Rachel's Democracy & Health News #849
Thursday, April 6, 2006

From: Rachel's Democracy & Health News #849 ..........[This story printer-friendly]
April 6, 2006

ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE AND PRECAUTION

[Rachel's introduction: Massachusetts (probably the most liberal state in the Union) dumps up to 10 times as much pollution into communities of color and low income, compared to white middle-class communities. Other states are no doubt worse but even in Massachusetts the injustice is outrageous and blatant. The situation cries out for real remedies: Anti-discrimination policies based on fairness and a simple do-unto-others ethic -- but with teeth. Plus environmental policies based on precaution.]

By Tim Montague

We know from the growing body of literature on the social determinants of health that our health depends on many factors beyond diet and exercise, including income and social status, social support networks, education and literacy, employment/working conditions, social environment, physical environment and others. The World Health Organization gives this example, "If you catch the metro train in downtown Washington, D.C., to suburbs in Maryland, life expectancy is 57 years at beginning of the journey. At the end of the journey, it is 77 years. This means that there is 20-year life expectancy [gap] in the nation's capitol, between the poor and predominantly African American people who live downtown, and the richer and predominantly non-African American people who live in the suburbs.[2]

Last week in Rachel's News #848 I reviewed the brutal state of affairs in Massachusetts where the poor and communities of color (towns with more than 15% nonwhite residents) are exposed to much higher levels of industrial pollution. In their detailed study of how hazardous waste, landfills and industrial pollution are disproportionately heaped on the working poor and communities of color in Massachusetts, Daniel R. Faber and Eric J. Krieg concluded that it's four times as dangerous to be poor and twenty times as dangerous to live in a community of color. They said, "...if you live in a community of color, you are thirty- nine times more likely to live in one of the most environmentally hazardous communities in Massachusetts."[1, pg. 10] Taken together with the other social determinants of health that predispose these populations to illness we can see that the cumulative impacts are profound.

Traditional NIMBY (not in my back yard) tactics will help individual neighborhoods and towns for a period of time. But what really needs to happen, say Faber and Krieg, is nothing short of "a more holistic strategy for achieving social and environmental justice; one that involves moving from locally reactive actions to more regionally proactive approaches to community planning and economic development. To do so requires crossing profound racial and ethnic boundaries, and bridging the divide between the white middle-class of suburbia and poorer people of color and working class whites in the inner cities.[1, pg. 59]

Discrimination of all kinds -- but mostly racism and classism -- empowers corporations and the government regulatory agencies (the dominant culture) to dump on the less powerful (working poor and communities of color). But even if we correct this wrong, and distribute our pollution equally across race and class, we still have a huge problem. In Massachusetts, from 1990-2002, industry "...released over 204.3 million pounds of chemical waste directly into the environment... an amount equivalent to over 2,550 tractor-trailer trucks each loaded with 80,000 pounds of toxic waste."[2, pg. 5] No matter how equitably we distribute our pollution, vast numbers of children are going to suffer from cancer, birth-defects, low birth- weight, developmental disabilities, immune disorders and a variety of other harms. [See Rachel's News #829 -- "Why We Can't Prevent Cancer"]

To tackle environmental discrimination, Faber and Krieg suggest policy solutions such as, "An Act to Promote Environmental Justice in the Commonwealth," a proposed law that is under review in Massachusetts. It "...includes measures for enhancing the education, notification, and participation of community residents in state-based environmental- problem solving.[1, pg. 54] They outline some priorities of this legislation, including:

(1) increasing public participation and outreach through EJ (environmental justice) training programs (including greater language accessibility);

(2) reducing risks by targeting compliance, enforcement and technical assistance to EJ populations;

(3) streamline brownfield redevelopment projects with priority given to EJ sensitive projects; and

(4) promote cleaner development by encouraging economic development projects that incorporate state-of-the-art pollution control technology, and alternatives to hazardous chemicals.[1, pg. 55]

Growing the state's sensitivity and priority for EJ communities is good and necessary. But it's not going to solve the pollution problem so Faber and Krieg go on to identify "...a more 'productive' EJ politics with an orientation toward the prevention of environmental risks from being produced in the first place. A movement for environmental justice is of limited efficacy if the end result is to have all residents poisoned to the same perilous degree, regardless of race, color, or class.[1, pg. 55, emphasis added.]

And: "The transition to clean production and utilization of the precautionary principle are key components of a more 'productive' EJ politics. The precautionary principle posits that if there is a strong possibility of harm (instead of scientifically proven certainty of harm) to human health or the environment from a substance or activity, precautionary measures should be taken. [1, pg. 56, emphasis added.]

PRECAUTION VS. RISK ASSESSMENT

Faber and Krieg call on the Precautionary Principle to prevent these gross environmental injustices in the first place. Where there is reasonable suspicion of harm, and scientific uncertainty about cause and effect, then we have a duty to act to prevent harm. The Precautionary Principle suggests five actions:

1) Set goals;

2) Examine all reasonable ways of achieving the goal, intending to choose the least-harmful way;

3) Heed early warnings and make mid-course corrections;

4) Shift the burden of proof; and

5) Throughout the decision-making process, honor the knowledge of those who will be affected by the decisions, and give them a real "say" in the outcome.

These goals are also compatible with our basic human rights as outlined by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and codified in the Massachusetts Constitution: "...the public has the right to clean air and water. When any citizen is unwillingly harmed by exposure to industrial toxic pollutants found in the environment, an injustice is being perpetrated."[1, pg. 58]

Faber and Krieg point out that: "Standard environmental policy approaches in Massachusetts utilize risk assessments to determine 'acceptable' levels of public exposure to industrial pollutants, which are then applied as a general standard on industry." This 'dilution is the solution," assumes that dispersion of environmental pollution leads to 'safe levels' of public exposure. But that's exactly how we created a Massachusetts that is today heaping up to ten times the amount of pollution on the poor and people of color. "Furthermore, the scientific standards of proof for demonstrating the vast array of potential health impacts of a chemical are very difficult to demonstrate conclusively. Over 70 percent of the 3,000 high production volume (HPV) chemicals produced by industry (HPV chemicals are produced in quantities of one million pounds or more annually) have not undergone even the simplest health and safety testing."[1, pg. 56; and see "Getting Beyond Risk Assessment," in Rachel's News #846]

