
Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
The following piece bt Noam Chomsky was published in:
Lies of Our Times (LOOT), September 1991
and it's reprinted here with their permission.
_Lies of Our Times_ is a magazine of media criticism. "Our Times"
are the times we live in but they are also the words of the _New
York Times_, the most cited news medium in the United States,
our paper of record. Our "Lies" are more than just literal
falsehoods; they encompass subjects that have been ignored,
hypocrisies, misleading emphases, and hidden premises - all of
the biases which systematically shape reporting.
Published by Sheridan Square Press, Inc. Produced and distributed
by Institute for Media Analysis, Inc. Subscription rate: $24
(US); $32 (Canada, Mexico, W. Europe); $36 (Other). Payable to
the order of Sheridan Square Press. 11 issues a year (combined
July-August issue) of 24 pages each, except December issue is 28
pages -- includes yearly index. Lies Of Our Times, 145 West 4th
Street, New York, NY 10012, (212) 254-1061, Fax: (212) 254-9598
=================================================================
Letter from Lexington
Aug. 12, 1991
Dear LOOT,
Honest journalism is a demanding craft, but the respectable
variety, a very different genre, has its burdens as well. The
aftermath of the Gulf war provides many illustrations. Here is a
small sample.
One essential talent is a tolerance for contradiction. Thus
Patrick Tyler observes that "gaps remain in the Administration's
goal of stemming the Middle East arms race, even as Washington
has become the dominant arms supplier in the region" (July 28,
1991, p. A12). Here we see the familiar conflict between facts
and Truth, facts being what happens in the world, while Truth has
a more august status, emanating from power itself. That the
Administration's goal is to stem the Middle East arms race is
Truth, established by assertion from on high. Washington's
exploitation of the opportunity to sell high tech weapons is mere
fact, too insignificant to undermine Truth.
Washington's inspiring benevolence is another Truth that totters
uneasily alongside recalcitrant fact. Confronting the problem
head on, Tyler writes: "Though Mr. Bush has made it plain that he
will not tolerate needless suffering among Iraqi women and
children, widespread disease and malnutrition have been
documented in the country, but have not yet been addressed." The
last phrase is a euphemism. The translation into English reads:
"but the U.S. and its British puppy dog are blocking efforts to
deal with the civilian catastrophe.
The contradiction between fact and Truth would be overcome if Mr.
Bush were just unaware of the vast and growing civilian
suffering. Pursuing that heroic option, Tyler reports that the
embargo is "hurting the Iraqi people far more than is perceived
in Washington" (_NYT_, June 24, 1991, p. A1). True, "severe
malnutrition and spiraling disease" may have a "devastating
effect on the civilian population," but Mr. Bush hasn't been
told. The dilemma is now resolved: when he learns about the
effects of his sanctions, he will move resolutely to help "Iraqi
women and children," in accord with the principles that he has
"made plain."
The astute reader will have noticed that the contradiction can be
overcome in a different way. It is only _needless_ suffering
that Our Leader will not tolerate. Utilitarian suffering is
quite another thing. In th case in question, the suffering
serves a useful function: to hold the population hostage for
political ends (what is called "terrorism" when done on a far
lesser scale by some official enemy). The suffering is therefore
justified on realistic, pragmatic grounds.
The reasoning is explained by _Times_ chief diplomatic
correspondent Thomas Friedman: Iraqi generals will be induced to
topple Mr. Hussein, "and then Washington would have the best of
all worlds: an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein."
In short, by punishing Iraqi women and children, Washington will
be able to restore the happy days when Saddam's "iron fist...held
Iraq together, much to the satisfaction of the American allies
Turkey and Saudi Arabia," not to speak of the boss in Washington,
who had no problem with the means employed (_NYT_, July 7,
1991, "News of the Week in Review", p. 1).
