An illuminating and deeply important interview. This is
the information we need to know. ― Molly
A wide range of politicians and media outlets have described the
alleged Russian interference in the last US presidential election (by way of
hacking) as representing a direct threat to American democracy and even to
national security itself. Of course, the irony behind these concerns about the
interference of foreign nations in the domestic political affairs of the United
States is that the US has blatantly interfered in the elections of many other
nations, with methods that include not only financial support to preferred
parties and the circulation of propaganda but also assassinations and
overthrows of even democratically elected regimes. Indeed, the US has a long
criminal history of meddling into the political affairs of other nations -- a
history that spans at least a century and, since the end of World War II,
extends into all regions of the globe, including western parliamentary
polities. This interview with Noam Chomsky reminds us that the United States is
no stranger to election interference; in fact, it is an expert in this arena.
C. J. Polychroniou:
Noam, the US intelligence agencies have accused Russia of interference in the
US presidential election in order to boost Trump's chances, and some leading
Democrats have actually gone on record saying that the Kremlin's canny
operatives changed the election outcome. What's your reaction to all this talk
in Washington and among media pundits about Russian cyber and propaganda
efforts to influence the outcome of the presidential election in Donald Trump's
favor?
Noam Chomsky: Much of the world
must be astonished -- if they are not collapsing in laughter -- while watching
the performances in high places and in media concerning Russian efforts to
influence an American election, a familiar US government specialty as far back
as we choose to trace the practice. There is, however, merit in the claim
that this case is different in character: By US standards, the Russian efforts
are so meager as to barely elicit notice.
Let's talk about the
long history of US meddling in foreign political affairs, which has always been
morally and politically justified as the spread of American style-democracy
throughout the world.
The history of US foreign policy, especially after World War II,
is pretty much defined by the subversion and overthrow of foreign regimes,
including parliamentary regimes, and the resort to violence to destroy popular
organizations that might offer the majority of the population an opportunity to
enter the political arena.
Following the Second World War, the United States was committed
to restoring the traditional conservative order. To achieve this aim, it was
necessary to destroy the anti-fascist resistance, often in favor of Nazi and
fascist collaborators, to weaken unions and other popular organizations, and to
block the threat of radical democracy and social reform, which were live
options under the conditions of the time. These policies were pursued
worldwide: in Asia, including South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Indochina
and crucially, Japan; in Europe, including Greece, Italy, France and crucially,
Germany; in Latin America, including what the CIA took to be the most severe
threats at the time, "radical nationalism" in Guatemala and Bolivia.
Sometimes the task required considerable brutality. In South
Korea, about 100,000 people were killed in the late 1940s by security forces
installed and directed by the United States. This was before the Korean war,
which Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings describe as "in essence" a phase
-- marked by massive outside intervention -- in "a civil war fought
between two domestic forces: a revolutionary nationalist movement, which had
its roots in tough anti-colonial struggle, and a conservative movement tied to
the status quo, especially to an unequal land system," restored to power
under the US occupation. In Greece in the same years, hundreds of thousands
were killed, tortured, imprisoned or expelled in the course of a
counterinsurgency operation, organized and directed by the United States, which
restored traditional elites to power, including Nazi collaborators, and
suppressed the peasant- and worker-based communist-led forces that had fought
the Nazis. In the industrial societies, the same essential goals were realized,
but by less violent means.
Yet it is true that
there have been cases where the US was directly involved in organizing coups
even in advanced industrial democracies, such as in Australia and Italy in the
mid-1970s. Correct?
Yes, there is evidence of CIA involvement in a virtual coup that
overturned the Whitlam Labor government in Australia in 1975, when it was
feared that Whitlam might interfere with Washington's military and intelligence
bases in Australia. Large-scale CIA interference in Italian politics has been
public knowledge since the congressional Pike Report was leaked in 1976, citing
a figure of over $65 million to approved political parties and affiliates from
1948 through the early 1970s. In 1976, the Aldo Moro government fell in Italy
after revelations that the CIA had spent $6 million to support anti-communist
candidates. At the time, the European communist parties were moving towards
independence of action with pluralistic and democratic tendencies
(Eurocommunism), a development that in fact pleased neither Washington nor
Moscow. For such reasons, both superpowers opposed the legalization of the
Communist Party of Spain and the rising influence of the Communist Party in
Italy, and both preferred center-right governments in France. Secretary of
State Henry Kissinger described the "major problem" in the Western
alliance as "the domestic evolution in many European countries,"
which might make Western communist parties more attractive to the public,
nurturing moves towards independence and threatening the NATO alliance."
US interventions in the
political affairs of other nations have always been morally and politically
justified as part of the faith in the doctrine of spreading American-style
democracy, but the actual reason was of course the spread of capitalism and the
dominance of business rule. Was faith in the spread of democracy ever tenable?
No belief concerning US foreign policy is more deeply entrenched
than the one regarding the spread of American-style democracy. The thesis is
commonly not even expressed, merely presupposed as the basis for reasonable
discourse on the US role in the world.
The faith in this doctrine may seem surprising. Nevertheless,
there is a sense in which the conventional doctrine is tenable. If by
"American-style democracy," we mean a political system with regular
elections but no serious challenge to business rule, then US policymakers doubtless
yearn to see it established throughout the world. The doctrine is therefore not
undermined by the fact that it is consistently violated under a different
interpretation of the concept of democracy: as a system in which citizens may
play some meaningful part in the management of public affairs.
Please
continue this interview here: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/39159-noam-chomsky-on-the-long-history-of-us-meddling-in-foreign-elections
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