This is why the one chemical at a time approach just doesn't work. We have to consider classes of chemicals like POPs (persistent organic pollutants). And we have to put the burden of proof on industry -- so that they have some incentive to find safe alternatives. Massachusetts is taking some steps with a proposed law -- similar to the Louisville Charter -- "Safer Alternatives to Toxic Chemicals". Faber and Krieg explain, "This bill aims to create a model for the gradual replacement of toxic chemicals with safer alternatives. It initially targets ten substances that are currently replaceable with feasible safer alternatives. It accomplishes this goal by laying out a careful process to examine all available evidence to identify safer alternatives and manufacturing processes that will benefit the health of workers, customers, children, the environment, and the economy. The proposed program would stimulate research and development on new technologies and solutions when a safer alternative is not currently feasible. It would also create programs to assist workers and businesses in the transition to the safest available alternatives, with funding provided through a fee on toxic chemicals."[1, pp. 56-57]

The questions then becomes, do we have the political will to take back our democracy from those who would make it so small they can drown it in a bathtub, as Grover Norquist would have it. In recent years in Massachusetts, Faber and Krieg say, "...the Department of Environmental Protection and Executive Office Environmental Affairs has suffered devastating budget cuts and staff reductions. The capacity of the DEP and EOEA to successfully address issues of environmental injustice will require "...funding, staff, and other resources to adequate levels."[1, pg. 59]

Precautionary principle policies are clearly the way forward. Europe is doing it with REACH which could save billions by providing environmental and health benefits. California has adopted integrated pest management in schools in Los Angeles and Emeryville, zero waste in Oakland and alternative purchasing agreements San Francisco and Berkeley. The texts of many of these new laws are available here and here. We can look forward to much lively discussion and debate about current and future precautionary action at the upcoming The First National Conference on Precaution June 9-11 2006 in Baltimore, Maryland -- and we hope to see you there.

[1] Daniel Faber and Eric Krieg, Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards 2005: Environmental Injustices in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Northeastern University, October 2005. Available here.

[2] Michael Marmot, "What are the social determinants of health?," U.N. Commission on Social Determinants of Health. February 19, 2006. Available here. See also "Health and Environmental Health: Expanding the Movement" in Rachel's News #843 for a discussion of the social determinants of health.

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From: Daily Journal (Los Angeles, Calif.) ................[This story printer-friendly]
March 24, 2006

WASTE PLANT SETS TEHAMA POLITICS AFIRE

Rare Rescinding of Air Permits Causes Firm to Sue Local Board

[Rachel's introduction: An Oregon corporation plans to build a high- temperature incinerator in northern California to "melt" dangerous medical waste. If they get a toehold, they plan to expand across the United States. Have all reasonable alternatives been examined? It seems not. This is a stellar example of the old, discredited "risk assessment of a single option" approach to decisions. Will we ever learn?]

By Dennis Pfaff, Daily Journal Staff Writer

Red Bluff, Calif. -- Just beyond a grove of walnut trees huddled together against the chill of a late winter day and across the street from the Iglesia Nueva Vida sits perhaps the next big battleground involving one of society's most noxious garbage problems.

There, an Oregon company wants to construct what is believed to be the continent's first facility to melt -- that's right, melt -- tons of hospital gowns, needles and other hospital detritus, including human tissue and animals, every day. Its would-be builders tout the plant as an almost miraculously clean and environmentally friendly facility.

But opponents call it a polluter and yet another environmental insult to poor, rural and working-class people. They believe much more study is needed on what is essentially an unproven technology.

The Rev. Fred Villasenor, pastor of Nueva Vida, said members of his flock, many of whom speak only marginal English, were not well informed about the plant.

"I don't know that any of the owners of InEnTec would be willing to live next to one of their plants, but they're willing to have someone else live next to it," he said.

The proposal and a new lawsuit filed by the company to help secure its ability to build the plant have ignited a civil war in rural Tehama County, with legal reinforcements pouring in from around the state. The divisions cross ethnic, regional and local political lines. Proponents as well as critics accuse each other of stretching the truth beyond the breaking point.

Prominent San Francisco and Los Angeles big-firm lawyers have weighed in on either side of the issue, which has split American Indians, area political leaders and even the Tehama County counsel's four-attorney office.

Generating all this heat: A plan by InEnTec Medical Services California, an arm of a Portland, Ore., company, to construct a $12 million plant in a light industrial area just outside of Red Bluff.

The facility, called a "plasma enhanced melter," would use electrically produced heat approaching temperatures equivalent to those on the surface of the sun to destroy as much as 20 tons a day of medical waste shipped in from hospitals and clinics as far away as Southern California. In this process, inorganic materials are absorbed into a molten glass-like substance, which then cools into a solid form that can be used to build roads, said David Farmer, president of InEnTec Medical Services.

Tehama County planners and its assistant air pollution officer, Gary Bovee, in 2004 and 2005, respectively, approved permits for the project. The air pollution permits covered the melter unit and associated generators, said Tehama County Counsel Will Murphy. The generators would use gases created in the waste destruction process to produce electricity.

The county's Planning Department, looking at the project under the California Environmental Quality Act, determined that the facility was so environmentally benign it did not need a full-blown environmental impact report. Instead, planners issued a less stringent "negative declaration" that found the project posed no significant environmental impact.

But InEnTec's relatively easy ride through the regulatory process began to stall last summer.

In August, San Francisco's Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice -- which monitors waste facilities and has acted to block similar plants -- and a local group, Citizens for Review of Medical & Infectious Waste Imports into Tehama County, challenged the facility's air permits. In an apparently unprecedented action, a hearing board for the county's air pollution district overturned the permits in December.

Opponents contended the company had been disingenuous about the technology's benefits that were touted as "pollution-free," when in fact it would produce emissions such as cancer-causing dioxins. The pollution-free claim no longer appears on InEnTec's Web site.

"We believe this technology is an incinerator in disguise, and it has the potential to harm public health and the environment," said Bradley Angel, Greenaction's executive director. "We believe there are safer, noncombustion technologies for the treatment of medical waste."

Angel takes credit for helping raise the project's profile in the conservative county. He began investigating the project and eventually went to the local newspaper with his concerns. "My phone," he said, "started ringing off the hook."

'It's Called Gasification'

The distinction between incineration and other means of disposal is important. There are no incinerators in California permitted to handle medical waste, said Darice Bailey, chief of the waste management section of the state Department of Health Services. Bailey's agency has approved the plasma technology as an alternative treatment method. She noted, however, that endorsement was limited to its ability to destroy disease-causing agents and did not look at other environmental issues.

Most of the state's medical waste incinerators shut down following the implementation of strict new air pollution rules in 1990, said Jerry Martin, spokesman for the California Air Resources Board. The agency has been skeptical about the new technologies such as those proposed for Red Bluff, which Martin said would still produce pollutants such as dioxin. "That's why we're still a little bit concerned," he said.

