IN TWO DAYS IN AUGUST OF 1945, THE UNITED STATES EMERGED AS THE WORLDS LEADING POWER.
(Senator Stennis) It is a fact of life that following World War II was a new beginninga new beginning for the United States in world affairs, in foreign policy, in foreign affairs.
HOW WOULD THAT POWER BE USED?
56 YEARS LATER, AS ALL OF US WERE SEARCHING IN SOME WAY AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, MY OWN SEARCH BEGAN WITH A SIMPLE QUESTION: WHY WOULD IT HAPPEN? IN THE WAKE OF THE ATTACKS, THE QUESTION WAS OBSCURED BY A SEA OF RED, WHITE, AND BLUE.
music:
Oh say can you see
By the dawn's early light
AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, I WONDERED IF OUR NATIONAL INTEREST CONFLICTS WITH THE INTERESTS OF OTHERS.
Self-interest
Vital interest
National interest
Vital American interest
WHATS DRIVEN OUR NATIONAL INTEREST? IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD, IS PUTTING NATIONAL INTEREST OVER A BROADER HUMAN INTEREST ACTUALLY IN OUR INTEREST?
AND DO THE GOVERNMENT AND MEDIA TELL US THE REALITIES OF U.S. FOREIGN POLICY?
Throughout the world, our name stands for international justice.We must complete a structure of
peace.I pledge an uninterrupted and sincere search for
peace.For the sake of peace and
justice,let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny.
IVE HEARD THAT SPEECH A THOUSAND TIMES, TO THIS VERY DAY, BUT WHEN WE LOOK AT U.S. ACTIONS, DOES IT REALLY RING TRUE?
IN FACT, PLANNING DOCUMENTS JUST AFTER WORLD WAR II SHOW THAT ABOVE ALL, U.S. ACTIONS AIM TO MAINTAIN A HUGE ECONOMIC ADVANTAGE.
GEORGE KENNAN, HEAD OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT POLICY PLANNING STAFF IN 1948, IS CONSIDERED BY MANY TO BE THE ARCHITECT OF POST WORLD WAR II US FOREIGN POLICY. HIS WORDS WERE CLEAR.
THE UNITED STATES HAS HAD ITS HAND IN A LOT OF PLACES SINCE WORLD WAR II:GUATEMALA, VIETNAM, EAST TIMOR,EL SALVADOR, PALESTINE AND ISRAEL.IN WHOSE INTEREST WERE THESE INTERVENTIONS?
Our trip began in Guatemala.
Father Stephen Privett: The Story of Guatemala is a really sad, awful story. And in large part, its a story that was financed by the USwe have major responsibility for what happened in Guatemala. And I dont know that most people even know about it.
SO IN 1951, JACOBO ARBENZ WAS DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED PRESIDENT BY A WIDE MARGIN. HE STARTED A PROGRAM OF SOCIAL REFORMS, DISTRIBUTING LAND TO HALF A MILLION PEASANTS.
NOW ONE MAJOR US CORPORATION, UNITED FRUIT, HAD OWNED A LOT OF THAT LAND.
UNITED FRUIT WIELDED A LOT OF POWER IN GUATEMALA, OWNING OR CONTROLLING ITS TELEPHONE SYSTEM, ITS MAJOR ATLANTIC HARBOR, ITS BANANA EXPORTS, AND ITS RAILWAY SYSTEM. VEHEMENTLY AGAINST ARBENZS GOVERNMENT, UNITED FRUIT USED ITS INFLUENCE WITHIN THE UNITED STATES TO PUSH FOR A COUP, WHICH TOOK PLACE IN 1954. ARBENZS PROGRAM BENEFITTED THE PEOPLE OF GUATEMALA AND HAD HAD THEIR OVERWHELMING SUPPORT, AND ALTHOUGH THE SPEECHES SAY THE UNITED STATES STANDS FOR DEMOCRACYBUT MAYBE NOT WHEN DEMOCRACY THREATENS U.S. ECONOMIC INTERESTS.
Noam Chomsky- Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
The United States intervened in Guatemala precisely because it was democratic. They wanted to prevent the democratic revolution. We have rich internal records on this. The concern was that the social reforms undertaken by the first democratically elected government in Guatemalaever had the overwhelming support of the population, represented the interests and concerns of most of the people of Guatemala, and worst of all, were being looked at by others in the region as a kind of a model that they might want to follow themselves, and therefore it had to be aborted.(
SUBTITLE: They said we were Mayans and students,
SUBTITLE: which was a crime to them.
SUBTITLE: They began to follow us.
SUBTITLE: They killed many of the group.
SUBTITLE: In the towns, they killed entire families.
AMIT KOX, AN ARTIST AND A STUDENT IN THE 80S, WAS TARGETED BY THE MILITARY. NOT A HARDCORE ACTIVIST, HE DESCRIBED HIMSELF AS SIMPLY NOT LIKING WHAT WAS GOING ON. BUT ANY DISSENT WAS DANGEROUS IN THOSE YEARS, AND AMIT WAS FOLLOWED, CAPTURED, AND BROUGHT TO PRISON.
Amit Kox
SUBTITLE: They punished mesomeone came in and took my clothes.
SUBTITLE: Then they tied my peniswith something in Guatemala we call a pita.
SUBTITLE: and every once in a while they pulled it up.
