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BOOK REVIEW America's Quest for Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky Metropolitan Books - November 2003 Reviewed by Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty
Noam Chomsky, long-standing activist
intellectual and spokesman for the so-called New
Left, now graces us with his latest effort in
anti-American rhetoric, Hegemony or Survival:
America's Quest for Global Dominance. |
Hegemony
or Survival: |
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While many of the issues raised in this book are worthy of an objective investigation and evaluation, the work is hardly objective and, while it may present itself as a scholarly treatise (there are hundreds of endnotes and citations), it rapidly deteriorates into nothing more than a propaganda screed for a narrow, one-sided, and simplistic point of view. Furthermore, Chomsky seems to lack any sense of historical perspective, fails to articulate any coherent political framework, and does not seem to understand the nuances of modern geopolitics. What seems to be the main idea of the book? In brief, Chomsky apparently thinks that the United States is the most reprehensible of all the major powers in the world and its foreign policy is absolutely pernicious. It has become the most belligerent power in the world. It is the greatest menace to the national self-determination of other countries. It is the greatest threat to world peace and international cooperation. And, finally, the United States is a supporter of and a perpetrator of terrorism on a grand scale against those it perceives as its enemies. Chomsky claims to base these assertions on "facts." But facts, as any historian or social scientist knows, must be interpreted and placed in a context. It is easy to twist facts, ignore incongruous facts, distort a context, or disregard a context. In the case that Chomsky is trying to make here, it appears that his choices regarding evidence and his analysis of that evidence is dominated by his overwhelming desire to put the worst possible interpretation on the "motives" of America in regard to its participation in world affairs. Political philosopher Hannah Arendt suggested that the great achievement of the 20th-century totalitarians was to turn questions of fact into questions of motive. Then you don't have to answer facts with facts; all you need to do is impugn the motives of the target you have selected for castigation and hurl the most damaging epithets at it. In short, the old pastime of name-calling or, for the more philosophically inclined, the ad hominem argument. One might suggest that it is precisely what the author of this book is doing. Chomsky's response to the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center is illustrative. He claims that no matter how appalling the terrorists' actions were, the United States had done worse and he attempts to support this judgment with arguments and evidence. But his evidence is highly selective and his arguments suspect. In attempting to justify the attack, he refers, for instance, to the incident in Sudan where a pharmaceutical factory was assaulted by an American missile because the CIA suspected that Iraqi scientists were involved in making chemical or biological weapons. Chomsky fails, however, to note that the missile was fired at night so no workers would be present and that the factory was not located in or near a residential area; innocent lives would not be directly threatened. Whether one agrees or not with then-President Clinton's decision to order the assault, it hardly rises to the level, either in intent or actuality, to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Moreover, Chomsky apparently judges the morality of actions executed by the United States using a rather direct and simple formula: If an action is right for us, it is right for others; and if it is wrong for others, it is wrong for us. This might be a nice moral principle in the abstract, but it can be dreadfully deceiving when attempting to apply it to the complex world of international politics. Furthermore, Chomsky gives the impression that he wants to apply this moral principle primarily to the actions of the Western liberal democracies, not to others, including the acts committed by the terrorists in September 2001. Much of the contempt that Chomsky feels is directed toward Israel, a small country that has to constantly fight for its very existence. He refers, for instance, to the prime minister as the "archterrorist" Sharon, but he does not use that epithet when he mentions Arafat, the current Palestinian leader who has a long history of terrorism against innocent women and children. The U.S. and Israel are allegedly guilty of "war crimes," but other totalitarian regimes, particularly of the communist or socialist variety, are not. I submit this hardly reflects an objective and balanced evaluation of contemporary international realities. Is America really an evil empire, as Chomsky apparently thinks? I think an objective look at the historical record will provide the evidence that America has done more good for more people than any country in the history of the world. The United States rebuilt Europe twice in the 20th century after two world wars. Europe was liberated from the Nazi menace primarily through the intervention of the United States. Eastern Europe was liberated from the tyranny of communism primarily because the United States was willing to take the leadership role in destroying it. Now, if the United States is and has been such a terrible nation, responsible for the horrible repression that Chomsky alleges, then why, one must ask, is this country the first choice of refugees looking for a new home? Why do most people choose to flee to the United States, rather than from it? Why have so many other nations, many of them apparently admired by Chomsky, been forced to build walls and fences to keep their population captive? Why is Cuba under the Castro government a better place to live or, for that matter, Cambodia under Pol Pot or Vietnam under the current totalitarian regime? And lastly, why do so many other nations look to the United States for help when they need it? This is not to say that the United States is perfect. It is not. There are many incidents which have occurred in our history about which we should be ashamed (our treatment of Native Americans, for example). Any student of American history knows that there were defects, for instance, in the original Constitution (particularly regarding the issue of slavery and the status of blacks), but one must also accept that many of these defects were corrected through a war between the states and a civil rights movement in the 1960s; furthermore, corrections continue to this day through ongoing Supreme Court decisions and acts of Congress. In summary, I suspect that Chomsky's latest diatribe will have great appeal to his devoted followers. Those who dismiss his interpretations and analyses will simply say it is a repeat of his usual rantings against the United States. Nevertheless, I recommend this book to all readers; it is a good exemplar of pure political propaganda disguised as a serious work. In a different time and place, it would have made Dr. Joseph Goebbels proud. The New York Times apparently thinks, in its words, that "Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive." If this is really true, God help us all. Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, by Noam Chomsky
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