A-Infos (en) US, Media, Press TV Chomsky Interview: No change coming with Obama

The following is a Press TV interview with respected American author, political analyst and 
world-renowned linguist, Professor Noam Chomsky. ---- Press TV: Professor Chomsky, we better start 
with Pakistan. The White House not commenting on the killings of people [in cross-border drone 
attacks from Afghanistan into Pakistan]. Richard Holbrooke, someone whom you've written about in 
the context of Yugoslavia, is the man [President Barack] Obama has chosen to solve the situation.
Chomsky: Well, it was pretty clear that Obama would accept the Bush doctrine that the United States 
can bomb Pakistan freely, and there have been many case which are quite serious. ---- There has 
been for example a great deal of chaos and fighting in Bajaur province, which is adjacent to 
Afghanistan and tribal leaders -- others there -- have traced it to the bombing of a madrassa 
school which killed 80 to 95 people, which I don't think was even reported in the United states, it 
was reported in the Pakistani press of course.

The author of the article reporting it, a well-known nuclear physicist,
Pervez Hoodbhoy pointed out at the time that this kind of massacre will
of course engender terror and reactions, which will even threaten the
state of Pakistan. And that has been what is happening. We are now
seeing more of it.

The first message of the Pakistani government to General [David]
Petraeus, the American General when he took command of the region was
that they did not want any more bombings in Pakistan.

Actually, the first message to the new Obama administration by President
[Hamid] Karzai of Afghanistan was the same, that he wanted no more
bombings. He also said that he wants a timetable for the withdrawal of
the foreign troops, US and other troops, from Afghanistan. That was of
course just ignored.

Press TV: And these three foreign envoys, well the third one has not
been announced yet perhaps, but some people are expressing optimism
about George Mitchell's position as Middle East envoy.

Richard Holbrooke, which have looked at. We have talked to the former
Bosnian foreign minister here, who seemed to imply that he may even have
had a role in the say so for the Srebrenica massacre, and of course,
Dennis Ross is being talked about as an envoy for Iran.

Chomsky: well Holbrooke has a pretty awful record, not so much
Yugoslavia, but earlier. For example, in the Indonesian atrocities in
eastern Timor, where he was the official in charge, and evaded to stop
the US support for them, and all together it's a very spotty record.

George Mitchell is, of the various appointments that have been made, he
is the most decent let's say. He has a pretty decent record. He achieved
something in Northern Ireland, but of course, in that case there was an
objective.

The objective was that the British would put an end to the resort to
violence in response to IRA terror and would attend to the legitimate
grievances that were the source of the terror. He did manage that,
Britain did pay attention to the grievances, and the terror stopped- so
that was successful.

But there is no such outcome sketched in the Middle East, specially the
Israel-Palestine problem. I mean, there is a solution, a straightforward
solution very similar to the British one. Israel could stop its
US-backed crimes in the occupied territories and then presumably the
reaction to them would stop. But that's not on the agenda.

In fact, President Obama just had a press conference, which was quite
interesting in that respect. He praised the parabolic peace initiative,
the Saudi initiative endorsed by the Arab League, and said it had
constructive elements. It called for the normalization of relation with
Israel, and he called on the Arab states to proceed with those
"constructive elements," namely the normalization of relations.

But that is a gross falsification of the Arab League initiative. The
Arab League initiative called for accepting a two-state settlement on
the international border, which has been a long-standing international
consensus and said if that can be achieved then Arab states can
normalize relations with Israel.

Well, Obama skipped the first part, the crucial part, the core of the
resolution, because that imposes an obligation on the United States. The
United States has stood alone for over thirty years in blocking this
international consensus, by now it has totally isolated the US and Israel.

Europe and now a lot of other countries have accepted it. Hamas has
accepted it for years, the Palestinian Authority of course, the Arab
League now for many years [have accepted it]. The US and Israel block
it, not just in words, but they are blocking it in actions constantly,
(this is) happening every day in the occupied territories and also in
the siege of Gaza and other atrocities.

So when he skips that it is purposeful. That entails that the US is not
going to join the world in seeking to implement a diplomatic settlement,
and if that is the case, Mitchell's mission is vacuous.

Press TV: Is there a contradiction in that George Mitchell of course did
speak to members of the Sinn Féin, their military wing of course of the IRA.

At the same time, well on this channel [Press TV] we have been covering
the Gaza conflict, its headquarters were bombed, and now we are being
told that Israeli soldiers will not give their names, and the names of
people are not being released for fear of prosecution.

And yet, some were saying that Obama did say that the border should be
opened. Should we see any change in policy there?

Chomsky: He did say that, but he did not mention the fact that it was in
the context of a lot other demands. And Israel will also say, sure the
borders should be opened but he still refuses to speak to the elected
government (i.e. Hamas), quite different from Mitchell in Northern Ireland.

It means Palestinians will have to be punished for voting in a free
election, the way the US did not want them to, and he endorsed the
Condoleezza Rice-Tzipi Livni agreement to close the Egyptian-Gaza order,
which is quite an act of imperial arrogance.

