% FROM THE NOAM CHOMSKY ARCHIVE
% http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu:/usr/tp0x/chomsky.html
% ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu/user/cap/chomsky/
% Filename: articles/
% Title: New World Order
% Author: Noam Chomsky
% Appeared-in: The Guardian of London, 25 March 1991
% Source: jaske@bat.bates.edu (Jon Aske)
% Keywords: New World Order, Gulf war, Bush
% Synopsis:
% See-also:
NEW WORLD ORDER
Noam Chomsky
07 March 1991
A truism about the New World Order is that it is economically
tripolar and militarily unipolar. Recent events help understand
the interplay of these factors.
As the glorious ``turkey shoot'' began in the desert, the _New
York Times_ published a fragment of a national security review
from the early days of the Bush administration, dealing with
``third world threats.'' It reads: ``In cases where the U.S.
confronts much weaker enemies, our challenge will be not simply
to defeat them, but to defeat them decisively and rapidly.'' Any
other outcome would be ``embarrassing'' and might ``undercut
political support.''{note: Maureen Dowd, _NYT_, Feb. 23, 1991.}
``Much weaker enemies'' pose only one threat to the US: the
threat of independence, always intolerable. The US will support
the most murderous tyrant as long as he plays along, and will
labor to overthrow third world democrats if they depart from
their service function. The documentary and historical records
are clear on this score.
The leaked fragment makes no reference to peaceful means. As
understood on all sides, in its confrontations with third world
threats, the US is ``politically weak''; its demands are not
likely to gain public support, so diplomacy is a dangerous
exercise. And a ``much weaker'' opponent must not merely be
defeated, but pulverized, if the central lesson of World Order is
to be learned: We are the masters, and you shine our shoes.
There are other useful lessons. The domestic population must
appreciate ``the stark and vivid definition of principle . . .
baked into [George Bush] during his years at Andover and Yale,
that honor and duty compels you to punch the bully in the face.''
These are the admiring words of the reporter who released the
policy review, then quoting the hero himself: ``By God, we've
kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all.''{note: Maureen
Dowd, _NYT_, March 2, 1991.} No longer, the President exults,
will we be troubled by ``the sickly inhibitions against the use
of military force,'' to borrow the terms of Reaganite
intellectual Norman Podhoretz.
The ground had been well prepared for overcoming this grave
malady, including dedicated efforts to ensure that the Vietnam
war is properly understood---as a ``noble cause,'' not a violent
assault against South Vietnam, then all of Indochina. Americans
generally estimate Vietnamese deaths at about 100,000, a recent
academic study reveals. Its authors ask what conclusions we
would draw if the German public estimated Holocaust deaths at
300,000, while declaring their righteousness.{note: Sut Jhally,
Justin Lewis, & Michael Morgan, _The Gulf War: A Study of the
Media, Public Opinion, & Public Knowledge_, Department of
Communications, U Mass. Amherst.} A question we might ponder.
The principle that you punch the bully in the face---when you are
sure that he is securely bound and beaten to a pulp---is a
natural one for advocates of the rule of force. Cheap victories
may also mobilize a frightened domestic population, and may
deflect attention from the domestic disasters of the Reagan-Bush
years, no small matter as the country continues its march towards
a two-tiered society with striking third world features.
George Bush's career as a ``public servant'' also has its lessons
concerning the New World Order. He is the one head of state who
stands condemned by the World Court for ``the unlawful use of
force.'' He dismisses with contempt the Court's call for
reparations for these particular crimes (others are far beyond
reach), while he and his sycophants solemnly demand reparations
from Iraq. Bush opened the post-Cold War era with the murderous
invasion of Panama, imposing the rule of the 10% white minority
and guaranteeing US control over the canal and the bases that
have been used to train the gangsters who terrorize Latin
America. Since he became UN Ambassador in 1971, the US is far in
the lead in vetoing Security Council resolutions and blocking the
UN peacekeeping function, followed by Britain. Bush was called
to head the CIA in 1975, just in time to support near-genocide in
East Timor. He then lent his talents to the war against the
Church and other deviants committed to ``the preferential option
for the poor'' in Central America, now littered with tortured and
mutilated bodies, perhaps devastated beyond recovery.
