Who Rules the World?

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The notion of 'the World' defined by Israel and US is far different from the actual world in terms of the atrocities and crimes conducted on the Muslim World versus death of a few American or Israelis in retaliation of years of suppression, murder, brutality and torture but still the Muslim World is labelled as terrorists and looked down upon by the majority. The bombings conducted by CIA and other organizations have been kept top secret hence very few secrets or facts actually come out unless they become too prominent to suppress. With relentless logic, Chomsky bids us to listen closely to what our leaders tell us—and to discern what they are leaving out. . . . Agree with him or not, we lose out by not listening." —BusinessWeek

The second example is that I was “simply confused” in quoting Jessica Mathews [ NYR, March 19, 2015], attributing to her the view quoted “when in fact she was criticizing that perspective.” Roth does not take into account the sentence that immediately follows the passage we are discussing. It reads: “At its extreme, this reasoning holds that the US should not be bound by international rules….” Mathews does indeed criticize the “extreme” perspective that she describes, which is clearly and explicitly distinguished from the “non-extreme” position that I quoted and attributed accurately and properly. The text elsewhere contains no qualification. If there is any interest in further details, I will be glad (with his consent) to release the extended correspondence in which the New York Review editor repeatedly made the same point, and I responded in detail. All of these moves remain immune to Washington’s overwhelming military power, short of annihilation by nuclear war, which would destroy the US as well.Chomsky is a global phenomenon. . . . He may be the most widely read American voice on foreign policy on the planet." —The New York Times Book Review Beginning with the “American lake”, some eyebrows might be raised over the report in mid-December 2015 that “an American B-52 bomber on a routine mission over the South China Sea unintentionally flew within two nautical miles of an artificial island built by China, senior defense officials said, exacerbating a hotly divisive issue for Washington and Beijing”. The neoliberal programs of the past generation have concentrated wealth and power in far fewer hands while undermining functioning democracy, but they have aroused opposition as well, most prominently in Latin America but also in the centers of global power. Si bien Estados Unidos puede tolerar la desobediencia de Turquía —aunque con disgusto—, China es más difícil de pasar por alto. La prensa advierte que «los inversores y comerciantes de China están ahora llenando un vacío en Irán en un momento en el que empresas de otras muchas naciones, sobre todo de Europa, se retiran» y, en particular, que China está expandiendo su papel dominante en las industrias de energía de Irán.19 Washington está reaccionando con un punto de desesperación. El Departamento de Estado advirtió a China que si quiere ser aceptada en la «comunidad internacional» —un término técnico para referirse a Estados Unidos y quien esté de acuerdo con él— no debe «esquivar y evadir las responsabilidades internacionales, [que] son claras», a saber: seguir las órdenes de Estados Unidos.20 Es poco probable que eso impresione mucho a China. También” Noam Chomsky is the author of numerous bestselling political works including Hegemony or Survival, Failed States, and On Western Terrorism. A professor emeritus of linguistics and philosophy at MIT, he is widely credited with having revolutionized modern linguistics.