Farmer, who has accused opponents of engaging in a misinformation campaign against the project, acknowledged the plant would produce some dioxins. He also conceded the company "may have had some marketing materials" that described the melter unit itself as non- polluting.

But he said any dioxins would come from the electrical generators and would be released at extremely low levels. The lack of incinerators in California forces some waste to be sent out of state, and Farmer clearly wants to tap this market. "It gets shipped halfway across the country just to be disposed of," Farmer said. "We think that's not a very smart way to handle waste. Why should California be sending its waste to Texas to get rid of it?" In fact, he said, the plant would represent a net reduction in dioxins released into the environment. That's because trucks, which also produce the substance, would not be shipping the waste as far. Farmer also insisted that the technology does not constitute incineration. "It's called gasification," he said.

Southern California Next?

InEnTec plans to eventually roll out the process "across the country," Farmer said. He said the company is actively searching for a site in Southern California to build a similar facility.

"We firmly believe it is the most environmentally friendly superior technology that exists, and we think it has good application, not just for medical waste [but] for all types of waste material," he said.

That's exactly what concerns critics. If the Red Bluff facility succeeds, "we're going to see this kind of thing all over the place," probably in poor and minority communities, said Luke Cole, an attorney who directs the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment in San Francisco. The organization focuses on air pollution issues, and it equates the technology with incineration.

"This is the camel's nose under the tent," Cole said. "We want to be sure that before this thing goes anywhere it is adequately vetted."

At least some people in Tehama County don't want the project, whatever it's called. They received a boost in December when the rarely convened hearing board voted 3-1 to toss out the air permits that had been issued for the facility, including its associated electrical generating units.

Among other problems, board members found several "significant changes" to the project that should have triggered a more complete environmental review. Along the way, the project's stated purpose, size and even corporate identity changed, the board found.

Those changes included a 15 percent boost from the company's initial request in the amount of waste allowed under the air permit.

The board's nine-page list of findings, which was written by the project's opponents, also cited the discovery of an old industrial dump at the site. Old tires, drums and what appear to be metal pipes and other debris were clearly visible recently in a large berm of materials excavated from the area.

The board also found numerous other shortcomings with the air regulators' action, including failing to properly scrutinize the company's emissions data and "possible serious problems" at similar facilities in Hawaii and Richland, Wash. The Hawaii facility had broken down for months. The Washington plant was closed for years and was "not a successful operation," the board found.

Company officials have countered that those plants were operated by others who did not follow InEnTec's recommendations.

Critics: Minorities Left Out

Meanwhile, critics have also portrayed the issue as one raising "environmental justice" concerns.

They note the proximity of the site to the Iglesia Nueva Vida -- New Life Church -- a beige metal one-story building sitting less than a mile from the proposed melter site that serves a primarily Hispanic congregation. Opponents charged that many key documents were never translated into Spanish.

Farmer, however, said neither the county planners nor air regulators have ever required documents to be translated into Spanish.

Additionally, opponents complain that no studies were done to explore for American Indian artifacts or examine the possibly disproportionate health effects on local American Indians, who eat fish from local waters as well as berries and other native plants.

"The medical waste melter is not acceptable in that area or within this county, period," said Fred Mankins, a Pit River Indian who opposes the facility.

Not all local American Indian leaders feel the same way, though. The Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians, which operate the Rolling Hills Casino near the Tehama County town of Corning, are among major investors in the InEnTec project. The project offered a "great opportunity" for the tribe to diversify its holdings and to do so in its home county, said John Crosby, the band's economic development director. "It would be on the cutting edge of technology, as we felt," Crosby said. He said the project would produce minimal air pollution.

Farmer described the Paskenta tribe as a majority shareholder in the company developing the Tehama plant. He said the band is the only one with legal rights to any Indian cultural artifacts in the county, and that InEnTec has an agreement with the Paskentas to call in the tribe if it finds anything. He noted the plant's location in the county's industrial park. "It's zoned appropriately for this," Farmer said. "For anyone to suggest we're trying to bring it in on top of minority groups, I think just doesn't have the facts right."

Suit Disputes Board's Authority

In February, InEnTec sued the hearing board in Tehama County Superior Court in an effort to overturn the board's ruling. InEnTec Medical Services California v. Hearing Board of the Tehama County Air Pollution Control District, 56912.

The lawsuit attacks the board's expertise, the conduct of the hearings that preceded the decision and the board's authority to deny the permits. For example, the lawsuit claimed that once a "lead agency," in this case the Planning Department, has adopted a negative declaration under CEQA, the air district had no authority to conduct further environmental review except under limited circumstances. Further, the board's jurisdiction extended only to questions of whether air laws and regulations were followed, not the state environmental law.

InEnTec's suit argued there was no evidence any of the changes to the project cited by the board would "create new or more severe environmental effects."

The board, the lawsuit noted, had not convened for seven years before the InEnTec appeal. It never had previously heard a citizen appeal of a permit. None of the four members who participated in the hearings "had any background or experience in air quality regulations or in CEQA requirements" relevant to the permits at stake, the suit said. InEnTec's lawsuit also alleged opponents used the board's three-month process to rally antagonism toward the project and intimidate its supporters.

"The hearing board's failure to enforce order, decorum and fairness in the appeal proceedings, including its unwillingness to restrict public comment given outside the requirements for proper evidence, tainted the proceedings to the prejudice of InEnTec and the district, each of whom was denied a fair hearing," the lawsuit charged. Basically, the suit challenges the board's conclusion that additional environmental review is needed, said Ronald Van Buskirk, a San Francisco partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, which represents InEnTec. "You could do an [environmental impact report] but you'd be wasting your time," said Van Buskirk. Farmer said InEnTec wouldn't have objected if county planners had wanted a more detailed review. But he said the planning officials correctly determined the project needed no more scrutiny. "We don't think it's appropriate to bring CEQA issues into an air permit discussion," he said.

Tehama Position Questioned

Given the conflicting elements at play, critics have wondered how vigorously the county's lawyers will defend the permit revocations.

Project opponents have said they believe many county officials favored the facility. Murphy, the county counsel, meanwhile, advised the hearing board during its deliberations. One of Murphy's deputies represented the official who issued the permits.

"The county is in the remarkable legal position of having to both defend and challenge the hearing board's decision," said Daniel Irving, an attorney and Red Bluff City Council member who is active in opposing the facility.