SUBTITLE: They tied my hands.
SUBTITLE: I feltI even told them to kill me, I asked them please kill me
SUBTITLE: Because it was cruel what they were doing to me (fade to black).
WHY IS IT THAT MASSACRES AND TORTURE WERE BEING CARRIED OUT BY A MILITARY BACKED BY MY GOVERNMENT AND WITH THE SUPPORT OF OUR TAX DOLLARS? AND WHY IS IT THAT A LOT OF THE TIME, WE DONT KNOW ABOUT IT?
Music, The goddess of peace turned her face toward Southeast Asia and wept. For man was at war again.
WHY DO WE KEEP COMING BACK TO VIETNAM? IT SEEMS TO BE ONE OF THOSE PLACES THAT WE TALK ABOUT AGAIN AND AGAIN. BUT THIS WAS A LONG WAR, AND THAT THOSE THAT MADE IT BACK ARE STILL TELLING THEIR STORIES.
George JohnsonVietnam War Veteran, U.S. Navy, 1965:
We fired some barrages into this village, and the guy told me, good shot, you got the chicken coop, the clothes line, and you should see granny and the kids run. (music fades up) And I still dream about that because that was the first time I realized that we werent just shooting soldiers, we werent bombarding military targets, we were actually bombing villages where ordinary people lived and worked.
TITLE CARD: THE UNITED STATES DROPPED THE EXPLOSIVE EQUIVALENT OF ONE NAGASAKI BOMB PER WEEK FOR SEVEN AND A HALF YEARS ON SOUTHEAST ASIA.
Harlow Williams, Vietnam War Veteran, U.S. Marines, 1968-1969 :
Those who fought the air war, or they were on ships at seathey never heard the screams, saw the blood, saw the body parts. I saw the blood. I had clothing that I had to literally peel off my body it was so encrusted and covered with blood after battles. That I saw the body parts of my fellow marines, and I certainly saw the enemys body parts. But what happened to me was, I had a job to do, and if I survived, and if I was doing my job well, thats all that really would count.
It was alwaysthe enemythat we were fighting. And thats a very important psychological realization to have, because if you really feel youre killing fellow human beings who are living, breathing parents or children of other living human beings, its a very different thing than if you feel theres an enemy to kill. So I went over and I killed an enemy.
Noam Chomsky:
VO: What would the world look like if we hadnt fought against Communism at the time of Vietnam? I think I may have been sold a bill of goods and I think maybe this culture was sold a bill of goods, posing the Communists as a great enemy.
It was the same concern as Guatemala. Namely, successful independent development in some area might stimulate others to try to do the same, and then the dominoes start to fall, and maybe it spreads as far as Indonesia or Japan, and the US would lose its dominant role in the region.
George Johnson:
VO: WWII vets could always talk about how they liberated Europeand stopped the Nazi slaughter of innocents in the death camps and stuff like that. We dont have those stories. We have stories of burning down peoples villages, of shore bombarding fishing villages, of laying people in the ditch at My Lai, and killing over 400 old men women and children. Thats our stories, and thats what we have to live with.
Joseph Nevins- Research Fellow, University of California at Berkeley:
East Timor in and of itself never mattered to the United States. The U.S. couldnt have cared less if East Timor became independent or not. What mattered, and what had long mattered was Indonesia
Indonesia was the fifth most populous country in the world. it was a leading member, and a moderate one at that, of OPEC, the oil cartel. It was also a very lucrative center for multinational corporate activity, and at the same time geopolitically, Indonesia sits astride very key sea lanes.
Remember, this is 1975 in Southeast Asia. The US had just quote un quote lost Vietnam, lost Cambodia, and what the primary U.S. objective in the region at that time was the maintenance of pro-American regimes. And Indonesia was probably the most important country.So when Indonesia wanted to annex East Timor, the United States was more than willing to go along.
ON DECEMBER 7, 1975, THE INDONESIAN MILITARY INVADED THE NEARBY ISLAND OF EAST TIMOR.
Radio report: (fades up) a senior member of the left-wing Freitelin movement said in his first message, we need help, paratroopers are dropping everywhere. At times, nearly hysterical, he said that women and children were being fired on, and the Indonesians were killing indiscriminately.
JUST 2 DAYS BEFORE THE INVASION, US PRESIDENT GERALD FORD AND SECRETARY OF STATE HENRY KISSINGER HAD VISITED INDONESIA. FORD AND KISSINGER WERE CONCERNED THAT THE USE OF US ARMS IN THE INVASION COULD CREATE PROBLEMS AT HOME.
BUT CONCLUDED THAT THEY COULD CONSTRUE THE ACTION DEFENSIVE.
THE POWER THE US HELD IN THE SITUATION IS APPARENTKISSINGER SAID IT WOULD BE BETTER IF THE INVASION STARTED AFTER HE AND FORD RETURNED TO THE UNITED STATES.
14 HOURS AFTER THE US LEFT, THE INDONESIAN MILITARY INVADED.
THIS WAS THE BEGINNING OF A 24-YEAR STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE IN EAST TIMOR.
Noam Chomsky:
Technically they did get independence finally, but thats after near genocide.
Which was backed by the United States overwhelmingly, the US and Britain were primarily responsible for it. Its one of the worst crimes of the late twentieth century.
VO: We have a lot of painful stories. (Music Indonesian vocal)
200,000 people killed. And more than them disappeared.
