Ashwin reviewed Interventions (City Lights Open Media) by Noam Chomsky
Review of 'Interventions (City Lights Open Media)' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
This is a compilation of op-eds by Noam Chomsky written for The New York Times Syndicate. And here's the irony -- supposedly the views in these op-eds are such that US papers (including NYTimes itself) have declined to publish them. However, they've been published widely in Guardian and other non-US newspapers. The 44 op-eds in the book run from 2002 through 2006. Reading them I couldn't even figure out why they weren't printed in the US. They didn't seem offending or much different from his usual writing.
The main topics of the op-eds are:
Iraq - US supported Saddam against Iran. He and the country becomes enemy when oil becomes important.
Israel/Palestine - US+Israel have been pushing down all possible resolutions to the never ending conflict. In the UN, US+Israel alone have been voting against policies which could help while the entire rest of the world have voted for it. …
This is a compilation of op-eds by Noam Chomsky written for The New York Times Syndicate. And here's the irony -- supposedly the views in these op-eds are such that US papers (including NYTimes itself) have declined to publish them. However, they've been published widely in Guardian and other non-US newspapers. The 44 op-eds in the book run from 2002 through 2006. Reading them I couldn't even figure out why they weren't printed in the US. They didn't seem offending or much different from his usual writing.
The main topics of the op-eds are:
Iraq - US supported Saddam against Iran. He and the country becomes enemy when oil becomes important.
Israel/Palestine - US+Israel have been pushing down all possible resolutions to the never ending conflict. In the UN, US+Israel alone have been voting against policies which could help while the entire rest of the world have voted for it.
South America - US screwed the nations here destroying validly elected democracies and putting up puppet presidents and dictatorships. The nations here have been moving left-center in recent years with independent leaders who are increasingly defiant to US.
Democracy - US bringing democracy to the world is such a farce. They'll support dictatorships, pull down governments, run elections, and of course force democracy -- basically do anything required to maintain control.
Power - The only way to keep US off your country is to develop/acquire nukes. See how they can destroy Iraq while they can't touch N Korea.
Policy - Chomsky and Sainath say the same with regards to this issue. Public opinion no longer matters. Public opinion doesn't influence public policy even a bit. Special interests, lobbies and big business run all the nation's policies.
* Iran - It's all about the control over oil honey.
Since these are op-eds written about current affairs, there is a lot of repetition of ideas while you read them. Since the op-eds are all byte-sized, the book is perfect to read over short breaks/commutes.