Irving said the city has also complained that the county had not kept it fully informed of the project.

Tehama County at least partially mollified some of those concerns by bringing in a heavyweight law firm of its own, Bingham McCutchen, to defend the hearing board. Two veteran Bingham attorneys, Karen Nardi of San Francisco and Rick Rothman of Los Angeles, lead the firm's efforts in the case.

"I can certainly confirm that we expect to give a vigorous defense of the hearing board's action," Nardi said.

But lawyers representing Greenaction and the local activist group also expect to play their own role in defending the board.

"What the hearing board is willing to sign off on may be very different from what the groups are willing to sign off on," in terms of a settlement, said San Francisco attorney Cole. He, along with Irving and Tim Grabiel, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Santa Monica, represents the environmentalists in the case.

"We're coming in to protect Greenaction's and the citizens' interests in this matter," Grabiel said. "We haven't had time to find out to what extent they overlap with the hearing board's but they may be different."

Murphy, however, rejects any suggestion, implied or otherwise, that the defense will be less than diligent. For one, he said the county itself has no formal position in the litigation.

Within his own small office, he said, he erected an "ethical wall" between himself and the deputy representing the air pollution officer, who is named as a real party in the case. The office maintains two sets of documents, with each attorney assisted by separate staff, Murphy said.

Tehama County supervisors, who double as the board members of the air pollution district, hired Bingham McCutchen to provide "competent representation" for the hearing panel, he said. He said the county is paying Bingham's lawyers between $400 and $425 an hour for their work.

"You don't go out and select people from your community to do an important thing like hear appeals in air pollution control matters and then leave them hanging out there to dry," Murphy said.

When the litigation will get under way in earnest is anyone's guess. The entire Tehama County bench -- consisting of four judges -- recused itself from the case, according to Marcia Taylor of the Administrative Office of the Courts.

The case was assigned to retired Alameda County Superior Court Judge Richard A. Haugner. However, InEnTec disqualified Haugner for undisclosed reasons of prejudice. As of Thursday, no judge had been chosen to oversee the case, Taylor said.

==============

For more information on this campaign and issue, visit the Greenaction web site http://www.greenaction.org.

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From: Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (Germany) .....[This story printer-friendly]
March 31, 2006

EXERCISE CAUTION WHEN USING "NANO-SEALING SPRAYS"

[Rachel's introduction: The German government has issued a warning about household sprays that contain nano particles. Nano particles are one-ten-thousandth the diameter of a human hair and have never been tested for safety, yet they have been put into household products -- a kind of medical experiment on humans. Now the results of the experiment have begun to come in. Good luck identifying products containing nano particles -- in the U.S. they're not labeled.]

By the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment [Germany]

Sealing sprays for glass and ceramics containing moisture-repellant nano particles and a propellant should not be used in confined spaces.

The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment [in Germany] has good reason for pointing this out. In a short space of time the poison control and treatment centres of the federal states have reported 39 cases involving serious health disorders following the use of household products of this kind. All the people involved complained of respiratory distress. In six cases pulmonary oedemas were diagnosed which had to be treated in hospital.

Sealing sprays with nano particles for ceramic and glass surfaces are a new type of household chemical. In the bathroom and toilet they are said to make surfaces water and dirt-repellent. Liquids are said to trickle off without leaving behind any rings or lime spots. This product is sold in pump bottles and aerosol cans.

Some users suffered severe health disorders after using aerosol cans. It seems they had inhaled components of the spray which had remained in the ambient air as fine particles of the aerosol. The particles from the spray may have disrupted the function of the alveolar and bronchial tissue in the lungs and, by extension, oxygen and moisture exchange. This led to respiratory distress and, in severe cases, to accumulation of water in the lungs (pulmonary oedemas).

No such incidents have been reported in conjunction with products applied to surfaces using pump bottles.

The competent regional authorities and the poison control and treatment centres of the federal states have since issued warnings about two products which were sold in Penny stores according to the manufacturers (e.g. www.giz-nord.de/php/index.php?option= com_frontpage&Itemid=1). The incidents have also been recorded in the European rapid alert system for non-food products RAPEX. The distributors have launched a recall and advised against using the sprays.

As the exact cause of the health disorders has still to be established, BfR advises all consumers, who have already purchased nano-sealing sprays on a propellant base, not to use them in confined spaces.

No information is available as to whether other products with nano- technological components and a propellant (e.g. shoe care products, impregnating agents, moisture blockers, etc.) are also on the market which may constitute a hazard. If respiratory disorders should occur after using sprays of this kind, the consumers affected should immediately contact a doctor or a poison control and treatment centre. It is important to bear in mind that in order to fully understand the situation they need to see the product used!

Because of these recent incidents BfR points out that, in accordance with the Chemicals Act, doctors in Germany are bound to notify the BfR Poison and Product Documentation Centre of any health impairments in conjunction with chemical products.

BfR is working flat out to establish the cause of the occurrence of these recent health disorders. There are plans for scientific discussions.

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From: Democracy Now .......................................[This story printer-friendly]
March 31, 2006

NOAM CHOMSKY ON FAILED STATES: THE ABUSE OF POWER...

[Rachel's introduction: One of our truly great journalists, Amy Goodman, interviews one of our most important thinkers, Noam Chomsky, about his new book, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy. Hang on tight. This is a scary interview.]

By Amy Goodman

The New York Times calls him "arguably the most important intellectual alive." The Boston Globe calls him "America's most useful citizen"

He was recently voted the world's number one intellectual in a poll by Prospect and Foreign Policy magazines.

We're talking about Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the foremost critics of U.S. foreign policy. Professor Chomsky has just released a new book titled "Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy."

It examines how the United States is beginning to resemble a failed state that cannot protect its citizens from violence and has a government that regards itself as beyond the reach of domestic or international law.

In the book, Professor Noam Chomsky presents a series of solutions to help rescue the nation from turning into a failed state.

They include: Accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the World Court; Sign the Kyoto protocols on global warming; Let the United Nations take the lead in international crises; Rely on diplomatic and economic measures rather than military ones in confronting terror; and Sharply reduce military spending and sharply increase social spending

In his first broadcast interview upon the publication of his book, Professor Noam Chomsky joins us today from Boston for the hour.

AMY GOODMAN: In this first broadcast interview upon publication of his book, Professor Noam Chomsky joins us today from Boston for the hour. We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Noam.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Glad to be with you again.