It wil be quite proper, then, to "have sat by and watched a
country starve for political reasons" (UNICEF's director of
public affairs Richard Reid. That is what will happen, Reid
predicts, unless Iraq is permitted to purchase "massive
quantities of food" -- though it is already far too late for the
children under two, who have stopped growing for six or seven
months because of severe malnutrition, he reports (Kathy Blair,
_Toronto Globe & Mail_, June 17, 1991, p. A1). It is also too
late for the 55,000 children who had died by May (Patrick Tyler,
_NYT_, May 22, 1991, reporting the Harvard medical team study
that predicted another 170,000 child deaths by the end of the
year), and for countless others in a country facing "widespread
starvation," a critical shortage of drugs and a collapsing
medical system, quadrupling of diarrhoeal diseases, outbreaks of
typhoid and cholera in cities with raw sewage flowing in streets
and into rivers, and the other forms of utilitarian suffering
reported by the recent UN Secretary-General's mission
(_Guardian Weekly_ (London), Aug. 4, 1991, p. 9).
If we are lucky, Bush's ex-pal may lend a helpful hand. The
_Wall Street Journal_ observes that Iraq's "clumsy attempt to
hide nuclear-bomb-making equipment from the U.N. may be a
blessing in disguise, U.S. officials say. It assures that the
allies [read: U.S. and U.K.] can keep economic sanctions in place
to squeeze Saddam Hussein without mounting calls to end the
penalties for humanitarian reasons" (_WSJ_, July 5, 1991, p.
1). No annoying noises, then, from the P.C. crowd as we
cheerfully "watch the country starve for political reasons."
The Bush-_Times_ conception of "the best of all worlds" is not
universally shared. London banker Ahmad Chalabi, a spokesman for
the Iraqi democratic opposition, describes the outcome of the war
as "the worst of all possible worlds" for the Iraqi people
(_Wall Street Journal_, April 8, 1991). This apparently
contradiction is also readily resolved. The worst of all
possible worlds for the Iraqi people may well be the best of all
worlds from the perspective of offices in Washington and New
York. Right-thinking people may agree with Chalabi that "the
tragedy in Iraq is awesome," meanwhile recognizing that the
important concerns are those spelled out by the State Department
spokesman at the _Times_. "Before Mr. Hussein invaded Kuwait,"
Friedman writes, "he was a pillar of the gulf balance of power
and status quo preferred by Washington," employing his "iron
fist" with our approval and generous assistance. He made a false
move on August 2, 1990, "but as soon as Mr. Hussein was forced
back into his shell, Washington felt he had become useful
again... That is why Mr. Bush never supported the Kurdish and
Shiite rebellions against Mr. Hussein, or for that matter any
democracy movement in Iraq" (_op. cit._).
That is also why the _Times_ -- in fact, the media generally --
have scrupulously avoided the Iraqi democratic forces (though the
_Wall Street Journal_ deserves credit for allowing them a few
openings well after the splendid triumph). These silly folk had
the bad taste to oppose Washington's plans throughout; much like
the Palestinians, they fail to recognize "the hard realities of
the region" (Serge Schmemann, _NYT_, Aug. 3, 1991, p. A1), and
thus deserve their fate. They were calling for democracy in Iraq
when Saddam's "iron fist" was providing Washington with "the best
of all worlds." They opposed the ruinous U.S.-U.K. war and urged
pursuit of the diplomatic track that was barred by Washington and
virtually suppressed by the media. And finally, compounding
their sins, they are again calling for democracy in Iraq while
Washington seeks to install some clone of Saddam Hussein, but one
who understands that "what we say goes," in the President's fine
words.
Speaking abroad, Chalabi observed in mid-March that Washington
"is waiting for Saddam to butcher the insurgents in the hope that
he can be overthrown later by a suitable officer," an attitude
rooted in the US policy of "supporting dictatorships to maintain
stability." The Bush administration announced that it would
continue to refuse any contact with Iraqi democratic leaders: "We
felt that political meetings with them...would not be appropriate
for our policy at this time," State Department spokesman Richard
Boucher stated on March 14 (_Mideast Mirror_ (London), March
15, 1991). The Department is true to its word. Alan Cowell
reports that Iraqi exiles in Syria say "there has been no reply"
to their letter requesting a meeting with James Baker, "and the
embassy's doors remain closed to them," as in Washington, London,
and elsewhere (_NYT_, April 11, 1991, A11).
