Back to You, Peter

Thanks to Dave S for recommending this piece by Noam Chomsky, a critique of the myopic views embraced by Washington and the West’s political culture in general. Chomsky – yet again – patiently and meticulously analyzes the blatant hypocrisies embedded in US Mideast dealings and Israeli policy as well, which makes total sense since in the Arab world there is little experiential differentiation between the two dogmas (or should that be dogs, as in pitbulls?). Much of his discussion revolves around use of the word “terrorism” to support various military actions against Palestinians (mostly) and others as well, but basically Chomsky taps this history as the most blatant example of how Americans understand what “the world” thinks using the assumption that they are, in fact, the world. As the saying goes, people get the leaders they deserve; except perhaps in W’s case of broad lack of credibility, US leadership has stuck to the program because it’s a framework that’s been accepted by a majority of the population. There’s lots of good historical stuff in this piece, standard Chomsky fare and his conclusion of course is always the same: the West will never understand why these so-called terrorists remain hard at work until it understands what its own actions look like from the other side of the fence.

In his own summary of why “public opinion” is most always used to support US policy, my friend Dave succinctly points out, “They dictate the debate.” That this is true came out clearly in the following exchange from the Clinton-Obama slugfest that just took place in Ohio, when Tim Russert brought up Obama’s relationship to Louis Farrakan:

Russert: What do you do to assure Jewish voters…. that you are consistent regarding Israel and not in any way saying that Farrakan epitomizes greatness?

Obama: I have some of the strongest support from the Jewish community… and the reason is I’ve been a stalwart friend of Israel’s… I think their security is sacrosanct….

Although Obama did go on to discuss his desire to bridge gaps between Black and Jewish communities, and acknowledged the role of many progressive Jews in the civil rights struggle, both he and Russert chose to discuss the question of Jewish electoral support around his support for Israel, and in such a way that not questioning the Israeli occupation and whatever other military actions that racist state engages in is a given. Why is Israeli security more “sacrosanct” than anyone else’s? Why is it assumed that the Jewish vote itself represents blanket support of Israel? This is particularly ironic since, as i mentioned, Obama lauded the involvement of Jews in the civil rights movement and many of those individuals or their political descendants are vocal anti-zionists. Yet Russert set it up this way, dictating that assumption as fact, and Obama then vitrified the framework by first and foremost stating that the Jewish community supports him because he’s a devoted friend of Israel’s. Can you imagine if he had been asked about Darfur and said that Sudan’s security is sacrosanct? Never happen, even though we talk about the African-American community as though there’s a potent intercontinental relationship, while Jews are never discussed as the Israeli-American community, even though - given this framework - they may as well be.

Personally, i believe the issue that lies at the heart of Chomsky’s over-arching theme - the US/West’s “world view” compared to the WORLD’s world view – comes out in a reference made early on about the assassination of a Hezbollah commander Imad Moghaniyeh:

‘State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said: "one way or the other he [Moghaniyeh] was brought to justice."’

The italics are mine. This phrase sends me into a quiet rage every time i see it. Not to be too literal here, but where exactly is this justice that Moghaniyah was brought to? The answer actually makes the question rhetorical, because we know that in fact, whenever we're told this there’s been no court, no evidence, rarely even any “leaked” proof of criminality. Judges? Juries? Those would be the guys with the cruise missiles, or planted explosives, or Apache helicopters. In the immortal words of the late great Peter Tosh:

Everyone is talking about crime
Tell me, who are the criminals?

The ideology that claims “we get to kill, overthrow or otherwise destroy whomever we want with total immunity” has been so long embraced by the US that the very notion of American justice is understood to be the gravest contradiction in terms by most of the world. In every one of Chomsky’s historical references, we see this again and again as the foundational basis for foreign policy (and not only foreign). It’s concomitant ideology, that the US has long been the leader of the free world, i.e. the part that operates under a rule of just law and legal governance, is completely undermined by it. Killing people and then claiming you did so because they are militants, subversives, etc. is absolutely criminal. We’re told that because the West is now fighting a different kind of war, different rules must apply. Yet when the new rules mean unequivocal subversion of legality, wherein justice lies, the war itself loses all credibility as any kind of just cause. Immunity = unlimited greed = unbridled lies.

People who live far removed from the locations where these atrocities are played out don’t know what it’s like to conduct their lives under constant arbitrary bombardment. Nor can they imagine seeing their neighbors plowed under by monster bulldozers. And because they don’t really get that there are large numbers of other people living under such conditions – or who have lived under them - they don’t come close to understanding the rage and awareness of injustice that these other populations carry around, often quite stoically. When factional leaders in the Middle East and elsewhere talk about justice, you can be sure everyone listening to them understands who deserves to be held accountable, and for what.

Back to you, Peter.... I don’t want no peace, I want equal rights and justice