On Western Terrorism: From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare by Noam Chomsky & Andre Vltchek

Author:Noam Chomsky & Andre Vltchek
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 0745333877
Publisher: Pluto Press
Published: 2017-02-19T23:00:00+00:00

7 The Middle East and the Arab Spring

andre vltchek

One thing we must talk about is the Middle East. Perhaps we could start with the glorified prime minister Winston Churchill and his statements about the Middle East, and his involvement in the region right after World War II.

noam chomsky

I thought of him as hideous, a racist, but so was the British ruling class. The British pioneered the use of aircraft against villagers. Churchill himself favored poisoned gas: not the most lethal kind, just enough to strike “lively terror” into the hearts of “uncivilized tribesmen.” After World War I, such things happened, the Royal Air Force was used to bomb Kurdish, Afghan and Iraqi civilians. Iraq was sort of created by the British in their own interests. There was a rebellion, a Shi’ite rebellion, and they crushed it with aircraft. There was a disarmament conference to bar the use of aircraft against civilians and the British succeeded in killing it. If you take a look at Lloyd George’s diary at that time, he praised

14 Slums encircling Lima, Peru . (Copyright Andre Vltchek)

this. He said it’s a very good thing to do because we have to “reserve the right to bomb niggers.”

And so yes, Churchill was horrible, but so was everybody else with very few exceptions. But the racism was incredible—and it goes on. The British were gradually losing their control over the Middle East, because Britain was becoming much weaker after World War I and Britain; although it was nothing like it had been before, it did remain the major imperial power in the world, including over the Middle East, until World War II. But even through World War II, there was a kind of mini war going on between the United States and Britain over Saudi Arabia. American oil companies, in the late 1930s, had discovered oil in Saudi Arabia. They realized it was pretty big, although they didn’t know quite how big. The British were there too and during World War II there was a conflict over who was going to take control of it. The British tried; they had assets, background and people.

The U.S. was worried about it. One high-up American diplomat warned that the British were trying to “diddle [U.S. companies] out of the concession,” to take over U.S. concessions in Saudi Arabia. Well, the way to stop this was for Roosevelt to issue a presidential edict determining that Saudi Arabia was a democratic ally in the forefront of the battle against Nazism, or some such wording. That enabled them to get Lend Lease aid, so they were able to buy off the ruling family with their thanks for being a leading democracy and fighting the war against the Nazis. The war ended with the United States in control. And by the end of World War II, when the U.S. was dividing up the world, they kicked out the French on very similar grounds. The argument was that the French were fascist collaborators, because of Vichy; they had lost their rights by being conquered.

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