The traditional U.S. opposition to democratic forces poses a
constant challenge for the vigilant defenders of Truth. In the
present case, the respectable commentator must play down the U.S.
military tactics: to create maximum long-lasting damage to the
civilian society for the political end of restoring the "iron
fist"; and to massacre defenseless conscripts (mostly Shi'ite and
Kurdish peasants, apparently) hiding in holes in the sand or
fleeing for their lives while elite units were released to do
their necessary work and U.S. forces were spared any danger of
combat. Reporting from northern Iraq, American correspondent
Charles Glass described how journalists watched as "Republican
Guards, supported by regular army brigades, mercilessly shelled
Kurdish-held areas with Katyusha multiple rocket launchers,
helicopter gunships and heavy artillery," while they tuned in to
listen to Stormin' Norman puffing on about how "We had destroyed
the Republican Guard as a militarily effective force" and
eliminated the military use of helicopters (_Spectator_,
London, April 13, 1991) -- not the stuff of which heroes are
manufactured, therefore finessed, though the story could not be
totally ignored at home.
Striving manfully to reconcile fact with Truth, _Times_ Middle
East correspondent Alan Cowell attributes the failure of the
rebels to the fact that "very few people outside Iraq wanted them
to win." Here the concept "people" has its standard meaning in
respectable journalism: "people who count." The "allied campaign
against President Hussein brought the United States and its Arab
coalition partners to a strikingly unanimous view," Cowell
continues: "whatever the sins of the Iraqi leader, he offered the
West and the region a better hope for his country's stability
than did those who have suffered his repression" (_op. cit._).
These "Arab coalition partners" are a merry crew: six family
dictatorships, Syria's Hafez el-Assad (indistinguishable from
President Hussein), and Egypt, the sole Arab ally with a degree
of internal freedom. We therefore look to the semi-official
press in Egypt to verify Cowell's report of the "strikingly
unanimous view." His article is datelined Damascus, April 10.
The day before, Deputy Editor Salaheddin Hafez of Egypt's leading
daily, _al-Ahram_, commented on Saddam's demolition of the
rebels "under the umbrella of the Western alliance's forces." The
U.S. stance proved what Egypt had been saying all along, Hafez
wrote. American rhetoric about "the savage beast, Saddam
Hussein," was merely a cover for the true goals: to cut Iraq down
to size and establish US hegemony in the region. The West turned
out to be in total agreement with the beast on the need to "block
any progress and abort all hopes, however dim, for freedom or
equality and for progress towards democracy," working in
"collusion with Saddam himself" if necessary (_al-Ahram_, April
9, 1991; quoted in _Mideast Mirror_ (London), April 10).
There was, indeed, some regional support for the U.S. stance. In
Israel, many commentators (including leading doves) agreed with
retiring Chief-of-Staff Dan Shomron that it is preferable for
Saddam Hussein to remain in power in Iraq (Ron Ben-Yishai,
interview with Shomron, _Ha'aretz_, March 29; Shalom
Yerushalmi, "We are all with Saddam," _Kol Ha'ir_, April 4,
1991). Others welcomed the suppression of the Kurds because of
"the latent ambition of Iran and Syria to exploit the Kurds and
create a territorial, military, contiguity between Teheran and
Damascus -- a contiguity which embodies danger for Israel" (Moshe
Zak, senior editor of _Ma'ariv_, _Jerusalem Post_. April 4,
1991). But all this was unhelpful, therefore suppressed.]
Another task is to show that despite the outcome, it was indeed a
Grand Victory. Tacit U.S. support for the slaughter of the Kurds
posed some difficulties, which would have been even more severe
had the media deigned to report the testimony of Western doctors
and other observers on Turkish bombing of hundreds of Kurdish
villages and the hundreds of thousands of Kurds in flight, trying
to surve the cold winter while aid was barred by the government
and Mr. Bush hailed the Turkish leader Turgut Ozal as "a
protector of peace," joining those who "stand up for civilized
values around the world." But the tragedy of the Shi'ites, who
appear to have suffered much worse destruction and terror under
the gaze of the heroic Schwartzkopf, was readily put to the side;
they are, after all, mere Arabs.
