whitebeard

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War and mass media against democracy
Interview to Noam Chomsky

Oldenburg: In the discussion about the Gulf War, the German chancellor and the government have been praised for their anti-war attitude, even though Germany allowed US warplanes to overfly German airspace on their way to Iraq and to use NATO infrastructure. Germany also reinforced its own engagement in Afghanistan so that the US could send more of its own troops to Iraq. What do you think were the motives for Germany and other European countries to oppose the US intervention in Iraq?

I don't know enough about Germany to give a serious answer, but it's kind of an interesting question. It is the question that ought to be asked: What were the motives for France and Germany to not go along with the US war? Nobody asks, why Italy agreed to go along, or why Spain agreed. The fact of the matter is that their populations were strongly opposed to this war, in fact, they were more opposed in Italy and Spain than they were in France and Germany. If anybody believed in democracy - unfortunately nobody does - but if anybody believed in democracy, they wouldn't ask this question. There's nothing to ask when a government accepts the same position as the will of the majority of the population, that's what they're supposed to do in a democratic society. But, the question only arises for those who didn't take their orders from Crawford, Texas. You've got some kind of a problem. The ones who disregarded 90 percent of the population and took their orders from the boss, no question. As, to why the German government decided to follow the will of 70 percent of their population, I don't know. But in a democratic society such a question shouldn't come up. They shouldn't have a choice. Yes, that is what they should do or they'd be kicked out.

Oldenburg: Are the differences between "Old Europe" and the US over Iraq an expression of a increasing political and economic rivalry between "Old Europe" and the United States?

The concept of "Old Europe" is kind of interesting for a number of reasons. It was invented by Rumsfeld and then picked up by the world. It is standard in the Western elites. As for the criteria whether a country is in "Old Europe" or in "New Europe," that's very sharp. A country is in "Old Europe" if the government, for whatever reason, took the same position as the vast majority of the population. It's in "New Europe" if it overruled an even bigger majority of the population and took its orders from Washington. "Old Europe" is condemned and "New Europe" is praised and the hope for the future. This is an expression of such hatred for democracy that it's indescribable. And it passed virtually without comment.

The most dramatic case was Turkey. In Turkey 95 percent of the population was opposed to the war and everybody was surprised: By a slim, small vote the parliament voted to go along with 95 percent of the population. Colin Powell immediately told them, they're gonna lose all their aid, Paul Wolfowitz, the great visionary, condemned the Turkish military because they didn't intervene to prevent the government from this horrible mistake. He ordered them to apologize to the United States and recognize that their task is to help America. He's still the great visionary.

Actually, the press reacted quite interestingly. Almost All of them condemned Turkey and, for the first time, they started reporting the Turkish atrocities against the Kurds in the 1990s - they'd never done that before - but, just to show how awful the Turks were for not taking orders they started describing what the Turks had done to the Kurds. Of course, they kept very quiet about the fact that they were able to do this because they got all the military aid from the United States and that this aid went up when the atrocities went up. And, obviously, they (the press) didn't mention that they themselves had been silent about it when they could have stopped it. That never comes up.

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Potential European independence will be rooted in France and Germany, that's the problem. That's one of the reasons the United States is so interested in EU enlargement. They figure they can dilute the influence of Europe by bringing in those former satellites, which they figure, probably correctly, will be more under US influence. The US wants Turkey in for the same reasons, for the EU to be more under US influence.

The entire interview here

posted by: Whitebeard at 19:29 | link | comments |