Fickle, Bitter, and Dangerous

[54anickel]

KoKo01 had posted this Friday in the SMW thread. It's a very interesting article. Thought I would repost it here.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=5255


Chalmers Johnson served in the Navy during the Korean War. He earned his Ph.D. in political science at UC Berkeley and taught there and at UC San Diego until 1992. He served as chairman of the Center for Chinese Studies and was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Chalmers Johnson is president and co-founder of the Japan Policy Research Institute (www.jpri.org). He has written numerous articles and reviews and twelve books on Asian subjects, including, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power, MITI and the Japanese Miracle, and Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. His latest book is titled, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic.


David Ross (D.R.): Throughout the Internet after the September 11th attacks, there was a lot of talk of blowback. When, in fact, a year before the attacks, you wrote the book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, where you predicted events such as 9-11. What is blowback and what are its causes?

Chalmers Johnson: "Blowback" is a CIA term. It was first invented after the CIA intervention against the government of Iran in 1953 when we overthrew an elected government there for the interests of the British and American petroleum industries. Blowback refers to the unintended consequences of clandestine policies that have been kept secret from the American public. I think it's important to stress that any policy may have unintended consequences, but here we're talking about unintended consequences of policies that the public knows nothing about, therefore, has no context within which to place them, and ends up with a daffy president going around asking, "Why do they hate us?"

My analysis was that the things we had done during the cold war, and the first decade after the cold war, were generating almost uncontrollable blowback. I did not, obviously, specifically anticipate anything like 9-11, but I certainly did anticipate and predict terrorist acts against Americans-military and civilian, abroad and at home-and therefore, was not particularly surprised when the attacks came on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September of 2001. At the time, I did not think that they were necessarily Islamic terrorists; I thought they could have been from Argentina, Chile, Indonesia, Okinawa, Greece, or any number of places on earth where we have carried out clandestine activities that unquestionably generate hostility toward the United States.

much more...

[teryang]

1. Very insightful

Peace is breaking out! Gotta stop it!

<The credibility of Colin Powell simply is gone after his performance at the United Nations on February 5th, 2003. No one in their right mind would ever believe a thing he said again.>

I'll definitely be reading his books.

[54anickel]

2. So much to read, so little time! My list keeps getting longer and longer.

I think DU could have a side business of making some of these great books available in audio format. I'd be willing to buy. :7