Stoakes writes: "Intervention in Syria is not advocated by careful observers
on the scene with close knowledge of the current situation - Patrick
Cockburn, Charles Glass, quite a few others who are bitter critics of Assad.
They warn, with no little plausibility I think, that it might well
exacerbate the crisis."
Noam Chomsky. (photo: Andrew Rusk)
Noam Chomsky: My Hopes for the Future
By Emanuel Stoakes, Jacobin
28 November 15
Noam Chomsky on ISIS, his foreign policy critics, and why socialist ideas
are never far below the surface.
Noam Chomsky, to rehearse a cliché, is among the worlds greatest living
radical intellectuals. It is no less trite or true to add that he is also a
broadly controversial figure: accused from various corners of a variety of
failings ranging from genocide denial to rigid, amoral quietism in the
face of mass atrocities. Most recently, critics of dissimilar political hues
claim to have identified a range of follies in his statements on Syria.
In the following interview, freelance journalist Emanuel Stoakes puts some
of these criticisms to Chomsky.
While reasserting his opposition to full-scale military intervention,
Chomsky says he does not in principle oppose the idea of a no-fly zone
established alongside a humanitarian corridor (though Putins recent
interventions have all but killed the possibility of the former option).
Chomsky also clarifies his positions on the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and
NATOs 1999 intervention in Kosovo.
In addition to answering his critics, Chomsky gives his thoughts on a wide
range of other topics: what should be done to combat ISIS, the significance
of popular struggles in South America, and the future of socialism.
As always, his underlying belief in our capacity to build a better society
shines through.
________________________________________
Whats your reaction to the attacks in Paris earlier this month, and what do
you think of the current Western strategy of bombing ISIS?
The current strategy plainly is not working. The ISIS statements, both for
this and the Russian airliner, were very explicit: you bomb us and you will
suffer. They are a monstrosity, and these are terrible crimes, but it
doesnt help to hide our heads in the sand.
The best outcome would be if ISIS were destroyed by local forces, which
could happen, but it will require that Turkey agree. And the outcome could
be just as bad if the jihadi elements supported by Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi
Arabia are the victors.
The optimal outcome would be a negotiated settlement of the kind being
inched towards in Vienna, combined with the above. Long shots.
Like it or not, ISIS seems to have established itself pretty firmly in Sunni
areas of Iraq and Syria. They seem to be engaged in a process of state
building that is extremely brutal but fairly successful, and attracts the
support of Sunni communities who may despise ISIS but see it as the only
defense against alternatives that are even worse. The one major regional
power that is opposing it is Iran, but the Iran-backed Shiite militias are
reputed to be as brutal as ISIS and probably mobilize support for ISIS.
The sectarian conflicts that are tearing the region to shreds are
substantially a consequence of the Iraq invasion. Thats what Middle East
specialist Graham Fuller, a former CIA analyst, means when he says that I
think the United States is one of the key creators of this organization.
Destruction of ISIS by any means that can be imagined might lay the basis
for something worse, as has been happening quite regularly with military
intervention. The state system in the region imposed by French and British
imperial might after World War I, with little concern for the populations
under their control, is unraveling.
The future looks bleak, though there are some patches of light, as in the
Kurdish areas. Steps can be taken to reduce many of the tensions in the
region and to constrain and reduce the outlandishly high level of armament,
but it is not clear what more outside powers can do apart from fanning the
flames, as they have been doing for years.
Earlier this year, we saw the Greek government struggling with its creditors
to work out a deal. Its tempting to view this showdown, as well as the
crisis as a whole, as less a case of the EU trying to manage a debt crisis
in the common interests of the union and more as a battle between Greek
society and those who benefit from austerity. Would you agree? How do you
view the situation?
There has been no serious effort to manage a debt crisis. The policies
imposed on Greece by the troika sharply exacerbated the crisis by
undermining the economy and blocking hopeful chances for growth. The
debt-to-GDP ratio is now far higher than it was before these policies were
instituted, and theres been a terrible toll on the people of Greece
though the German and French banks that bear a large part of responsibility
for the crisis are doing fine.
The so-called bailouts for Greece mostly went into the pockets of the
creditors, as much as 90 percent by some estimates. Former Bundesbank chief
Karl Otto Pöhl observed very plausibly that the whole affair was about
protecting German banks, but especially the French banks, from debt
write-offs.
