Chompsky

Professor Noam Chomsky Public Speech

Melbourne Convention centre to a sold out audience

4th November 2011

 

 

 

 

"Nelson Mandela was taken off the terrorist list two years ago"

On Friday night I had the pleasure of attending a public speech by Professor Noam Chomsky hosted by Deakin University called "Changing Contours of Global Order". Professor Chomsky's talk covered many topics relating to American Foreign Policy. Here are some key points:

 

US foreign policy discourse since 1945 has referred to countries as having viruses and that they are contegious, infering that countries which are defiant against the US, that is countries which want independence and democracy, are a virus and must be inocculated. There are themes of punishing successful defiants in US Foreign Policy discourse over the last 60 years. Other words include "the loss of" " for example, the "Loss of China" indicating that the US, owned the country and it is now lost and also indicating that countries have functions whereby the US is the centre of control and decision making.

 

Professor Chomsky also spoke about the American Decline since World War II. In 1945, the US owned 50% of the world's wealth and that has declined over the years. That decline began in 1949 after the "loss of China".

 

He went through case studies of countries around the world who were considered by the US to have a virus. These included Indo-China and its struggle for Independent Nationalism, this virus was destroyed in Vietnam war and the region was inocculated. Consequently dictators in the region were supported by US, France and Britain. Another case study was Indonesia in1965. He mentioned the genocide in Indonesia by Indonesian President Sukarto supported by the US which ended the threat that Indonesia may be independent. Similarly in Gualemula a Military Coup supported by the US threw out the threat of democracy in Gualemala.

 

Another case study was Cuba. The US respondedto Fidal Castro by bombing Cuba, again seen as a virus, and as result it wanted to inocculate the whole region of South America. The US supported a military coup in Brazil and in 1973 it supported the overthrow of the Socialist parliament of Salvadore Allende in Chile whereby the "other" 9/11 happened on September 11th, 1973 and which is not often mentioned in the mainstream media. While fatalities in the battle during the coup might have been relatively small, the Chilean security forces sustained 162 dead in the three following months as a result of continued resistance and tens of thousands of people were arrested during the coup and held in the National Stadium.This was because the plans for the coup called for the arrest of every man, woman and child on the streets the morning of 11 September. Of these there were approximately 40,000 to 50,000 perfunctory arrests, several hundred individuals would later be detained, questioned, tortured, and in some cases murdered. While these deaths did not occur before the surrender of Allende's forces, they occurred as a direct result of arrests and round-ups during the coup's military action. The CIA supported by the Nixon adminstration inserted covert operatives in Chile, in order to prevent a Socialist government from arising, and conducted propaganda operations.

 

"The Other" Us versus Them mentality of North and South America led to gross attrocities in South American countries such as Brazil, Chile and Uraguay. Ronald Reagen supported dictatorships in Argentina. South America has been lost in the 21st century in 2000-2010, South America has moved toward independence. The mentality of the US Foreign Policy decision makers is that 'If the US cannot control South America, it cannot maintain control over other parts of the world" and similarly "If they control the Middle East, they can control the world". Therefore it is not a matter of access it is a matter of control.

 

Professor Chomsky also mentioned the US involvement in Europe and spoke about post-war planning by the US. It's main concern being Europe and the first thing it wanted to destroy was anti-facist Italy and Greece. The US NATO forces landed in Italy and Greece where there were powerful partisan movements and Italy was stopped from having a democracy. NATO's aim was to stop Europe from becoming a democracy.

 

He moved then to talking about Israel and the US. In 1967, the war between Israel and Egypt and another war between Saudi Arabia and Egypt led to the US and Britain supporting radical terrorism. In 1967, Israel performed service to the US since then US/Israel relations have become stronger. In the Nixon years, the Nixon doctrine implied that the control of the Middle East meant the US supporting radical Islamic dictatorships. Nixon's called this "Cops on the Beat". The US-Israeli policy of new settlements in the West Bank and Gaza is against the Oslo agreement.

 

In 1970, US had 25% of the global wealth and the US reaction to the Cold War was one of National Security formed by George Bush Senior and its aim was to protect US and not to protect the West from Russia. By the end of Cold War 1990, NATO had expanded to East Germany.

 

 

Professor Chomsky spoke about the definition of terrorism created by Britain and the US which means that those definitions cannot be used because then the US is leading terrorist state. He advocated not for the change in defintion of terror moreover the change in acts of terror. He mentioned that Nelson Mandela was taken off the terrorist list only two years ago.

 

 

 

 

For more information about Professor Noam Chomsky and his writings visit www.chomsky.info