An excerpt of an interview with Chalmers Johnson nearly a year ago, before the recent publication of his outstanding book, "Nemesis: The last days of the American Republic."
Karlin: Now my question is this: Is Iraq America's Afghanistan?
Johnson: It is perfectly possible that it will prove to be. Let me, just for once, give the Pentagon credit instead of criticizing it. I've always preferred their phrase "asymmetric warfare" for terrorism. Terrorism is a wrong word. It's a pejorative term. It's used to attack other people. We don't recognize the amount of terrorism we ourselves perpetuate, particularly from the air. But asymmetric warfare means the warfare of the poor, of the people who must rely upon ambushes and traps, and knowing their own country. That's what the Soviet Union ran into.
The fact that we are again repeating that -- you simply have to wonder whatever happened to Tony Blair? Is he an educated Englishman or not? Doesn't he know what happened to England in Afghanistan in the 19th Century, where the Afghans wiped them out? They would leave one single Englishman and send him back to the Khyber Pass to inform the army in India what had happened. We're back there again, and there's no doubt that we're going to be facing something very much like what the Soviet Union faced, in this coming summer.
It's absurd to listen to our people talk about how they had won the Afghan war. Basically what they did was to re-ignite the civil war by aiding the most corrupt figures in the country, namely the Northern Alliance of warlords, and provide them with airpower. It was anything but a victory, and I would hate to invest much in the Karzai regime for longevity.
So, yes, it is perfectly possible that we have come up against our genuine nemesis in the Middle East. We have created an economy totally dependent on oil. There's our insane belief that we can dominate the world through superior task forces, cruise missiles, and things of this sort. And we still claim that this is democracy.
The very idea -- we've seen the pictures of Americans kicking down the door of a private home, rushing in, usually walking all over Arabic rugs in their dirty boots, and pointing assault rifles at cowering women and children, carrying a few men off with their arms tied behind their back and hoods over their heads. Then we claim that this is bringing democracy to Iraq? We shouldn't be surprised that many Iraqis say it's okay to kill Americans.
That's what's going on in Iraq. We know we're going to lose it, just as we did in Vietnam. At least the public is sensing that, once again raising the hopes that democracy is not an insane form of government. The public may not be as well-informed as it ought to be, but it seems to be better informed than the elites in Washington, D.C.
The interview above was first posted on Buzzflash (14 Mar 06) under the title "Chalmers Johnson: Chronicling America's Imperial Folly." The interviewer there was identified as "Buzzflash." See http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/056.
(It appears also at WorkingForChange, where the date given is 14 Mar 07: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=22113.
The following text appears at AlterNet, and is posted by the interviewer himself.
See http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/49603/.
Related stuff (Chalmers Johnson, Buzzflash items turned up by the tag "empire"):
The American Empire Project (of which CJ is director): http://www.americanempireproject.com/.
Buzzflash interview with Chalmers Johnson, 3 Mar 04: http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/03/int04013.html.
Google search page on Chalmers Johnson.
No comments:
Post a Comment