Finally, Why Gaddafi Had to Go

THE ABSURD TIMES

Finally, the truth about Lybia.

Illustration: A rare glimpse of Trump or ex-French President before morphing into their modern shapes.

Finally, we get the facts from somewhere else than here on why Gaddafi had to go.  Thought I'd pass it along.

AMY GOODMAN: Mark Fancher, can you talk about what the U.S. troops are doing right now in Niger? I'm surprised many a number of senators, although apparently they've been briefed several times this year—that at least 800 U.S. soldiers are in Niger right now. Can you talk about why a drone base is being built? Can you talk about where Agadez is, what they're doing both in Niger and in other places in that region?

MARK FANCHER: Well, it's not just Niger. What many people also don't know is that this level of military presence can be found in many countries throughout Africa—most of them, as a matter fact. Since 2007, the United States has been expanding its reach and has been planting small groups of people in various different locations, not always with what would be regarded as military bases, but as embassy-based operation centers, where they carry out military training and different operations using African armies. So, it's no different in Niger. And the use of drones is just an extension of the basic idea of carrying out reconnaissance missions, and sometimes actual attacks, without putting U.S. troops at risk. So, this is very much par for the course.

And I really think it's important to really understand what has happened in Africa over the last 10 years. In 2007, when AFRICOM was created, the presence of terrorists, to the extent that we see them now, was—there was nothing comparable. The presence, if any, was minimal. What was going on in Africa at the time was that you had organizations like the Movement to Emancipate the Niger Delta, or MEND, which had engaged in very militant kinds of attacks on U.S. oil installations, breaking up pipelines, kidnapping U.S. oil company and Western oil company personnel, and issuing a threat in 2006 that they could not guarantee the safety of either the facilities of oil companies in and about Nigeria and in that region or the people who were sent there to work on them. It was at that moment that the United States decided that it was going to set up this special command, which was unprecedented, for Africa exclusively.

You know, you also see what was happening during that period was what they branded as piracy off the coastal waters of Somalia. These were fishermen whose waters had been contaminated by people who had come in and had plundered and raided their fishing facilities and had made them unable to engage in a livelihood. And in retaliation, they began to attack those boats and ships that were coming through those waterways, which was a major international shipping lane.

So, these twin concerns about access to the coastal region in Somalia, the oil that was being produced in the Niger Delta and in the Gulf of Guinea, those were the primary drivers for the creation of AFRICOM. And the more that the U.S. military established a presence in that region and throughout Africa, the more terrorism tended to grow.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Mark Fancher, I wanted to ask you about another key event in the history of Africa, the recent history of Africa, which was the U.S. participation in the overthrow of Gaddafi and the situation in Libya. To what degree did the total destabilization of Libya and the—Libya is now, in essence, a failed state—have an impact on the growth of extremism and terrorist groups in other parts of Africa?

MARK FANCHER: Oh, it had a huge impact. And if you look at the infamous emails of Hillary Clinton, which are available at the State Department's website, you see an email exchange where State Department personnel are talking very frankly about their conversations with Sarkozy about his interest in overthrowing Gaddafi because he wanted two things. One, he wanted to eliminate the threat of a pan-African currency, gold-backed currency, that Gaddafi wanted to establish, because he was afraid that it would devalue the franc. And he also wanted access to Gaddafi and Libya's oil fields. That was the bottom line for why they went after Gaddafi in the way that they did.

And in order to do it, AFRICOM stepped in and played a major role in recruiting local forces within Libya to attack Gaddafi. They chose to establish relationships with some of the worst elements in Libya. In fact, one of the groups that they established a relationship with was one which, by its very name, said that its mission was to eliminate black people from Libya. And so they gave guns, heavy artillery, to all kinds of people in Libya, with the hope and expectation that they would, you know, carry out this overthrow of the Libyan government and assassinate Gaddafi. That played itself out, but those weapons were still there. And—

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Horace Campbell, we just have 30 seconds. Your final comment in talking about what's happened in this latest attack in Niger—also five Nigeriens were killed—not to mention what happened in Somalia with over 358 dead?