The bodies never come back.
Noam Chomsky:
V.O.: Both the US and Britain continued to support it, right to the end. Right through 1999, Britain and the United States knew perfectly well that the Indonesian forces they had armed and trained were carrying out major atrocities.
IN 1999, 78% OF THE EAST TIMORESE POPULATION VOTED FOR INDEPENDENCE. JUST AFTER THE VOTE, THE INDONESIAN MILITARY AND ITS MILITIA GROUPS WENT ON A RAMPAGE, DRIVING 75-80% OF THE PEOPLE FROM THEIR HOMES AND DESTROYING MUCH OF THE COUNTRY. US SUPPORT CONTINUED EVEN THEN, UNTIL PUBLIC PRESSURE IN AUSTRALIA AND IN THS US BECAME TOO STRONG.
Chomsky:
Clinton finally told the Indonesian army, its over. Call it off. And the relations of power are so overwhelming that within 48 hours, the Indonesian army had began to leave. Which tells you just what could have been done 25 years earlier, in fact all the time through.
Filomena Barros Dos Reis:
They are very cruel. They didnt consider the people as human beings, but they considered East Timorese people asmosquitoes. Even the animals.
Joseph Nevins:
What happened in East Timor has entered into what we might call the national forgettery. Most people are well aware that something terrible happened in East Timor. What we dont know, on a collective level, is what the U.S. role was.
People in the U.S.in the bottom of themselvesunderstand that in order to have this comfort that we have here in the U.S., there must be poverty somewhere else.
VO: For the United States, the biggest role to be played in El Salvador is that of a friend. A friend helping the El Salvadoran people create an atmosphere of peace. An atmosphere in which the democratic system which already exists, can grow and flourish.
VO: El Salvador. [Screams, bodies being carried away. Burning tires on street.]
REAGAN SPEECH:
A determined propaganda campaign has sought to mislead many in Europe, and certainly many in the United States, as to the true nature of the conflict in El Salvador.
FATHER STEPHEN PRIVETTPresident, University of San Francisco:
V.O. How do you define the price?I mean if you want to talk about 75,000 innocent people killed,and paid for by our tax dollars, no I dont think intervention was worth itI think it was a horrible mistake.
SO BY NOW IT SEEMS TO BE A FAMILIAR STORYTHE POPULATION OF EL SALVADOR WANTED TO PURSUE A PATH THAT DEVIATED FROM THE US MODEL. SO THE US PUMPED $1 MILLION A DAY INTO THE WAR TO PREVENT THAT PATH, WHILE TELLING US OTHERWISE.
REAGANSUBTITLE:
Our principles are rooted in self-government and non-intervention.
JOSE ARTIGA-DIRECTOR SHARE FOUNDATION:
They wanted to impose a model. And we Salvadorans were rejecting that model, and we were very loud. So it was the tiny little country going against the will of the giant
SO WHAT WAS THAT WILL? ITS CLEAR THAT THE UNITED STATES CALLED THE TUNE IN EL SALVADOR7, BUT TO WHAT END?
THE MAJOR CONCERN WAS THAT SOCIAL CHANGE COULD BECOME CONTAGIOUS
AND IMPACT NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES.
Noam Chomsky:
The US instituted a military coup, the usual reaction. Called it a democracy, it was in fact a military regime.
THAT MILITARY REGIME WAS FIGHTING A GROUP OF GUERILLAS THAT IS GENERALLY THOUGHT TO HAVE REPRESENTED MOST OF EL SALVADORS PEOPLE. THE TACTICS USED TO FIGHT THE GUERILLAS HAD A DIRECT IMPACT ON THOSE PEOPLE.
PRIVETT:
VO: The people were the water, and the guerillas were the fish. So the government said in order to kill the fish, we need to take all the water away so the fish will die.
There were no holds barred. I remember talking to a lieutenant at a roadblock, and a person from one of the villages where I was working had been tortured by the armybeen filled up with water, forced water and then jammed out of his stomach. And I said to the guy, what is this? How do you do this to people? And he said, well hes a communist.
ARTIGA:
AS I would be waiting for the bus, in the porch of the mayors office, there would be one, two, three bodies, dismembered, every day. And that was sort of normal, uh, during those years.
VO (artiga): The 80s was the years when the most people were killed during the period of the war.
They simply defined an area as the enemy and obliterated itslaughtered livestock, poisoned water. I mean it was this incredibly brutal and non-strategic approach to, to war.
The one survivor of the massacre of El Mozote, this woman, her name is Rufinashe said that its good that the U.S. government and the Salvadoran government have come to help rebuild the town that they destroyed. She said, I am still waiting for one of them to come and apologize. For what they did.
VO PRIVETT: The fundamental flaw of foreign policy at that time was not telling people the truth. And I have no doubts that if people knew the truth, it would have stopped.
PRIVETT: But we were really fed a steady diet of untruths. About what was going on, what we were doingand what was being done in our name.
vo:
The state of Israel had been proclaimed, and the people rejoiced in their new nation, a haven of refuge for the displaced and persecuted members of the Jewish faith from all over the world.
Rabbi Elmer Berger:
There is first of all what one dissident Israeli has called Israels Original Sin. This is the realization that Zionism could not establish a Zionist state, in a Palestine already inhabited by a majority of Arabs, without seriously impairing the rights of the Palestinians. The reluctance, if not the refusal of the Israelis and their sponsors among the great powers to make this confession is one obstruction in the way of a just peace.
