Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World

In this new set of interviews, America's foremost intellectual activist looks at new questions of US domestic and foreign policy. In September 2002, the American government announced a new national security strategy. Instead of pre-emptive war, which might be covered by the UN Charter, the new strategy will be one of preventive war, which is not permitted at all under international law. In other words, America will rule the world by force, and if any challenge to that domination comes about, whether imagined, invented or perceived in the distance, America has the right to destroy that challenge before it becomes a threat. The Bush Administration talks about going after countries that harbor terrorists. Orlando Bosch, described by the Justice Department as a threat to American security, is quietly living in Miami, recipient of a Presidential Pardon. In 1976, Bosch was involved in the shooting down of a Cuban airliner, killing 73 people, among other crimes. Emanuel Constant is responsible for the deaths of at least 4000 Haitians. He is living in Queens, New York, because America refuses to even respond to extradition requests, let alone actually say No. Such doctrines are unilateral; they grant America the right to harbor terrorists and use violence, but not anyone else. The people around George Bush are very open about their desire to destroy the progressive achievements of the last 100 years. They have generally gotten rid of the progressive income tax. They are next going after Social Security and health care. They do not want a small government. They are interested in a huge, massively intrusive government, but one that works for them. This is another excellent and eye-opening book from Chomsky and Barsamian. For another very interesting look at the way America and the world Really Works, this is highly recommended.

George Orwell maintained that clarity of language is directly related to clarity of thought - viewed by some perhaps as a commonplace observation it nevertheless is, I believe, a valid observation. Mr Chomsky to my mind is a genuine inheritor of the legacy of George Orwell whose target was particularly the bureaucracy of modern Russia under communism. Ironic that modern corporations have overtaken communism as the Big Brothers of the 21st century. Mr Chomsky's central argument seems to be that we must trust in the people, whereas, modern America is governed by elites who look after their own base interests. Indeed, corporations seem to act like uncivilized beasts. "The United States is basically what's called "a failed state". It has formal democratic institutions, but they barely function. So it doesn't matter that approximately three fourths of the population think we ought to have some kind of government funded health care system. It doesn't even matter if a large majority regards health care as a moral value. When commentators rave about moral values, they're talking about banning gay marriage, not the ideas that everyone should have decent health care. And the reason is that it's not in their interest. They're like me; they get fine health care. What do they care?" p. 198 Brilliant stuff - and IN CONVERSATION!! This man has a mind. And a voice to express it clearly.

"Imperial Ambitions: Conversation on the Post 9/11 World" is a collection of interviews conducted by David Barsamian with Noam Chomsky. The interviews cover a multitude of important and at times complex topics that affect present and future societies. Chomsky and Barsamian ponder topics ranging from Nazi Germany to the war in Iraq, with special attention given to the various forms of propaganda used by governments to fulfill their objectives. Chomsky's thoughts on Social Security, Medicaid, health care, rogue nations, US nation building, education, activism, the economy, corporate greed . . . are all too engaging. According to Chomsky, there are few straightforward answers to today's complex issues; facts are hidden behind a veil of secrecy and deception. Chomsky recommends that individuals become critical thinkers - take nothing for granted. While readers may not fully agree with all of Chomsky's assessments or analysis of political and societal assertions and conclusions, Chomsky does give readers cause to reflect. His suggestions are crucially simple; people must learn to use "skeptical intelligence" and "critical examination" on important issues. Chomsky contends that history has shown propaganda to be a powerful, yet an abused and/or misused tool of governments. . . . Much of what readers will get from "Imperial Ambitions" is that fear is the fuel that drives the propaganda machine and that governments make use of propaganda to control public opinion. Chomsky posits that by using the concept of "intellectual self defense" people can decode manipulated and surreptitious information disseminated by the government and the media. "Imperial Ambitions: Conversation on the Post 9/11 World" makes interesting reading. It is a first-hand introduction to Chomsky's philosophical views on a range of issues -- at times controversial, but always engaging.

There is an exquisitely satisfying moment in the DVD documentary "Manufacturing Consent" where Noam Chomsky flatly contradicts William F. Buckley's version of events in Greece in the immediate aftermath of WWII. Clearly flabbergasted by Chomsky's command of the facts but perhaps even more so by his refusal to accept the standard cold-war inspired interpretation of these events, Buckley eventually loses his temper and is reduced to insisting that he is right and that Chomsky is wrong. At this remove, the interview, conducted sometime in the late 70s or early 80s, is a disturbing artifact of a time when facts were important in the making of political argument, for it is apparent that Buckley is chagrined by his inability to rebut Chomsky on the facts and reduced to repeating his position with greater and greater insistence. Now, of course, as the right itself acknowledges, conservatives do not deign to traffic in "fact-based reality." They instead weave and then don bright, shining garments of red, white and blue, and viciously attack anyone who might suggest they are clothed in raiment of gray lies and dun dissemblance. And that is precisely why Chomsky is so valuable. He offers a compelling, fact-based counternarrative to the triumphalist ideology of Buckley and the scores of conservative apparatchiks that Buckley and his billionaire inheritance-baby buddies have spawned over the past 30 years -- that same triumphalist nonsense that, for instance, predicted US troops would be greeted in Baghdad as they were Paris in WWII -- with flowers, champagne and kisses. A self-described "anarcho-syndicalist" in the one-party state that is the US these days, Chomsky's views are apparently too dangerous to allow him more than an occasional interview on radio or television in this great democracy of ours. (Why is it that in the US media that is supposed to be so "liberal," Chomsky is rarely if ever seen, but that we have an endless supply of right wing provocateurs preaching their furious farrago of free market fantasy and unchristian Christianity?). If you've never read Chomsky, this latest work is a very good introduction to his bracing, fact-based version of American history as imperial adventure and botched conquest. If you're content with the fumigated Sunday school version of reality offered by the mainstream media or the knee-jerk nationalism peddled by the revanchist reactionaries on Fox, Chomsky is probably not for you. But if as a thinking American you have come to doubt the infallibility of our president's heart as naturally right in all things -- e.g., his latest nomination to the Supreme Court, etc. -- you will in reading Chomsky come to use your own head and your own heart, and see American foreign policy for what it truly is.

Imagine you could take years and years to carefully study political history, that you could read numerous sources of political news from around the world, that you could do your own research into declassified government documents and little known areas of information, and that you could travel extensively so that you might compare various societies and governments in the current day. If you can get someone to pay you or feed you while you do all of that, then by all means do it. Otherwise, your second best option is to listen to Noam Chomsky. Chomsky knows an incredible amount of information and is brilliant at analyzing it. He does so without any theory or pretense, using a vocabulary that any high school graduate has mastered. Sitting down and talking to Noam Chomsky at length about current affairs has to be one of the most illuminating experiences going. But, what if you got the chance to do that and couldn't always think of the best questions or cite the best examples for Noam to comment on? Not to worry: David Barsamian has conducted a series of interviews with Chomsky between March 2003 and February 2005, and has consistently asked penetrating and provocative questions. These interviews have just been published in this book.