HORACE CAMPBELL: I want to follow up on the point about what happened in Libya and why the progressive forces must continue to press for a United Nations investigation in what happened in Libya. I spelled all this out in my book, Global NATOand the Catastrophic Failure in Libya.

What is happening in Niger is a continuation of what happened in Libya. France is in deep crisis. France is over—has taken over as undersecretary of peacekeeping forces in the United Nations. France tried to put a resolution through the United Nations Security Council to get more money for France in Niger, in Chad, in Mali and Burkina Faso.

AMY GOODMAN: Horace Campbell, we're going to have to leave it there, and Mark Fancher, as well, but we'll do Part 2 and post it online at democracynow.org.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I'm Amy Goodman, was we continue to examine the U.S. military presence in Africa and what happened during the ambush of U.S. Special Forces in the West African nation of Niger, which is now the subject of both a military and FBI investigation, with the death of four Green Berets, five Nigerien soldiers, and at the same time, you have President Trump attacking the African-American congresswoman, friend of the La David Johnson family. The widow herself feels under attack, as well, by the president of the United States.

We'll look at all of this with Horace Campbell. He's in Luanda, Angola. Professor Campbell is currently spending a year in West Africa as the Kwame Nkrumah chair at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, peace and justice scholar and professor of African American studies and political science at Syracuse University in New York.

You're now in Luanda, Angola, Professor Campbell, but I wanted to go back to Part 1 of our conversation, where we started to talk about Libya. You say in order to understand what's happening in Niger, we have to understand what has happened in Libya. Can you take us down that path?

HORACE CAMPBELL: Thank you, Amy. And, you know, I wrote a book called Global NATO and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya: Lessons for Africa in the Forging of African Unity. We now know, as was said on this program, that Sarkozy of France said that France went into Libya to save the Europe. There are 14 African countries who cannot have independent monetary and fiscal policy because their currency is tied to the euro through France. Now, France mobilized jihadists, those who are called terrorists, especially from among the Tuareg, in Libya to fight. France mobilized jihadists to overthrow Gaddafi. Those same jihadists were guided to Mali to overthrow the people and to disrupt the situation in Mali. The same France that mobilized the jihadists then went to the United Nations in 2013 to get the United Nations Security Council to support France to fight against terrorism. This is duplicity.

The same thing is happening with Chad. Chad had 4,000 troops fighting in Libya. Chad is part of this five-nation-plus-one that is working with France to destabilize West Africa and the Sahel. Now, the United States has recently placed the government of Chad on the list of countries that have a Muslim ban. And the United States call the government of Chad duplicitous. It is the same government of France and Chad and the United States of America that is working to undermine efforts of the African Union to bring peace and reconstruction and the African currency to Africa.

So what we must be clear about to the progressive forces in the United States of America, that neither France nor the United States can have any political legitimacy in Africa, when on the streets of the United States of America fascists are walking around with Nazi flags and police are killing black people. I want to go back to the point that we made at the beginning. United States has no legitimacy for fighting terrorism in Africa, because you cannot fight to defend black lives in Africa when black lives are not important in the United States of America.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Campbell, I don't know how much you're following back in the United States as you're there in Angola, but I wanted to go to this unusual news conference that the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Joseph Dunford had on Monday laying out a timeline of the deadly October 4th Niger ambush in which five Niger soldiers and four U.S. soldiers were killed while on patrol, promising the military would conduct a thorough and transparent investigation.

The general's explanation came as the widow of U.S. Army Sergeant La David Johnson spoke out against Donald Trump's handling of the aftermath of her husband's death, saying during a condolence call the president couldn't remember the name of her husband. In an interview with ABC's Good Morning America Monday, Myeshia Johnson reaffirmed she and others heard President Trump say, quote, "He knew what he signed up for, but it hurts anyway." You know, that statement refutes Trump's claim that the remark was "totally fabricated."

