[Imc-bulgaria-translation] Za Prevod: "Noam Chomsky - Afterword: Failed States"

[Nina Kantcheva]

Privet otnovo! Ok, haide da go svurshim...:) Az zapochvam ot zad napred, v slychai che nyakoi veche e pochnal otgore, ytre shte pratya pone poslednite 5-6 paragrafa...
  do skoro
  N

Peter <peter at a-bg.net> wrote:
  Zdraveite!

Super :))) Ve4e imame pove4e ot polovinata ot statiqta :) Ima li o6te 
jelae6ti, za da goprevedem ostanaloto? Koito iska, moje da prevede 
nqkakva 4ast i da q prati po maillista. Otdolu e ostatuka za prevod.

Mersi predvaritelno i do skoro!
Peter

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Meanwhile Cuba-Venezuela relations are becoming very close, each relying 
on its comparative advantage. Venezuela is providing low-cost oil while 
in return Cuba organizes literacy and health programs, sending thousands 
of highly skilled professionals, teachers and doctors, who work in the 
poorest and most neglected areas, as they do elsewhere in the third 
world. Joint Cuba-Venezuela projects are also having a considerable 
impact in the Caribbean countries, where Cuban doctors are providing 
health care to thousands of people who had no hope of receiving it, with 
Venezuelan funding. Operation Miracle, as it is called, is described by 
Jamaicas ambassador to Cuba as "an example of integration and 
south-south co-operation," and is generating great enthusiasm among the 
poor majority. The US and Mexico apparently toyed with the idea of an 
oil subsidy to counter Venezuelan petro-diplomacy, but do not seem to 
have pursued it. Cuban medical assistance is also being welcomed 
elsewhere. One of the most horrendous tragedies of recent years was the 
October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. In addition to the huge toll, 
unknown numbers of survivors have to face brutal winter weather with 
little shelter, food or medical assistance. There has been extensive 
coverage of Western aid, but one has to turn to the South Asian press to 
read that "Cuba has provided the largest contingent of doctors and 
paramedics to Pakistan," paying all the costs (perhaps with Venezuelan 
funding), and that President Musharraf of Pakistan expressed his "deep 
gratitude" to Fidel Castro for the "spirit and compassion" of the Cuban 
medical teams. These are reported to comprise more than 1000 trained 
personnel, 44 percent of them women, who remained to work in remote 
mountain villages, "living in tents in freezing weather and in an alien 
culture" after the Western aid teams had been withdrawn, setting up 19 
field hospitals and working 12-hour shifts.

Some analysts have suggested that Cuba and Venezuela might even unite, a 
step towards further integration of Latin America in a bloc that is more 
independent from the US. Venezuela has joined Mercosur, the South 
American customs union, a move described by Argentine President Nestor 
Kirchner as "a milestone" in the development of this trading bloc, and 
welcomed as opening "a new chapter in our integration" by Brazilian 
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Independent experts say that 
"adding Venezuela to the bloc furthers its geopolitical vision of 
eventually spreading Mercosur to the rest of the region." At a meeting 
in Uruguay convened to mark Venezuelas formal entry into Mercosur, 
Venezuelan president Chavez said that the organization must be 
"politicized": "We cannot allow this to be purely an economic project, 
one for the elites and for the transnational companies," a not very 
oblique reference to the US-sponsored "Free Trade Agreement for the 
Americas," which has aroused strong public opposition. Venezuela also 
supplied Argentina with fuel oil to help stave off an energy crisis, and 
bought almost a third of Argentine debt issued in 2005, one element of a 
region-wide effort to free the countries from the controls of the IMF 
after two decades of disastrous effects of conformity to the rules 
imposed by the US-dominated international financial institutions. The 
IMF has "acted towards our country as a promoter and a vehicle of 
policies that caused poverty and pain among the Argentine people," 
President Kirchner said in announcing his decision to pay almost $1 
trillion to rid itself of the IMF forever. Radically violated IMF rules, 
Argentina enjoyed a substantial economic recovery from the disaster left 
by IMF policies.

