"The Myth of American Idealism" is a harbinger of urgent danger that warns of the threat that American power poses to the future of humanity
Afrasianet - Penguin Publishing recently published a new book by American thinker, activist, and academic Noam Chomsky, in collaboration with Nathan Robinson, titled "The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World."
Chomsky, along with his colleague, offers a deep critique of U.S. foreign policy and the concept of American exceptionalism, highlighting how repeated U.S. interventions in global conflicts have exacerbated conflicts. The book compiles Chomsky's ideas into a single volume, providing readers with a comprehensive overview of his fundamental criticisms of U.S. foreign policy.
Chomsky, known for his harsh criticism of what he calls "savage liberalism" and the foreign policy of his country's governments, especially their military interventions since the last third of the 20th, who turned 97 on December 7, suffered a stroke and his health deteriorated this year.
The book was completed before the "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation carried out by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza against the Israeli occupation on October 7, and before Chomsky suffered a stroke. Co-author Nathan Robinson analyzed Hamas' attacks and repercussions in the book's appendix, using Chomsky's analytical methodology.
Stephen Walt, a professor of international relations at Harvard University, wrote: "Noam Chomsky has proven his vision right... The authors' record of hypocrisy is shocking and convincing. No open-minded reader can read this book and continue to believe the false justifications put forward by U.S. leaders to justify their blatant actions."
Daniel Gehry, a professor of American history at Trinity College Dublin, added that Chomsky's analysis was "simple and predictable" but was "correct in 9 out of 10 cases".
For more than 6 decades, Noam Chomsky has been dedicated to exposing ruling ideologies and criticizing his country's uncontrolled use of military force (French)
Aggressiveness and immorality
The Myth of American Idealism is an urgent alarm warning of the threat that American power poses to the future of humanity, as well as an outright indictment of US foreign policy and its "nationalist" myths that support it. The book provides a comprehensive, timely, overview of the sharp criticisms of American power that have made Chomsky a "global phenomenon" and one of the most famous thinkers of all time. Through a historical review of U.S. military and economic activity around the world, the book traces how America's quest for global hegemony has wreaked havoc in country after country.
Ironically, this sterile dominance has not made Americans safer. The book also explores how America's dominant elites have promoted selfish myths about America's commitment to "spreading democracy," while pursuing a reckless foreign policy that serves the interests of a few and endangers hundreds of millions.
The book travels around the world, providing a deep account of Washington's relationship with the Global South, its role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, all justified by noble tales of humanitarian missions and the benevolent intentions of U.S. policymakers.
The same kinds of myths that led to repeated catastrophic wars are now pushing us toward conflicts with Russia and China that jeopardize the future of humanity. Examining the issues of nuclear proliferation and climate change, it is clear how US policies exacerbate global threats.
For more than 6 decades, Noam Chomsky has been dedicated to exposing ruling ideologies and criticizing his country's uncontrolled use of military force. Therefore, this work is an easy-to-read introduction to the convictions he has formed after a long life of thought and activity.
The book tells a comprehensive story of American aggression and immorality in simple, even innocent, language. It is a valuable and effective educational tool for young people as they engage in politics. Chomsky's knack for geopolitical reactions to its fundamental relations of reciprocity and equality has always been. This book is a comprehensive argument that the United States always operates from a position of hegemony, violence, and tyranny toward other nations. It is a preliminary document that can be consulted long after the first reading.
The Danger of US Imperialism
Chomsky writes with absolute clarity and scathingness, and reading his works is really useful to those who are ignorant of the facts he reveals, which are rarely discussed in the American media or taught in their schools. Chomsky shows how America repeatedly refuses to accept the same restrictions on its behavior that it demands others adhere to, with disastrous results.
We will find a strong critique of the ideology of U.S. foreign interventions and its status as a global power, and a thesis on how its arrogant quest to "spread democracy" threatens the delicate balance of world peace and the already deteriorating health of our planet. The book's top-down analysis becomes insightful, especially in the final chapter that analyzes how global elites benefit from deadly fossil fuels for the world.
Chomsky has been an outspoken critic of the American empire throughout his life, focusing here on the founding myths of imperial expansion, specifically the idea that the spread of democracy (regardless of methods) is pure good. The disaster lies in strongmen in closed rooms who believe they are wise and do the most damage.
Chomsky argues that America must be curbed, and he enthusiastically defends this argument. This should be understood as a call to end American hypocrisy and to introduce a more consistent dimension of principle into America's relations with the world. Rather than assuming American "benevolence," the way the U.S. government exercises hitherto unparalleled power should be critically scrutinized.
Dispel the myth
The book challenges the myth of the noble idealistic aims and implications of U.S. foreign policy in the latter half of the 20th century, over 300 pages (plus another 100 pages of accurate quotations and concluding remarks).
This book provides a comprehensive critical survey, vertically and horizontally, of U.S. foreign policy and is aimed directly at a North American audience, seeking to dispel the myth that the United States is dedicated to promoting democracy and human rights. The authors argue that such an idea runs counter to the realities of U.S. foreign policy, asserting that "the United States has often acted with near-total disregard for moral principles and the rule of law, except where these principles serve the interests of American elites."
Faced with the prevailing doctrine that attributes this damage to accidental errors, the authors challenge the importance of such supposed American "benevolence" by recounting the tangible damage America has inflicted on most of the world since assuming the role of global hegemony after World War II.