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Failed States, what do you mean?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, over the years there have been a series of concepts developed to justify the use of force in international affairs for a long period. It was possible to justify it on the pretext, which usually turned out to have very little substance, that the U.S. was defending itself against the communist menace. By the 1980s, that was wearing pretty thin. The Reagan administration concocted a new category: terrorist states. They declared a war on terror as soon as they entered office in the early 1980s, 1981. 'We have to defend ourselves from the plague of the modern age, return to barbarism, the evil scourge of terrorism," and so on, and particularly state-directed international terrorism.

A few years later -- this is Clinton -- Clinton devised the concept of rogue states. 'It's 1994, we have to defend ourselves from rogue states." Then, later on came the failed states, which either threaten our security, like Iraq, or require our intervention in order to save them, like Haiti, often devastating them in the process. In each case, the terms have been pretty hard to sustain, because it's been difficult to overlook the fact that under any, even the most conservative characterization of these notions -- let's say U.S. law -- the United States fits fairly well into the category, as has often been recognized. By now, for example, the category -- even in the Clinton years, leading scholars, Samuel Huntington and others, observed that -- in the major journals, Foreign Affairs -- that in most of the world, much of the world, the United States is regarded as the leading rogue state and the greatest threat to their existence.

By now, a couple of years later, Bush years, same journals' leading specialists don't even report international opinion. They just describe it as a fact that the United States has become a leading rogue state. Surely, it's a terrorist state under its own definition of international terrorism, not only carrying out violent terrorist acts and supporting them, but even radically violating the so-called "Bush Doctrine," that a state that harbors terrorists is a terrorist state. Undoubtedly, the U.S. harbors leading international terrorists, people described by the F.B.I. and the Justice Department as leading terrorists, like Orlando Bosch, now Posada Carriles, not to speak of those who actually implement state terrorism.

And I think the same is true of the category "failed states." The U.S. increasingly has taken on the characteristics of what we describe as failed states. In the respects that one mentioned, and also, another critical respect, namely the -- what is sometimes called a democratic deficit, that is, a substantial gap between public policy and public opinion. So those suggestions that you just read off, Amy, those are actually not mine. Those are pretty conservative suggestions. They are the opinion of the majority of the American population, in fact, an overwhelming majority. And to propose those suggestions is to simply take democracy seriously. It's interesting that on these examples that you've read and many others, there is an enormous gap between public policy and public opinion. The proposals, the general attitudes of the public, which are pretty well studied, are -- both political parties are, on most of these issues, well to the right of the population.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Professor Chomsky, in the early parts of the book, especially on the issue of the one characteristic of a failed state, which is its increasing failure to protect its own citizens, you lay out a pretty comprehensive look at what the, especially in the Bush years, the war on terrorism has meant in terms of protecting the American people. And you lay out clearly, especially since the war, the invasion of Iraq, that terrorist, major terrorist action and activity around the world has increased substantially. And also, you talk about the dangers of a possible nuclear -- nuclear weapons being used against the United States. Could you expand on that a little bit?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, there has been a very serious threat of nuclear war. It's not -- unfortunately, it's not much discussed among the public. But if you look at the literature of strategic analysts and so on, they're extremely concerned. And they describe particularly the Bush administration aggressive militarism as carrying an "appreciable risk of ultimate doom," to quote one, "apocalypse soon," to quote Robert McNamara and many others. And there's good reasons for it, I mean, which could explain, and they explain. That's been expanded by the Bush administration consciously, not because they want nuclear war, but it's just not a high priority. So the rapid expansion of offensive U.S. military capacity, including the militarization of space, which is the U.S.'s pursuit alone. The world has been trying very hard to block it. 95% of the expenditures now are from the U.S., and they're expanding.

All of these measures bring about a completely predictable reaction on the part of the likely targets. They don't say, you know, 'Thank you. Here are our throats. Please cut them." They react in the ways that they can. For some, it will mean responding with the threat or maybe use of terror. For others, more powerful ones, it's going to mean sharply increasing their own offensive military capacity. So Russian military expenditures have sharply increased in response to Bush programs. Chinese expansion of offensive military capacity is also beginning to increase for the same reasons. All of that threatens -- raises the already severe threat of even -- of just accidental nuclear war. These systems are on computer-controlled alert. And we know that our own systems have many errors, which are stopped by human intervention. Their systems are far less secure; the Russian case, deteriorated. These moves all sharply enhance the threat of nuclear war. That's serious nuclear war that I'm talking about.

There's also the threat of dirty bombs, small nuclear explosions. Small means not so small, but in comparison with a major attack, which would pretty much exterminate civilized life. The U.S. intelligence community regards the threat of a dirty bomb, say in New York, in the next decade as being probably greater than 50%. And those threats increase as the threat of terror increases.

And Bush administration policies have, again, consciously been carried out in a way, which they know is likely to increase the threat of terror. The most obvious example is the Iraq invasion. That was undertaken with the anticipation that it would be very likely to increase the threat of terror and also nuclear proliferation. And, in fact, that's exactly what happened, according to the judgment of the C.I.A., National Intelligence Council, foreign intelligence agencies, independent specialists. They all point out that, yes, as anticipated, it increased the threat of terror. In fact, it did so in ways well beyond what was anticipated.

To mention just one, we commonly read that there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq. Well, it's not totally accurate. There were means to develop weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and known to be in Iraq. They were under guard by U.N. inspectors, who were dismantling them. When Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest sent in their troops, they neglected to instruct them to guard these sites. The U.N. inspectors were expelled, the sites were left unguarded. The inspectors continued their work by satellite and reported that over a hundred sites had been looted, in fact, systematically looted, not just somebody walking in, but careful looting. That included dangerous biotoxins, means to hide precision equipment to be used to develop nuclear weapons and missiles, means to develop chemical weapons and so on. All of this has disappeared. One hates to imagine where it's disappeared to, but it could end up in New York.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Noam Chomsky, and we're going to come back with him. His new book, just published, is called Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy. We'll be back with Professor Chomsky in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Professor Noam Chomsky, upon the release of his new book, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy. Noam Chomsky, a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I'm Amy Goodman, here with Juan Gonzalez. Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Professor Chomsky, in your book you also talk about how Iraq has become almost an incubator or a university now for advanced training for terrorists, who then are leaving the country there and going around the world, very much as what happened in the 1980s in Afghanistan. Could you talk about that somewhat?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Actually, that's -- actually, these are just quotes from the C.I.A. and other U.S. intelligence agencies and analysts. Yes, they describe Iraq now as a training ground for highly professionalized terrorists skilled in urban contact. They do compare it to Afghanistan, but say that it's much more serious, because of the high level of training and skill. These are almost entirely Iraqis. There's a small number of foreign fighters drawn to Iraq. Estimates are maybe 5% to 10%. And they are, as in the case of Afghanistan, are expected to spread into throughout many parts of the world and to carry out the kinds of terrorism that they're trained in, as a reaction to -- clearly reaction to the invasion. Iraq was, whatever you thought about it, was free from connections to terror prior to the invasion. It's now a major terror center.