So you have here in the United States the widow of one of the four Green Berets and the congressmember, both African-American, Frederica Wilson, who's a dear friend of the Johnson family, making these allegations against Trump on the morning of the funeral of La David Johnson. President Trump did not tweet honoring La David Johnson. He attacked the congressmember as "wacky." Both of these women are African-American. And, of course, Sergeant La David Johnson was the only African-American of the four Green Berets who died in Niger. Can you make this connection around everything that has happened, Professor Campbell?

HORACE CAMPBELL: We should send our condolences to Mrs. Johnson, because what is being played out with the congresswoman and Mrs. Johnson is a reflection of the relationship between the present White House and African population in the United States of America. We know the history of Donald Trump, the Republicans and the conservative forces, when it comes to the African people in the United States of America. It was inevitable that we would have this relationship, because one of the difficulties for the United States in Africa is that it's very nervous about the presence of black people in the U.S. military, because if black people in the U.S. military get in touch with the revolutionary forces in Africa, then it could create bigger problems for the United States of America. So the nervousness that we see at the top of the U.S. military, in the White House, over its relationship with black people was manifest in what happened with the congresswoman and with Mrs. Johnson.

And what we should be doing is to intensify the call for the dismantling of the U.S. Africa Command, and that every cent that is being spent within the U.S. Africa Command to militarize and destabilize Africa should go to reconstruction in Detroit, in the inner cities and to provide water, healthcare and education for people in the United States of America. Africa is very rich. Africa can reconstruct itself, if the United States is not in Africa to ensure that the dollar is the currency of world trade and that African dictators send billions of dollars out of Africa to keep the dollar as the international currency.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Campbell, before we go, we talked about Niger, five Nigerien soldiers killed, four U.S. Green Berets killed. In Somalia, over, it looks like, 358 Somalis were killed in what's known now as the Mogadishu massacre. It may be—there's speculation that the Somali involved with this terrible bombing, his own village was drone-struck this summer. Can you talk about what happened in Somalia and also this trip that the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, is now in the midst of, in Ethiopia, South Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo?

HORACE CAMPBELL: Let us be clear: The United States is very weak in Africa. I was in Djibouti in May, where the United States has 4,000 troops, the largest number of troops in Africa. They're basically prisoners there. In 1993, we had the incident of the United States being militarily defeated in Somalia and this famous case called Black Hawk Down. It was decided then that the United States would not re-enter Somalia because the presence of United States troops instigate memories of the United States presence in Somalia and would be a recruiting tool for those who are extremists in Somalia.

Well, the situation is like this in Somalia, that the people of Kenya want the Kenyan troops to withdraw from Somalia. Uganda plans to withdraw from Somalia. Next door, in Ethiopia, there's a revolutionary situation in Ethiopia, and Ethiopia cannot deploy troops into Somalia as it did in the past. Then, the United States have to deploy troops in Somalia in order to quell the possibilities of revolution in Ethiopia and to support the conservative forces in Kenya—if you note that the head of the Africa Command said to the Kenyan people that electing Raila Odinga would be wrong, because Raila Odinga is calling for U.S. troops to depart from Somalia.

So, the United States, by going back into Somalia, has a number of reasons: one, to intensify the destabilization of Somalia; number two, to prop up those conservative governments in Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya, who have troops in Somalia; and, number three, more importantly, to act as an ally of Saudi Arabia, Israel, in the planned war against the people of Iran. It is for those reasons why we have to see the United States' militarization of the region as part of its failed militarization of the Near East and Iraq and Afghanistan. And Africans will not tolerate this militarization. So, the United States' presence in Africa is creating the basis for supporting military dictators, as we have in Ethiopia.

AMY GOODMAN: And the visit of Nikki Haley, the significance of where else she is going, like the Democratic Republic of Congo?