WHILE THE U.S. HAS PRESENTED ITSELF AS AN HONEST MEDIATOR IN THE DISPUTE BETWEEN ISRAEL AND PALESTINE, IN FACT THE U.S. HAS OVERWHELMINGLY SUPPORTED ONE SIDE.WHY IS THIS?
Noam Chomsky:
Because, and not out of any particular hatred for the Palestinians, its just they have essentially nothing to offer to the United States. They have no wealth, they have no power. In contrast, Israel is a rich, advanced industrial society, military-based economy, tightly linked to the US, base for projection of US power in the regionhas a lot to offer. So therefore they ought to control the region, therefore no right for the Palestinians.
I.L. Kenan:
We must make certain that Israel does get all the planes and other sophisticated equipment that she must have.
Hanan Rashid- National Executive Secretary, Palestinian-American Congress:
Were sending all these ammunitions and weapons, yearly over $3 billion of weapons, the latest most sophisticated weapons that America can produces, is whats killing the Palestinian children. How would that make people feel? What kind of message are we, as Americans, sending the Palestinian people?
HIGH-LEVEL ISRAELI PLANNING DOCUMENTS FROM1948 INDICATE THAT PALESTINIAN REFUGEES WOULD EITHER ASSIMILATE ELSEWHERE, OR WOULD BE CRUSHED. THE DOCUMENTS CONTINUE, STATING THAT SOME OF THEM WOULD DIE AND MOST OF THEM WOULD TURN INTO HUMAN DUST AND THE WASTE OF SOCIETY, AND JOIN THE MOST IMPOVERISHED CLASSES IN THE ARAB COUNTRIES.IN THE EARLY 70S, ISRAELI LEADER MOSHE DYAN ADVISED HIS LABOR PARTY TO TELL THE PALESTINIANS THAT YOU SHALL CONTINUE TO LIVE LIKE DOGS, AND WHOEVER WISHES MAY LEAVE.IN SUCH AN ATMOSPHERE, AND WITH ISRAELS BACKING FROM THE WORLDS LEADING POWER, THE SITUATION FOR PALESTINIANS SEEMS DESPERATE.
Hanan Rashid: They see no hope and they see no future. And thats where all the violence I believe is coming to.
Chistopher Mayhew- 1970, Former member, British Parliament:
People think, you see, that the Arabs, or the Palestinians are some peculiarly fanatical and militant people. As though the American people, or the British people, undergoing the same experience as the Palestinians wouldnt react in exactly the same manner, or more militant still.
ASAD ABUKHALIL- PROFESSOR, POLITICAL SCIENCE, CAL STATE STANISLAUS:
A movement which is so national and political like Zionism couldnt foresee that its own action is going to produce a movement that is equally forceful in assertion of its right over the land. I mean, and in a way just as Zionism was born, so to speak, in the womb of anti-Semitism. The more the anti-Semites wanted to crush Jewish identities the more forceful Jewish identity became - thats what happened to the Palestinians
Chistopher Mayhew:
Suppose we, like the Palestinians, who after all were 93% of the population of Palestine in 1917, suppose we had to accept immigration on a Palestinian scale30 million say, or 40 million. And suppose these immigrants had come not to share our society with us, but to build their own society in Britain. To raise their own flag over London. How would the British react? Are you telling me that there wouldnt even be a small minority of our more unstable young men who would not react just as brutally as the PFLP have reacted? The British would react in such a way as to make the Palestinians look like flower children.
Rabbi Berger:
It is just possible that if the United States exerted itspower and influence in ways which are consistent with our own laws and values, we might break out of a vicious circle.
Hanan Rashid:
Yes there is hate. Yes there is mistrust. But I think when people start building it, all these boundaries will be removed, occupation will end, the rights of the Palestinians are met, I think with time things will heal. People forget. People forget. I dont know if they can forgive, but people want to move on. They are so sick and tired of seeing blood.
On both sides.
Noam Chomsky:
In each one of the countries you mentioned, 5 countries, there were independent forces that were seeking a way out of this system of domination, and they therefore had to be crushed. And they were crushed in different ways.
Kissinger:
Americans have every reason to take pride of what their country has achieved in foreign policy.
WITH THE GUIDING FACTOR IN US FOREIGN POLICY BEING THE MAINTENANCE OF THE USS DOMINANT ROLE, IN WHOSE INTEREST IS OUR INVOLVEMENT AROUND THE GLOBE?
Noam Chomsky:
Its in the interest of those who dominate decisions internal to the United States.
Economic power is very narrowly concentrated in a small corporate sector, tightly linked to the state, controls both political parties, owns the media. Yeah, they naturally make decisions in their own interest. (Corporate march underneath)
Father Privett:
I think the hope lies in the peoplenot in apolitical theory, not in smart US foreign policy, but in these people who are becoming more and more aware of their inherent human dignity and an increasing determination to live in a way and to create a system and a place that will respect that and honor that and allow that to unfold
George Johnson:
The Koran says that if you take one life its as if you kill the whole world. If you save one life, its as if you save the whole world. And then the Bible says they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. So, it seems to me, both those ideas are pretty good ideas and if we couldMoslem, Christian, and other folks could come together around those kind of ideas wed be a lot better off than around the ideas of trying to kill each other
(Senator Stennis) It is a fact of life that following World War II was a new beginninga new beginning for the United States in world affairs, in foreign policy, in foreign affairs.
