The New World Order
November 23, 1991
Latin America and the Middle East
George Bush proclaimed the emergence of a "New World Order" with
the defeat of communism and the advent of globalization. What kind of order is it and who
does it benefit? MIT professor and dissident Noam Chomsky explains it all.
WATCH IT HERE: [G2 Player] or [RealPlayer] Produced by
Jewish Committee on the Middle East from a lecture given at George Washington
University in
1991.
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Part 1, NOAM CHOMSKY: The New World Order (Transcript)
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) [operates]. And in thinking about
it, it seemed to me that the second tack might be more informative. 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 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 (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
Control of the energy resources and the profits that flow from them is a major
factor. In fact, that's discussed in internal, declassified top secret planning
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 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 over 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.
