Rogue States

by Noam Chomsky

  5. Kahin and Kahin, Subversion as Foreign Policy, 30. On the British analogue, see John Saville, The Politics of Continuity (London: Verso, 1993), 156f.; and for the broader context, Mark Curtis, The Ambiguities of Power (Zed, 1995).

  6. US Commerce Dept., 1984, cited by Howard Wachtel, The Money Mandarins (M.E. Sharpe, 1990), 44.

  7. BW, April 7, 1975.

  8. Helleiner, States and the Reemergence of Global Finance (Cornell Univ. Press, 1994), 58-62. His emphasis.

  9. Comparative Politics, Jan. 1981.

  10. Chomsky and Herman, After the Cataclysm, chap. 2.1.1. Herman, The Real Terror Network (South End, 1982), 126ff.

  11. Wronka, Human Rights and Social Policy in the 21st Century, citing the judgment in Filartiga v. Peña (1980). For additional cases sec Wronka’s “Human Rights,” in Edwards, ed., Encyclopedia of Social Work. 1405-18 (see chap. 9, note 12, in this volume).

  12. Elaine Sciolino, NYT; June 15, 1993.

  13. Alan Riding, NYT, June 26, 1993.

  14. William Hartung, And Weapons for All (HarperCollins, 1994); Hartung, Nation, Jan. 30, 1995. The Congressional Research Service reported that the US was responsible for 57 percent of arms sales to the Third World in 1992; FT, July 23, 1993. The CRS reports further that among the 11 leading arms suppliers to the “developing countries” from 1989 to 1996, the US provided over 45 percent of the arms flow and Britain 26 percent. Richard Grimmett, “Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1989-1996” (Washington, DC: CRS); Jim Mann, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 8, 1997.

  15. On the sharp increase of British arms sales to Indonesia under Thatcher as atrocities continued in East Timor (and in Indonesia as well), see John Taylor, Indonesia’s Forgotten War: The Hidden History of East Timor (Zed, 1991), 86, and John Pilger, Distant Voices (Vintage, 1992), 294-323. Thatcherite policy was explained by “defense procurement minister” Alan Clark: “My responsibility is to my own people. I don’t really fill my mind much with what one set of foreigners is doing to another” (Pilger, 309). By 1998, Britain had become the leading supplier of arms to Indonesia, not for defense, and over the strong protests of Amnesty International, Indonesian dissidents, and Timorese victims. Arms sales are reported to make up at least a fifth of Britain’s exports to Indonesia (estimated at one billion pounds), led by British Aerospace (Martyn Gregory, “World in Action,” Granada production for ITV, June 2 and 9, 1997). On Rwanda, see Rwanda: Death, Despair, and Defiance (London: African Rights, 1994).

  16. Jeff Gerth and Tim Weiner, “Arms Makers See a Bonanza in Selling NATO Expansion,” NYT, June 29, 1997.

  17. International Court of Justice Year 1986, June 27, 1986, General List No. 70.

  18. NYT, Oct. 29, 1996; BG, Nov. 4, 1996; Extra! (FAIR), Dec. 1987.

  19. Panama, Central America Report (Guatemala), Feb. 4, 1994. The US also vetoed (with Britain and France) a Security Council resolution (Dec. 23, 1989) condemning the invasion and voted against a General Assembly resolution demanding the withdrawal of the “US-armed invasion forces from Panama” and calling the invasion a “flagrant violation of international law and of the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of states” (Sean Cronin, Irish Times. Aug. 11, 1990). The Church estimates that more than 650 victims of the intensive bombing of the poor El Chorrillo district of Panama City died in hospitals, along with unknown numbers of others. US-installed President Endara went on a hunger strike in March 1990 to protest the US failure to deliver promised economic aid. Inhabitants of El Chorrillo are suing the US for damages before the Inter-American Human Rights Court. Central America Report, March 19, 1998.