This task too was accomplished. In its anniversary editorial,
the _Times_ editors dismissed the qualms of "the doubters,"
concluding that Mr. Bush had acted wisely: he "avoided the
quagmire and preserved his two triumphs: the extraordinary
cooperation among coalition members and the revived
self-confidence of Americans," who "greeted the Feb. 28
cease-fire with relief and pride -- relief at miraculously few
U.S. casualties and pride in the brilliant performance of the
allied forces" (_NYT_, Aug. 2, 1991). Surely these "triumphs"
far outweigh the "awesome tragedies" in the region.
One can appreciate the mood of the nonpeople of the world, rarely
reported here. It is captured by Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns of
Sao Paolo, Brazil, who writes that in the Arab countries "the
rich sided with the U.S. government while the _millions_ of
poor condemned this military aggression," and throughout the
Third World, "there is hatred and fear: When will they decide to
invade us," and on what pretext?
Sincerely,
Noam Chomsky
Article 944 of misc.activism.progressive:
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From: notes@igc.org
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: Chomsky: LOOT 10/91
Message-ID: <1991Oct8.092306.2228@pencil.cs.missouri.edu>
Date: 8 Oct 91 09:23:06 GMT
Sender: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Organization: PACH
Lines: 253
Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
The following piece by Noam Chomsky was published in:
Lies of Our Times (LOOT), October 1991
and it's reprinted here with their permission.
_Lies of Our Times_ is a magazine of media criticism. "Our Times"
are the times we live in but they are also the words of the _New
York Times_, the most cited news medium in the United States,
our paper of record. Our "Lies" are more than just literal
falsehoods; they encompass subjects that have been ignored,
hypocrisies, misleading emphases, and hidden premises - all of
the biases which systematically shape reporting.
Published by Sheridan Square Press, Inc. Produced and distributed
by Institute for Media Analysis, Inc. Subscription rate: $24
(US); $32 (Canada, Mexico, W. Europe); $36 (Other). Payable to
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Letter from Lexington
Sept. 8, 1991
Dear LOOT,
The important events of late August in the Soviet Union have
elicited some curious coverage and commentary. The U.S. was a
distant and passive observer, and Washington basically had no
policy, simply watching events run their course. That picture,
however, is not acceptable.
The required version is that the U.S. is a benign if sometimes
stern guardian of international order and morality, guiding
errant elements along a constructive path. George Bush, in
particular, has been assigned the image of Great Statesman, with
extraordinary talent for diplomacy and global management. The
picture is about as plausible as the tales of Ronald Reagan, the
Great Communicator, who initiated a modern revolution -- a
construction quickly put to rest when this pathetic figure was no
longer useful, and it could be conceded that he hadn't a thought
in his head and was scarcely able to read his lines. With regard
to Reagan's successor, the evidence for his consummate skills, to
date, reduces to his unquestioned ability to follow the
prescriptions of an early National Security Policy Review of his
administration, which advised that failure to defeat "much weaker
enemies...decisively and rapidly" would be "embarrassing" and
might "undercut political support," understood to be thin
(Maureen Dowd, _NYT_, Feb. 23, 1991).
To reconcile reality with preferred image, there were some
gestures towards Bush's allegedly critical role in bringing the
August crisis to a successful conclusion. But the efforts were
pretty feeble, and lacked spirit. Some, however, deserve credit
for trying. Take regular _Boston Globe_ columnist John Silber,
the president of Boston University and a likely aspirant to high
political office ("Democrats' disarray boosts Bush's apparent
invulnerability," _BG_, Sept 1, 1991). Silber repeats the
standard doctrine that "the president's skill in dealing with the
demise of communism heightens the disarray of the Democratic
Party." In particular, "President Bush's handling of the failed
coup in the USSR has been masterly. His well-publicized
telephone calls to Boris Yeltsin put the United States firmly on
the side of the democratic resistance, a position cemented by the
shrewd decision to send Ambassador Strauss to Moscow immediately,
with instructions to ignore the junta."
In the face of such brilliant and imaginative moves on the
diplomatic chess board, what can the opposition do but wring its
hands in despair?