Steps toward independent regional integration advanced further with the 
election of Evo Morales in Bolivia in December 2005. He became the first 
indigenous president in Bolivia, where a majority identify themselves 
with indigenous groups. Morales moved quickly to reach a series of 
energy accords with Venezuela. The Financial Times reported that these 
"are expected to underpin forthcoming radical reforms to Bolivias 
economy and energy sector" with its huge gas reserves, second only to 
Venezuelas in South America. Morales too committed himself to reverse 
the neoliberal policies that Bolivia had pursued rigorously for 25 
years, leaving the country with lower per capita income than at the 
outset. Adherence to the neoliberal programs was interrupted during this 
period only when popular discontent compelled the government to abandon 
them, as when it followed World Bank advice to privatize water supply 
and "get prices right" -- incidentally, to deprive the poor of access to 
water.

Venezuelan "subversion," as it is described in Washington, is extending 
to the US as well. Perhaps that calls for expansion of the policies of 
"containment" of Venezuela ordered by Bush in March 2005. In November 
2005, the Washington Post reported, a group of Senators sent a letter 
"to nine big oil companies: With huge increases in winter heating bills 
expected, the letter read, we want you to donate some of your record 
profits to help low-income people cover those costs." They received one 
response: from CITGO, the Venezuelan-controlled company. CITGO offered 
to provide low-cost oil to low-income residents of Boston, later to the 
Bronx and elsewhere. Chavez is only doing it "for political gain," the 
State Department responded; it is "somewhat akin to the government of 
Cuba offering scholarships to medical school in Cuba to disadvantaged 
American youth." Quite unlike aid from the US and other countries, which 
is pure-hearted altruism. It is not clear that these subtleties will be 
appreciated by the recipients of the "12 million gallons of discounted 
home-heating oil [provided by CITGO] to local charities and 45,000 
low-income families in Massachusetts." The oil is distributed to poor 
people facing a 30-50 percent rise in oil prices, with fuel assistance 
"woefully underfunded, so this is a major shot in the arm for people who 
otherwise wouldn't get through the winter," according to the director of 
MassEnergyConsumer Alliance, which will distribute low-cost oil to 
"homeless shelters, food banks, and low-income housing groups." He also 
"said he hoped the deal would present `a friendly challenge to US oil 
companies -- which recently reported record quarterly profits -- to use 
their windfall to help poor families survive the winter," apparently in 
vain.

Though Central America was largely disciplined by Reaganite violence and 
terror, the rest of the hemisphere is falling out of control, 
particularly from Venezuela to Argentina, which was the poster-child of 
the IMF and the Treasury Department until its economy collapsed under 
the policies they imposed. As noted, Argentina did manage to recover, 
but only by defying IMF orders, which does not please international 
creditors or Washington. Much of the region has left-center governments. 
The indigenous populations have become much more active and influential, 
particularly in Bolivia and Ecuador, both major energy producers, where 
they either want oil and gas to be domestically controlled or, in some 
cases, oppose production altogether. Many indigenous people apparently 
do not see any reason why their lives, societies, and cultures should be 
disrupted or destroyed so that New Yorkers can sit in their SUVs in 
traffic gridlock. Some are even calling for an "Indian nation" in South 
America. Meanwhile the internal economic integration that is underway is 
reversing patterns that trace back to the Spanish conquests, with Latin 
American elites and economies linked to the imperial powers but not to 
one another. Along with growing south-south interaction on a broader 
scale, these developments are strongly influenced by popular 
organizations that are coming together in the unprecedented 
international global justice movements, ludicrously called 
"anti-globalization" because they favor globalization that privileges 
the interests of people, not investors and financial institutions. For 
many reasons, the system of US global dominance is fragile, even apart 
from the damage inflicted to it by Bush planners.

One consequence is that the Bush administrations pursuit of the 
traditional policies of deterring democracy, called "democracy 
promotion" in the doctrinal system, face new obstacles. It is no longer 
as easy as before to resort to military coups and international 
terrorism to overthrow democratically elected governments, as Bush 
planners learned ruefully in 2002 in Venezuela. The "strong line of 
continuity" must be pursued in other ways, for the most part. In Iraq, 
as we have seen, mass non-violent resistance compelled Washington and 
London to permit the elections they had sought to block by a series of 
schemes. The subsequent effort to subvert the unwanted elections by 
providing substantial advantages to the administrations favorite 
candidate, and expelling the independent media, also failed. Problems 
still remain beyond those usually discussed. The Iraqi labor movement is 
making considerable progress despite the opposition of the occupation 
authorities. The situation is rather like Europe and Japan after World 
War II, when a primary goal of the US and UK was to undermine 
independent labor movements as at home, for similar reasons: organized 
labor contributes in essential ways to functioning democracy with 
popular engagement. Many of the measures adopted at that time 
withholding food, supporting fascist police, etc. are no longer 
available. Nor is it possible today to rely on the labor bureaucracy of 
AIFLD to help undermine unions. Today, some American unions are 
supporting Iraqi workers, just as they do in Colombia, where more union 
activists are murdered than anywhere in the world but at least now 
receive support from the United Steelworkers of America and others, 
while Washington continues to provide enormous funding for the 
government, which bears a large part of the responsibility.