HOW WOULD THAT POWER BE USED?
56 YEARS LATER, AS ALL OF US WERE SEARCHING IN SOME WAY AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, MY OWN SEARCH BEGAN WITH A SIMPLE QUESTION: WHY WOULD IT HAPPEN? IN THE WAKE OF THE ATTACKS, THE QUESTION WAS OBSCURED BY A SEA OF RED, WHITE, AND BLUE.
music:
Oh say can you see
By the dawn's early light
AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, I WONDERED IF OUR NATIONAL INTEREST CONFLICTS WITH THE INTERESTS OF OTHERS.
Self-interest
Vital interest
National interest
Vital American interest
WHATS DRIVEN OUR NATIONAL INTEREST? IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD, IS PUTTING NATIONAL INTEREST OVER A BROADER HUMAN INTEREST ACTUALLY IN OUR INTEREST?
AND DO THE GOVERNMENT AND MEDIA TELL US THE REALITIES OF U.S. FOREIGN POLICY?
Throughout the world, our name stands for international justice.We must complete a structure of
peace.I pledge an uninterrupted and sincere search for
peace.For the sake of peace and
justice,let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny.
IVE HEARD THAT SPEECH A THOUSAND TIMES, TO THIS VERY DAY, BUT WHEN WE LOOK AT U.S. ACTIONS, DOES IT REALLY RING TRUE?
IN FACT, PLANNING DOCUMENTS JUST AFTER WORLD WAR II SHOW THAT ABOVE ALL, U.S. ACTIONS AIM TO MAINTAIN A HUGE ECONOMIC ADVANTAGE.
GEORGE KENNAN, HEAD OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT POLICY PLANNING STAFF IN 1948, IS CONSIDERED BY MANY TO BE THE ARCHITECT OF POST WORLD WAR II US FOREIGN POLICY. HIS WORDS WERE CLEAR.
THE UNITED STATES HAS HAD ITS HAND IN A LOT OF PLACES SINCE WORLD WAR II:GUATEMALA, VIETNAM, EAST TIMOR,EL SALVADOR, PALESTINE AND ISRAEL.IN WHOSE INTEREST WERE THESE INTERVENTIONS?
Our trip began in Guatemala.
Father Stephen Privett: The Story of Guatemala is a really sad, awful story. And in large part, its a story that was financed by the USwe have major responsibility for what happened in Guatemala. And I dont know that most people even know about it.
SO IN 1951, JACOBO ARBENZ WAS DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED PRESIDENT BY A WIDE MARGIN. HE STARTED A PROGRAM OF SOCIAL REFORMS, DISTRIBUTING LAND TO HALF A MILLION PEASANTS.
NOW ONE MAJOR US CORPORATION, UNITED FRUIT, HAD OWNED A LOT OF THAT LAND.
UNITED FRUIT WIELDED A LOT OF POWER IN GUATEMALA, OWNING OR CONTROLLING ITS TELEPHONE SYSTEM, ITS MAJOR ATLANTIC HARBOR, ITS BANANA EXPORTS, AND ITS RAILWAY SYSTEM. VEHEMENTLY AGAINST ARBENZS GOVERNMENT, UNITED FRUIT USED ITS INFLUENCE WITHIN THE UNITED STATES TO PUSH FOR A COUP, WHICH TOOK PLACE IN 1954. ARBENZS PROGRAM BENEFITTED THE PEOPLE OF GUATEMALA AND HAD HAD THEIR OVERWHELMING SUPPORT, AND ALTHOUGH THE SPEECHES SAY THE UNITED STATES STANDS FOR DEMOCRACYBUT MAYBE NOT WHEN DEMOCRACY THREATENS U.S. ECONOMIC INTERESTS.
Noam Chomsky- Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
The United States intervened in Guatemala precisely because it was democratic. They wanted to prevent the democratic revolution. We have rich internal records on this. The concern was that the social reforms undertaken by the first democratically elected government in Guatemalaever had the overwhelming support of the population, represented the interests and concerns of most of the people of Guatemala, and worst of all, were being looked at by others in the region as a kind of a model that they might want to follow themselves, and therefore it had to be aborted.(
SUBTITLE: They said we were Mayans and students,
SUBTITLE: which was a crime to them.
SUBTITLE: They began to follow us.
SUBTITLE: They killed many of the group.
SUBTITLE: In the towns, they killed entire families.
AMIT KOX, AN ARTIST AND A STUDENT IN THE 80S, WAS TARGETED BY THE MILITARY. NOT A HARDCORE ACTIVIST, HE DESCRIBED HIMSELF AS SIMPLY NOT LIKING WHAT WAS GOING ON. BUT ANY DISSENT WAS DANGEROUS IN THOSE YEARS, AND AMIT WAS FOLLOWED, CAPTURED, AND BROUGHT TO PRISON.
Amit Kox
SUBTITLE: They punished mesomeone came in and took my clothes.
SUBTITLE: Then they tied my peniswith something in Guatemala we call a pita.
SUBTITLE: and every once in a while they pulled it up.
SUBTITLE: They tied my hands.