  20. For a review of recently declassified and other evidence, and the interpretive reaction throughout, see my Rethinking Camelot, and references of chap. 1, note 23, in this volume.

  21. Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights John Shattuck, cited by Joseph Wronka, “Toward Building Peace/Human Rights Cultures: Why Is the United States So Resistant?,” American Society of International Law, Interest Group of the UN Decade of International Law Newsletter, vol. 13 (Feb. 1997).

  22. Resolution of the UN General Assembly condemning “Terrorism Wherever and by Whomever Committed,” passed 153 to 2 (US and Israel opposed, Honduras abstained); UN Press release 6A/7603, Dec. 7, 1987. For discussion, see my Necessary Illusions, 84f., 269ff. For more on these matters, see my Pirates and Emperors; Alexander George, ed., Western State Terrorism (Polity, 1991).

  23. Chomsky and Herman, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, The Political Economy of Human Rights, vol. II, chap. 3.4.4; Chomsky, Towards a New Cold War: Taylor, Indonesia’s Forgotten War.

  24. Peter Kornbluh, Nicaragua: The Price of Intervention (Institute for Policy Studies, 1987), chap. 1; Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions (Norton, 1983), 239. On the bloody Carter/Christopher record in El Salvador, see my Towards a New Cold War, 35ff.; Herman, Real Terror Network, 181ff.; Chomsky, Turning the Tide, 14f., 101ff. US-backed state terrorism in the region mounted sharply under Reagan, as is well known (see my Turning the Tide and numerous other sources).

  25. For some scattered exceptions, sec note 65.

  26. Patrick Low, Trading Free (Twentieth Century Fund, 1993), 70ff., 271. Shafiqul Islam, “Capitalism in Conflict,” Foreign Affairs, special issue on “America and the World” (Winter 1989-90).

  27. For discussion, keeping to the special case of protectionism, see Paul Bairoch, Economics and World History (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1993). Among many other sources, see Frederic Clairmont’s classic study, The Rise and Fall of Economic Liberalism (Asia Publishing House, 1960; reprinted and updated, Third World Network, 1996). On the general picture, see my World Orders Old and New, chap. 2. On the historic role of the state system (often military) in economic development in the US, see Nathan Rosenberg, Inside the Black Box (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982); John Tirman, ed., The Militarization of High Technology (Ballinger, 1984); Merritt Roe Smith, ed., Military Enterprise and Technological Change (MIT Press, 1985); Richard Nelson, ed., National Innovation Systems (Oxford Univ. Press, 1993); and numerous special studies. On the growing First World-Third World gap, see UNDP, Human Development Report, 1992, 1994. For discussion, see my World Orders Old and New. chap. 2; Eric Toussaint and Peter Drucker, eds., IMF/World Bank/WTO, Notebooks for Study and Research 24:5 (Amsterdam: International Institute for Research and Education, 1995). On the situation internal to the US, see particularly the biennial publication, The State of Working America, of the Economic Policy Institute. The latest edition is Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and John Schmitt, The State of Working America 1998-1999 (Cornell Univ. Press, 1999).

  28. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (Geneva) and International Institute for Human Rights, Environment, and Development (Kathmandu), Justice Denied! (Kathmandu: Kamali Offset Press, 1994).

  29. Jules Kagian, Middle East International, Dec. 17, 1993; Middle East Justice Network, Feb.-March 1994. On the background and status of UN 194, see Thomas and Sally Mallison, The Palestine Problem in International Law and World Order (Longman, 1986), chap. 4.

  30. Reuters, “Haiti Peasant Group Backs UN Sanctions,” BG, June 18, 1993, 68.

  31. On Carter policies, see Chomsky and Herman, After the Cataclysm, 54f. On subsequent years, see Americas Watch, National Coalition for Haitian Refugees, Jesuit Refugee Service/USA, No Port in a Storm 5:7 (Sept. 1993). For Haitian background see, inter alia, Amy Wilentz, The Rainy Season (Simon & Schuster, 1989); my Year 501, chap. 8; Paul Farmer, The Uses of Haiti (Common Courage, 1994); Deidre McFadyen, Pierre LaRamée, and North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), eds., Haiti: Dangerous Crossroads (South End, 1995).

