An interview with Chalmers Johnson by David Ross

[dudeness]

Chalmers Johnson served in the Navy during the Korean War. He earned his
Ph.D. in political science at UC Berkeley and taught there and at UC San
Diego until 1992. He served as chairman of the Center for Chinese
Studies and was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences. Chalmers Johnson is president and co-founder of the Japan
Policy Research Institute (www.jpri.org). He has written numerous
articles and reviews and twelve books on Asian subjects, including,
Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power, MITI and the Japanese Miracle,
and Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. His latest
book is titled, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End
of the Republic.


David Ross (D.R.): Throughout the Internet after the September 11th
attacks, there was a lot of talk of blowback. When, in fact, a year
before the attacks, you wrote the book Blowback: The Costs and
Consequences of American Empire, where you predicted events such as
9-11. What is blowback and what are its causes?

Chalmers Johnson: "Blowback" is a CIA term. It was first invented after
the CIA intervention against the government of Iran in 1953 when we
overthrew an elected government there for the interests of the British
and American petroleum industries. Blowback refers to the unintended
consequences of clandestine policies that have been kept secret from the
American public. I think it's important to stress that any policy may
have unintended consequences, but here we're talking about unintended
consequences of policies that the public knows nothing about, therefore,
has no context within which to place them, and ends up with a daffy
president going around asking, "Why do they hate us?"

My analysis was that the things we had done during the cold war, and the
first decade after the cold war, were generating almost uncontrollable
blowback. I did not, obviously, specifically anticipate anything like
9-11, but I certainly did anticipate and predict terrorist acts against
Americans-military and civilian, abroad and at home-and therefore, was
not particularly surprised when the attacks came on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon in September of 2001. At the time, I did not
think that they were necessarily Islamic terrorists; I thought they
could have been from Argentina, Chile, Indonesia, Okinawa, Greece, or
any number of places on earth where we have carried out clandestine
activities that unquestionably generate hostility toward the United
States.

My book was written as an explicit warning to my fellow Americans of the
likely consequences of their policies over the previous decade and
earlier. The warning was unheeded in the United States. The book was
very well received abroad, particularly in Germany and Italy. But it was
more or less ignored here until after 9-11, when, as you say, it became
somewhat of an underground bestseller because of the surprise that the
world finally came home to the Americans.

more..http://www.zmag.org/recent_featured___links.htm

[KoKo]

1. Here's a better link to the article. The link above didn't link.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=5255

It's an excellent read. Just took me awhile to find it! Thanks!

[reprehensor]

2. Thank you both... n/t