HORACE CAMPBELL: Yes. Nikki Haley is someone who doesn't have a clue about what's going on in Africa. And in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we have, again, a situation where, for 40 years, the United States has supported the oppressive forces, after assisting in the killing of Patrice Lumumba. Again, in that society, the African Union, the peacekeeping forces and the democratic forces want peace. There is a collaboration between the United Nations peacekeeping forces and the government of the Congo to ensure that the situation remain destabilized so that the Congo can be looted. The same about South Sudan, where we have more generals than schoolteachers—I'm sorry, more generals in South Sudan than—the amount of generals is so much that millions of dollars are being spent on both sides. And the African Union had an investigation into how to bring peace into South Sudan. Nikki Haley, the United Nations, United States of America are stirring up fires in Africa to ensure that there's no peace in Africa.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we'll have to leave it there, and I thank you very much, Horace Campbell, for joining us, joining us today from Luanda, Angola, currently spending a year in West Africa as the Kwame Nkrumah chair at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, peace and justice scholar and professor of African American studies and political science at Syracuse University in New York. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.

Oh Well. . .

THE ABSURD TIMES

Nothing more be said about Vegas.

And a wise man pointed out that all the fires in California make the North Korean Nukes seem much less ominous.

SPORTS? OR SPURTS?

It has been while that the insanity continued and it's pretty late to try to catch up now.  This begs the question: Why would anyone want to?

So, let's start with the National anthem.   It is nothing more than one long rhetorical question to which the only possible correct answer can be NO.  I don't see it now, some 250 odd years later. 

What about kneeling during it?  We really never really got that part, but it is supposedly a protest against racism, especially manifested by cops killing balck people who are unarmed and running away from them and then the cops saying in court "I feared for my life."  Not guilty.

Today, our Moron in Chief wants any NFL owner to bench any player who kneels during the anthem.  Now, the editor here would not play football, even though asked to.  He did teach other players how to throw a spiral and how to hit moving targets and all that, but being attacked by a bunch of angry thugs who outweighed him by about 100 pounds was not appealing to him.

So now, think about this: the defensive linemen are supposed to stop those angry morons until the quarterback throws the ball.   The quarterback is clearly the most vital member of the team as he calls plays, directs traffic, and actually has a three digit IQ.  Now, suppose three or four defensive linemen decide to kneel.  Is the quarterback going to be stupid enough to play?  In he does, how long will he last?  It just will not work.  And that is the end of the sports section.

Fake News

This is interesting.  He threatens NBC's license, but it doesn't have one.  The FCC gives licenses to individual TV and Radio stations that use the "Public Airwaves".  That's why Sirius, Fox, etc can send out whatever they want (so long as it is profitable.

Although the meeting took place long ago in Trump time, it was only last Wednesday that  he heard Tillerson call him a "Fucking Moron."  I imagine this means he doesn't listen?  Or that NBC should lose its "license"?

Never mind, during the meeting he wanted to increase the nuclear weapons by a great deal.  This should bother nobody, as a widespread nuclear war would end the hurricanes.  In fact, it should end everything.  "A consummation devoutly to be wished."

Obama as Key

This is important to think about.  Foreign leaders tell us that when faced with a decision, he asks them "What would Obama do?" and then does the opposite.  So, all we really have to do to straighten things out is to get him to believe that Obama wanted to do all the crazy things Trump has done and so on.  That way, he'd reverse policy.

His moves on Iran mean absolutely nothing.  Only Nitwityahoo is excited about him.  This name for the Israeli rime Minister has caused confusion.  So, a Yahoo is a character in Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Book 4.  There, the most developed life forms are horses and "human beings" live mainly in trees, throwing feces at whatever, and shouting 'YAHOO!"  (Hence their name.)  It seems also to be a favorite expression amongst fraternities in the United States during College football Season with consumption of alcohol.  "Nit wit" seems self-explanatory. 

Conclusion

As we think about it, there is little point in continuing.  Suffice to say that the Trump Presidency is muck like Trump University – except that we are all unwilling classmates in it.