Commenting in the leading US establishment journal Foreign Affairs, Mark
Blyth, one of the most cogent critics of the destructive
austerity-under-depression programs, writes, Weve never understood Greece
because we have refused to see the crisis for what it was a continuation
of a series of bailouts for the financial sector that started in 2008 and
that rumbles on today.
It is recognized on all sides that the debt cannot be paid. It should have
been radically restructured long ago, when the crisis could have easily been
managed, or simply declared odious and cancelled.
The ugly face of contemporary Europe is presented by German Finance Minister
Schäuble, apparently the most popular political figure in Germany. As
reported by Reuters news service, he explained that a write-off of some of
Europes loans to Greece might be needed to get the countrys debt to a
manageable level, while he in the same breath ruled out such a step. In
brief, weve milked you about as dry as we can, so get lost. And much of the
population is literally getting lost, with hopes for decent survival
smashed.
Actually Greeks are not yet quite milked dry. The shameful settlement
imposed by the banks and bureaucracy includes measures to ensure that Greek
assets will be taken over by the right greedy hands.
Germanys role is particularly shameful, not just because Nazi Germany
devastated Greece, but also because, as Thomas Piketty pointed out in Die
Zeit, Germany is really the single best example of a country that,
throughout its history, has never repaid its external debt. Neither after
the First nor the Second World War.
The London Agreement of 1953 wiped out over half of Germanys debt, laying
the basis for its economic recovery, and currently, Piketty added, far from
being generous, these days Germany is profiting from Greece as it extends
loans at comparatively high interest rates. The whole business is sordid.
The policies of austerity that have been imposed on Greece (and on Europe
generally) were always absurd from an economic point of view, and have been
a complete disaster for Greece. As weapons of class war, however, they have
been rather effective in undermining welfare systems, enriching the northern
banks and the investor class, and driving democracy to the margins.
The behavior of the troika today is a disgrace. One can scarcely doubt that
their goal is to establish firmly the principle that the masters must be
obeyed: defiance of the northern banks and the Brussels bureaucracy will not
be tolerated, and thoughts of democracy and popular will in Europe must be
abandoned.
Do you think the struggle taking place over Greeces future is
representative of a lot of what is happening in the world at the moment
i.e., a struggle between the needs of society and the demands of capitalism?
If so, do you see much hope for decent human outcomes when the trump cards
all seem to be held by a small number of people linked to private power?
In Greece, and in Europe more generally in varying degrees, some of the most
admirable achievements of the postwar years are being reversed under a
destructive version of the neoliberal assault on the global population of
the past generation.
But it can be reversed. Among the most obedient students of the neoliberal
orthodoxy were the countries of Latin America, and not surprisingly, they
were also among those who suffered the worst harm. But in recent years they
have led the way towards rejecting the orthodoxy, and more generally, for
the first time in five hundred years are taking significant steps towards
unification, freeing themselves from imperial (in the past century US)
domination, and confronting the shocking internal problems of potentially
rich societies that had been traditionally governed by wealthy
foreign-oriented (mostly white) elites in a sea of misery.
Syriza in Greece might have signaled a similar development, which is why it
had to be smashed so savagely. There are other reactions in Europe and
elsewhere that could turn the tide and lead to a much better future.
The twentieth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre passed this year. It
has emerged that the US watched the killing take place in real time from
satellites, and that many of the worlds great powers were negligent or
worse when it came to making efforts to prevent predictable slaughter there.
What do you think should have been done at the time? Do you think, for
example, that the Bosnian Muslims should have been given a greater chance to
defend themselves far earlier, for example?
Srebrenica was a barely protected safe area and we should not forget that
thanks to that status, it was as a base for Nasir Orics murderous Bosnian
militias to attack surrounding Serb villages, taking a brutal toll and
boasting of the achievement. That there would sooner or later be a Serb
response was not too surprising, and measures should have been taken to
prevent predictable slaughter, to borrow your words.
The best approach, which might have been feasible, would have been to reduce
and maybe end the hostilities in the region rather than allowing them to
escalate.
Youve come in for a lot of criticism for your position on the Kosovo
intervention. My (perhaps mistaken) understanding is that you believe there
were alternatives to the bombing, and that the violence could have been
stopped if there had been greater political will to find a diplomatic
solution. Is that right? Can you outline what could have been done as an
alternative?