  32. Americas Watch et al., No Port in a Storm, l.

  33. Amy Wilentz, New Republic, March 9, 1992; see my Year 501. chap. 8, for further details.

  34. Larry Rohter, NYT, April 19, 1997.

  35. Wronka, “Human Rights.”

  36. Statement, UN Commission on Human Rights, on Item 8, “The Righ
t to Development,” Feb. 11, 1991.

  37. Joseph Wronka, “Human Rights Postscript,” American Society of International Law: Human Rights Interest Group Newsletter (Fall 1995).

  38. Mishel et al., The State of Working America 1996-1997 (M.E. Sharpe, 1997).

  39. Observer, Jan. 12, 1997; Independent, Nov. 24 and 25, 1996; GW, Jan. 5, 1997; Observer, Jan. 19, 1997.

  40. John Plender, “An Accidental Revolution,” FT. Jan. 17, 1997 (42.25 percent of GDP, he reports, in 1978-79 and 1995-96). According to the World Bank Development Report, 1996, UK central government budget as percent of GNP (current) increased by close to 10 percent from 1980 to 1994. Comparative statistics in Gail Omvedt, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 29:4 (Oct.-Dec. 1997).

  41. Chomsky, World Orders Old and New, chap. 2, and Powers and Prospects, chap. 5. UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children 1997 (Oxford Univ. Press, 1997).

  42. UNICEF, The Progress of Nations 1996 (UNICEF House, 1996).

  43. The second-ranking recipient, Egypt, is granted aid to ensure its adherence to the US-Israel alliance, a core part of the system of control of the oil-producing regions, also a factor in Turkey’s regular place among the top aid recipients.

  44. Despouy, The Realization of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, Commission on Human Rights, Economic and Social Council, e/CN.4/Sub.2/1996/13, June 28, 1996.

  45. Elizabeth Olson, “West Hinders Inquiry on Dumping as Rights Issue,” NYT, April 5, 1998.

  46. John Hoerr, American Prospect. Summer 1992. See my Year 501, chap. 11.

  47. Keith Harper, Guardian, May 24, 1994; see same issue on the onerous “check off” law and other devices to undermine labor rights.

  48. “The Workplace: Why America Needs Unions, But Not The Kind It Has Now,” BW, May 23, 1994.

  49. Fones-Wolf, Selling Free Enterprise. For background, see Alex Carey, Taking the Risk Out of Democracy (Univ. of lllinois Press, 1996), a collection of pioneering essays on these topics.

  50. World Labour Report 1994 (Geneva: ILO Publications, 1994).

  51. In the National Interest: 1996 Quadrennial Report on Human Rights and US Foreign Policy (New York and Washington, DC: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, 1996).

  52. Annan, “The Unpaid Bill That’s Crippling the UN,” NYT. March 9, 1998.

  53. Barbara Crossette, NYT, March 27, 1998.

  54. BW; see note 48.

  55. WSJ, Sept. 13, 1993. On persistence of the process through the recovery of the 1990s, see Mishel et al., State of Working America.

  56. Editorial, Multinational Monitor, March 1997.

  57. Bronfenbrenner, “We’ll Close,” Multinational Monitor, March 1997, based on the study she directed: “Final Report: The Effects of Plant Closing or Threat of Plant Closing on the Right of Workers to Organize.”

  58. Paul Wright, “Making Slave Labor Fly,” Prison Legal News, March 1997; Covert Action Quarterly, Spring 1997.

  59. Alex Lichtenstein, “Through the Rugged Gates of the Penitentiary,” in Melvyn Stokes and Rick Halpern, Race and Class in the American South Since 1890 (Berg, 1994).

