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Title: Review: Terrorising the Neighbourhood Author: Andrew Flood Date: 1992 Language: en Topics: book review, Noam Chomsky, US foreign interventions, Workers Solidarity Source: Retrieved on 9th October 2021 from http://struggle.ws/ws92/chomsky36.html Notes: Published in Workers Solidarity No. 36 â Autumn 1992
Terrorizing the Neighbourhood by Noam Chomsky, (AK Press)
Noam Chomsky is known to many on the left as a leading US dissident.
Fewer people are aware that he is an anarchist. A major part of his
writings deal with American foreign policy and this work is of some
importance as anarchism is often criticised as having no analysis of
imperialism.
Terrorizing the Neighbourhood is based around a speech Chomsky made in
January of 1990, shortly after the US invasion of Panama. It seeks to
map out what US foreign policy meant in the Cold War and what its
probable direction will be in future. It also challenges some of the
established conceptions of what the Cold War meant and as such should be
read not just as an introduction to US foreign policy but also by those
on the left who find now that their world view collapsed with the
collapse of the USSR.
The general presentation of post-war history from Right and Left alike
was of a history dominated by clashes between two superpowers. In fact
the two superpowers were never equal. The Soviet Union never approached
the US in terms of economic or military strength. The Cold War was used
by the rulers of both countries to maintain a concensus at home, a
concensus that kept them both in power. For the most part the war meant
war with its satellites for the Soviet Union. For the US it meant war on
the third world. Both sides used the rhetoric of a threat from the other
to justify its actions and retain a consensus at home in favour of
intervention abroad.
The power of this consensus is demonstrated in the US by the fact that
all the factions of the ruling class were united behind the ârightâ of
the US to intervene anywhere it liked. From liberals to conservatives
this was unchallenged, the arguments that occurred were over tactics.
During the Contra war in Nicaragua the US media freely argued over the
tactics of pulling Nicaragua into line with US interests. Many did not
see the Contra war as the best option yet the ârightâ of the US to
dictate to Nicaragua went for the most part unquestioned.
The end of the Cold War meant the end of the all-powerful Soviet excuse.
Panama was significant because it was the first post war US invasion not
defended by reference to a Soviet âthreatâ. Instead the drug war was
invented as a substitute. Since then a range of âwould be Hitlerâsâ have
been the excuse for US intervention. Perhaps the most remarkable thing
about these new threats has been the willingness of the population to
accept them as real. The Soviet Union at least had real military power,
ICBMâs and nuclear warheads. The new âthreatsâ to world peace seem to
have little more than Uziâs and large quantities of rusting, outdated
Soviet tanks.
Chomsky effectively exposes post-war US foreign policy. It was not about
countering the Soviet Union or even halting the spread of âcommunismâ.
Rather it was about destroying any opposition to US interests throughout
the third world. US interests did not mean what was good for people in
the US but what was good for the $9 billion invested by corporations in
Latin America. Nationalist governments like those of Nicaragua and Cuba
which sought to pursue an independent economic line threatened little
more than the profits of big business. The communists the US was
supposedly fighting included everything from actual Communist parties to
nationalists, priests and community workers.
These are the strengths of Chomskyâs pamphlet, its analysis of what US
policy was about. There is little discussion however about the next
step, the struggle against imperialism of whatever variety. Chomsky ends
with the hope that the introduction of rival imperialist powers in the
shape of Japan and Europe will create a confusion that the âindigenous
popular forcesâ will be able to take advantage of. He sees solidarity
movements in the imperialist heartlands helping these movements through
their own efforts and by influencing âtheirâ governments.
Imperialism however is part and parcel of 20^(th) century capitalism.
Its driving force is not so much in the planning rooms of government
offices but rather the boards of thousands of corporations. Ruling
classes may decide their interests lie in a greater or lesser degree of
intervention but no long term gains can be made in this way. Likewise
nationalist regimes pursuing an independent economic path will be
dependant on whatever policy the imperialists are providing at the time.
Improvements made one year will always be subject to being carpet bombed
the next.
The defeat of imperialism on a permanent basis will require a movement
fighting not only in the fields and towns of Latin America but also in
the cities of the United States. It must be a movement of workers,
controlled by workers. Our role as revolutionaries is not only to
understand the workings of imperialism but also to start laying the
foundations of such a movement.
This should not be an excuse for inactivity now. Our role is to argue
for the defeat of the imperialists wherever they intervene from northern
Ireland to Iraq to Yugoslavia. In Ireland we oppose any involvement in
UN or EC policing operations on behalf of imperialism while starting to
build a movement north and south with the aim of forcing British
withdrawal from the north and the introduction of an anarchist society
based on need and not on greed.