I havent seen criticisms of my position on the intervention, and there are
unlikely to be any, for the simple reason that I scarcely took a position.
As I made explicit in what I wrote on the topic (The New Military Humanism),
I hardly even discussed the propriety of the NATO intervention. Thats
clearly stated in the early pages.
The topic is indeed brought up, three pages from the end, noting that what
precedes the entire book leaves the question of what should have been
done in Kosovo unanswered, though it seems a reasonable judgment that
the US was selecting one of the more harmful of several options available.
As explained clearly and unambiguously from the outset, even from the title,
the book is about a wholly different topic: the import of the Kosovo events
for the new era of principles and values led by the enlightened states
whose foreign policy has entered a noble phase with a saintly glow (to
quote some of the celebratory rhetoric reviewed).
That very important topics must be sharply distinguished from the question
of what should have been done, which I scarcely addressed. An important
topic, and evidently an unpopular one, best avoided. I dont recall even
seeing a mention of the subject of the entire book in the critical
commentary on it.
I did review the diplomatic options available, pointing out that the
settlement after seventy-eight days of bombing was a compromise between the
NATO and Serbian pre-bombing positions.
A year later, after the war ended, in my book A New Generation Draws the
Line, I reviewed in extensive detail the rich Western documentary record on
the immediate background to the bombing. It reveals that there was a steady
level of violence divided between KLA guerrillas attacking from Albania and
a brutal Serb response, and that the atrocities were very sharply escalated
after the bombing, exactly as was predicted publicly, and to US authorities
privately, by commanding Gen. Wesley Clark.
If there has been criticism of what I actually wrote, I havent seen it,
though youre right that there has been a great deal of furious condemnation
namely, of what I didnt write.
As to a possible alternative, there were what seemed to be fairly promising
diplomatic options. Whether they could have worked, we dont know, since
they were ignored in favor of bombing.
The usual interpretation, which Ive reviewed elsewhere, is that the bombing
was motivated by a sharp upsurge of atrocities. This reversal of the
chronology is quite standard, and useful to establish the legitimacy of NATO
violence. The upsurge of atrocities was the consequence of the bombing, not
its cause and as noted, was predicted quite publicly and authoritatively.
What do you think was the real objective of NATOs Balkan intervention?
If we can believe the US-UK leadership, the real objective was to establish
the credibility of NATO (there were other pretexts, but they quickly
collapse). As Tony Blair summarized the official reason, failure to bomb
would have dealt a devastating blow to the credibility of NATO, and the
world would have been less safe as a result of that though, as I reviewed
in some detail, the world overwhelmingly disagreed, often very sharply.
Establishing credibility basically, the Mafia principle is a
significant feature of great power policy. A deeper look suggests motives
beyond those officially stressed.
Do you oppose military intervention under any circumstances during dire
humanitarian disasters? What are the conditions that would make it
acceptable from your point of view?
Pure pacifists would always oppose military intervention. I am not one, but
I think that like any resort to violence, it carries a heavy burden of
proof. Its impossible to give a general answer as to when it is justified,
apart from some useless formulas.
It is not easy to find genuine cases where intervention has been justified.
Ive reviewed the historical and scholarly record. Its very thin. Two
possible examples stand out in the postWorld War II period: the Vietnamese
invasion of Cambodia, terminating Khmer Rouge crimes as they were peaking;
and the Indian invasion of Pakistan that ended the hideous atrocities in the
former East Pakistan.
These two cases do not enter the standard canon, however, because of the
fallacy of wrong agency and because they were both bitterly opposed by
Washington, which reacted in quite ugly ways.
Moving on to Syria, we see an appalling humanitarian situation and no end in
sight in terms of the internecine warfare taking place. I know some Syrian
activists who are furious at what they perceive to be your tolerance of the
immense misery being experienced by people living with barrel bombs and so
on; they say this because they think you are opposed to any kind of
intervention against Assad, however limited, on ideological grounds.
Is this accurate or fair? Would you support the idea of a no-fly zone, with
an enforced humanitarian corridor? Can you clarify your position on Syria?
If intervention against Assad would mitigate or end the appalling situation,
it would be justified. But would it? Intervention is not advocated by
careful observers on the scene with close knowledge of Syria and the current
situation Patrick Cockburn, Charles Glass, quite a few others who are
bitter critics of Assad. They warn, with no little plausibility I think,
that it might well exacerbate the crisis.