The problem of elections arose in Palestine much in the way it did in 
Iraq. As already discussed, the Bush administration refused to permit 
elections until the death of Yasser Arafat, aware that the wrong man 
would win so that elections would not conform to the democratic vision 
that animates policy. After Arafats death, the administration agreed to 
respond to the popular pressure for elections, expecting that its 
favored candidates in the Palestinian Authority would win. To promote 
this outcome, Washington resorted to much the same modes of subversion 
as in Iraq, and often before. The national press reported that 
Washington used USAID as an "invisible conduit" in an effort to 
"increase the popularity of the Palestinian Authority on the eve of 
crucial elections in which the governing party faces a serious challenge 
from the radical Islamic group Hamas," spending "about $1.9 million of 
its yearly $400 million in aid to the Palestinians on dozens of quick 
projects before elections this week to bolster the governing Fatah 
faction's image with voters and strengthen its hand in competing with 
the militant faction Hamas." As is normal, the US consulate in East 
Jerusalem assured the press that the concealed efforts to promote Fatah 
were merely intended "to enhance democratic institutions and support 
democratic actors, not just Fatah." In the US or any Western country, 
even a hint of such foreign interference would destroy a candidate, but 
deeply rooted imperial mentality legitimates such routine measures of 
subversion of elections elsewhere. However, the attempt to subvert the 
elections again resoundingly failed.

The US and Israeli governments now have to adjust to dealing somehow 
with a radical Islamic party that approaches their traditional 
rejectionist stance, though not entirely, at least if Hamas really does 
mean to agree to an indefinite truce on the international border as its 
leaders state. The idea is completely foreign to the US and Israel, 
which insist that any political outcome must include Israeli takeover of 
substantial parts of the West Bank (and the forgotten Golan Heights). 
Hamass refusal to accept Israels "right to exist" mirrors the refusal of 
Washington and Jerusalem to accept Palestines "right to exist" a concept 
unknown in international affairs; Mexico accepts the existence of the 
US, but not its abstract "right to exist" on almost half of Mexico, 
acquired by conquest. Hamass formal commitment to "destroy Israel" 
places it on a par with the US and Israel, which vowed formally that 
there could be no "additional Palestinian state" (in addition to Jordan) 
until they relaxed their extreme rejectionist stand partially in the 
past few years, in the manner already reviewed. Although Hamas has not 
said so, it would come as no great surprise if Hamas were to agree to 
allow Jews to remain in scattered cantons in the present Israel, while 
Palestine constructs huge settlement and infrastructure projects to take 
over the valuable land and resources, effectively breaking Israel up 
into unviable cantons, virtually separated from one another and from 
some small part of Jerusalem where Jews would also be allowed to remain. 
And they might agree to call the fragments "a state." If such proposals 
were made, we would -- rightly -- regard them as a reversion to Nazism, 
a fact that might elicit some thoughts. If such proposals are made, 
Hamas's position would be essentially like that of the US and Israel for 
the past five years. Before that, they refused to consider even this 
impoverished form of "statehood." It is entirely fair to describe Hamas 
as radical, extremist, and violent, and as a serious threat to peace and 
a just political settlement. But the organization hardly is alone in 
this stance.

