Book review

A trenchant critique of Uncle Sam’s duplicity

By
Randeep Wadehra

Hopes & Prospects by Noam Chomsky
Hamish Hamilton/Penguin. Pages: VII+327. Price: Rs. 599/-

Although this book is a collection of updated essays and lectures, written/delivered by the author over a period of time, it does have a discernible theme premised on the belief, which the USA’s founding fathers had reputedly enunciated, that the nascent nation was, indeed, an “infant empire”. This, according to Chomsky, set the successive US administrations’ worldview in the proverbial stone. He points out how the European “invaders” wiped out the original populations of the Americas. The numbers of those killed were not in thousands but in hundreds of thousands – probably millions.

After the United States of America came into being it became apparent that it would be treating the Latin American nations as its vassal states – which it certainly did. Chomsky gives the examples of Bolivia, Chile, Haiti, Cuba etc to burnish his thesis that various US administrations torpedoes all chances of democracy striking roots in Latin America because the popular anti-USA sentiment in these and other countries would not allow the exploitation of their mineral and other natural resources for the benefit of Uncle Sam’s ever-greedy military-industrial superstructure. He then goes on to narrate the story of depredations perpetrated by the USA and its allies, with Israel playing the cat’s-paw, in the Middle East. Lebanon and Palestine have been completely destroyed as viable entities. Iraq is in the process of being ruined beyond redemption; in fact, the author describes American depredations in this blighted country as surpassing those inflicted by the Mongol invaders of yore. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been turned into virtual dependencies. Since neither Syria nor Iran is prepared to bow to the only superpower in the world, attempts are being made to tame them – with special attention reserved for Iran. Similarly, Afghanistan too has been sent hurtling into the Stone Age in the name of saving it from terror! But the real target is Afghanistan’s as yet unfathomable, untapped mineral wealth.

In fact, whoever has been the White House incumbent – Ronald Reagan, the father-son Bush duo or Barack Obama – the war on terror is being used as a convenient pretext to advance US hegemony around the globe, ensuring near monopolistic control over production and distribution of vast oil reserves in the region – whatever ideological reasons might be advanced to veil these motives.

Chomsky’s castigation of America’s doublespeak on encouraging democracy in other countries finds resonance in what was done in Chile, Palestine, Haiti and other countries where legitimately elected governments were either subverted or toppled and puppet dictators instated instead. The recent WikiLeaks.com revelations reinforce Chomsky’s thesis. The revelations tell us how the CIA looked on indulgently as Pakistan’s army and its intelligence wing, the ISI, used American funds to systematically subvert democratic institutions within Pakistan, apart from destabilizing Afghanistan’s elected government through violence and subversion as well as executing terrorist attacks on the soil of democratic India. Dictators in Pakistan were always favourites with the American establishment – Ayub, Yahya and Musharraf earlier and Kayani now.

The USA’s domestic poli

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