The record of military intervention in the region has been awful with very
rare exceptions, a fact that can hardly be overlooked. No-fly zones,
humanitarian corridors, support for the Kurds, and some other measures would
be likely to be helpful. But while it is easy to call for military
intervention, it is no simple matter to provide reasoned and
well-thought-out plans, taking into account likely consequences. I havent
seen any.
One can imagine a world in which intervention is undertaken by some benign
force dedicated to the interests of people who are suffering. But if we care
about victims, we cannot make proposals for imaginary worlds. Only for this
world, in which intervention, with rare consistency, is undertaken by powers
dedicated to their own interests, where the victims and their fate is
incidental, despite lofty professions.
The historical record is painfully clear, and there have been no miraculous
conversions. That does not mean that intervention can never be justified,
but these considerations cannot be ignored at least, if we care about the
victims.
Looking back at your long life of activism and scholarship, what cause or
issue are you most glad to have supported? Conversely, what are your
greatest regrets do you wish that you had done more on certain fronts?
I cant really say. There are many that Im glad to have supported, to a
greater or lesser degree. The cause that I pursued most intensely, from the
early 1960s, was the US wars in Indochina, the most severe international
crime in the postWorld War II era. That included speaking, writing,
organizing, demonstrations, civil disobedience, direct resistance, and the
expectation, barely averted more or less by accident, of a possible long
prison sentence.
Some other engagements were similar, but not at that level of intensity. And
each case has regrets, always the same ones: too little, too late, too
ineffective, even when there were some real achievements of the dedicated
struggles of many people in which I was privileged to be able to participate
in some way.
What gives you the most hope about the future? Do you feel that young people
in the US that you have interacted with are different from some of those you
dealt with decades before? Have social attitudes changed for the better?
Hopes for the future are always about the same: courageous people, often
under severe duress, refusing to bow to illegitimate authority and
persecution, others devoting themselves to support and to combatting
injustice and violence, young people who sincerely want to change the world.
And the record of successes, always limited, sometimes reversed, but over
time bending the arc of history towards justice, to borrow the words that
Martin Luther King made famous in word and deed.
How do you view the future of socialism? Are you inspired by developments in
South America? Are there lessons for the Left in North America?
Like other terms of political discourse, socialism can mean many different
things. I think one can trace an intellectual and practical trajectory from
the Enlightenment to classical liberalism, and (after its wreckage on the
shoals of capitalism, in Rudolf Rockers evocative phrase) on to the
libertarian version of socialism that converges with leading anarchist
tendencies.
My feeling is that the basic ideas of this tradition are never far below the
surface, rather like Marxs old mole, always about to break through when the
right circumstances arise, and the right flames are lit by engaged
activists.
What has taken place in recent years in South America is of historic
significance, I think. For the first time since the conquistadors, the
societies have taken steps of the kind I outlined earlier. Halting steps,
but very significant ones.
The basic lesson is that if this can be achieved under harsh and brutal
circumstances, we should be able to do much better enjoying a legacy of
relative freedom and prosperity, thanks to the struggles of those who came
before us.
Do you agree with Marxs prognosis that capitalism will eventually destroy
itself? Do you think that an alternative way of life and system of economics
can take hold before such an implosion occurs, with potentially chaotic
consequences? What should ordinary people concerned with the survival of
their family, and that of the world, do?
Marx studied an abstract system that has some of the central features of
really-existing capitalism, but not others, including the crucial state role
in development and in sustaining predatory institutions. Like much of the
financial sector, which in the US depends for most of its profits on the
implicit government insurance program, according to a recent IMF study
over $80 billion, a year according to the business press.
Large-scale state intervention has been a leading feature of the developed
societies from England to the US to Europe and to Japan and its former
colonies, up to the present moment. The technology that we are now using, to
take one example. Many mechanisms have been developed that might preserve
existing forms of state capitalism.
The existing system may well destroy itself for different reasons, which
Marx also discussed. We are now heading, eyes open, towards an environmental
catastrophe that might end the human experiment just as it is wiping out
species at a rate not seen since 65 million years ago when a huge asteroid
hit the earth and now we are the asteroid.
