US State Dept. docs : "3rd world a source of raw material to be exploited"

[rman]

What follows are excerpts from the famous debate between Noam Chomsky and Richard Perle at The Ohio State University in 1988 (http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=8409).

In the debate Chomsky cites from now declassified secret documents from the State Department. Even an academic of high standing such as Noam Chomsky has a hard time getting access to such documents:

"One learns a lot from looking at the documentary record, and one learns a lot from the fact that certain people don't want you to look at it." - Noam Chomsky

Chomsky makes a distinction between what he calls "official doctrine" - doctrine as created behind closed doors, and "widely proclaimed doctrine" - the policies as told to the public.
He notes that what's actually happening in the world (much of which goes unreported in the mainstream media) - ie US/Western support of various dictators and genocides, and the 'debt-trap' of so-called "Free Trade Agreements" - is in fact consistent with (secret) official doctrine, but inconsistent with publicly anounced policies.

"Official doctrine is quite inconsistent with the historical and documentary record. (Official doctrine) conforms to the pattern of evolving events, and is entirely inconsistent with widely proclaimed doctrine." - Noam Chomsky

The interesting thing about Pat Robertson's recent quib is that what he said comes quite close to official doctrine:
"...And I don't think any oil shipments will stop. ... This is in our sphere of influence, ... this is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil..." - Pat Robertson

Robertson is saying that the US should not tolerate any power unfriendly to the US in control of significant resources. The US should assure itself access to those resources, by force if need be. No nation should be free to deny the US access to these resources, and if that happens, the US should take control of the situation. In effect: the US must control resources anywhere by any means necessary.

That's pretty radical, and not very popular even amongst classic conservatives. But this ruthless persuit of wealth and power is quite popular amongst the powers that be. They know they couldn't get away with it if they'd be honest about it, hence the secrecy and the deception.


Quotes from declassified State Department documents:

On the 3rd World:

"...a source of raw material and markets for the industrialist capitalist powers, to be exploited for their reconstruction"...

On Latin America:

"Prime concern is the protection of our raw materials. We have 50% of the worlds wealth but only 6% of its population, we must maintain this disparity to the extent possible, by force if necessary, putting aside vague and idealistic slogans such as human rights, raising of living standards, democratization, preferring police states if needed over democracies that might be to liberal and to indulgent to communists, the latter has lost any substantial meaning in US political rhetoric, referring simply to anyone who stands in our way."

"The primary threat to the US in Latin America is the trend towards nationalistic regimes that respond to popular demand for improvement in low living standards and production for domestic needs. That's not acceptable because the US is committed to encouraging a climate inductive to private investment, in particular guaranties for opportunity to earn and in the case of foreign capital to repatriate a reasonable return."

"We must therefore oppose what is regularly called ultra nationalism in secret documents, that means efforts to pursue domestic needs. We must foster exports or (...) production in the interests of US investors. It is recognized such programs have very little appeal to the Latin American public. So the conclusion is that we must therefore gain control over the military which can in turn control domestic opposition and overthrow civilian governments if necessary."

So there you have it.