Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

OBJECTIVITY AND LIBERAL SCHOLARSHIP
searching analysis" that the new, liberal, revitalized State Department was trying
to encourage, Hilsman cites a study directed to showing how the United
States might have acted more effectively to overthrow the Mossadegh government
in Iran. Allen Dulles was "fundamentally right," according to Hitsman,
in judging that Mossadegh in Iran (like Arbenz in Guatemala) had come to
power (to be sure, "through the usual processes of government") with "the
intention of creating a Communist state"-a most amazing statement on the
part of the State Department chief of intelligence; and Dulles was fundamentally
right in urging suppOrt from the United States "to loyal anti-Communist
elements" in Iran and Guatemala to meet the danger, even though "no invitation
was extended by the government in power," obviously. Hilsman expresses
the liberal view succinctly in the distinction he draws betv{een the Iranian subversion
and the blundering attempt at the Bay of Pigs: "It is one thing ... to help
the Shah's supporters in Iran in their struggle against Mossadegh and his
Communist allies, but it is something else again to sponsor a thousand-man
invasion against Castro's Cuba, where there was no effective internal opposition."
The former effort was admirable; the latter, bound to fail, "is something
else again" from the point of view of pragmatic liberalism.
In Vietnam liberal interventionism was not properly conducted, and the
situation got out of hand. We learn more about the character of this approach
to international affairs by studying a more successful instance. Thailand is a
34 case in point, and a useful perspective on liberal American ideology is given by
the careful and informative work of Frank C. Darling, a Kennedy liberal who
was a CIA analyst fo r Somheast Asia and is now chairman of the political science
department at DePauw University.40
The facts relevant to this discussion, as Darling outlines them, are briefly as
follows. At the end of World War II the former British minister, Sir Josiah
Crosby, warned that unless the power of the Thai armed forces was reduced,
"the establishmem of a constitutional governmem would be doomed and the
return of a military dictatorship would be inevitable." American policy in the
posrnrar period was to support and strengthen the armed forces and the police,
and Gosby's prediction was borne out.
There were incipiem steps towards constitutional governmem in (he immediate
posrnrar period. However, a series of military coups established Phibun
Songkhram, who had collaborated with the Japanese during the war, as premier
in 1948, aborting these early efforts. The American reaction to the liberal
governmems had been ambiguous and "temporizing." In contrast, Phibun
was immediately recognized by the United States. Why? "Within this increasingly
turbulent region Thailand was the only nation that did not have a
Communist insurrection within its borders and it was the only country that
remained relatively stable and calm. As the United States considered measures
to deter Communist aggression in Southeast Asia, a conservative and anti­
Communist regime in Thailand became increasingly attractive regardless of its