There is more than enough for ordinary people (and were all ordinary
people) to do to fend off disasters that are not remote and to construct a
far more free and just society.
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Noam Chomsky. (photo: Andrew Rusk)
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/11/noam-chomsky-interview-isis-syria-interve
ntion-nato/https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/11/noam-chomsky-interview-isis-sy
ria-intervention-nato/
Noam Chomsky: My Hopes for the Future
By Emanuel Stoakes, Jacobin
28 November 15
Noam Chomsky on ISIS, his foreign policy critics, and why socialist ideas
are never far below the surface.
oam Chomsky, to rehearse a cliché, is among the worlds greatest living
radical intellectuals. It is no less trite or true to add that he is also a
broadly controversial figure: accused from various corners of a variety of
failings ranging from genocide denial to rigid, amoral quietism in the
face of mass atrocities. Most recently, critics of dissimilar political hues
claim to have identified a range of follies in his statements on Syria.
In the following interview, freelance journalist Emanuel Stoakes puts some
of these criticisms to Chomsky.
While reasserting his opposition to full-scale military intervention,
Chomsky says he does not in principle oppose the idea of a no-fly zone
established alongside a humanitarian corridor (though Putins recent
interventions have all but killed the possibility of the former option).
Chomsky also clarifies his positions on the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and
NATOs 1999 intervention in Kosovo.
In addition to answering his critics, Chomsky gives his thoughts on a wide
range of other topics: what should be done to combat ISIS, the significance
of popular struggles in South America, and the future of socialism.
As always, his underlying belief in our capacity to build a better society
shines through.
Whats your reaction to the attacks in Paris earlier this month, and what do
you think of the current Western strategy of bombing ISIS?
The current strategy plainly is not working. The ISIS statements, both for
this and the Russian airliner, were very explicit: you bomb us and you will
suffer. They are a monstrosity, and these are terrible crimes, but it
doesnt help to hide our heads in the sand.
The best outcome would be if ISIS were destroyed by local forces, which
could happen, but it will require that Turkey agree. And the outcome could
be just as bad if the jihadi elements supported by Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi
Arabia are the victors.
The optimal outcome would be a negotiated settlement of the kind being
inched towards in Vienna, combined with the above. Long shots.
Like it or not, ISIS seems to have established itself pretty firmly in Sunni
areas of Iraq and Syria. They seem to be engaged in a process of state
building that is extremely brutal but fairly successful, and attracts the
support of Sunni communities who may despise ISIS but see it as the only
defense against alternatives that are even worse. The one major regional
power that is opposing it is Iran, but the Iran-backed Shiite militias are
reputed to be as brutal as ISIS and probably mobilize support for ISIS.
The sectarian conflicts that are tearing the region to shreds are
substantially a consequence of the Iraq invasion. Thats what Middle East
specialist Graham Fuller, a former CIA analyst, means when he says that I
think the United States is one of the key creators of this organization.
Destruction of ISIS by any means that can be imagined might lay the basis
for something worse, as has been happening quite regularly with military
intervention. The state system in the region imposed by French and British
imperial might after World War I, with little concern for the populations
under their control, is unraveling.
The future looks bleak, though there are some patches of light, as in the
Kurdish areas. Steps can be taken to reduce many of the tensions in the
region and to constrain and reduce the outlandishly high level of armament,
but it is not clear what more outside powers can do apart from fanning the
flames, as they have been doing for years.
Earlier this year, we saw the Greek government struggling with its creditors
to work out a deal. Its tempting to view this showdown, as well as the
crisis as a whole, as less a case of the EU trying to manage a debt crisis
in the common interests of the union and more as a battle between Greek
society and those who benefit from austerity. Would you agree? How do you
view the situation?
There has been no serious effort to manage a debt crisis. The policies
imposed on Greece by the troika sharply exacerbated the crisis by
undermining the economy and blocking hopeful chances for growth. The
debt-to-GDP ratio is now far higher than it was before these policies were
instituted, and theres been a terrible toll on the people of Greece
though the German and French banks that bear a large part of responsibility
for the crisis are doing fine.
The so-called bailouts for Greece mostly went into the pockets of the
creditors, as much as 90 percent by some estimates. Former Bundesbank chief
Karl Otto Pöhl observed very plausibly that the whole affair was about
protecting German banks, but especially the French banks, from debt
write-offs.