SUBTITLE: I feltI even told them to kill me, I asked them please kill me
SUBTITLE: Because it was cruel what they were doing to me (fade to black).
WHY IS IT THAT MASSACRES AND TORTURE WERE BEING CARRIED OUT BY A MILITARY BACKED BY MY GOVERNMENT AND WITH THE SUPPORT OF OUR TAX DOLLARS? AND WHY IS IT THAT A LOT OF THE TIME, WE DONT KNOW ABOUT IT?
Music, The goddess of peace turned her face toward Southeast Asia and wept. For man was at war again.
WHY DO WE KEEP COMING BACK TO VIETNAM? IT SEEMS TO BE ONE OF THOSE PLACES THAT WE TALK ABOUT AGAIN AND AGAIN. BUT THIS WAS A LONG WAR, AND THAT THOSE THAT MADE IT BACK ARE STILL TELLING THEIR STORIES.
George JohnsonVietnam War Veteran, U.S. Navy, 1965:
We fired some barrages into this village, and the guy told me, good shot, you got the chicken coop, the clothes line, and you should see granny and the kids run. (music fades up) And I still dream about that because that was the first time I realized that we werent just shooting soldiers, we werent bombarding military targets, we were actually bombing villages where ordinary people lived and worked.
TITLE CARD: THE UNITED STATES DROPPED THE EXPLOSIVE EQUIVALENT OF ONE NAGASAKI BOMB PER WEEK FOR SEVEN AND A HALF YEARS ON SOUTHEAST ASIA.
Harlow Williams, Vietnam War Veteran, U.S. Marines, 1968-1969 :
Those who fought the air war, or they were on ships at seathey never heard the screams, saw the blood, saw the body parts. I saw the blood. I had clothing that I had to literally peel off my body it was so encrusted and covered with blood after battles. That I saw the body parts of my fellow marines, and I certainly saw the enemys body parts. But what happened to me was, I had a job to do, and if I survived, and if I was doing my job well, thats all that really would count.
It was alwaysthe enemythat we were fighting. And thats a very important psychological realization to have, because if you really feel youre killing fellow human beings who are living, breathing parents or children of other living human beings, its a very different thing than if you feel theres an enemy to kill. So I went over and I killed an enemy.
Noam Chomsky:
VO: What would the world look like if we hadnt fought against Communism at the time of Vietnam? I think I may have been sold a bill of goods and I think maybe this culture was sold a bill of goods, posing the Communists as a great enemy.
It was the same concern as Guatemala. Namely, successful independent development in some area might stimulate others to try to do the same, and then the dominoes start to fall, and maybe it spreads as far as Indonesia or Japan, and the US would lose its dominant role in the region.
George Johnson:
VO: WWII vets could always talk about how they liberated Europeand stopped the Nazi slaughter of innocents in the death camps and stuff like that. We dont have those stories. We have stories of burning down peoples villages, of shore bombarding fishing villages, of laying people in the ditch at My Lai, and killing over 400 old men women and children. Thats our stories, and thats what we have to live with.
Joseph Nevins- Research Fellow, University of California at Berkeley:
East Timor in and of itself never mattered to the United States. The U.S. couldnt have cared less if East Timor became independent or not. What mattered, and what had long mattered was Indonesia
Indonesia was the fifth most populous country in the world. it was a leading member, and a moderate one at that, of OPEC, the oil cartel. It was also a very lucrative center for multinational corporate activity, and at the same time geopolitically, Indonesia sits astride very key sea lanes.
Remember, this is 1975 in Southeast Asia. The US had just quote un quote lost Vietnam, lost Cambodia, and what the primary U.S. objective in the region at that time was the maintenance of pro-American regimes. And Indonesia was probably the most important country.So when Indonesia wanted to annex East Timor, the United States was more than willing to go along.
ON DECEMBER 7, 1975, THE INDONESIAN MILITARY INVADED THE NEARBY ISLAND OF EAST TIMOR.
Radio report: (fades up) a senior member of the left-wing Freitelin movement said in his first message, we need help, paratroopers are dropping everywhere. At times, nearly hysterical, he said that women and children were being fired on, and the Indonesians were killing indiscriminately.
JUST 2 DAYS BEFORE THE INVASION, US PRESIDENT GERALD FORD AND SECRETARY OF STATE HENRY KISSINGER HAD VISITED INDONESIA. FORD AND KISSINGER WERE CONCERNED THAT THE USE OF US ARMS IN THE INVASION COULD CREATE PROBLEMS AT HOME.
BUT CONCLUDED THAT THEY COULD CONSTRUE THE ACTION DEFENSIVE.
THE POWER THE US HELD IN THE SITUATION IS APPARENTKISSINGER SAID IT WOULD BE BETTER IF THE INVASION STARTED AFTER HE AND FORD RETURNED TO THE UNITED STATES.
14 HOURS AFTER THE US LEFT, THE INDONESIAN MILITARY INVADED.
THIS WAS THE BEGINNING OF A 24-YEAR STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE IN EAST TIMOR.
Noam Chomsky:
Technically they did get independence finally, but thats after near genocide.
Which was backed by the United States overwhelmingly, the US and Britain were primarily responsible for it. Its one of the worst crimes of the late twentieth century.
VO: We have a lot of painful stories. (Music Indonesian vocal)
200,000 people killed. And more than them disappeared.
The bodies never come back.
