Interventions by Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky remains cogent as ever in his old age. He's still giving interviews, appearing on Democracy Now, writing, etc. Still, because there are so few voices countering hegemonic US foreign policy the prospect of losing Chomsky is truly depressing. Or it was before reading his book of op-eds Interventions and realizing that time is indeed a flat circle and anything Chomsky has said will apply to all of the exact same things for the rest of time.

For example, tell me if this sounds at all familiar:

"Washington's thorniest problem in the region is Venezuela, which provides nearly 15 percent of US oil imports. President Hugo Chavez, elected in 1998, displays the kind of independence that the United States translates as defiance...in 2002, Washington embraced President Bush's vision of democracy by supporting a military coup that very briefly overturned the Chavez Government. The Bush administration had to back down, however, because of opposition to the coup throughout Latin America and the quick reversal of the coup by a popular uprising".

Interventions is a collection of op-eds by Chomsky during (and in the leadup to) the Iraq War. While each one is short, they work to build a countervailing narrative that we all know now to be true. The takeaway here is not just that Chomsky is right, but rather how easy it is to be right.

US foreign policy is extremely formulaic. Since World War II the US will work discretely to cause unrest in a region in order to apply their disaster capitalist tactics toward privatization, they'll accuse any challenging nation (no matter how small) of being an existential threat, and they'll make up any number of reasons to execute an occupation if necessary.

In reading Interventions, one understands that Chomsky's entire body of work documents this strategy time and time again. It serves as a reminder that we can look to Chomsky and those like him any time state conflict approaches. In the year 2019, as our nation creeps closer to an extended military conflict with Iran, we only have to glance at Chomky's writings on the failure to find Bin-Laden, the source of the post-9/11 anthrax terror, or the Iraqi WMDs:

"for the second 9/11 anniversary and beyond, we basically have two choices. We can march forward with confidence that the global enforcer will drive evil from the world, much as the president's speechwriters declare, plagiarizing ancient epics and children's tales. Or we can subject the doctrine of the proclaimed grand new era to scrutiny, drawing rational conclusions, perhaps gaining some sense of the emerging reality".

As concerned citizens, we owe this level of scrutiny to Chomsky. I wouldn't start out with Interventions as your introductory text, but it definitely makes a great piece to a larger collection.