Commenting in the leading US establishment journal Foreign Affairs, Mark
Blyth, one of the most cogent critics of the destructive
austerity-under-depression programs, writes, Weve never understood Greece
because we have refused to see the crisis for what it was a continuation
of a series of bailouts for the financial sector that started in 2008 and
that rumbles on today.
It is recognized on all sides that the debt cannot be paid. It should have
been radically restructured long ago, when the crisis could have easily been
managed, or simply declared odious and cancelled.
The ugly face of contemporary Europe is presented by German Finance Minister
Schäuble, apparently the most popular political figure in Germany. As
reported by Reuters news service, he explained that a write-off of some of
Europes loans to Greece might be needed to get the countrys debt to a
manageable level, while he in the same breath ruled out such a step. In
brief, weve milked you about as dry as we can, so get lost. And much of the
population is literally getting lost, with hopes for decent survival
smashed.
Actually Greeks are not yet quite milked dry. The shameful settlement
imposed by the banks and bureaucracy includes measures to ensure that Greek
assets will be taken over by the right greedy hands.
Germanys role is particularly shameful, not just because Nazi Germany
devastated Greece, but also because, as Thomas Piketty pointed out in Die
Zeit, Germany is really the single best example of a country that,
throughout its history, has never repaid its external debt. Neither after
the First nor the Second World War.
The London Agreement of 1953 wiped out over half of Germanys debt, laying
the basis for its economic recovery, and currently, Piketty added, far from
being generous, these days Germany is profiting from Greece as it extends
loans at comparatively high interest rates. The whole business is sordid.
The policies of austerity that have been imposed on Greece (and on Europe
generally) were always absurd from an economic point of view, and have been
a complete disaster for Greece. As weapons of class war, however, they have
been rather effective in undermining welfare systems, enriching the northern
banks and the investor class, and driving democracy to the margins.
The behavior of the troika today is a disgrace. One can scarcely doubt that
their goal is to establish firmly the principle that the masters must be
obeyed: defiance of the northern banks and the Brussels bureaucracy will not
be tolerated, and thoughts of democracy and popular will in Europe must be
abandoned.
Do you think the struggle taking place over Greeces future is
representative of a lot of what is happening in the world at the moment
i.e., a struggle between the needs of society and the demands of capitalism?
If so, do you see much hope for decent human outcomes when the trump cards
all seem to be held by a small number of people linked to private power?
In Greece, and in Europe more generally in varying degrees, some of the most
admirable achievements of the postwar years are being reversed under a
destructive version of the neoliberal assault on the global population of
the past generation.
But it can be reversed. Among the most obedient students of the neoliberal
orthodoxy were the countries of Latin America, and not surprisingly, they
were also among those who suffered the worst harm. But in recent years they
have led the way towards rejecting the orthodoxy, and more generally, for
the first time in five hundred years are taking significant steps towards
unification, freeing themselves from imperial (in the past century US)
domination, and confronting the shocking internal problems of potentially
rich societies that had been traditionally governed by wealthy
foreign-oriented (mostly white) elites in a sea of misery.
Syriza in Greece might have signaled a similar development, which is why it
had to be smashed so savagely. There are other reactions in Europe and
elsewhere that could turn the tide and lead to a much better future.
The twentieth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre passed this year. It
has emerged that the US watched the killing take place in real time from
satellites, and that many of the worlds great powers were negligent or
worse when it came to making efforts to prevent predictable slaughter there.
What do you think should have been done at the time? Do you think, for
example, that the Bosnian Muslims should have been given a greater chance to
defend themselves far earlier, for example?
Srebrenica was a barely protected safe area and we should not forget that
thanks to that status, it was as a base for Nasir Orics murderous Bosnian
militias to attack surrounding Serb villages, taking a brutal toll and
boasting of the achievement. That there would sooner or later be a Serb
response was not too surprising, and measures should have been taken to
prevent predictable slaughter, to borrow your words.
The best approach, which might have been feasible, would have been to reduce
and maybe end the hostilities in the region rather than allowing them to
escalate.
Youve come in for a lot of criticism for your position on the Kosovo
intervention. My (perhaps mistaken) understanding is that you believe there
were alternatives to the bombing, and that the violence could have been
stopped if there had been greater political will to find a diplomatic
solution. Is that right? Can you outline what could have been done as an
alternative?