THE ABSURD TIMES

We thought you should have this.  Best to use the link:

ZCommunications

Chomsky on Trump Recently, Noam Chomsky wrote about the new book RPS/2044: "Basing himself on a lifetime of dedicated and highly productive activism and many years of detailed inquiry into the kind of society to which we should aspire, Mike Albert has now undertaken a novel and imaginative approach to leading us to think seriously about these fundamental issues and concerns – which may fade under the impact of immediate demands but should be prominent in our minds as we develop ways to deal with concerns of the moment  More than anyone I know, Mike has emphasized the need to relate long-term vision to devising practical strategies for today.  This imaginative oral history from the future is a provocative and most welcome contribution to this urgent and ever-present task." In an interview conducted by David Barsamian excerpted from Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy, the new book by Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian to be published this December, CHomsky said the following about Trump and immediate social issues: —�  David Barsamian: You have spoken about the difference between Trump's buffoonery, which gets endlessly covered by the media, and the actual policies he is striving to enact, which receive less attention. Do you think he has any coherent economic, political, or international policy goals? What has Trump actually managed to accomplish in his first months in office?  Noam Chomsky: There is a diversionary process under way, perhaps just a natural result of the propensities of the figure at center stage and those doing the work behind the curtains. At one level, Trump's antics ensure that attention is focused on him, and it makes little difference how. Who even remembers the charge that millions of illegal immigrants voted for Clinton, depriving the pathetic little man of his Grand Victory? Or the accusation that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower? The claims themselves don't really matter. It's enough that attention is diverted from what is happening in the background. There, out of the spotlight, the most savage fringe of the Republican Party is carefully advancing policies designed to enrich their true constituency: the Constituency of private power and wealth, "the masters of mankind," to borrow Adam Smith's phrase. These policies will harm the irrelevant general population and devastate future generations, but that's of little concern to the Republicans. They've been trying to push through similarly destructive legislation for years. Paul Ryan, for example, has long been advertising his ideal of virtually eliminating the federal government, apart from service to the Constituency -- though in the past he's wrapped his proposals in spreadsheets so they would look wonkish to commentators. Now, while attention is focused on Trump's latest mad doings, the Ryan gang and the executive branch are ramming through legislation and orders that undermine workers' rights, cripple consumer protections, and severely harm rural communities. They seek to devastate health programs, revoking the taxes that pay for them in order to further enrich their Constituency, and to eviscerate the Dodd-Frank Act, which imposed some much-needed constraints on the predatory financial system that grew during the neoliberal period. That's just a sample of how the wrecking ball is being wielded by the newly empowered Republican Party. Indeed, it is no longer a political party in the traditional sense. Conservative political analysts Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein have described it more accurately as a "radical insurgency," one that has abandoned normal parliamentary politics. Much of this is being carried out stealthily, in closed sessions, with as little public notice as possible. Other Republican policies are more open, such as pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, thereby isolating the U.S. as a pariah state that refuses to participate in international efforts to confront looming environmental disaster. Even worse, they are intent on maximizing the use of fossil fuels, including the most dangerous; dismantling regulations; and sharply cutting back on research and development of alternative energy sources, which will soon be necessary for decent survival. The reasons behind the policies are a mix. Some are simply service to the Constituency. Others are of little concern to the "masters of mankind" but are designed to hold on to segments of the voting bloc that the Republicans have cobbled together, since Republican policies have shifted so far to the right that their actual proposals would not attract voters. For example, terminating support for family planning is not service to the Constituency. Indeed, that group may mostly support family planning. But terminating that support appeals to the evangelical Christian base -- voters who close their eyes to the fact that they are effectively advocating more unwanted pregnancies and, therefore, increasing the frequency of resort to abortion, under harmful and even lethal conditions. Not all of the damage can be blamed on the con man who is nominally in charge, on his outlandish appointments, or on the congressional