It's not as President Bush says, that terrorists are being concentrated in Iraq so that we can kill them. These are terrorists who had no previous record of involvement in terrorism. The foreign fighters who have come in, mostly from Saudi Arabia, have been investigated extensively by Saudi and Israeli and U.S. intelligence, and what they conclude is that they were mobilized by the Iraq war, no involvement in terrorist actions in the past. And undoubtedly, just as expected, the Iraq war has raised an enormous hostility throughout much of the world, and particularly the Muslim world.

It was the most -- probably the most unpopular war in history, and even before it was fought. Virtually no support for it anywhere, except the U.S. and Britain and a couple of other places. And since the war itself was perhaps one of the most incredible military catastrophes in history, has caused utter disaster in Iraq and has -- and all of that has since simply intensified the strong opposition to the war of the kind that you heard from that Indonesian student of a few moments ago. But that's why it spread, and that's a -- it increases the reservoir of potential support for the terrorists, who regard themselves as a vanguard, attempting to elicit support from others, bring others to join with them. And the Bush administration is their leading ally in this. Again, not my words, the words of the leading U.S. specialists on terror, Michael Scheuer in this case. And definitely, that's happened.

And it's not the only case. I mean, in case after case, the Bush administration has simply downgraded the threat of terror. One example is the report of the 9/11 Commission. Here in the United States, the Bush administration didn't want the commission to be formed, tried to block it, but it was finally formed. Bipartisan commission, gave many recommendations. The recommendations, to a large extent, were not carried out. The commission members, including the chair, were appalled by this, set up their own private commission after their own tenure was completed, and continued to report that the measures are simply not being carried out.

There are many other examples. One of the most striking is the Treasury Department has a branch, the Office of Financial Assets Control, which is supposed to monitor suspicious funding transfers around the world. Well, that's a core element of the so-called war on terror. They've given reports to Congress. It turns out that they have a few officials devoted to al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, but about -- I think it was -- six times that many devoted to whether there are any evasions of the totally illegal U.S. embargo against Cuba.

There was an instance of that just a few months ago, when the U.S. infuriated even energy corporations by ordering a Sheraton Hotel in Mexico City to cancel a meeting between Cuban oil specialists and U.S. oil companies, including some big ones, seeking to explore the development of offshore Cuban oil resources. The government ordered -- this OFAC ordered the hotel, the U.S. hotel, to expel the Cubans and terminate the meeting. Mexico wasn't terribly happy about this. It's a extraordinary arrogance. But it also reveals the hysterical fanaticism of the goal of strangling Cuba.

And we know why. It's a free country. We have records going from way back, and a rich source of them go back to the Kennedy-Johnson administrations. They had to carry out a terrorist war against Cuba, as they did, and try to strangle Cuba economically, because of Cuba's -- what they called Cuba's successful defiance of U.S. policies, going back to the Monroe Doctrine. No Russians, but the Monroe Doctrine, 150 years back at that time. And the goal was, as was put very plainly by the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, to make the people of Cuba suffer. They are responsible for the fact that the government is in place. We therefore have to make them suffer and starve, so that they'll throw out the government. It's a policy, which is pretty consistent. It's being applied right now in Palestine. It was applied under the Iraqi sanctions, plot in Chile, and so on. It's savage.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Noam Chomsky, his new book, after he wrote Hegemony or Survival, one of scores of books, if not a hundred books that Professor Chomsky has written, his new one is called Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy.

You mention Israel, Palestine, and I wanted to ask you about this new study that's come out. A dean at Harvard University and a professor at the University of Chicago are coming under intense criticism for publishing an academic critique of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington. The paper charges that the United States has willingly set aside its own security and that of many of its allies, in order to advance the interests of Israel. In addition, the study accuses the pro-Israel lobby, particularly AIPAC, the America Israel Public Affairs Committee, of manipulating the U.S. media, policing academia and silencing critics of Israel by labeling them as anti-Semitic. The study also examines the role played by the pro-Israel neoconservatives in the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The authors are the Stephen Walt, a dean at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago. They, themselves, are now being accused of anti-Semitism. In Washington, a Democratic congressman, Eliot Engle of New York, described the professors as dishonest so-called intellectuals and anti-Semites. The Harvard professor, Ruth Wisse, called for the paper to be withdrawn. Harvard Law School professor, Alan Dershowitz, described the study as trash that could have been written by neo-Nazi David Duke. The New York Sun reported Harvard has received several calls from pro-Israel donors, expressing concern about the paper, and Harvard has already taken steps to distance itself from the report. Last week, it removed the logo of the Kennedy School of Government from the paper and added a new disclaimer to the study. The report is 81 pages. It was originally published on Harvard's website and an edited version appeared in the London Review of Books.

The controversy comes less than a year after Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz attempted to block the publication of Norman Finkelstein's book Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. Now, this goes into a lot of issues: the content of the study, what you think of it, the response to it and also the whole critique. In this country, what happens to those who criticize the policies of the state of Israel? Noam Chomsky.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, the answer to your last question is well described in Norman Finkelstein's quite outstanding book and also in the record of Dershowitz's attempts to prevent its publication. Some of the documents were just published in the Journal of Palestine Studies. Finkelstein's book gives an extensive detailed account, the best one we have, of a frightening record of Israeli crimes and abuses, where he relies on the most respectable sources, the major human rights organizations, Israeli human rights organizations and others, and demonstrates, just conclusively, that Alan Dershowitz's defense of these atrocities, based on no evidence at all, is outrageous and grotesque.

Nevertheless, Finkelstein comes under tremendous attack for being anti-Semitic, and so on. Now that's pretty normal. It goes back, I suppose, to the distinguished diplomat, Abba Eban -- it must be thirty years ago -- wrote in an American Jewish journal that "the task of Zionists," he said, "is to show that all political anti-Zionism" - that means criticism of the policies of the state of Israel -- "is either anti-Semitism or Jewish self-hatred." Well, okay, that excludes all possible criticism, by definition. As examples of neurotic Jewish self-hatred, I should declare an interest. He mentioned two people. I was one; the other was Izzy Stone.

