Rogue States: The Role of Force in World Affairs

Rogue States: The Role of Force in World Affairs, Noam Chomsky, South End Press, 2000

Here is another chronicle of American political actions around the world. The US talks a lot about human rights, and respecting the rule of law. The reality is very different.

One of the reasons for the US embargo on Cuba for the last 40 years is the fear that the "virus" of taking matters into one's own hands might stimulate the poor and underprivileged to demand opportunities for a decent living. The new leading recipient of US military aid, Colombia, has the worst human rights
record in the western hemisphere at the same time that US military aid and training are scheduled to increase. The US instigated a military coup in Guatemala in 1954, because the government's agrarian reform program, which would aid peasants against the upper classes, had a strong appeal to its
neighbors, where similar conditions prevail. Such a thing could not be allowed to happen (the Cuban "virus").

Contempt for the rule of law is deeply rooted in US practice and intellectual culture. When Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975, the UN Security Council ordered an immediate withdrawal. The US secretly increased arms shipments to Indonesia; meantime, UN Ambassador Daniel Moynihan rendered the UN "utterly ineffective in whatever measures they took", beacuse the State Department wanted things to turn out exactly the way they did.

Chomsky also looks at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Kosovo, labor rights, Nicaragua, NAFTA/GATT/WTO, the international debt crisis, and the way all of these subjects have been reported, or not reported, in the US media.

This book deserves a rating higher than Must Read. Chomsky paints a devastating picture of US actions around the world, where the boom is lowered on countries who don't do things the way the US wants. Highly recommended.