forces he has unleashed. Some of the most dangerous developments under Trump trace back to Obama initiatives -- initiatives passed, to be sure, under pressure from the Republican Congress. The most dangerous of these has barely been reported. A very important study in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published in March 2017, reveals that the Obama nuclear weapons modernization program has increased "the overall killing power of existing US ballistic missile forces by a factor of roughly three -- and it creates exactly what one would expect to see, if a nuclear-armed state were planning to have the capacity to fight and win a nuclear war by disarming enemies with a surprise first strike." As the analysts point out, this new capacity undermines the strategic stability on which human survival depends. And the chilling record of near disaster and reckless behavior of leaders in past years only shows how fragile our survival is. Now this program is being carried forward under Trump. These developments, along with the threat of environmental disaster, cast a dark shadow over everything else -- and are barely discussed, while attention is claimed by the performances of the showman at center stage. Whether Trump has any idea what he and his henchmen are up to is not clear. Perhaps he is completely authentic: an ignorant, thin-skinned megalomaniac whose only ideology is himself. But what is happening under the rule of the extremist wing of the Republican organization is all too plain. Barsamian: Do you see any encouraging activity on the Democrats' side? Or is it time to begin thinking about a third party?  Chomsky: There is a lot to think about. The most remarkable feature of the 2016 election was the Bernie Sanders campaign, which broke the pattern set by over a century of U.S. political history. A substantial body of political science research convincingly establishes that elections are pretty much bought; campaign funding alone is a remarkably good predictor of electability, for Congress as well as for the presidency. It also predicts the decisions of elected officials. Correspondingly, a considerable majority of the electorate -- those lower on the income scale -- are effectively disenfranchised, in that their representatives disregard their preferences. In this light, there is little surprise in the victory of a billionaire TV star with substantial media backing: direct backing from the leading cable channel, Rupert Murdoch's Fox, and from highly influential right-wing talk radio; indirect but lavish backing from the rest of the major media, which was entranced by Trump's antics and the advertising revenue that poured in. The Sanders campaign, on the other hand, broke sharply from the prevailing model. Sanders was barely known. He had virtually no support from the main funding sources, was ignored or derided by the media, and labeled himself with the scare word "socialist." Yet he is now the most popular political figure in the country by a large margin. At the very least, the success of the Sanders campaign shows that many options can be pursued even within the stultifying two-party framework, with all of the institutional barriers to breaking free of it. During the Obama years, the Democratic Party disintegrated at the local and state levels. The party had largely abandoned the working class years earlier, even more so with Clinton trade and fiscal policies that undermined U.S. manufacturing and the fairly stable employment it provided. There is no dearth of progressive policy proposals. The program developed by Robert Pollin in his book Greening the Global Economy is one very promising approach. Gar Alperovitz's work on building an authentic democracy based on worker self-management is another. Practical implementations of these approaches and related ideas are taking shape in many different ways. Popular organizations, some of them outgrowths of the Sanders campaign, are actively engaged in taking advantage of the many opportunities that are available. At the same time, the established two-party framework, though venerable, is by no means graven in stone. It's no secret that in recent years, traditional political institutions have been declining in the industrial democracies, under the impact of what is called "populism." That term is used rather loosely to refer to the wave of discontent, anger, and contempt for institutions that has accompanied the neoliberal assault of the past generation, which led to stagnation for the majority alongside a spectacular concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. Functioning democracy erodes as a natural effect of the concentration of economic power, which translates at once to political power by familiar means, but also for deeper and more principled reasons. The doctrinal pretense is that the transfer of decision-making from the public sector to the "market" contributes to individual freedom, but the reality is different. The transfer is from public institutions, in which voters have some say, insofar as democracy is functioning, to private tyrannies -- the corporations that dominate the economy -- in which voters have no say at all. In Europe, there is an even more direct method of undermining the threat of democracy: placing crucial decisions in the hands of the