From: jad@Turing.ORG (John DiNardo)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,alt.activism,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.individualism,alt.censorship,misc.headlines,soc.culture.usa,misc.activism.progressive
Subject: Part 1,  NOAM CHOMSKY: The New World Order
Keywords: Noam Chomsky: The New World Order
Date: 4 Jan 93 22:17:40 GMT
Followup-To: alt.conspiracy
Organization: The Turing Project, Public Access Internet Host
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu


    THE NEW WORLD ORDER: The Middle East and Central America
             Lecture by Professor Noam Chomsky
                       Given at
               George Washington University
                    November 23, 1991


*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
NOAM CHOMSKY:
..... against the heat of those television lights. In fact, I'll
start believing in the miracles of Japanese technology when they
figure out a way to televise without roasting the person who's
standing up in front. 

The announced topic was "The New World Order: Central America and
the Middle East" which touches quite a few bases. And a title like
that leaves essentially two options. One option is to speak in
general terms about "the new world order" which, as far as I'm
aware, is the old world order adapted to changing contingencies,
as happens all the time. The most important of these changing 
contingencies having been about twenty years ago when the post-war
national economic system was essentially torn apart and has been
reconstructed. 

A second option would be to pick some crucial issues -- some 
particular topics -- and to use them to illustrate the way the
general contours of the "new world order" (and that means the old
world order). And in thinking about it, it seemed to me that the
second tack might be more informative and, in fact, almost any
current issue could be used because they all illustrate the same
essential features of policy. And, given U.S. power, U.S. policy
has an overriding, and often determinative influence. Furthermore,
they all illustrate the same aspects of the ideological cover 
within which policy is presented to us, some examples of which you
just heard from our illustrious leader.

The two examples that are listed in the announcement, Central 
America and the Middle East, are perfectly natural ones. Both
regions -- Latin America and the Middle East -- are covered by
what has been the long-standing central doctrine of U.S. policy,
the Monroe Doctrine, which says, in effect, that certain regions 
of the world are U.S. turf. No one else raises their head. No
No foreign entry, certainly; but crucially, no indigenous groups.
If they do, their heads are cut off if they get out of control,
as the doves like to put it. The Monroe Doctrine was, of course,
devised for the Western Hemisphere in less ambitious days. 
It's meaning for the Western Hemisphere was recently clarified 
in the Gates hearings. Maybe the only interesting thing that 
happened in the Gates hearings, as far as I noticed, was a
memorandum that was released from December, 1984 in which Gates
(it was addressed from Gates to William Casey, the head of the
CIA) .... on U.S. policy toward Nicaragua. And it opened by
saying that we have to start talking tough about Nicaragua.
Let's stop the pretenses about preventing arms [shipments] to
El Salvador, and all of this other nonsense which is so easily
exposed. (although, I should say that the media continued to 
trot it out when it was useful) .... and let's start talking
tough; and then he said we have to rid the hemisphere of this
regime by any means necessary -- any means that we could use
up to bombing. And he pointed out correctly that if we don't
accept this commitment to rid the hemisphere of anybody we don't
like, we will have abandoned the Monroe Doctrine which confers
upon us that right.

Well, it was interesting. Actually, the day that appeared I
happened to be talking to someone in Detroit, and I suggested
to the audience that they keep their eyes open to see what the
reaction will be to this memorandum predicting that there would
be a null reaction. And, in fact, that's true. It never came up
in Congress. The media didn't mention it. It wasn't considered
one of the big issues. And that's exactly correct because 
essentially, everyone agrees. Across the spectrum, it's agreed
that we have the right to rid the hemisphere -- or, for that 
matter, the world -- of anybody we don't like, by any means that
we find feasible and possible. And he is quite right in saying
that is the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine. 

In this particular sense (meaning, we have the right to rid any
area of anyone we don't like) the Monroe Doctrine was extended 
to large parts of the world after the Second World War. That's 
just a reflection of the extraordinary power of the U.S., at the 
time. In particular, it was extended to the Middle East which was
described by the State Department, right after the Second World 
War, as the most important area in the world in the field of foreign
investment. As General Eisenhower described it: "The stategically
most important area in the world because of its enormous energy
reserves," which have two crucial features. First of all, whoever
has influence and control over them has a considerable amount of
leverage in world affairs. And secondly, there's a huge flow of
capital that comes from the profits of oil production in the cheapest  
and most abundant areas. And that has to flow back to prop up both
the corporations and the general economy of the United States and
the country that in internal discussion is called "our lieutenant";
namely, Britain. The fashionable word is "partner", as Mike
Mansfield put it in the Kennedy years. So we have to prop up the
economy of "our lieutenant" and, of course, ourselves, more crucially.

And control of the energy resources and the profits that flow 
from them is a major factor. And, in fact, that's discussed in 
internal declassified top secret plannng documents. But it's also
very evident in policy. And we saw examples of that a few months
ago. So, in other words, Latin America and the Middle East --
these are the obvious areas to discuss if you want to consider the
core of U.S. foreign policy interests. Both areas reveal to us 
quite a lot about ourselves. The reason is because of our 
overwhelming influence in Latin America for over a century, and
in the Middle East for half a century. And what we find there can
tell us a good deal about who we are -- a topic which should be
of interest to any honest person.

Well, discussion of Latin America could open, for example, with a
Latin American strategy development workshop. In Washington --
the Pentagon -- just a year ago, which involved noted academic
specialists and others ... they concluded (mostly quotes) that
current relations with Mexico (the Mexican dictatorship -- that
means it's a rather brutal dictatorship with a democratic cover)
... current relations with the Mexican dictatorship they said 
are extraordinarily positive. That means that they are untroubled
by such trivialities as stolen elections, death squads, endemic
torture, scandalous treatment of workers and peasants, ecological
destruction in the interests of private power, and so on. But,
they said that everything is not rosy. There are some problems
on the horizon. And the only problem they note is (I'll quote)
a democracy opening up in Mexico could test the special 
relationship by bringing into office a government more interested
in challenging the United States on economic and nationalist grounds.
But right now, everything is fine because it's just a brutal and 
murderous dictatorship, but if there's a democracy opening, we may
have some problems, because a democracy opening might mean that 
various popular interests might be reflected, and that would be
harmful to the U.S. concern, which is, of course, investment 
opportunities and the local wealthy classes, and so on.
                    (to be continued)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
                Transcribed by John DiNardo

    The documentary video, from which this transcript was made, 
    is available exclusively from JCOME. The video contains the entire  
    lecture, plus background information on Noam Chomsky and on JCOME,  
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    of the Advisory Committee.

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