Once you release the torrent of abuse, you don't need arguments and evidence, you can just scream. And Professors Walt and Mearsheimer deserve credit for publishing a study, which they knew was going to elicit the usual streams of abuse and hysteria from supporters of Israeli crimes and violence. However, we should recognize that this is pretty uniform. Try to say a sane and uncontroversial word about any other issue dear to the hearts of the intellectual elite that they've turned into holy writ, you get the same reaction. So -- and there's no lobby, which does raise one of a few minor points that raises questions about the validity of the critique.

It's a serious, careful piece of work. It deserves to be read. They deserve credit for writing it. But it still it leaves open the question of how valid the analysis is, and I notice that there's a pretty subtle question involved. Everyone agrees, on all sides, that there are a number of factors that enter into determining U.S. foreign policy. One is strategic and economic interests of the major power centers within the United States. In the case of the Middle East, that means the energy corporations, arms producers, high-tech industry, financial institutions and others. Now, these are not marginal institutions, particularly in the Bush administration. So one question is to what extent does policy reflect their interests. Another question is to what extent is it influenced by domestic lobbies. And there are other factors. But just these two alone, yes, they are -- you find them in most cases, and to try to sort out their influence is not so simple. In particular, it's not simple when their interests tend to coincide, and by and large, there's a high degree of conformity. If you look over the record, what's called the national interest, meaning the special interests of those with -- in whose hands power is concentrated, the national interest, in that sense, tends to conform to the interests of the lobbies. So in those cases, it's pretty hard to disentangle them.

If the thesis of the book -- the thesis of the book is that the lobbies have overwhelming influence, and the so-called "national interest" is harmed by what they do. If that were the case, it would be, I would think, a very hopeful conclusion. It would mean that U.S. policy could easily be reversed. It would simply be necessary to explain to the major centers of power, like the energy corporations, high-tech industry and arms producers and so on, just explain to them that they've -- that their interests are being harmed by this small lobby that screams anti-Semitism and funds congressmen, and so on. Surely those institutions can utterly overwhelm the lobby in political influence, in finance, and so on, so that ought to reverse the policy.

Well, it doesn't happen, and there are a number of reasons for it. For one thing, there's an underlying assumption that the so-called national interest has been harmed by these policies. Well, you know, you really have to demonstrate that. So who's been harmed? Have the energy corporations been harmed by U.S. policy in the Middle East over the last 60 years? I mean, they're making profits beyond the dream of avarice, as the main government investigation of them reported. Even more today -- that was a couple years ago. Has the U.S. -- the main concern of the U.S. has been to control what the State Department 60 years ago called "a stupendous source of strategic power," Middle East oil. Yeah, they've controlled it. There have been -- in fact, the invasion of Iraq was an attempt to intensify that control. It may not do it. It may have the opposite effect, but that's a separate question. It was the intent, clearly.

There have been plenty of barriers. The major barrier is the one that is the usual one throughout the world: independent nationalism. It's called "radical nationalism," which was serious. It was symbolized by Nasser, but also Kassem in Iraq, and others. Well, the U.S. did succeed in overcoming that barrier. How? Israel destroyed Nasser. That was a tremendous service to the United States, to U.S. power, that is, to the energy corporations, to Saudi Arabia, to the main centers of power here, and in fact, it's in -- that was 1967, and it was after that victory that the U.S.-Israeli relations really solidified, became what's called a "strategic asset."

It's also then that the lobby gained its force. It's also then, incidentally, that the educated classes, the intellectual political class entered into an astonishing love affair with Israel, after its demonstration of tremendous power against a third-world enemy, and in fact, that's a very critical component of what's called the lobby. Walt and Mearsheimer mention it, but I think it should be emphasized. And they are very influential. They determine, certainly influence, the shaping of news and information in journals, media, scholarship, and so on. My own feeling is they're probably the most influential part of the lobby. Now, we sort of have to ask, what's the difference between the lobby and the power centers of the country?

But the barriers were overcome. Israel has performed many other services to the United States. You can run through the record. It's also performed secondary services. So in the 1980s, particularly, Congress was imposing barriers to the Reagan administration's support for and carrying out major terrorist atrocities in Central America. Israel helped evade congressional restrictions by carrying out training, and so on, itself. The Congress blocked U.S. trade with South Africa. Israel helped evade the embargo to all the -- both the racist regimes of Southern Africa, and there have been many other cases. By now, Israel is virtually an offshore U.S. military base and high-tech center in the Middle East.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, we have to break for stations to identify themselves, but we'll come back. Professor Noam Chomsky is our guest for the hour. His latest book has just been published, and it's called Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest today is Professor Noam Chomsky. His new book is Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy. Noam Chomsky, longtime professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, world-renowned linguist and political analyst. I'm Amy Goodman, here with Juan Gonzalez. Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Professor Chomsky, in your book you have a fascinating section, where you talk about the historical basis of the Bush doctrine of preemptive war, and also its relationship to empire or to the building of a U.S. empire. And you go back, you mention a historian, John Lewis Gaddis, who the Bush administration loves, because he's actually tried to find the historical rationalization for this use, going back to John Quincy Adams and as Secretary of State in the invasion by General Andrew Jackson of Florida in the Seminole Wars, and how this actually is a record of the use of this idea to continue the expansionist aims of the United States around the world.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah, that's a very interesting case, actually. John Lewis Gaddis is not only the favorite historian of the Reagan administration, but he's regarded as the dean of Cold War scholarship, the leading figure in the American Cold War scholarship, a professor at Yale. And he wrote the one, so far, book-length investigation into the roots of the Bush Doctrine, which he generally approves, the usual qualifications about style and so on. He traces it is back, as you say, to his hero, the great grand strategist, John Quincy Adams, who wrote a series of famous state papers back in 1818, in which he gave post facto justification to Andrew Jackson's invasion of Florida. And it's rather interesting.

Gaddis is a good historian. He knows the sources, cites all the right sources. But he doesn't tell you what they say. So what I did in the book is just add what they say, what he omitted. Well, what they describe is a shocking record of atrocities and crimes carried out against what were called runaways Negros and lawless Indians, devastated the Seminoles. There was another major Seminole war later, either exterminated them or drove them into the marshes, completely unprovoked. There were fabricated pretexts. Gaddis talks about the threat of England. There was no threat from England. England didn't do a thing. In fact, even Adams didn't claim that. But it was what Gaddis calls an -- it established what Gaddis calls the thesis that expansion is the best guarantee of security. So you want to be secure, just expand, conquer more. Then you'll be secure.

