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Noam Chomsky: “Losing” the World - American Decline in Perspective, Part 1
from TomDispatch:
Losing the World
American Decline in Perspective, Part 1
By Noam Chomsky
Significant anniversaries are solemnly commemorated -- Japans attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, for example. Others are ignored, and we can often learn valuable lessons from them about what is likely to lie ahead. Right now, in fact.
At the moment, we are failing to commemorate the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedys decision to launch the most destructive and murderous act of aggression of the post-World War II period: the invasion of South Vietnam, later all of Indochina, leaving millions dead and four countries devastated, with casualties still mounting from the long-term effects of drenching South Vietnam with some of the most lethal carcinogens known, undertaken to destroy ground cover and food crops.
The prime target was South Vietnam. The aggression later spread to the North, then to the remote peasant society of northern Laos, and finally to rural Cambodia, which was bombed at the stunning level of all allied air operations in the Pacific region during World War II, including the two atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In this, Henry Kissingers orders were being carried out -- anything that flies on anything that moves -- a call for genocide that is rare in the historical record. Little of this is remembered. Most was scarcely known beyond narrow circles of activists.
When the invasion was launched 50 years ago, concern was so slight that there were few efforts at justification, hardly more than the presidents impassioned plea that we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence and if the conspiracy achieves its ends in Laos and Vietnam, the gates will be opened wide. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175502/tomgram%3A_noam_chomsky%2C_hegemony_and_its_dilemmas/#more (follows a brf intro)
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Noam Chomsky: “Losing” the World - American Decline in Perspective, Part 1 (Original Post)
marmar
Feb 2012
OP
niyad
(113,232 posts)1. k and r
Louisiana1976
(3,962 posts)2. K&R
leveymg
(36,418 posts)3. Another President appears to be repeating the behavior today in the Mideast.
A stunning inability to learn from history.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)4. du rec. nt
Uncle Joe
(58,342 posts)5. An outstanding analysis, well worth the read.
Thanks for the thread, marmar.
Mosaic
(1,451 posts)7. You can't lose what you never owned
Thus the quotation marks around the word lose. Americans were dreamers.
Uncle Joe
(58,342 posts)8. That's one of the points he makes about the phrase "Who lost China?" when they turned communist
Our foreign policy is pretty much based from the perspective of us owning the world or at least thinking we should.