What on Earth: BOOK: What Uncle Sam Really Wants

At the end of World War II the US had 50% of the worlds wealth and only 6.3% of the worlds population. According to Chomsky - quoting George Kennan, head of US State Department planning until 1950 - America's post World War II task was to "devise a pattern of [international] relationships which will permit [the US] to maintain this position of disparity." Crucial to this task was the need to combat and dispell the "dangerous idea that the government has direct responsibilty for the welfare of the people." US planners called this dangerous idea Communism.

One Good Apple

US planners realised that the greateat threat to continued US supremacy was what they called 'Third World nationalism' or 'ultranationalism'. In other words, the threat was foreign governments which were responsive to 'popular demands for the immediate improvement in the low living standards of the masses'. Why was this a threat? Well, for two reasons. Firstly, the US required 'governments that favour private investment of domestic and foreign capital, production for export, and the right to bring profits out of the country.' That is, the US sought to develop or enforce relationships with foreign governments whereby Gross National Production (GNP) would be increased but not for the people of that country, rather for the benefit of US investors and a small domestic business elite (an 'economic miracle'). Incredibly this meant that as a country increased its production levels it simultaneously increased the amount of poverty and starvation amongst its people. Secondly, were any government seen to be becoming 'nationalistic' - that is, increasingly concerning itself with the welfare and living standards of the masses - the danger was that people in neighbouring countries would see this, realise it was possible in their own country, and thus demand it of their own governments. To US planners, Third World nationalism (or democracy, or good government, call it what you will) was a virus which could not be allowed to spread.

We all know about Nicaragua...?

In his film Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror (2003) Australian journalist and documentary maker John Pilger estimates that the US has attacked and overthrown governments in 72 countries since World War II; using means such as manipulating elections, destroying popular social movements, political subversion, bombing, terror, torture, using chemical weapons, and assasinations. Indeed, the US has a school devoted to teaching predomininatly Latin American soldiers in some or all of these methods: the School of America's at Fort Benning, Georgia (recently renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). One of the countries that fell foul to the US and this 'school' was Nicaragua.

In the late 70's and early 80's, Oxfam reported that in Nicaragua, under the Sandanista government, there was a 'substantial effort to address inequalities in land ownership and to extend health, educational and agricultural services to poor peasant families.' Elsewhere Oxfam described the strength of the Nicaraguan governments commitment to 'improving the condition of the people and encouraging their active participation in the development process'. In 1983, Jose Figueres - the so called 'father' of Costa Rican democracy - declared that "for the first time, Nicaragua has a government that cares for its people." How was this met in the US? George Shultz, US Secretary of State under Reagan, described the Nicaraguan Sandinista government as a 'cancer'. And thus the US set about cutting it out: it launched the contra war, and it compelled 'the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank to terminate all projects and assistance' to Nicaragua. 'Because they weren't under US control,' Chomsky says, 'they had to suffer and die.' And they did suffer and they did die.

You might wonder as to how or why the American people would stand for this? Well, according to Chomsky, there's at least two reasons. Firstly, during the 1970's, US television networks - all networks - devoted exactly one hour of coverage to Nicaragua (and this was entirely about the 1972 Managua earthquake). During this time Nicaragua was ruled by the brutal dictator Anastasio Somoza. For the US, so long as Somoza's tyranical rule was maintained, Nicaragua was of no concern. When this tyrany was threatened by Sandinistan democracy, it was then that Nicaragua became a problem. And thus, secondly, 'the attack against Nicaragua was justified by the claim that if we don't stop them there, they'll be pouring across the border at Harlington, Texas - just two days drive away...' That this claim was rediculous, implausable, absurd, didn't matter. Most Americans bought it without question. More recently this exact same rhetorical device - fight them there so we don't have to fight them here - has been used to justify atrocities in the middle east.

[To be continued.]