politics

if I was not the one who did it. Noam provides a brief overview of how US human rights policy has done much to cause the "wars" we now need to stop.

While the connections are obvious we do little to change. We view the UN as a joke and have countless times displayed this.
We have had a past of funding ethnic cleansing in other countries and it would be foolish to think by ignoring it we will change.

The section on Iraq is especially prescient. By Midnight on September 11, I already knew the Bush administration would use that horrible day as a pretext to attack those people again.

Mandatory listening for anyone who cares about democracy.

I spend 2 hours on the road commuting back and forth from work, which is valuable time with which to listen to audio books and lectures. Since I've received this c.d. from Amazon, I've listened to it at least 5 times over, and each time I learn something new.

Case Studies in Hypocrisy comes in 2 c.d.'s, one dealing with the United States conduct in relation to the Bretton Woods System (the economic order) and the United Declaration of Human Rights as a fundamental part of the U.N. Charter (the political order), the other dealing America's genocidal policy of economic sanctions against Iraq.

The first c.d. is classic Chomsky. He presents both the economic world order, as formulated by Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes, and the world political order, as a consensus by the members of the United Nations, with specific focus on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Both systems are explained in very simple, enlightening terms, upon which Chomsky measures the compliance of the United States. With regards to the economic systems, he sheds light upon the corrupt role of the IMF in protecting the brutal regimes of puppet allies to the United States, such as Indonesia. He deconstructs the rhetoric behind the "Fairy Tale Economic Boom", which is used to mask the poverty of a growing sector of American society. He analyzes the true role of NAFTA, which is essentially an agreement to protect the interests of corporations, not national goverments, and definately not the interests of the working people.

Chomsky uses the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to measure the conduct of American foreign policy behavior. The U.S. is a crucial member of the United Nations. In fact, it helped create the United Nations. The headquarters of the U.N. is located in New York. Yet, the U.S. does not feel as though it is obligated to abide by the international system as articulated by the U.N. Charter. Worse, the U.S. openly opposes several articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Chomsky cites several violations by the U.S. that theoretically warrant judicial proceedings. A perfect example is the case of Cuba. The American policy of economic sanctions toward Cuba includes the prohibition of food to the tiny nation. According to the UNHR, everybody has the right to eat. Yet, the United States has manufactured a law forbidding a nation to recieve food, which has resulted in incredible malnourishment among the poorer sectors of Cuban society.

Clearly, America does not feel that she is obliged to follow the laws that she forces others to follow. The word "hypocrisy" becomes a poignant and accurate choice of words, indeed.

The second c.d. is a comprehensive analysis of the economic sanctions against Iraq. Chomsky takes the major points of State Department rhetoric and systematically and brilliantly, destroys them all. He explains why excuses such as, "Saddam is a threat to his neighbors", "he's building chemical and biological weapons", "he oppresses the Kurdish and Shiite populations of Iraq", etc., are hardly sufficient to explain the sanctions, the inspections teams, and the relentless bombings. A case in point: America supported Saddam all through the 1980's when he was at the peak of his madness, killing hundreds of thousands of people. The Reagan, Bush, and Thatcher administrations gave Saddam billions worth of dollars economic aid, military equipment, and biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction. America wanted to see Iran defeated and destroyed. Nearly 1,000,000 people died in the Iran-Iraq war. Saddam gassed the Kurds and slaughtered the Shiites. Where was America's sense of humanitarian duty then? Why wasn't Saddam a monster then? Why weren't there any sanctions then? Where were the noble inspections teams then? The economic sanctions imposed by the fanatic United States have resulted in over 1.7 million deaths, due primarily to starvation, malnutrition, and disease. Over a half million children have died because of these sanctions, about which Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has stated on national television "we think the price is worth it". That should clear up any confusion about America's dedication to protecting human rights.

He concludes by establishing the truth behind America's intentions in the Middle East: OIL. If Iraqi oil is on the global market, oil prices will fall, which is good for the people but bad for all the big oil companies like Exxon, Shell, etc. The oil companies thrive where the government is weak and the people are so poor and weak that they are completely defenseless and unable to resist the forces of giant oil companies from exploiting the natural resources. A perfect example is Nigeria. Hence, the U.S. will just put Iraqi oil off the market by placing Iraq in a cage. The former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia remarked, "When the price of oil shoots up to $30 per barrel, you'll see Saddam Hussein turn into Mother Theresa", and anybody with half a brain in their head knows the truth of that statement.

Again, these lectures are classic Chomsky - brilliant, comprehensive, lucid, sobering, and intellectually electrifying.