It is not their border, and in fact, Egypt strongly objected to that.
But Obama continued. He says we have to make sure that no arms are
smuggled through the tunnels into the Gaza Strip. But he said nothing
about the vast dispatch of far more lethal arms to Israel.

In fact, right in the middle of the Gaza attack, December 31, the
Pentagon announced that it was commissioning a German ship to send 3,000
tons of war material to Israel. That did not work out, because the
government of Greece prevented it but it was supposed to go through
Greece but it could all go through somewhere else. This is right in the
middle of the attack on Gaza.

Actually there were very little reporting, very few inquiries. The
Pentagon responded in an interesting way. They said, well this material
won't be used for the attack on Gaza, in fact they knew that Israel had
plans to stop the attack right before the inauguration, so that Obama
would not have to say anything about it.

But the Pentagon said that this material is being used for
pre-positioning for US forces. In other words, this has been going for a
long time, but this is extending and reinforcing the role of Israel as a
US military base on the edge of the major oil producing regions of the
world. If they are ever asked why they are doing it, they will say for
defense or stability, but it is just a base for further aggressive action.

Press TV: Robert Gates and Admiral [Mike] Mullen have been talking about
the 16-month timeline for withdrawal from Iraq is just one of the
options, a slight difference from what Obama has been saying in the
campaign. And, Hillary Clinton famously said she was prepared to
obliterate all of Iran and kill 70 million citizens. On Iraq and Iran
what do you see as changes?

Chomsky: What happened in Iraq is extremely interesting and important.
The few correspondents with real experience any whom know something have
understood it. Patrick Cockburn, Jonathan Steele and one or two others.

What has happened is that there was a remarkable campaign of non-violent
resistance in Iraq, which compelled the United States, step-by-step, to
back away from its programs and its goals. They compelled the US
occupying forces to allow an election, which the US did not want and
tried to evade in all sorts of ways.

Then they went on from there to force the United States to accept at
least formally a status of forces agreement, which if the Obama
administration lives up to it, will abandon most of the US war aims. It
will eliminate the huge permanent military bases that the US has built
in Iraq. It will mean the US will not control decisions over how the oil
resources will be accessed and used. And in fact just every war aim is gone.

Of course there is a question of whether the US will live up to it and
what you are reporting is among the serious indications that they are
trying to evade living up to it. But what happened there is really
significant, and a real credit to the people of Iraq, who have suffered
miserably. I mean, the country has been absolutely destroyed, but they
did manage to get the US to back away formally from its major war aims.

In the case of Iran, Obama's statements have not been as inflammatory as
Clinton's, but they amount to pretty much the same thing. He said all
options are open. Well, what does all options mean? Presumably that
includes nuclear war, you know, that is an option.

There is no indication that he is willing to take the steps, say, that
the American population wants. An overwhelming majority of the American
population for years has been in favor, has agreed with the Non-Aligned
Movement, that Iran should have the rights granted to the signers of the
non-proliferation treaty, in fact to develop nuclear energy.

It should not have the right to develop nuclear weapons, and more
interestingly about the same percentages, about 75 to 80%, call for the
establishment of a nuclear weapons free zone in the region, which would
include Iran, Israel, and any US forces deployment there, within all
kinds of verifications and so on.

That could eliminate probably one of the major sources of the conflict.
There is no indication that the Obama administration has any thought of
doing anything about this.

Press TV: Just finally Professor Chomsky, the US economy, of course
where you are -- that is dominating the news and the lives all Americans
and arguably the people around the world -- and this 825 billion dollar
package. How do you think the Obama people are going to handle this?

Chomsky: Nobody really knows. I mean, what is happening with the economy
is not well understood. It is based on extremely opaque financial
manipulations, which are quite hard to decode. I mean, the general
process is understood, but whether the $800 billion, or probably larger
government stimulus, will overcome this crisis, is not known.

The first $350 billion have already been spent -- that is the so-called
part bailout but that went into the pockets of banks. They were supposed
to start lending freely, but they just decided not to do it. They would
rather enrich themselves, restore their own capital, and take over other
banks -- mergers and acquisition and so on.

Whether the next stimulus will have an effect depends very much on how
it is handled, whether it is monitored, so that it is used for
constructive purposes. [It relies] also on factors that are just not
known, like how deep this crisis is going to be.

It is a worldwide crisis and it is very serious. It is suddenly striking
that the ways that Western countries are approaching the crisis is
exactly the same as the model that they enforce on the Third World when
there is a crisis.

So when Indonesia has a crisis, Argentina and everyone else, they are
supposed to raise interest rates very high and privatize the economy,
and cut down on public spending, measures like that. In the West, it is
the exact opposite: lower interest rates to zero, move towards
nationalization if necessary, pour money into the economy, have huge debts.

That is exactly the opposite of how the Third World is supposed to pay
off its debts, and that this seems to pass without comment is
remarkable. These measures for the West are ones that might get the
economy moving again, while it has been a disaster for others.

ZHD/HGH/HAR
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