  60. Robert Taylor, FT, June 13, 1997.

  61. John Cassidy, “Who Killed the Middle Class?,” New Yorker, Oct. 16, 1995.

  62. John Liscio, Barron’s, April 15, 1996.

  63. Youssef Ibrahim, NYT, July 3, 1997.

  64. Lawrence Mishel and Jared Bernstein, The State of Working America: 1994-95 (M.E. Sharpe, 1994).

  65. During the Vienna conference, see Alan Riding, “Human Rights: The West Gets Some Tough Questions,” NYT. June 20, 1993, and particularly Beth Stephens of the Center for Constitutional Rights, “Hypocrisy on Rights,” NYT, op-ed, June 24, 1993.

  66. Barbara Crossette, “Snubbing Human Rights,” NYT, April 28, 1996; “For the US, Mixed Success in UN Human Rights Votes,” NYT, Dec. 18, 1995.

  67. Editorial, “The New Attack on Human Rights,” NYT, Dec. 10, 1995.

  68. Seth Faison, “China Turns the Tables, Faulting US on Rights,” NYT, March 5, 1997.

  69. Torture and Ill-Treatment: Israel’s Interrogation of Palestinians from the Occupied Territories (Human Rights Watch, 1994).

  70. Moshe Weinfeld, Ha’aretz, March 5, 1998. Amnesty International lists 21 Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails, secretly brought to Israel from Lebanon from 1986 to 1994, most held without charge, the others sentenced in Israeli military courts but kept in prison after serving their sentences.

  71. Torture and Ill-Treatment: Human Rights and UN Security Assistance (Amnesty International, May 1996).

  72. Amnesty International, Torture and Ill-Treatment.

  73. Mark Sommers,”Sanctions Are Becoming ‘Weapon of Choice,’” CSM, Aug. 3, 1993. Richard Garfield, Julia Devin, and Joy Fausey, “The Health Impact of Economic Sanctions,” Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 72:2 (Winter 1995).

  74. Jim Morrell, Center for International Policy, Inquiry, April 17, 1978.

  75. Gay McDougall and Richard Knight, in Robert Edgar, ed., Sanctioning Apartheid (Africa World Press, 1990). Garfield et al., “Health Impact of Economic Sanctions.”

  76. For review, see my Year 501, chap. 5. See Kahin and Kahin, Subversion as Foreign Policy. on the 1958 operations, still largely concealed in the declassified record.

  77. Reuters, NYT, Dec. 8, 1993, a few lines on an inside page.

  78. Irene Wu, Far Eastern Economic Review, June 30, 1994. Other forms of chicanery were revealed in 1998: Tim Weiner, “US Training of Indonesian Troops Goes On, Despite Ban,” NYT, March 17, 1998; and for fuller detail, Alan Nairn, “Indonesia’s Killers,” Nation, March 30, 1998. On what followed, see chap. 4, in this volume, and sources cited.

  79. Economist, April 2, 1994. Counterpunch (Institute for Policy Studies), Feb. 15 and March 15, 1994.

  80. Barbara Crossette, NYT, Feb. 5, 1992.

  81. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, Letter, N YT, April 12, 1997. On trade, see my World Orders Old and New, chap. 1.

  82. John Solomon, AP, Sept. 18, 1994 (lead story), ignored by the major journals. For a detailed record, see my “‘Democracy Restored,’” Z magazine, Nov. 1994.

  83. National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, NYT, Sept. 26, 1993; Sept. 23, 1994. On the measures used to impose on the “restored democracy” the programs of Washington’s defeated candidate, see my “‘Democracy Restored’” and Powers and Prospects.” chap. 5. And for extensive detail, Lisa McGowan, Democracy Undermined, Economic Justice Denied (Development Gap, 1997); Laurie Richardson, Feeding Dependency, Starving Democracy (Grassroots International, 1997).