The lack of policy was evident from James Baker's briefing after
the coup had collapsed ("Baker's Remarks: Policy on Soviets,"
_NYT_, Sept. 5, 1991). The Secretary of State presented a
"four-part agenda." Three parts were the kind of pieties that
speech writers produce while dozing: we want democracy, the rule
of law, economic reform, settlement of security problems, etc.
One part of the agenda did, however, have a modicum of substance,
the third item, on "Soviet foreign policy." Here, Baker focused
on his "efforts to convene a peace conference to launch direct
negotiations and thereby to facilitate a viable peacemaking
process in the Middle East." As _Times_ diplomatic
correspondent Thomas Friedman explains in an accompanying gloss,
the Soviet Union should "work together with the United States on
foreign policy initiatives like Middle East peace."
What is of interest here is what was missing. "Soviet foreign
policy" does indeed have a role in the Bush-Baker Middle East
endeavor. The Soviet role is to provide a (very thin) cover for
a unilateral U.S. initiative that may at last realize the U.S.
demand, stressed by Kissinger years ago, that Europe and Japan be
kept out of the diplomacy of the region. Baker's phrase "direct
negotiations" is the conventional Orwellian term for the leading
principle of U.S.-Israeli rejectionism: the framework of the
"peace process" must be restricted to state-to-state
negotiations, effectively excluding the indigenous population and
any consideration of their national rights and concerns. They
offer no services to U.S. and, accordingly, have no meaningful
rights. That is the core principle of the rigid rejectionism
that the U.S. has upheld for 20 years in virtual international
isolation (apart from both major political groupings in Israel),
and now feels that it may be in a position to impose.
These matters, however, fail the test of political correctness,
and therefore are given no expression in the mainstream. As
noted earlier in these columns, even the basic terms of the
Baker-Shamir-Peres plan, to which negotiations are restricted,
have fallen under this ban.
With the USSR gone from the scene, another foreign policy goal
may be within reach: "replacement of the Castro regime with one
more devoted to the true interests of the Cuban people and more
acceptable to the U.S.," a goal that we must achieve "in such a
manner as to avoid any appearance of U.S. intervention." These
are the words of the March 1960 planning document of the
Eisenhower administration that set in motion the subversion and
economic warfare sharply escalated by John F. Kennedy and
continued by his successors (Jules R. Benjamin, _The United
States and the Origins of the Cuban Revolution_, Princeton, 1990,
207).
If Washington is to achieve its longstanding goals in the
required manner -- avoiding "any appearance of U.S. intervention"
-- the ideological institutions must play their part. Crucially,
they must suppress the record of aggression, vast campaigns of
terror, economic strangulation, cultural quarantine, intimidation
of anyone who might seek to disrupt the ban, and the other
devices available to the superpower overseer dedicated to "the
true interests of the Cuban people." Cuba's plight must be
attributed to the demon Castro and "Cuban socialism" alone. They
bear full responsibility for the "poverty, isolation and humbling
dependence" on the USSR, the _New York Times_ editors inform
us (Sept. 8, 1991), concluding triumphantly that "the Cuban
dictator has painted himself into his own corner," without any
help from us. That being the case, by doctrinal necessity, we
should not intervene directly as some "U.S. cold warriors"
propose: "Fidel Castro's reign deserves to end in home-grown
failure, not martyrdom." Staking their position at the dovish
extreme, the editors advise that we should continue to stand
aside, doing nothing, watching in silence, as we have been doing
for 30 years, so the naive reader would learn from this (quite
typical) version of history.
The enhanced ability of the U.S. to achieve its goals without
deterrence or interference is not exactly welcome news in most of
the world. But we are unlikely to hear very much about the
trepidations of the Third World over "the breakdown of
international military equilibrium which somehow served to
contain U.S. yearnings for domination" (Mario Benedetti, _La
Epoca_, Chile, May 4, 1991). Nor were we informed of Third World
reactions when Dimitri Simes, senior associate at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, observed in the _New York
Times_ that the "apparent decline in the Soviet threat...makes
military power more useful as a United States foreign policy
instrument...against those who contemplate challenging important
American interests" -- the "threat" being the deterrent to U.S.
military power and the support afforded targets of U.S.
subversion and violence ("If the Cold War Is Over, Then What?,"
_NYT_, Dec. 27, 1988). The fears, however, are very real,
particularly after the U.S.-U.K. operations in the Gulf. They
will be readily understood by anyone who can escape the doctrinal
straightjacket.