Elsewhere traditional means of undermining democracy have succeeded. In 
Haiti, the Bush administrations favorite "democracy-building group, the 
International Republican Institute," worked assiduously to promote the 
fortunes of the opposition to President Aristide. The project was helped 
by the withholding of desperately needed aid on grounds that were 
dubious at best. When it seemed that Aristide would probably win any 
genuine election, Washington and the opposition chose to withdraw, a 
standard device to discredit elections that are going to come out the 
wrong way: Nicaragua in 1984 and Venezuela in December 2005 are examples 
that should be familiar. Then followed a military coup by former state 
terrorists based in the Dominican Republic (which Washington claims to 
have known nothing about), expulsion of the President to South Africa, 
and a reign of horrifying terror and violence, vastly exceeding anything 
under the elected government that Washington helped to overthrow. The 
miserable fate of Haiti is traceable in no slight measure to US 
intervention through the past century, joined by France in 2004, perhaps 
because President Chirac was offended by Aristides request for some 
extremely limited compensation for Frances own hideous crimes in Haiti, 
which surpass anything since, a considerable claim to fame.

The persistence of the strong line of continuity to the present again 
reveals that the US is very much like other powerful states. It pursues 
the strategic and economic interests of dominant sectors of the domestic 
population, to the accompaniment of impressive rhetorical flourishes 
about its exceptional dedication to the highest values. That is 
practically a historical universal, and the reason why sensible people 
pay scant attention to declarations of noble intent by leaders, or 
accolades by their followers. They are predictable, therefore carry 
virtually no information.

One commonly hears that carping critics complain about what is wrong, 
but do not present solutions. There is an accurate translation for that 
charge: "They present solutions, but I dont like them." In addition to 
the proposals that should be familiar about dealing with the crises that 
reach to the level of survival, a few simple suggestions for the US have 
already been mentioned: (1) accept the jurisdiction of the International 
Criminal Court and the World Court; (2) sign and carry forward the Kyoto 
protocols; (3) let the UN take the lead in international crises; (4) 
rely on diplomatic and economic measures rather than military ones in 
confronting the grave threats of terror; (5) keep to the traditional 
interpretation of the UN Charter: the use of force is legitimate only 
when ordered by the Security Council or when the country is under 
imminent threat of attack, in accord with Article 51; (6) give up the 
Security Council veto, and have "a decent respect for the opinion of 
mankind," as the Declaration of Independence advises, even if power 
centers disagree; (7) cut back sharply on military spending and sharply 
increase social spending: health, education, renewable energy, and so 
on. For people who believe in democracy, these are very conservative 
suggestions: they appear to be the opinions of the majority of the US 
population, in most cases the overwhelming majority. They are in radical 
opposition to public policy; in most cases, to a bipartisan consensus. 
To be sure, we cannot be very confident about the state of public 
opinion on matters such as these, because of another essential feature 
of the democratic deficit: the topics scarcely enter into public 
discussion and the basic facts are little known. In a highly atomized 
society, the public is therefore largely deprived of the opportunity to 
form considered opinions.

Another conservative and useful suggestion is that facts, logic, and 
elementary moral principles should matter. Those who take the trouble to 
adhere to that suggestion will soon be led to abandon a good part of 
familiar doctrine, though it us surely much easier to repeat 
self-serving mantras. And there are other simple truths. They do not 
answer every problem by any means. But they do carry us some distance 
toward developing more specific and detailed answers, as is constantly 
done. More important, they open the way to implement them, opportunities 
that are readily within our grasp if we can free ourselves from the 
shackles of doctrine and imposed illusion.

Though it is natural for doctrinal systems to seek to induce pessimism, 
hopelessness and despair, reality is different. There has been 
substantial progress in the unending question for justice and freedom in 
recent years, leaving a legacy that can easily be carried forward from a 
higher plane than before. Opportunities for education and organizing 
abound. As in the past, rights are not likely to be granted by 
benevolent authorities, or won by intermittent actions attending a few 
demonstrations or pushing a lever in the personalized quadrennial 
extravaganzas that are depicted as "democratic politics." As always in 
the past, the tasks require dedicated day-by-day engagement to create -- 
in part re-create -- the basis for a functioning democratic culture in 
which the public plays some role in determining policies, not only in 
the political arena from which it is largely excluded, but also in the 
crucial economic arena, from which it is excluded in principle. There 
are many ways to promote democracy at home, carrying it to new 
dimensions. Opportunities are ample, and failure to grasp them is likely 
to have ominous repercussions: for the country, for the world, and for 
future generations.

Noam Chomsky is the author of numerous best-selling political works. His 
latest books are Failed States, Imperial Ambitions, and Hegemony or 

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