Noam Chomsky:
V.O.: Both the US and Britain continued to support it, right to the end. Right through 1999, Britain and the United States knew perfectly well that the Indonesian forces they had armed and trained were carrying out major atrocities.
IN 1999, 78% OF THE EAST TIMORESE POPULATION VOTED FOR INDEPENDENCE. JUST AFTER THE VOTE, THE INDONESIAN MILITARY AND ITS MILITIA GROUPS WENT ON A RAMPAGE, DRIVING 75-80% OF THE PEOPLE FROM THEIR HOMES AND DESTROYING MUCH OF THE COUNTRY. US SUPPORT CONTINUED EVEN THEN, UNTIL PUBLIC PRESSURE IN AUSTRALIA AND IN THS US BECAME TOO STRONG.
Chomsky:
Clinton finally told the Indonesian army, its over. Call it off. And the relations of power are so overwhelming that within 48 hours, the Indonesian army had began to leave. Which tells you just what could have been done 25 years earlier, in fact all the time through.
Filomena Barros Dos Reis:
They are very cruel. They didnt consider the people as human beings, but they considered East Timorese people asmosquitoes. Even the animals.
Joseph Nevins:
What happened in East Timor has entered into what we might call the national forgettery. Most people are well aware that something terrible happened in East Timor. What we dont know, on a collective level, is what the U.S. role was.
People in the U.S.in the bottom of themselvesunderstand that in order to have this comfort that we have here in the U.S., there must be poverty somewhere else.
VO: For the United States, the biggest role to be played in El Salvador is that of a friend. A friend helping the El Salvadoran people create an atmosphere of peace. An atmosphere in which the democratic system which already exists, can grow and flourish.
VO: El Salvador. [Screams, bodies being carried away. Burning tires on street.]
REAGAN SPEECH:
A determined propaganda campaign has sought to mislead many in Europe, and certainly many in the United States, as to the true nature of the conflict in El Salvador.
FATHER STEPHEN PRIVETTPresident, University of San Francisco:
V.O. How do you define the price?I mean if you want to talk about 75,000 innocent people killed,and paid for by our tax dollars, no I dont think intervention was worth itI think it was a horrible mistake.
SO BY NOW IT SEEMS TO BE A FAMILIAR STORYTHE POPULATION OF EL SALVADOR WANTED TO PURSUE A PATH THAT DEVIATED FROM THE US MODEL. SO THE US PUMPED $1 MILLION A DAY INTO THE WAR TO PREVENT THAT PATH, WHILE TELLING US OTHERWISE.
REAGANSUBTITLE:
Our principles are rooted in self-government and non-intervention.
JOSE ARTIGA-DIRECTOR SHARE FOUNDATION:
They wanted to impose a model. And we Salvadorans were rejecting that model, and we were very loud. So it was the tiny little country going against the will of the giant
SO WHAT WAS THAT WILL? ITS CLEAR THAT THE UNITED STATES CALLED THE TUNE IN EL SALVADOR7, BUT TO WHAT END?
THE MAJOR CONCERN WAS THAT SOCIAL CHANGE COULD BECOME CONTAGIOUS
AND IMPACT NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES.
Noam Chomsky:
The US instituted a military coup, the usual reaction. Called it a democracy, it was in fact a military regime.
THAT MILITARY REGIME WAS FIGHTING A GROUP OF GUERILLAS THAT IS GENERALLY THOUGHT TO HAVE REPRESENTED MOST OF EL SALVADORS PEOPLE. THE TACTICS USED TO FIGHT THE GUERILLAS HAD A DIRECT IMPACT ON THOSE PEOPLE.
PRIVETT:
VO: The people were the water, and the guerillas were the fish. So the government said in order to kill the fish, we need to take all the water away so the fish will die.
There were no holds barred. I remember talking to a lieutenant at a roadblock, and a person from one of the villages where I was working had been tortured by the armybeen filled up with water, forced water and then jammed out of his stomach. And I said to the guy, what is this? How do you do this to people? And he said, well hes a communist.
ARTIGA:
AS I would be waiting for the bus, in the porch of the mayors office, there would be one, two, three bodies, dismembered, every day. And that was sort of normal, uh, during those years.
VO (artiga): The 80s was the years when the most people were killed during the period of the war.
They simply defined an area as the enemy and obliterated itslaughtered livestock, poisoned water. I mean it was this incredibly brutal and non-strategic approach to, to war.
The one survivor of the massacre of El Mozote, this woman, her name is Rufinashe said that its good that the U.S. government and the Salvadoran government have come to help rebuild the town that they destroyed. She said, I am still waiting for one of them to come and apologize. For what they did.
VO PRIVETT: The fundamental flaw of foreign policy at that time was not telling people the truth. And I have no doubts that if people knew the truth, it would have stopped.
PRIVETT: But we were really fed a steady diet of untruths. About what was going on, what we were doingand what was being done in our name.
vo:
The state of Israel had been proclaimed, and the people rejoiced in their new nation, a haven of refuge for the displaced and persecuted members of the Jewish faith from all over the world.
Rabbi Elmer Berger:
There is first of all what one dissident Israeli has called Israels Original Sin. This is the realization that Zionism could not establish a Zionist state, in a Palestine already inhabited by a majority of Arabs, without seriously impairing the rights of the Palestinians. The reluctance, if not the refusal of the Israelis and their sponsors among the great powers to make this confession is one obstruction in the way of a just peace.
