**************** Review *****************
       TERRORIZING THE NEIGHBOURHOOD 
             by Noam Chomsky, 
                (AK Press).
       from Workers Solidarity No 36

NOAM CHOMSKY is known to many on the left 
as a leading US dissident.  Fewer people 
are aware that he is an anarchist.  A 
major part of his writings deal with 
American foreign policy and this work is 
of some importance as anarchism is often 
criticised as having no analysis of 
imperialism.

Terrorizing the Neighbourhood is based around a speech 
Chomsky made in January of 1990, shortly after the US 
invasion of Panama.  It seeks to map out what US foreign 
policy meant in the Cold War and what its probable 
direction will be in future.  It also challenges some of 
the established conceptions of what the Cold War meant 
and as such should be read not just as an introduction to 
US foreign policy but also by those on the left who find 
now that their world view collapsed with the collapse of 
the USSR.

COLD WAR

The general presentation of post-war history from Right 
and Left alike was of a history dominated by clashes 
between two superpowers.  In fact the two superpowers 
were never equal.  The Soviet Union never approached the 
US in terms of economic or military strength.  The Cold 
War was used by the rulers of both countries to maintain 
a concensus at home, a concensus that kept them both in 
power.  For the most part the war meant war with its 
satellites for the Soviet Union.  For the US it meant war 
on the third world.  Both sides used the rhetoric of a 
threat from the other to justify its actions and retain a 
consensus at home in favour of intervention abroad.

The power of this consensus is demonstrated in the US by 
the fact that all the factions of the ruling class were 
united behind the 'right' of the US to intervene anywhere 
it liked.  From liberals to conservatives this was 
unchallenged, the arguments that occurred were over 
tactics.  During the Contra war in Nicaragua the US media 
freely argued over the tactics of pulling Nicaragua into 
line with US interests.  Many did not see the Contra war 
as the best option yet the "right" of the US to dictate 
to Nicaragua went for the most part unquestioned.

The end of the Cold War meant the end of the all-powerful 
Soviet excuse.  Panama was significant because it was the 
first post war US invasion not defended by reference to a 
Soviet 'threat'.  Instead the drug war was invented as a 
substitute.  Since then a range of "would be Hitler's" 
have been the excuse for US intervention.  Perhaps the 
most remarkable thing about these new threats has been 
the willingness of the population to accept them as real.  
The Soviet Union at least had real military power, ICBM's 
and nuclear warheads.  The new "threats" to world peace 
seem to have little more than Uzi's and large quantities 
of rusting, outdated Soviet tanks.

DISCIPLINING THE THIRD WORLD

Chomsky effectively exposes post-war US foreign policy.  
It was not about countering the Soviet Union or even 
halting the spread of "communism".  Rather it was about 
destroying any opposition to US interests throughout the 
third world.  US interests did not mean what was good for 
people in the US but what was good for the $9 billion 
invested by corporations in Latin America.  Nationalist 
governments like those of Nicaragua and Cuba which sought 
to pursue an independent economic line threatened little 
more than the profits of big business.  The communists 
the US was supposedly fighting included everything from 
actual Communist parties to nationalists, priests and 
community workers.

These are the strengths of Chomsky's pamphlet, its 
analysis of what US policy was about. There is little 
discussion however about the next step, the struggle 
against imperialism of whatever variety.  Chomsky ends 
with the hope that the introduction of rival imperialist 
powers in the shape of Japan and Europe will create a 
confusion that the "indigenous popular forces" will be 
able to take advantage of.  He sees solidarity movements 
in the imperialist heartlands helping these movements 
through their own efforts and by influencing 'their' 
governments.

Imperialism however is part and parcel of 20th century 
capitalism.  Its driving force is not so much in the 
planning rooms of government offices but rather the 
boards of thousands of corporations.  Ruling classes may 
decide their interests lie in a greater or lesser degree 
of intervention but no long term gains can be made in 
this way.  Likewise nationalist regimes pursuing an 
independent economic path will be dependant on whatever 
policy the imperialists are providing at the time.  
Improvements made one year will always be subject to 
being carpet bombed the next.

FROM BOSNIA TO BELFAST

The defeat of imperialism on a permanent basis will 
require a movement fighting not only in the fields and 
towns of Latin America but also in the cities of the 
United States.  It must be a movement of workers, 
controlled by workers.  Our role as revolutionaries is 
not only to understand the workings of imperialism but 
also to start laying the foundations of such a movement.

This should not be an excuse for inactivity now.  Our 
role is to argue for the defeat of the imperialists 
wherever they intervene from northern Ireland to Iraq to 
Yugoslavia.  In Ireland we oppose any involvement in UN 
or EC policing operations on behalf of imperialism while 
starting to build a movement north and south with the aim 
of forcing British withdrawal from the north and the 
introduction of an anarchist society based on need and 
not on greed.

Andrew Flood 