In the Middle East, Bush supported Israel's harsh occupations,
its savage invasion of Lebanon, and its refusal to honor Security
Council Resolution 425 calling for its immediate withdrawal from
Lebanon (March 1978, one of several). The plea was renewed by
the government of Lebanon in February,{note: _NYT_, Feb. 19,
1991.} ignored as usual while the US client terrorizes the
occupied region and bombs at will, and the rest of Lebanon is
taken over by Bush's new friend Hafez el-Assad, a clone of Saddam
Hussein. The Turkish ``peacemakers'' were also authorized to
intensify their repression of Kurds, in partial payment for their
services.
Plainly, we have here a man who should be lauded for rare
principle as he leads us to a New World Order.
The principles of the policy review were followed throughout the
Gulf crisis. In July, Bush indicated that that he had no
objections to Iraq's rectifying its border disputes with Kuwait
by force, or intimidating its neighbors to raise the price of
oil. Misreading the signals, Saddam took all of Kuwait, thus
demonstrating that he was not only a murderous gangster, which is
fine by US-UK standards, but an independent nationalist, which is
quite improper. Standard policies were then invoked.
The US and UK moved at once to undermine sanctions and diplomacy,
which had unusually high prospects of success. From late August,
Iraqi settlement offers were released that State Department
officials regarded as ``serious'' and ``negotiable,'' including
complete withdrawal from Kuwait on terms that would have been
pursued by anyone interested in peace. Efforts to avoid the
ground war with full Iraqi withdrawal, saving tens of thousands
of lives, were contemptuously brushed aside. Diplomacy is ruled
out, and since this third world country with its peasant army is
plainly a ``much weaker enemy,'' it has to be crushed, so that
the right lessons are taught.
The intellectual community swung into action, portraying Saddam
Hussein as a new Hitler poised to take over the world. When Bush
announced that there will be no negotiations, a hundred
editorials lauded him for his extraordinary efforts at diplomacy.
When he proclaimed that ``aggressors cannot be rewarded,''
instead of collapsing in ridicule, responsible commentators stood
in awe of his high principles. Some agreed that the US and
Britain had been ``inconsistent'' in the past (in fact, they had
consistently pursued their own interests). But now, we were
assured, all had changed; they had learned that the right way to
respond to aggression is by the quick resort to violence. We can
therefore expect that the RAF will be sent to bomb Damascus, Tel
Aviv, Jakarta (after British Aerospace stops arming the killers),
Washington, and a host of others. Oddly, these new insights were
not accompanied by praise for Saddam Hussein for attacking
Israel, though his sordid arguments compare well enough with
those of his fellow-criminal and long-time friend in Washington.
In such ways, the ground was prepared for the merciless slaughter
that a leading third world journal describes as ``the most
cowardly war ever fought on this planet.''{note: Editorial,
_Third World Resurgence_ (Malaysia), Feb. 1991.} The corpses have
quickly disappeared from view, joining mounds of others that do
not disturb the tranquility of the civilized.
There also seems to be no concern over the glaringly obvious fact
that no official reason was ever offered for going to war---no
reason, that is, that could not be instantly refuted by a
literate teenager. Again, this is the hallmark of a totalitarian
culture, and a signpost to the New World Order. The few
extra-official efforts to justify the rejection of peaceful means
are no less revealing. Thus we read that this case was
different, because of the annexation: the US reaction was
underway before the annexation, and continued unchanged after
Iraqi proposals that would have reversed it, not to speak of the
US-UK response to other cases of annexation, no less horrifying.
Other arguments are equally weighty.
In one of the rare efforts to face the crucial question, Timothy
Garton Ash explains in the _New York Review_ that while sanctions
were possible in dealing with South Africa or Communist East
Europe, Saddam Hussein is different.{note: Ash, ``The Gulf in
Europe,'' _NYRB_, March 7, 1991.} That concludes the argument.
