Chomsky's Analysis of Weakening America
Comment by Larry Ross, June 1, 2006
As Chomsky shows, the U.S. is losing it's place as No 1 among nations, and has become a "failed state". Chomsky does not cover potential U.S. military actions against some of it's competitors, and how that could change the outcome of the present trends.
In the opinion of many, the U.S. is governed by a criminal conspiracy that has also become an administration of war criminals, using lies to con their people and congress into supporting an illegal and unjustifiable war on Iraq. Having killed, tortured or imprisoned up to 250,000 Iraqis for no justifiable reason, the Bush Administration has established that it is capable of committing any crime. It has already said it might use nuclear weapons against Iran, and Bush continuously says "all options are on the table". It needs a more convincing excuse, than Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons, to start yet another war against an opponent three times larger and better prepared than Iraq. Bush's declining popularity, and widespread disenchantment with his Iraq war, would influence U.S. elections in November. The Administration will remember how all the doors were opened and Bush and Republican popularity zoomed up after the 9/11 attack in 2001. They were able to begin their war agenda for middle-eastern states with the Afghanistan war, followed by the Iraq war. I doubt that they will abandon their agenda and quietly fade into the sunset. I think it is more likely that they will adopt various types of subterfuge - even sabotage and fake attacks, followed by accusations against Iran and then war and new fascist-type domestic laws to deal with dissenters.
Chomsky's excellent analysis of the 'failing state' provides many reasons why the Bush Administration will resort to more wars to avoid the kind of results he predicts.
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Why it's over for America
An inability to protect its citizens. The belief that it is above the law. A lack of democracy. Three defining characteristics of the 'failed state'. And that, says Noam Chomsky, is exactly what the US is becoming. In an exclusive extract from his devastating new book, America's leading thinker explains how his country lost its way
By Noam Chomsky, May 30, 2006
The selection of issues that should rank high on the agenda of concern for human welfare and rights is, naturally, a subjective matter. But there are a few choices that seem unavoidable, because they bear so directly on the prospects for decent survival. Among them are at least these three: nuclear war, environmental disaster, and the fact that the government of the world's leading power is acting in ways that increase the likelihood of these catastrophes. It is important to stress the government, because the population, not surprisingly, does not agree.
That brings up a fourth issue that should deeply concern Americans, and the world: the sharp divide between public opinion and public policy, one of the reasons for the fear, which cannot casually be put aside, that, as Gar Alperowitz puts it in America Beyond Capitalism, "the American 'system' as a whole is in real trouble - that it is heading in a direction that spells the end of its historic values [of] equality, liberty, and meaningful democracy".
The "system" is coming to have some of the features of failed states, to adopt a currently fashionable notion that is conventionally applied to states regarded as potential threats to our security (like Iraq) or as needing our intervention to rescue the population from severe internal threats (like Haiti). Though the concept is recognised to be, according to the journal Foreign Affairs, "frustratingly imprecise", some of the primary characteristics of failed states can be identified. One is their inability or unwillingness to protect their citizens from violence and perhaps even destruction. Another is their tendency to regard themselves as beyond the reach of domestic or international law, and hence free to carry out aggression and violence. And if they have democratic forms, they suffer from a serious "democratic deficit" that deprives their formal democratic institutions of real substance.
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