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File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2001/bhaskar.0109, message 30


From: "Erik Weissengruber" <epweissengruber-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: BHA: The U.S. Government's rush from war to war
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 12:27:21 -0400


<html><div style='background-color:'><DIV>
<DIV></DIV>> </DIV>
<DIV></DIV>>I would like to introduce a few words from Chomsky's 'The 
<DIV></DIV>>Culture of Terrorism'. Writin about events in USA/LAtin 
<DIV></DIV>>America around 1986, he said: 
<DIV></DIV>>the United States 
<DIV></DIV>
<P>>remains dedicated to the rule of force,</P>
<P>-- what state isn't? the Taliban aren't commited to this? Saddam Hussein isn't?</P>
<P> </P>
<P> that political elites </P>
<DIV></DIV>>agree and 
<DIV></DIV>>indeed insist that it must remain so, and that, furthermore, 
<DIV></DIV>>the 
<DIV></DIV>>commitment to violence and lawlessness frames their self-image 
<DIV></DIV>>as well, 
<DIV></DIV>>barely concealed beneath deceptive rhetoric. These conclusions 
<DIV></DIV>>can 
<DIV></DIV>>readily be drawn from the actual record, if we face it honestly 
<DIV></DIV>>and 
<DIV></DIV>>without illusion. They have serious implications for the 
<DIV></DIV>>future, just as the 
<DIV></DIV>>same conclusions in earlier days, no less readily established, 
<DIV></DIV>>no less 
<DIV></DIV>>regularly suppressed, have had profound consequences in the 
<DIV></DIV>>past. 
<DIV></DIV>>With regard to Central America, the scandals disrupted a tacit 
<DIV></DIV>>elite 
<DIV></DIV>>consensus, troubled by some tactical disagreements over 
<DIV></DIV>>generally 
<DIV></DIV>>shared goals. They imposed new demands for the ideological 
<DIV></DIV>>system, 
<DIV></DIV>>which must control the domestic damage and ensure that it is 
<DIV></DIV>>confined 
<DIV></DIV>>within narrow and politically meaningless bounds while 
<DIV></DIV>>dedicating itself 
<DIV></DIV>>anew to the major and continuing task: to fashion an 
<DIV></DIV>>appropriate version 
<DIV></DIV>>of the real scandals of the 1980s so as to place U.S. actions 
<DIV></DIV>>in a 
<DIV></DIV>>favorable light and thus to ensure that similar policies can 
<DIV></DIV>>proceed 
<DIV></DIV>>without serious impediment when they are considered necessary. 
<DIV></DIV>> 
<DIV></DIV>>------------------- 
<DIV></DIV>>Wendy Olsen 
<DIV></DIV>>w.k.olsen-AT-bradford.ac.uk 
<DIV></DIV>>work 01274-235889 
<DIV></DIV>>mobile 07796-998293 
<DIV></DIV>> 
<DIV></DIV>> 
<DIV></DIV>> 
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