the Disillusioned kid: Chomsky on Chagos
| Email | Home | Linkage | Profile |

Sunday, May 08, 2005

Chomsky on Chagos

Noam Chomsky is something is something of a hero to many on the left, myself including. Now, via the Chagos Discussion list, I've discovered the following exchange about the Chagos Archipelago and the US military base on Diego Garcia (background here if you're not familiar with the story) which is drawn from a question and answer session with the professor which took place during a meeting in India:
Q5: Karthik Ramanathan, a student

We often read in the papers of this Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean. So proudly, the Indian media display it, that the United States is sending its forces into whatever place to bomb Afghanistan. What they don’t write is things like the fact that the American forces in the Diego Garcia base are situated less than five hundred miles away. (I’m not sure about the number because the media never talk about it.) They are situated less than five hundred miles from Indian territory, the Lakshwadeep Islands. Nobody seems to know about it. Nobody knows where Diego Garcia is.

My question is simple: why this media and political complacency towards the presence of American troops? And why do we see no threat from them? Will America tolerate Indian troops situated some five hundred miles from its coast? Nobody seems to be asking that question [audience applause]. The second question is this. The United States, despite all the CIA intelligence and its technology, has not been able to prevent a single person planting a bomb or ramming a jet into its buildings. The question is: whatever technology they develop, can they really dominate the world?

A5: Noam Chomsky

So the first part is about Diego Garcia. That’s just a straight power play. The United States wanted the island as a military base. It wanted it as part of the great system of intervention aimed at the Gulf energy resources. The main U. S. intervention forces, called the Central Command, have been aimed right at the oil-producing areas for many years. It has nothing to do with the Russians or anybody else. That’s, incidentally, conceded now. With the collapse of the Russians, it was officially conceded that they had nothing to do with it. It had to with the fear of independent nationalism, which might lead to movements that would take over the resources of the region for the benefit of its own population. And that’s intolerable, of course.

The prime beneficiaries of those resources have to be rich westerners. The United States, Britain, energy corporations, and so on. As long as governments are in place that accept that rule, like the Saudi Arabian government, they’ll be accepted. But if they aren’t, they’re going to be overthrown.

So Diego Garcia is part of it. It extends from Guam in the Pacific all the way over to the Azores in the Atlantic and it goes through the Indian Ocean and Diego Garcia is a base. Well, okay. It was a ``British island,’’ so the British kicked out the population, and the United States took it over and turned it into a military base. As you know, I’m sure, the population has been pursuing the case through the British courts and won. You know the High Court in England accepted their case and said that the British Government, which technically still owns it, has to bring them back. The United States just said, `get lost’, and Britain got lost. It’s kind of like the World Court case [relating to the United States’ terrorist war against Nicaragua]. So they stay there. But that’s just plain exercise of force.

Nobody knows about it in the United States. If you do a database search in the press, I doubt if it’s been mentioned twice in the last twenty years! So no one knows. Nobody knows about the dispossessed population or anything that’s happened and therefore there’s no protest. You can’t protest something you do not know about.

That’s part of the duty of the free press and the intellectual community: make sure people do not know about things that might lead them to protest. If people knew, they would do something about it and the forces would have to get out of the island, the people would be back home.
The rest here.
|

Links to this post:

Create a Link

<< Home

Side Projects

Carnival of Anarchy
The Peace Pipe
UK Watch Blog

Acquaintances

Against the Current
Atopian.org
Culture hits and gendered bits
Daniel Randall
In The Water
Mike Wood
On The Barricades
Pizarro's Sword
Space Cat Rocket Ship
Surveillant Assemblage
TashCamUK FotoPage
The Naked Lunch
The Peace Pipe
The World of the Dynamite Lady

Strangers

Anarchoblogs
Antiwar.com Blog
Arte & Lingua
Barker in Valencia
Blairwatch
Bloggerheads
Blood & Treasure
Bombs and Shields
Boomablog
Born at the Crest of the Empire
Chase me ladies...
Chicken Yoghurt
Craig Murray
Dead Men Left
Direland
Disreputable Lazy Aliens
Empire Notes
Europhobia
Friends of Al Jazeera
Global Guerillas
Guerillas in the Midst
I Blame the Patriachy
Informed Comment
Insultadarity
Janine Booth
Lenin's Tomb
Life of Riley Blog
Media Watch Watch
Neil Shakespeare
NO2ID NewsBlog
One Hump or Two?
Otto's Random Thoughts
Perfect.co.uk
Pitch In For Uzbekistan
Registan.net
Run over by the truth
Solidarity With Iraqi Workers
Shut Up You Fat Whiner!
Sudan: Passion of the Present
Talk Politics
The Anthropik Network
The Daily (Maybe)
The Devil's Kitchen
The Disillusioned
The f-word
The Head Heeb
The Killing Train
The Revenge of Winston Smith
The Socialist Unity Blog
The Wicked Truth
Theory of Power
Things I Don't Have Time For
This (Fresh) Gringo
This Is My Truth
Thumping the Tub
Time The Dreaded Enemy
UK Watch Blog
UK Poli Blogs
underbrella
Under The Same Sun
Uzbekistan.neweurasia.net
What Fresh Hell Is This?
Where is Raed? (RIP)
Who Are You to Accuse Me?
Words and Rocks
Zeropointnine
Z-Net Blog

Neighbours

Asbo Community Space
Defy-ID
Eastside Climate Action
Faslane 365
Freecycle
Indymedia
No Borders
Nottingham Student Peace Movement
Refugee Forum
Stop the War
Sumac Centre
The Demo Project

Ivory Towers

Anarchist Studies Network
Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice
Postanarchism Clearinghouse

Miscellania

Anarchist FAQ
Antiwar.com
Chagos Discussion List
Chagos Support Forums
Electronic Intifada
Future of Iraq Portal
Index of Political Blogs
Indymedia UK
Infoshop
Iraq Occupation Focus
Pledgebank
Refuser Solidarity Network
SchNEWS
Socialist Unity Network
The New Standard
UK Chagos Support Association
UK Watch
Weekly Worker
Wikipedia
WriteToThem.com
Z-Net

The Progressive Blog Alliance

Register here to join the PBA.