unelected troika -- the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission -- which heeds the northern banks and the creditor community, not the voting population. These policies are dedicated to making sure that society no longer exists, Margaret Thatcher's famous description of the world she perceived -- or, more accurately, hoped to create: one where there is no society, only individuals. This was Thatcher's unwitting paraphrase of Marx's bitter condemnation of repression in France, which left society as a "sack of potatoes," an amorphous mass that cannot function. In the contemporary case, the tyrant is not an autocratic ruler -- in the West, at least -- but concentrations of private power. The collapse of centrist governing institutions has been evident in elections: in France in mid-2017 and in the United States a few months earlier, where the two candidates who mobilized popular forces were Sanders and Trump -- though Trump wasted no time in demonstrating the fraudulence of his "populism" by quickly ensuring that the harshest elements of the old establishment would be firmly ensconced in power in the luxuriating "swamp." These processes might lead to a breakdown of the rigid American system of one-party business rule with two competing factions, with varying voting blocs over time. They might provide an opportunity for a genuine "people's party" to emerge, a party where the voting bloc is the actual constituency, and the guiding values merit respect. Barsamian: Trump's first foreign trip was to Saudi Arabia. What significance do you see in that, and what does it mean for broader Middle East policies? And what do you make of Trump's animus toward Iran? Chomsky: Saudi Arabia is the kind of place where Trump feels right at home: a brutal dictatorship, miserably repressive (notoriously so for women's rights, but in many other areas as well), the leading producer of oil (now being overtaken by the United States), and with plenty of money. The trip produced promises of massive weapons sales -- greatly cheering the Constituency -- and vague intimations of other Saudi gifts. One of the consequences was that Trump's Saudi friends were given a green light to escalate their disgraceful atrocities in Yemen and to discipline Qatar, which has been a shade too independent of the Saudi masters. Iran is a factor there. Qatar shares a natural gas field with Iran and has commercial and cultural relations with it, frowned upon by the Saudis and their deeply reactionary associates. Iran has long been regarded by U.S. leaders, and by U.S. media commentary, as extraordinarily dangerous, perhaps the most dangerous country on the planet. This goes back to well before Trump. In the doctrinal system, Iran is a dual menace: it is the leading supporter of terrorism, and its nuclear programs pose an existential threat to Israel, if not the whole world. It is so dangerous that Obama had to install an advanced air defense system near the Russian border to protect Europe from Iranian nuclear weapons -- which don't exist, and which, in any case, Iranian leaders would use only if possessed by a desire to be instantly incinerated in return. That's the doctrinal system. In the real world, Iranian support for terrorism translates to support for Hezbollah, whose major crime is that it is the sole deterrent to yet another destructive Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and for Hamas, which won a free election in the Gaza Strip -- a crime that instantly elicited harsh sanctions and led the U.S. government to prepare a military coup. Both organizations, it is true, can be charged with terrorist acts, though not anywhere near the amount of terrorism that stems from Saudi Arabia's involvement in the formation and actions of jihadi networks. As for Iran's nuclear weapons programs, U.S. intelligence has confirmed what anyone can easily figure out for themselves: if they exist, they are part of Iran's deterrent strategy. There is also the unmentionable fact that any concern about Iranian weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) could be alleviated by the simple means of heeding Iran's call to establish a WMD-free zone in the Middle East. Such a zone is strongly supported by the Arab states and most of the rest of the world and is blocked primarily by the United States, which wishes to protect Israel's WMD capabilities. Since the doctrinal system falls apart on inspection, we are left with the task of finding the true reasons for U.S. animus toward Iran. Possibilities readily come to mind. The United States and Israel cannot tolerate an independent force in a region that they take to be theirs by right. An Iran with a nuclear deterrent is unacceptable to rogue states that want to rampage however they wish throughout the Middle East. But there is more to it than that. Iran cannot be forgiven for overthrowing the dictator installed by Washington in a military coup in 1953, a coup that destroyed Iran's parliamentary regime and its unconscionable belief that Iran might have some claim on its own natural resources. The world is too complex for any simple description, but this seems to me the core of the tale. It also wouldn't hurt to recall that in the past six decades, scarcely a day has passed when Washington was not tormenting Iranians. After the 1953 military coup came U.S. support for a dictator described by Amnesty International as a leading violator of fundamental human rights. Immediately after his overthrow came the U.S.