This piece, the second of two parts, is excerpted from Noam Chomsky’s new book, Who Rules the World? (Metropolitan Books). Part 1, “American Power Under Challenge,” can be found by clicking here. From tomdispatch.com:
In brief, the Global War on Terror sledgehammer strategy has spread jihadi terror from a tiny corner of Afghanistan to much of the world, from Africa through the Levant and South Asia to Southeast Asia. It has also incited attacks in Europe and the United States. The invasion of Iraq made a substantial contribution to this process, much as intelligence agencies had predicted. Terrorism specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank estimate that the Iraq War “generated a stunning sevenfold increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and thousands of civilian lives lost; even when terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is excluded, fatal attacks in the rest of the world have increased by more than one-third.” Other exercises have been similarly productive.
A group of major human rights organizations — Physicians for Social Responsibility (U.S.), Physicians for Global Survival (Canada), and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (Germany) — conducted a study that sought “to provide as realistic an estimate as possible of the total body count in the three main war zones [Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan] during 12 years of ‘war on terrorism,'” including an extensive review “of the major studies and data published on the numbers of victims in these countries,” along with additional information on military actions. Their “conservative estimate” is that these wars killed about 1.3 million people, a toll that “could also be in excess of 2 million.” A database search by independent researcher David Peterson in the days following the publication of the report found virtually no mention of it. Who cares?
More generally, studies carried out by the Oslo Peace Research Institute show that two-thirds of the region’s conflict fatalities were produced in originally internal disputes where outsiders imposed their solutions. In such conflicts, 98% of fatalities were produced only after outsiders had entered the domestic dispute with their military might. In Syria, the number of direct conflict fatalities more than tripled after the West initiated air strikes against the self-declared Islamic State and the CIA started its indirect military interference in the war — interference which appears to have drawn the Russians in as advanced US antitank missiles were decimating the forces of their ally Bashar al-Assad. Early indications are that Russian bombing is having the usual consequences.
The evidence reviewed by political scientist Timo Kivimäki indicates that the “protection wars [fought by ‘coalitions of the willing’] have become the main source of violence in the world, occasionally contributing over 50% of total conflict fatalities.” Furthermore, in many of these cases, including Syria, as he reviews, there were opportunities for diplomatic settlement that were ignored. That has also been true in other horrific situations, including the Balkans in the early 1990s, the first Gulf War, and of course the Indochina wars, the worst crime since World War II. In the case of Iraq the question does not even arise. There surely are some lessons here.
The general consequences of resorting to the sledgehammer against vulnerable societies comes as little surprise. William Polk’s careful study of insurgencies, Violent Politics, should be essential reading for those who want to understand today’s conflicts, and surely for planners, assuming that they care about human consequences and not merely power and domination. Polk reveals a pattern that has been replicated over and over. The invaders — perhaps professing the most benign motives — are naturally disliked by the population, who disobey them, at first in small ways, eliciting a forceful response, which increases opposition and support for resistance. The cycle of violence escalates until the invaders withdraw — or gain their ends by something that may approach genocide.
To continue reading: The Costs of Violence
Ah, “THE” Noam Chomsky; an individual who spent 20 years trying to prove that Pol Pot was a nice guy because Mr. Pot only exterminated, say, 10,000 Cambodian instead of the “alleged” 30% of Cambodia’s entire population.
Yes, the Noam Chomsky that sees evil intent in everything the USA has done, is doing and will do but when it came to the USSR, well, the USSR was as innocent as freshly fallen snow. So what that Stalin and Lenin exterminated 50 million souls (vs. Hitler’s 12 million); clearly they were forced to do so by the big, bad, USA.
Noam, like all the bolshevik, lying a*holes, never met nor saw nor heard of any “bad” leftist; only capitalists are bad, in particular American capitalists.
I await on straightlinelogic some articles written by Nazi party members describing why the holocaust never happened and that all the world’s problems have been, are today and will be until time immemorial the fault of Jews.
I await on straightlinelogic an article or two written by the CPUSA official reviewing for all us why Stalin was “forced” (by the UK, France, USA, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Mongolia, Nicaragua , Tibet, etc. etc. ) to sign the Hitler-Stalin Pact and why, in particular the aggressive actions of Bolivia “forced” Stalin to invade Finland.
I await to read an excerpt on this website from the definitive best selling book by Joseph Goebbels and the editors of Der Sturmer, “The Complete History of the Jewish People.”
Ah, please include some articles by David Duke as well. We readers don’t want to miss any of his extraordinarily brilliant insights.
Okay, you don’t like Noam Chomsky, but do you have any criticisms specific to the article I posted?