The authors avoid criticism that they are simply anti-American, a common attack against Chomsky throughout his long career. Instead, they simply claim that "their basic demands are modest. The US is not uniquely evil, and no worse than other ruling powers. It is particularly powerful, and it is fascinated by a dangerous false myth."
Critics who say Chomsky is particularly interested in the United States manage to see the crux of the issue but overlook it altogether. His focus is on US crimes, especially given his status as an American citizen, but this focus does not inherently diminish the actions of other states and leaders. Instead, they are simply applying to America standards that North American discourse is comfortable applying to other countries while ignoring or downplaying US crimes.
The authors say:
"No ruling power ever thought of itself as evil. She believes that she is good, and that her opponents are the bad guys. We have to make sure we don't fall into the trap of thinking we're on the right side just because we've been indoctrinated."
Idealism in action
The first part of the book is satirically titled "The Record: Idealism in Action" or in Action, and takes the reader through a long list of atrocities that America has led or condoned since the end of World War II. In the first chapter, the authors discuss the role of the United States in military coups, atrocities, regime change, and U.S. military interventions in Indonesia, Latin America, and the Middle East.
The book not only highlights the abstract human cost of numerous U.S. policies, such as the tens of thousands killed or forcibly disappeared by U.S.-backed Latin American dictatorships, but also draws attention to the disconnect between America's stated ideals and values and its actions, showing a frequent pattern of disregard for human rights in support of right-wing Latin American dictatorships loyal to North America's geopolitical and economic interests.
However novelty these chapters may be, they clearly compensate for this synthesis and composition, and provide an excellent precursor for beginners from an anti-imperialist perspective. The rest of the first part is a history of other U.S.-led crimes, including the Southeast Asian genocidal war in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and America's continued historical political and financial support for Israel's occupation of Palestine.
These chapters, well written and based on extensive research, form Chomsky's primary domain, and he has spoken and written extensively on these issues. Readers seeking new perspectives on these issues may be disappointed, but this repetition is about Chomsky's decades-long tenacity rather than research laziness or intellectual simplification and flatness.
Perhaps the most important chapter is the US-Russia and China, two major powers often presented to the North American public as evil enemies. Without denying or justifying their established and heinous crimes, such as Russia's "invasion of Ukraine" or China's repression of its Uyghur (East Turkestan) citizens, the authors also draw attention to equally untenable American actions in the same areas.
The authors highlight NATO's post-Cold War expansion as a catalyst for Russian military adventurism, and reframe the debate about China's alleged military aggression in the context of the United States' decades-long efforts to control the Pacific.
These chapters are worth noting because they offer perspectives that most mainstream discussions of great-power conflict sorely miss, rather than public awareness of the Middle East, Latin America, or Southeast Asia. The authors see the Western conflict with Russia and China as less like a battle between good and evil, and more like a global play of risk-taking game, in which the risks exacerbated by the dual threats of climate change and nuclear war are much higher.
Understanding the power system
The second part of the book, "Understanding the Power System," briefly examines the domestic origins of U.S. foreign policy and the ways in which opinion-makers help elite publicize the public, either by twisting American adventures or not discussing them at all, which is most common. Overall, it examines the ways in which the U.S. media influences public opinion on foreign policy.
Most of this section covers Chomsky's core issues, reconveying long-held ideas, such as the ways in which the American press "makes approval and approval" among the public. Again, this is not so much a criticism as a simple admission. What the book may lack in terms of originality or pure novelty is compensated for with clarity and brevity. So "The Myth of American Idealism" is a perfect update in 2024 of the work of the American thinker who describes himself as "an anarchist trade unionist, a liberal socialist."
The authors conclude that the current foreign and domestic policy of the United States poses an unconditional danger to the well-being of the present and the future, but to the survival of humanity and human civilization. If we are to have any chance of a livable and sustainable future, the slowly-declining American empire must give way not to another bloodthirsty or power-hungry hegemony, but to a multipolar world that avoids conflict and leads states to cooperation and coexistence, in which power is distributed along more democratic and egalitarian lines.
Such a conclusion is hard to believe, if only because the implications for our current system are so bleak. While reading the book, one often wonders if the state of the world is quite as bleak as Chomsky portrays it. And could this be real?
A song of struggle
The United States may not be as bad as the book portrays, and the likelihood of a climate or nuclear catastrophe may be lower than it may sometimes seem, though such a question is just optimistic thinking. To be sure, "The Myth of American Idealism" far outweighs this kind of comprehensive and investigative refutation. Even if the authors overestimate things, which is not certain, overestimating the risk is far better than underestimating it when it is so high.
The authors do not expect miracles or a magic antidote: they argue that only organized and enlightened grassroots movements demanding justice and peace have the opportunity for change.
"Fortunately, he doesn't lack that kind of courage.
World history is not just a grim collection of atrocities, but also a story of resistance to those who refused to accept cruelty and oppression as normal, normal, or inevitable."
The book's final pages are a song of the history of individuals and mass movements that have fought against injustice and struggled for a more humane world, portraying them as an inspiring source of hope and continuous action. This presentation could have been even stronger, given the richness of the subject and the urgency and urgency of the crises, but even these few lines enshrine the book's conclusion, and the clear and hard-earned hope it promises.
Given his recent deteriorating health, where Professor Chomsky is suffering from a stroke that has left him speechless, The Myth of American Idealism may be his latest publication. His warning about the danger of US imperialism could not be more terrible, and his call to action could not be clearer!