I havent seen criticisms of my position on the intervention, and there are
unlikely to be any, for the simple reason that I scarcely took a position.
As I made explicit in what I wrote on the topic (The New Military Humanism),
I hardly even discussed the propriety of the NATO intervention. Thats
clearly stated in the early pages.
The topic is indeed brought up, three pages from the end, noting that what
precedes the entire book leaves the question of what should have been
done in Kosovo unanswered, though it seems a reasonable judgment that
the US was selecting one of the more harmful of several options available.
As explained clearly and unambiguously from the outset, even from the title,
the book is about a wholly different topic: the import of the Kosovo events
for the new era of principles and values led by the enlightened states
whose foreign policy has entered a noble phase with a saintly glow (to
quote some of the celebratory rhetoric reviewed).
That very important topics must be sharply distinguished from the question
of what should have been done, which I scarcely addressed. An important
topic, and evidently an unpopular one, best avoided. I dont recall even
seeing a mention of the subject of the entire book in the critical
commentary on it.
I did review the diplomatic options available, pointing out that the
settlement after seventy-eight days of bombing was a compromise between the
NATO and Serbian pre-bombing positions.
A year later, after the war ended, in my book A New Generation Draws the
Line, I reviewed in extensive detail the rich Western documentary record on
the immediate background to the bombing. It reveals that there was a steady
level of violence divided between KLA guerrillas attacking from Albania and
a brutal Serb response, and that the atrocities were very sharply escalated
after the bombing, exactly as was predicted publicly, and to US authorities
privately, by commanding Gen. Wesley Clark.
If there has been criticism of what I actually wrote, I havent seen it,
though youre right that there has been a great deal of furious condemnation
namely, of what I didnt write.
As to a possible alternative, there were what seemed to be fairly promising
diplomatic options. Whether they could have worked, we dont know, since
they were ignored in favor of bombing.
The usual interpretation, which Ive reviewed elsewhere, is that the bombing
was motivated by a sharp upsurge of atrocities. This reversal of the
chronology is quite standard, and useful to establish the legitimacy of NATO
violence. The upsurge of atrocities was the consequence of the bombing, not
its cause and as noted, was predicted quite publicly and authoritatively.
What do you think was the real objective of NATOs Balkan intervention?
If we can believe the US-UK leadership, the real objective was to establish
the credibility of NATO (there were other pretexts, but they quickly
collapse). As Tony Blair summarized the official reason, failure to bomb
would have dealt a devastating blow to the credibility of NATO, and the
world would have been less safe as a result of that though, as I reviewed
in some detail, the world overwhelmingly disagreed, often very sharply.
Establishing credibility basically, the Mafia principle is a
significant feature of great power policy. A deeper look suggests motives
beyond those officially stressed.
Do you oppose military intervention under any circumstances during dire
humanitarian disasters? What are the conditions that would make it
acceptable from your point of view?
Pure pacifists would always oppose military intervention. I am not one, but
I think that like any resort to violence, it carries a heavy burden of
proof. Its impossible to give a general answer as to when it is justified,
apart from some useless formulas.
It is not easy to find genuine cases where intervention has been justified.
Ive reviewed the historical and scholarly record. Its very thin. Two
possible examples stand out in the postWorld War II period: the Vietnamese
invasion of Cambodia, terminating Khmer Rouge crimes as they were peaking;
and the Indian invasion of Pakistan that ended the hideous atrocities in the
former East Pakistan.
These two cases do not enter the standard canon, however, because of the
fallacy of wrong agency and because they were both bitterly opposed by
Washington, which reacted in quite ugly ways.
Moving on to Syria, we see an appalling humanitarian situation and no end in
sight in terms of the internecine warfare taking place. I know some Syrian
activists who are furious at what they perceive to be your tolerance of the
immense misery being experienced by people living with barrel bombs and so
on; they say this because they think you are opposed to any kind of
intervention against Assad, however limited, on ideological grounds.
Is this accurate or fair? Would you support the idea of a no-fly zone, with
an enforced humanitarian corridor? Can you clarify your position on Syria?
If intervention against Assad would mitigate or end the appalling situation,
it would be justified. But would it? Intervention is not advocated by
careful observers on the scene with close knowledge of Syria and the current
situation Patrick Cockburn, Charles Glass, quite a few others who are
bitter critics of Assad. They warn, with no little plausibility I think,
that it might well exacerbate the crisis.