WHILE THE U.S. HAS PRESENTED ITSELF AS AN HONEST MEDIATOR IN THE DISPUTE BETWEEN ISRAEL AND PALESTINE, IN FACT THE U.S. HAS OVERWHELMINGLY SUPPORTED ONE SIDE.WHY IS THIS?
Noam Chomsky:
Because, and not out of any particular hatred for the Palestinians, its just they have essentially nothing to offer to the United States. They have no wealth, they have no power. In contrast, Israel is a rich, advanced industrial society, military-based economy, tightly linked to the US, base for projection of US power in the regionhas a lot to offer. So therefore they ought to control the region, therefore no right for the Palestinians.
I.L. Kenan:
We must make certain that Israel does get all the planes and other sophisticated equipment that she must have.
Hanan Rashid- National Executive Secretary, Palestinian-American Congress:
Were sending all these ammunitions and weapons, yearly over $3 billion of weapons, the latest most sophisticated weapons that America can produces, is whats killing the Palestinian children. How would that make people feel? What kind of message are we, as Americans, sending the Palestinian people?
HIGH-LEVEL ISRAELI PLANNING DOCUMENTS FROM1948 INDICATE THAT PALESTINIAN REFUGEES WOULD EITHER ASSIMILATE ELSEWHERE, OR WOULD BE CRUSHED. THE DOCUMENTS CONTINUE, STATING THAT SOME OF THEM WOULD DIE AND MOST OF THEM WOULD TURN INTO HUMAN DUST AND THE WASTE OF SOCIETY, AND JOIN THE MOST IMPOVERISHED CLASSES IN THE ARAB COUNTRIES.IN THE EARLY 70S, ISRAELI LEADER MOSHE DYAN ADVISED HIS LABOR PARTY TO TELL THE PALESTINIANS THAT YOU SHALL CONTINUE TO LIVE LIKE DOGS, AND WHOEVER WISHES MAY LEAVE.IN SUCH AN ATMOSPHERE, AND WITH ISRAELS BACKING FROM THE WORLDS LEADING POWER, THE SITUATION FOR PALESTINIANS SEEMS DESPERATE.
Hanan Rashid: They see no hope and they see no future. And thats where all the violence I believe is coming to.
Chistopher Mayhew- 1970, Former member, British Parliament:
People think, you see, that the Arabs, or the Palestinians are some peculiarly fanatical and militant people. As though the American people, or the British people, undergoing the same experience as the Palestinians wouldnt react in exactly the same manner, or more militant still.
ASAD ABUKHALIL- PROFESSOR, POLITICAL SCIENCE, CAL STATE STANISLAUS:
A movement which is so national and political like Zionism couldnt foresee that its own action is going to produce a movement that is equally forceful in assertion of its right over the land. I mean, and in a way just as Zionism was born, so to speak, in the womb of anti-Semitism. The more the anti-Semites wanted to crush Jewish identities the more forceful Jewish identity became - thats what happened to the Palestinians
Chistopher Mayhew:
Suppose we, like the Palestinians, who after all were 93% of the population of Palestine in 1917, suppose we had to accept immigration on a Palestinian scale30 million say, or 40 million. And suppose these immigrants had come not to share our society with us, but to build their own society in Britain. To raise their own flag over London. How would the British react? Are you telling me that there wouldnt even be a small minority of our more unstable young men who would not react just as brutally as the PFLP have reacted? The British would react in such a way as to make the Palestinians look like flower children.
Rabbi Berger:
It is just possible that if the United States exerted itspower and influence in ways which are consistent with our own laws and values, we might break out of a vicious circle.
Hanan Rashid:
Yes there is hate. Yes there is mistrust. But I think when people start building it, all these boundaries will be removed, occupation will end, the rights of the Palestinians are met, I think with time things will heal. People forget. People forget. I dont know if they can forgive, but people want to move on. They are so sick and tired of seeing blood.
On both sides.
Noam Chomsky:
In each one of the countries you mentioned, 5 countries, there were independent forces that were seeking a way out of this system of domination, and they therefore had to be crushed. And they were crushed in different ways.
Kissinger:
Americans have every reason to take pride of what their country has achieved in foreign policy.
WITH THE GUIDING FACTOR IN US FOREIGN POLICY BEING THE MAINTENANCE OF THE USS DOMINANT ROLE, IN WHOSE INTEREST IS OUR INVOLVEMENT AROUND THE GLOBE?
Noam Chomsky:
Its in the interest of those who dominate decisions internal to the United States.
Economic power is very narrowly concentrated in a small corporate sector, tightly linked to the state, controls both political parties, owns the media. Yeah, they naturally make decisions in their own interest. (Corporate march underneath)
Father Privett:
I think the hope lies in the peoplenot in apolitical theory, not in smart US foreign policy, but in these people who are becoming more and more aware of their inherent human dignity and an increasing determination to live in a way and to create a system and a place that will respect that and honor that and allow that to unfold
George Johnson:
The Koran says that if you take one life its as if you kill the whole world. If you save one life, its as if you save the whole world. And then the Bible says they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. So, it seems to me, both those ideas are pretty good ideas and if we couldMoslem, Christian, and other folks could come together around those kind of ideas wed be a lot better off than around the ideas of trying to kill each other