Chomsky cites the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq, which he says is “a direct outgrowth” of George W. Bush’s invasion. There is no doubt that the invasion and subsequent occupation and dismantling of the state were a disaster that greatly contributed to the rise of ISIS in Iraq, where it now controls the country’s second-largest city, Mosul. But that ascendancy is also the product of many other factors, such as the discriminatory and abusive laws and policies against Sunnis by the government of former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. Its indiscriminate bombing of Sunni areas and other sectarian abuses after the withdrawal of US troops at the end of 2011, well before the rise of ISIS, led many Sunnis to see ISIS as a lesser evil. The Transatlantic Studies Association 2023 Annual Conference Panel Review: Transatlantic Memorialisation and Heritage Unprecedented protest in the US was a manifestation of the opposition to aggression that began decades earlier in the condemnation of the US wars in Indochina, reaching a scale that was substantial and influential, even if far too late. North Korea may be the craziest country in the world. It’s certainly a good competitor for that title. But it does make sense to try to figure out what’s in the minds of people when they’re acting in crazy ways. Why would they behave the way they do? Just imagine ourselves in their situation. Imagine what it meant in the Korean War years of the early 1950s for your country to be totally leveled, everything destroyed by a huge superpower, which furthermore was gloating about what it was doing. Imagine the imprint that would leave behind. The pattern of praise and punishment have been familiar throughout history: those who line up in the service of the state are typically praised by the general intellectual community and those who refuse to line up are punished. Intellectuals are privileged and with privilege comes responsibilities.Noam Chomsky takes issue with my criticism of his one-dimensional focus on what he sees as America’s nefarious role in the world. If Chomsky had entitled his book “America’s Evil History,” I would have accepted his exclusive focus. However, he entitled it “Who Rules the World?” yet goes on to write as if the United States is virtually alone as the cause of all the world’s problems. US has been at the peak of power after World War II but since 1970's, the US share of global wealth have fallen by 25% and industrial world have become tripolar: North America, Europe and East Asia. Though US still remains the most powerful state in the world, global power is continuing to diversify hence US is increasingly unable to impose its will. His first case charges “sloppiness” in my observation that the Obama administration was considering reviving military commissions while in fact they continued to operate. The observation was accurate: it referred, explicitly, to what the Obama administration was considering in 2009, citing the news reports of May 2009.

The European Union (EU), one of the more promising developments of the post-world war II period, has been tottering because of the harsh effect of the policies of austerity during recession, condemned even by the economists of the International Monetary Fund (if not the IMF’s political actors). US invaded Iraq resulting in hundreds of thousands killed and millions of refugees along with barbarous torture and destructions. Meanwhile igniting sectarian conflict that is tearing the region to shreds and laying the basis for ISIS monstrosity along with their ally Saudi Arabia is categorised as 'stabilization'. On the other hand, Iran poses no military threat, its strategic doctrines are defensive and its nuclear program (have no effect to produce bombs as far as intelligence can determine) are a central part of US's deterrent strategy. Then the author explains how the US needs to maintain its hegemony by supporting dictatorships and turning them into puppets, like the Arab rulers. The Arab Spring was a huge risk to the United States’ control over these countries but through intervention, they succeeded to let the power remain in the hands of the dictatorship regimes by only changing one person while everything else remained the same. Egypt is a clear example in which military dictatorship has been restored. Another example is in 1953 when the US and England organized a military coup to overthrow Iran’s parliamentary government and install the dictatorship of the shah who had a vast record of crimes that were reported by Amnesty International and human rights organizations, but the Western readers as per the author do not get to read or know about these reports in the press but only from 1979 when the Shah’s regime was overthrown. In other words, all dictatorships will be supported and remain in power as long as they are puppets of “the world” and work towards imperialist goals set for them! It is possible that, if the United States goes the way of nineteenth-century Britain, Chomsky's interpretation will be the standard among historians a hundred years from now." —The New YorkerA common feature of successful insurgencies, Polk records, is that once popular support dissolves after victory, the leadership suppresses the “dirty and nasty people” who actually won the war with guerrilla tactics and terror, for fear that they might challenge class privilege. The elites’ contempt for “the lower class of these people” has taken various forms throughout the years. The world’s leading intellectual offers a probing examination of the waning American Century, the nature of US policies post-9/11, & the perils of valuing power above democracy & human rights. If we adopt to the perspective of the world we might ask which criminal are 'wanted the world over'. The US has mainly seen its torture done for it by proxy - paying, arming, training and foreigners doing it but usually being careful to keep America at least one discreet step removed. As for Chomsky’s claim that Jessica Mathews was embracing instead of criticizing the view that the US government advances “universal principles” rather than “national interests,” I simply refer the reader to the tenth paragraph of her review in the March 19, 2015 issue of The New York Review (available online), where to most other than Chomsky her meaning is obvious in the midst of a critique of unilateralism as opposed to the multilateralism that she prefers. Chomsky seems to find her next sentence to favor his interpretation—“At its extreme, this reasoning holds that the US should not be bound by international rules”—when in fact she is providing an added reason to reject the misguided unilateralists.