"The deep hatred and contempt for democracy among western elites"

i spend a great deal of time trying to assemble the pieces of the "big picture" in my head... sometimes i don't think i've done too badly, but then i read chomsky, who never fails to toss me a dozen or so pieces i didn't have... there are damn few people that have the ability to do that, and i hold them in high esteem... unfortunately, particularly after reading chomsky, i am so overwhelmed with the vastness and complexity of the larger pattern, i often just want to throw my hands up in the air and go back to watching reruns of law and order...

here, chomsky is describing u.s. foreign policy in relation to palestine and israel...

[I]ndependence is not tolerated. [...] International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn't pay his protection money. You have to have obedience otherwise the idea can spread that you don't have to listen to the orders and it can spread to important places.

[...]

There was a free election in Palestine, but it came out the wrong way. So instantly, the United States and Israel with Europe tagging along, moved to punish the Palestinian people, and punish them harshly, because they voted the wrong way in a free election. That's accepted here in the West as perfectly normal. That illustrates the deep hatred and contempt for democracy among western elites, so deep-seated they can't even perceive it when it's in front of their eyes. You punish people severely if they vote the wrong way in a free election.

[...]

I suspect one of the reasons why Jimmy Carter's book has come under such fierce attack is because it's the first time, I think, in the mainstream, that one can find the truth about the road map. I have never seen anything in the mainstream that discusses the fact that Israel instantly rejected the road map with U.S. support. They formally accepted it but added 14 reservations that totally eviscerated it. It was done instantly. It's public knowledge, I've written about it, talked about it, so have others, but I've never seen it mentioned in the mainstream before.

he then turns his formidable analytical skills to iraq...

It's very hard to predict the Bush administration today because they're deeply irrational. They were irrational to start with but now they're desperate. They have created an unimaginable catastrophe in Iraq. This should've been one of the easiest military occupations in history and they succeeded in turning it into one of the worst military disasters in history. They can't control it and it's almost impossible for them to get out for reasons you can't discuss in the United States because to discuss the reasons why they can't get out would be to concede the reasons why they invaded.

We're supposed to believe that oil had nothing to do with it, that if Iraq were exporting pickles or jelly and the center of world oil production were in the South Pacific that the United States would've liberated them anyway. It has nothing to do with the oil, what a crass idea. Anyone with their head screwed on knows that that can't be true. Allowing an independent and sovereign Iraq could be a nightmare for the United States. It would mean that it would be Shi'ite-dominated, at least if it's minimally democratic. It would continue to improve relations with Iran, just what the United States doesn't want to see. And beyond that, right across the border in Saudi Arabia where most of Saudi oil is, there happens to be a large Shi'ite population, probably a majority.

[...]

To bring up these issues would open the question why the United States and Britain invaded. And that question is taboo.

It's a principle that anything our leaders do is for noble reasons. It may be mistaken, it may be ugly, but basically noble. And if you bring in normal moderate, conservative, strategic, economic objectives you are threatening that principle. It's remarkable the extent to which it's held. So the original pretexts for the invasion were weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaida that nobody but maybe Wolfowitz or Cheney took seriously. The single question, as they kept reiterating in the leadership, was: will Saddam give up his programs of weapons of mass destruction? The single question was answered a couple of months later, the wrong way. And quickly the party line shifted. In November 2003, Bush announced his freedom agenda: our real goal is to bring democracy to Iraq, to transform the Middle East. That became the party line, instantly.

see what i mean...? it's very difficult for to read chomsky and not be hit over the head repeatedly with what i perceive to be the de facto truth of what he has to say...

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