The improved conditions for U.S. subversion and violence do not,
however, offer the right note to sound on the occasion of the
demise of the official enemy. For reflections on more exalted
themes, we may turn to _New York Times_ correspondent Richard
Bernstein, who muses on the "New Issues Born From Communism's
Death Knell" (_NYT_, Aug. 31, 1991, p. 1).
For more than 70 years, Bernstein explains, "the fiercest
arguments and the sharpest conflicts among intellectuals" have
been "about Marxism-Leninism and social revolution, about the
nature of the Soviet Union and about the existence of Communism
as a major ideological force in a bipolar world." "The most
obvious power exercised by the Soviet Union over the Western
mind," he continues, "was its extraordinary power of attraction,
its capacity to instill idealistic visions of a new world in
which exploitation would be swept away by a tide of revolution."
After the appeal of the USSR itself faded, "the debate took on
new forms": "from the 1960's to the 1980's, an argument
raged...about...countries like China, Ethiopia, Cuba and
Nicaragua, which seemed to many on the left to embody the
revolutionary virtues admittedly tarnished in the Soviet Union
itself." Throughout, the Cold War conflict "had the effect of
polarizing the domestic debate" in the U.S. between these two
ideological extremes, Harvard Professor Joseph Nye observes. But
with "the debate about Communism" losing "its force and
centrality," Bernstein asks, "what issues will consume left and
right, liberals and conservatives, in the future?" Perhaps the
newspapers and journals of opinion will expire, now that the
all-consuming issues are dying away, no longer "raging" in their
pages.
Let us put aside the accuracy of this account of "the left"; and,
for the sake of argument, let us also accept the picture of
"the arguments and conflicts" that have "polarized the domestic
debate" for over 70 years. We now ask a simple question. How
has this central debate of the modern era been reflected in the
_New York Times_, the Newspaper of Record, dedicated to the
highest standards of journalistic integrity, free and open to all
shades of thought and opinion?
The question has, in fact, been investigated, beginning with the
classic 1920 study of _Times_ coverage of the Bolshevik
revolution by Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz, who demonstrated
that it was "nothing short of a disaster...from the point of view
of professional journalism," merely vulgar jingoism and
subservience to the state both in editorial policy and in the
news columns that this policy "profoundly and crassly
influenced." Moving to the present, there has been extensive
study of _Times_ coverage of the "raging" issue of Nicaragua,
demonstrating that the Lippmann-Merz critique remains quite
accurate. News coverage was, as usual, "profoundly and crassly
influenced" by the doctrine of service to state power that
defines the editorial stance. Even columns and op-eds were
restricted, with startling uniformity, to the politically correct
doctrine that the Sandinista curse must be expunged and Nicaragua
restored to the "regional standards" of such more acceptable
models as El Salvador and Guatemala. In the years between, the
record is much the same as in these two extraordinary cases.
Not every topic has been investigated. Thus, I do not know of
studies of _Times_ coverage of the "raging debate" over the
revolutionary virtues of Ethiopia or of _Times_ expositions of
the "extraordinary power of attraction" of Marxism-Leninism and
its "capacity to instill idealistic visions" of revolution and
utopia. Even if we translate these rhetorical flights to
something resembling reality, however, we know exactly what we
will discover about just how open the Newspaper of Record has
been to debate, discussion, even inconvenient fact.
In brief, for more than 70 years the _New York Times_ (hardly
alone, of course) and state-corporate power have marched in
impressive unison. Now, hearing "Communism's Death Knell," it is
permissible to concede that there were some burning issues,
though not to present them in a sane and meaningful form. And it
must pass entirely without notice, not even a faint flicker of
recognition, that the real issues have been virtually excluded
from the doctrinal system. It's an intriguing performance.
The "death knell" of Soviet tyranny has indeed sounded, though
what takes its place may also not be too pleasant to behold. But
Stalinist values remain alive and well, and the cultural
commissars have no end of work ahead of them.
Sincerely,
Noam Chomsky