We now understand why it was proper to pursue ``quiet diplomacy''
while our South African friends caused over $60 billion in damage
and 1.5 million deaths from 1980 to 1988 in the neighboring
states---putting aside South Africa and Namibia, and the
preceding decade.{note: ``Inter-Agency Task Force, Africa
Recovery Program/Economic Commission, _South African
Destabilization: the Economic Cost of Frontline Resistance to
Apartheid_, NY, UN, 1989, 13, cited by Merle Bowen, _Fletcher
Forum_, Winter 1991.} They are basically decent folk, like us and
the Communist tyrants. Why? One answer is suggested by Nelson
Mandela, who condemns the hypocrisy and prejudice of the highly
selective response to the crimes of the ``brown-skinned''
Iraqis.{note: AP, _NYT_, Nov. 8, 1991.} The same is true when the
_New York Times_ assures us that ``the world'' is united against
Saddam Hussein, the most hated man in ``the world''---the world,
that is, minus its darker faces.{note: Editorials, _NYT_, Feb.
23, 27, 1991.}
It is understandable that Western racism should surface with such
stunning clarity after the Cold War. For 70 years, it has been
possible to disguise traditional practices behind the veil of
``defense against the Soviets,'' generally a sham, now lost as a
pretext. We return, then, to the days when the New York press
explained that ``we must go on slaughtering the natives in
English fashion, and taking what muddy glory lies in the
wholesale killing until they have learned to respect our arms.
The more difficult task of getting them to respect our intentions
will follow.'' In fact, they understand our intentions well
enough.
For the people of the Middle East, the New World Order looks
grim. The victor is the violent state that has long rejected any
serious diplomatic approach to regional disarmament and security
problems, often virtually alone. The US strategic conception has
been that the local managers of Gulf oil riches should be
protected by regional enforcers, preferably non-Arab, though
bloody tyrants of the Hafez el-Assad variety may be allowed to
join the club, possibly even Egypt if it can be purchased. The
US will seek some agreement among these clients, and might
finally even consider an international conference, if it can be
properly managed. As Kissinger insisted, Europe and Japan must
be kept out of the diplomacy, but the USSR might now be tolerated
on the assumption that it will be obedient in its current
straits, possibly Britain as well.
As for the Palestinians, the US can now move towards the solution
outlined by James Baker well before the Gulf crisis: Jordan is
the Palestinian state; the occupied territories are to be ruled
in accord with the basic guidelines of the Israeli government,
with Palestinians permitted to collect taxes in Nablus; their
political representatives will be chosen for them, with the PLO
excluded; and ``free elections'' will be held under Israeli
military control with the Palestinian leadership in prison camps.
New excuses will be devised for the old policies, which will be
hailed as generous and forthcoming.
Economic development for the Palestinians had always been barred,
while their land and water were taken. They had been permitted
to serve the Israeli economy as virtual slave labor, but this
interlude is passing. The recent curfew administered a further
blow to the Palestinian economy. The victors can now proceed
with the policy articulated in February 1989 by Yitzhak Rabin of
the Labor Party, then Defense Secretary, when he informed Peace
Now leaders of his satisfaction with the US-PLO dialogue,
meaningless discussions to divert attention while Israel
suppresses the Intifadah by force. The Palestinians ``will be
broken,'' Rabin promised, 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 envisaged.
The political leadership in Washington and London have created
economic and social catastrophes at home, and have no idea how to
deal with them, except to exploit their military power.
Following the advice of the business press, they may try to turn
their countries into mercenary states, serving as the global
mafia, selling ``protection'' to the rich, defending them against
``third world threats'' and demanding proper payment for the
service. Riches funnelled from the Gulf oil producers are to
prop up the two failing economies. German-led Europe, later
Japan, will carry out the task of ``Latin Americanizing'' most of
the domains of the collapsing Soviet tyranny, with the former
Communist bureaucracy probably running the branch offices of
foreign corporations. The rest of the third world will be
controlled by economic pressures if possible, by force if
necessary.
These are some of the contours of the planned New World Order
that come into view as the beguiling rhetoric is lifted away.