The record of military intervention in the region has been awful with very
rare exceptions, a fact that can hardly be overlooked. No-fly zones,
humanitarian corridors, support for the Kurds, and some other measures would
be likely to be helpful. But while it is easy to call for military
intervention, it is no simple matter to provide reasoned and
well-thought-out plans, taking into account likely consequences. I havent
seen any.
One can imagine a world in which intervention is undertaken by some benign
force dedicated to the interests of people who are suffering. But if we care
about victims, we cannot make proposals for imaginary worlds. Only for this
world, in which intervention, with rare consistency, is undertaken by powers
dedicated to their own interests, where the victims and their fate is
incidental, despite lofty professions.
The historical record is painfully clear, and there have been no miraculous
conversions. That does not mean that intervention can never be justified,
but these considerations cannot be ignored at least, if we care about the
victims.
Looking back at your long life of activism and scholarship, what cause or
issue are you most glad to have supported? Conversely, what are your
greatest regrets do you wish that you had done more on certain fronts?
I cant really say. There are many that Im glad to have supported, to a
greater or lesser degree. The cause that I pursued most intensely, from the
early 1960s, was the US wars in Indochina, the most severe international
crime in the postWorld War II era. That included speaking, writing,
organizing, demonstrations, civil disobedience, direct resistance, and the
expectation, barely averted more or less by accident, of a possible long
prison sentence.
Some other engagements were similar, but not at that level of intensity. And
each case has regrets, always the same ones: too little, too late, too
ineffective, even when there were some real achievements of the dedicated
struggles of many people in which I was privileged to be able to participate
in some way.
What gives you the most hope about the future? Do you feel that young people
in the US that you have interacted with are different from some of those you
dealt with decades before? Have social attitudes changed for the better?
Hopes for the future are always about the same: courageous people, often
under severe duress, refusing to bow to illegitimate authority and
persecution, others devoting themselves to support and to combatting
injustice and violence, young people who sincerely want to change the world.
And the record of successes, always limited, sometimes reversed, but over
time bending the arc of history towards justice, to borrow the words that
Martin Luther King made famous in word and deed.
How do you view the future of socialism? Are you inspired by developments in
South America? Are there lessons for the Left in North America?
Like other terms of political discourse, socialism can mean many different
things. I think one can trace an intellectual and practical trajectory from
the Enlightenment to classical liberalism, and (after its wreckage on the
shoals of capitalism, in Rudolf Rockers evocative phrase) on to the
libertarian version of socialism that converges with leading anarchist
tendencies.
My feeling is that the basic ideas of this tradition are never far below the
surface, rather like Marxs old mole, always about to break through when the
right circumstances arise, and the right flames are lit by engaged
activists.
What has taken place in recent years in South America is of historic
significance, I think. For the first time since the conquistadors, the
societies have taken steps of the kind I outlined earlier. Halting steps,
but very significant ones.
The basic lesson is that if this can be achieved under harsh and brutal
circumstances, we should be able to do much better enjoying a legacy of
relative freedom and prosperity, thanks to the struggles of those who came
before us.
Do you agree with Marxs prognosis that capitalism will eventually destroy
itself? Do you think that an alternative way of life and system of economics
can take hold before such an implosion occurs, with potentially chaotic
consequences? What should ordinary people concerned with the survival of
their family, and that of the world, do?
Marx studied an abstract system that has some of the central features of
really-existing capitalism, but not others, including the crucial state role
in development and in sustaining predatory institutions. Like much of the
financial sector, which in the US depends for most of its profits on the
implicit government insurance program, according to a recent IMF study
over $80 billion, a year according to the business press.
Large-scale state intervention has been a leading feature of the developed
societies from England to the US to Europe and to Japan and its former
colonies, up to the present moment. The technology that we are now using, to
take one example. Many mechanisms have been developed that might preserve
existing forms of state capitalism.
The existing system may well destroy itself for different reasons, which
Marx also discussed. We are now heading, eyes open, towards an environmental
catastrophe that might end the human experiment just as it is wiping out
species at a rate not seen since 65 million years ago when a huge asteroid
hit the earth and now we are the asteroid.
There is more than enough for ordinary people (and were all ordinary
people) to do to fend off disasters that are not remote and to construct a
far more free and just society.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
