Imagine if the world leaders, pushed by an aroused populace, came together to agree to put aside their differences and focus on addressing climate change. It’s a difficult challenge. It’s expensive. It requires considerable human resources. And the answer is a no-brainer.
Voters on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party are rightly disappointed by the similarity of the foreign policy positions of the two remaining Democratic Party presidential candidates, Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama. However, there are still some real discernable differences to be taken into account. Indeed, given the power the United States has in the world, even minimal differences in policies can have a major difference in the lives of millions of people.
As a result, the kind of people the next president appoints to top positions in national defense, intelligence, and foreign affairs is critical. Such officials usually emerge from among a presidential candidate’s team of foreign policy advisors. So, analyzing who these two finalists for the Democratic presidential nomination have brought in to advise them on international affairs can be an important barometer for determining what kind for foreign policies they would pursue as president. For instance, in the case of the Bush administration, officials like Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle played a major role in the fateful decision to invade Iraq by convincing the president that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat and that American forces would be treated as liberators.
After 26 years of chaos and war, Liberia, on the shores of West Africa, is reemerging as a beacon of hope in a difficult region. A peaceful democratic transition ushered in Africa’s first woman president, a successful UN peacekeeping effort, and a wave of repatriates eager to build for the future. One glaring blemish on this positive picture is the condition of workers engaged with Liberia’s largest employer, Bridgestone Firestone. The American icon, now a division of a Japanese corporation, is the sponsor of the 2008 and 2009 Super Bowl half-time shows. It also runs the world’s largest rubber operations in Liberia. The country’s fertile soil and stable workforce brought Firestone to Liberia back in 1926. For 82 years, the company has secured a steady flow of rubber from Liberia to the United States through a system based on modern-day slavery.
Noam Chomsky is a noted linguist, author, and foreign policy expert. On January 15, Michael Shank interviewed him on the latest developments in U.S. policy toward regional challenges to U.S. power. In the second part of this two-part interview, Chomsky also discussed the Bank of the South, nationalization of resources, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Michael Shank: In December 2007, seven South American countries officially launched the Bank of the South in response to growing opposition to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other International Financial Institutions. How important is this shift and will it spur other responses in the developing world? Will it at some point completely undermine the reach of the World Bank and the IMF?
The Pentagon ushered in the New Year with seemingly welcome news: IraqÂs security is improving. Attacks across the country fell 62% and, according to aid organization Iraqi Red Crescent, 20,000 Iraqi refugees returned home from Syria in December alone. The U.S. troop surge must be working. Even the Democratic opponents of President George BushÂs agenda in Iraq are befuddled by the news, unclear how to proceed.
The United States acts as if it owns the world. This might seem counter-intuitive. After all, more and more foreign entities are lapping up bargain properties in our “homeland.” And aside from U.S. military bases — a not inconsiderable amount of territory — the United States is not land-grabbing the way imperial Rome or London did. But since when was ownership all about possessing the deed to the property? Bullies can own the neighborhood, even if they’re only renting a room in one of the houses. It has a lot to do with attitude. And the Bush administration has attitude up the wazoo.
Among the Third World solidarity posters adorning the walls of the Valley Peace Center in Amherst, Massachusetts in the early 1970s was one particularly striking photo of a handsome, heroic Mozambican Frelimo guerilla. Above him the text read: Stop The Cabora Bassa Dam! I had no idea why we should stop it, but if the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique said so, that was good enough for me.
Noam Chomsky is a noted linguist, author, and foreign policy expert. On January 15, Michael Shank interviewed him on the latest developments in U.S. policy toward Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan. In the first part of this two-part interview, Chomsky also discussed how the U.S. government’s belief in its ownership of the world shapes its foreign policy.
Michael Shank: Is the leading Democrats’ policy vis-à-vis Iraq at all different from the Bush administration’s policy?
Wouldn’t it be nice if the U.S. government took a cue from the Europeans or even from our own history to come up with a more visionary stimulus package?
For almost 100 years, the system here has been trying to create a nation, one nation that represses, that says we are one Turkey. For the Ottoman Empire, religion was the base; ethnicity was not important. When Italy was formed, only eight percent of Italian people spoke Italian. From that base population, they created Italy. It was the same story with France. So Turkey, too, tried to create a nation of Turks. They say we are a mosaic. That means different colors, but they’re not touching because there is cement in between. The Turkish culture is very old, going back 10,000 years. All this time there has been a mixing of cultures. So this metaphor is wrong. It doesn’t define the Anatolian land. A better metaphor is ebru. We invented this art, of colors swirling on paper. The fluidity of this metaphor better explains us. It is the metaphor with which we can start to talk.