Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

OBJECTIVITY AND LIBERAL SCHOLARSHIP
ing to communist aggression; therefore, we had to step in and use our military
power." "Island possessions, such as Guam, those of the strategic trust territories,
and probably Okinawa, remain indispensable, if not to the narrow defense
of our shores, certainly [0 the military posture essential to our total security
and world aims."45 Apart from the magnificent scope of this vision, rarely
equaled by our forerunners, the terminology is not unfamiliar.
There are, to be sure, certain restraints that we must observe as we design
our policy of establishing an "operational base" for exercise of power in the Far
East; specifically, "policy must rest on political and social objectives that are
acceptable to, or capable of being imposed upon, all participating elements."
Obviously, it would not be pragmatic to insist upon policies that are not capable
of being imposed upon the participating elements in our new dominions.
These proposals are buttressed with a brief sketch of the consequences of
Western dominion in the past, for example, the "Indian success story," in
which "enterprise capital proved a useful incentive to fruitful social change in
the subcontinent ofIndia and its environs," a development flawed only by the
passivity shown by "traditional Asian social systems" as they imitated "the
industrial ideology of their colonial tutor." An important lesson to us is the
success of the "neutral Pax Britannica" in imposing order, so that "commerce
could flourish and its fruits compensate for vanished liberties."
40 Adam spares us the observation that the ungrateful natives sometimes fail
to appreciate these centuries of solicitude. Thus [0 a left-wing member of the
Congress party in India: "The story is that the British, in the process of their
domination over India, kept no limits to brutality and savagery which man is
capable of practicing. Hitler's depredations, his Dachaus and Belsens ... pale
into insignificance before this imperialist savagery ...."46 Such a reaction to centuries
of selfless and tender care might cause some surprise, until we realize that
it is probably only an expression of the enormous guilt felt by the beneficiary
of these attentions.
A generation ago, there were other political leaders who feared the effect of
Communist gains on their safety and progress, and who, with the almost
unanimous support of public opinion, set out to improve the world through
forceful intervention-filling power vacuums, establishing territorial bases
essential to their toral security and world aims, imposing political and social
objectives on participating elements. Professor Adam has little to tell us that is
new.
II
The examples of counterrevolutionary subordination that I have so fa r cited
have for the most part been drawn from political science and the study of
international, particularly Asian, affairs-rather dismal branches of American