  84. Thomas Kamm and Robert Greenberger, WSJ, Nov. 15, 1995.

  85. Denial of Food and Medicine: The Impact of the US Embargo on Health and Nutrition in Cuba (American Association for World Health, Executive Summary, 1997).

  86. Garfield et al., “The Health Impact of Economic Sanctions.” Wayne Smith, In These Times, Dec. 9, 1996. Anthony Kirkpatrick, “Sanctions on Health in Cuba,” The Lancet 348/9040 (Nov. 30, 1996); Cuba Update, Winter 1997. David Marcus, “EU Backs Off on US-Cuba Trade Law,” BG, April 12, 1997. See also Joanne Cameron, “The Cuban Democracy Act of 1992: The International Implications,” Fletcher Forum, Winter-Spring 1996; Peter Morici, “The United States, World Trade, and the Helms-Burton Act,” Current History, Feb. 1997.

  87. Morris Morley and Chris McGillion, Washington Report on the Hemisphere (Council on Hemispheric Affairs), June 3, 1997.

  88. Letter, NYT. Feb. 26, 1997.

  89. See chap. 1, note 3, in this volume.

  90. Resolution proposed to the UN Security Council by the US and other countries. Cited in Denial of Food and Medicine.

  91. Richard Smith, “Creative Destruction: Capitalist Development and China’s Environment,” New Left Review 222 (March-April 1997). The record is similar elsewhere in the region.

  92. Thomas Friedman, NYT, Jan. 21 and Jan. 23, 1993.

  93. Sheila Tefft, CSM, Dec. 22, 1993. Reese Erlich, CSM, Feb. 9, 1994. See note 58.<
br />
  94. Philip Shenon, NYT, May 15, 1994; Sheila Tefft, Fazlur Rahman, CSM, May 25, 1994; Multinational Monitor, June 1994. Frank Chaloupka and Adit Laixuthai, US Trade Policy and Cigarette Smoking in Asia (National Bureau of Economic Research, April 1996). See my Deterring Democracy, chaps. 4-5, for details on 1989-90. See chap. 5, in this volume.

  95. Ibid. Amnesty International, Amnesty Action: The Colombia Papers (Winter 1997).

  96. Human Rights Violations in the United States (Human Rights Watch/American Civil Liberties Union, Dec. 1993). On the Convention on Rights of the Child, see Steven Ratner, Foreign Policy (Spring 1998).

  97. For other examples, see note 44. See also chap. 9, note 13, in this volume.

  98. UNICEF, State of World’s Children; Lynching in All but Name (Amnesty International, Jan. 1994). AP, BG, June 2, 1994. Human Rights Watch Children’s Project, United States: A World Leader in Executing Juveniles (Human Rights Watch, March 1995).

  99. “US Executions Tainted by Bias, Says UN Report,” Los Angeles Times; BG, April 4, 1998.

  100. Wronka, Human Rights and Social Policy, 5n.

  101. Cruel and Usual (Human Rights Watch, March 1997). Steven Donziger, ed., The Real War on Crime: Report of the National Criminal Justice Commission (HarperCollins, 1996). Reuters, NYT, June 23, 1997.

  102. Randall Shelden and William Brown, Criminal Justice (Wadsworth, forthcoming), chap. 12; their emphasis. By the new millennium, the number of prisoners was approaching 2 million.

  103. Donziger, Real War on Crime.

  104. Ibid. Christie, Crime Control as Industry. Tonry, Malign Neglect. On the traditional use of the criminal justice system to control the “dangerous classes,” see also Richard Bonnie and Charles Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction (Univ. Press of Virginia, 1974).

  105. Christie, Crime Control as Industry.

  106. Paulette Thomas, WSJ, May 12, 1994. Christie, Crime Control as Industry: Donziger, Real War on Crime, on “the prison-industrial complex”; Randall Shelden, “The Crime Control Industry and the Management of the Surplus Population,” paper read at Western Society of Criminology annual meeting, Feb.-March 1997, in Honolulu.