And he says, yes, that goes right through all American administrations -- he's correct about that -- and is the centerpiece of the Bush Doctrine. So he says the Bush Doctrine isn't all that new. Expansion is the key to security. So we just expand and expand, and then we become more secure. Well, you know, he doesn't mention the obvious precedents that come to mind, so I'll leave them out, but you can think of them. And there's some truth to that, except for what he ignores and, in fact, denies, namely the huge atrocities that are recorded in the various sources, scholarly sources that he cites, which also point out that Adams, by giving this justification for Jackson's war -- he was alone in the administration to do it, but he managed to convince the President -- he established the doctrine of executive wars without congressional authorization, in violation of the Constitution. Adams later recognized that and was sorry for it, and very sorry, but that established it and, yes, that's been consistent ever since then: executive wars without congressional authorization. We know of case after case. It doesn't seem to bother the so-called originalists who talk about original intent.

But that aside, he also -- the scholarship that Gaddis cites but doesn't quote also points out that Adams established other principles that are consistent from then until now, namely massive lying to the public, distortion, evoking hysterical fears, all kinds of deceitful efforts to mobilize the population in support of atrocities. And yes, that continues right up to the present, as well. So there's very interesting historical record. What it shows is almost the opposite of what Gaddis claims and what the Reagan -- the Bush administration -- I think I said Reagan -- the Bush administration likes. And it's right out of the very sources that he refers to, the right sources, the right scholarship. He simply ignores them. But, yes, the record is interesting.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, I wanted to ask you a question. As many people know, you're perhaps one of the most cited sources or analysis in the world. And I thought this was an interesting reference to these citations. This was earlier this month, program, Tim Russert, Meet the Press, questioning the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace.

TIM RUSSERT: Mr. Jaafari said that one of his favorite American writers is Professor Noam Chomsky, someone who has written very, very strongly against the Iraq war and against most of the Bush administration foreign policy. Does that concern you?

GEN. PETER PACE: I hope he has more than one book on his nightstand.

TIM RUSSERT: So it troubles you?

GEN. PETER PACE: I would be concerned if the only access to foreign ideas that the Prime Minister had was that one author. If, in fact, that's one of many, and he's digesting many different opinions, that's probably healthy.

AMY GOODMAN: That's General Peter Pace, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, being questioned by Tim Russert, talking about Jaafari, who at this very moment is struggling to be -- again, to hold on to his position as prime minister of Iraq. Your response, Noam Chomsky?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, I, frankly, rather doubt that General Pace recognized my name or knew what he was referring to, but maybe he did. The quote from Tim Russert, if I recall, was that this was a book that was highly critical of the Iraq war. Well, that shouldn't surprise a prime minister of Iraq. After all, according to U.S. polls, the latest ones I've seen reported, Brookings Institution, 87%, 87% of Iraqis want a timetable for withdrawal. That's an astonishing figure. If it really is all Iraqis, as was asserted. That means virtually everyone in Arab Iraq, the areas where the troops are deployed. I, frankly, doubt that you could have found figures like that in Vichy, France, or, you know, Poland under -- when it was a Russian satellite.

What it means essentially is that virtually everyone wants a timetable for withdrawal. So, would it be surprising that a prime minister would read a book that's critical of the war and says the same thing? It's interesting that Bush and Blair, who are constantly preaching about their love of democracy, announce, declare that there will be no timetable for withdrawal. Well, that part probably reflects the contempt for democracy that both of them have continually demonstrated, them and their colleagues, virtually without exception.

But there are deeper reasons, and we ought to think about them. If we're talking about exit strategies from Iraq, we should bear in mind that for the U.S. to leave Iraq without establishing a subordinate client state would be a nightmare for Washington. All you have to do is think of the policies that an independent Iraq would be likely to pursue, if it was mildly democratic. It would almost surely strengthen its already developed relations with Shiite Iran right next door. Any degree of Iraqi autonomy stimulates autonomy pressures across the border in Saudi Arabia, where there's a substantial Shiite population, who have been bitterly repressed by the U.S.-backed tyranny but is now calling for more autonomy. That happens to be where most of Saudi oil is. So, what you can imagine -- I'm sure Washington planners are having nightmares about this -- is a potential -- pardon?

JUAN GONZALEZ: I would like to ask you, in terms of this whole issue of democracy, in your book you talk about the democracy deficit. Obviously, the Bush administration is having all kinds of problems with their -- even their model of democracy around the world, given the election results in the Palestinian territories, the situation now in Iraq, where the President is trying to force out the Prime Minister of the winning coalition there, in Venezuela, even in Iran. Your concept of the democracy deficit, and why this administration is able to hold on in the United States itself?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, there are two aspects of that. One is, the democracy deficit internal to the United States, that is, the enormous and growing gap between public opinion and public policy. Second is their so-called democracy-promotion mission elsewhere in the world. The latter is just pure fraud. The only evidence that they're interested in promoting democracy is that they say so. The evidence against it is just overwhelming, including the cases you mentioned and many others. I mean, the very fact that people are even willing to talk about this shows that we're kind of insisting on being North Koreans: if the Dear Leader has spoken, that establishes the truth; it doesn't matter what the facts are. I go into that in some detail in the book.

The democracy deficit at home is another matter. How have -- I mean, they have an extremely narrow hold on political power. Their policies are strongly opposed by most of the population. How do they carry this off? Well, that's been through an intriguing mixture of deceit, lying, fabrication, public relations. There's actually a pretty good study of it by two good political scientists, Hacker and Pearson, who just run through the tactics and how it works. And they have barely managed to hold on to political power and are attempting to use it to dismantle the institutional structure that has been built up over many years with enormous popular support -- the limited benefits system; they're trying to dismantle Social Security and are actually making progress on that; to the tax cuts, overwhelmingly for the rich, are creating -- are purposely creating a future situation, first of all, a kind of fiscal train wreck in the future, but also a situation in which it will be virtually impossible to carry out the kinds of social policies that the public overwhelmingly supports.

And to manage to carry this off has been an impressive feat of manipulation, deceit, lying, and so on. No time to talk about it here, but actually my book gives a pretty good account. I do discuss it in the book. That's a democratic deficit at home and an extremely serious one. The problems of nuclear war, environmental disaster, those are issues of survival, the top issues and the highest priority for anyone sensible. Third issue is that the U.S. government is enhancing those threats. And a fourth issue is that the U.S. population is opposed, but is excluded from the political system. That's a democratic deficit. It's one we can deal with, too.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, we're going to have to leave it there for now. But part two of our interview will air next week. Professor Noam Chomsky's new book, just published, is called Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy.

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