-backed invasion of Iran by Saddam Hussein, no small matter. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians were killed, many by chemical weapons. Reagan's support for his friend Saddam was so extreme that when Iraq attacked a U.S. ship, the USS Stark, killing 37 American sailors, it received only a light tap on the wrist in response. Reagan also sought to blame Iran for Saddam's horrendous chemical warfare attacks on Iraqi Kurds. Eventually, the United States intervened directly in the Iran-Iraq War, leading to Iran's bitter capitulation. Afterward, George H. W. Bush invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the United States for advanced training in nuclear weapons production -- an extraordinary threat to Iran, quite apart from its other implications. And, of course, Washington has been the driving force behind harsh sanctions against Iran that continue to the present day. Trump, for his part, has joined the harshest and most repressive dictators in shouting imprecations at Iran. As it happens, Iran held an election during his Middle East travel extravaganza -- an election which, however flawed, would be unthinkable in the land of his Saudi hosts, who also happen to be the source of the radical Islamism that is poisoning the region. But U.S. animus against Iran goes far beyond Trump himself. It includes those regarded as the "adults" in the Trump administration, like James "Mad Dog" Mattis, the secretary of defense. And it stretches a long way into the past. Barsamian: What are the strategic issues where Korea is concerned? Can anything be done to defuse the growing conflict?  Chomsky: Korea has been a festering problem since the end of World War II, when the hopes of Koreans for unification of the peninsula were blocked by the intervention of the great powers, the United States bearing primary responsibility. The North Korean dictatorship may well win the prize for brutality and repression, but it is seeking and to some extent carrying out economic development, despite the overwhelming burden of a huge military system. That system includes, of course, a growing arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles, which pose a threat to the region and, in the longer term, to countries beyond -- but its function is to be a deterrent, one that the North Korean regime is unlikely to abandon as long as it remains under threat of destruction. Today, we are instructed that the great challenge faced by the world is how to compel North Korea to freeze these nuclear and missile programs. Perhaps we should resort to more sanctions, cyberwar, intimidation; to the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system, which China regards as a serious threat to its own interests; perhaps even to direct attack on North Korea -- which, it is understood, would elicit retaliation by massed artillery, devastating Seoul and much of South Korea even without the use of nuclear weapons. But there is another option, one that seems to be ignored: we could simply accept North Korea's offer to do what we are demanding. China and North Korea have already proposed that North Korea freeze its nuclear and missile programs. The proposal, though, was rejected at once by Washington, just as it had been two years earlier, because it includes a quid pro quo: it calls on the United States to halt its threatening military exercises on North Korea's borders, including simulated nuclear-bombing attacks by B-52s. The Chinese-North Korean proposal is hardly unreasonable. North Koreans remember well that their country was literally flattened by U.S. bombing, and many may recall how U.S. forces bombed major dams when there were no other targets left. There were gleeful reports in American military publications about the exciting spectacle of a huge flood of water wiping out the rice crops on which "the Asian" depends for survival. They are very much worth reading, a useful part of historical memory. The offer to freeze North Korea's nuclear and missile programs in return for an end to highly provocative actions on North Korea's border could be the basis for more far-reaching negotiations, which could radically reduce the nuclear threat and perhaps even bring the North Korea crisis to an end. Contrary to much inflamed commentary, there are good reasons to think such negotiations might succeed. Yet even though the North Korean programs are constantly described as perhaps the greatest threat we face, the Chinese-North Korean proposal is unacceptable to Washington, and is rejected by U.S. commentators with impressive unanimity. This is another entry in the shameful and depressing record of near-reflexive preference for force when peaceful options may well be available. The 2017 South Korean elections may offer a ray of hope. Newly elected President Moon Jae-in seems intent on reversing the harsh confrontationist policies of his predecessor. He has called for exploring diplomatic options and taking steps toward reconciliation, which is surely an improvement over the angry fist-waving that might lead to real disaster. Barsamian: You have in the past expressed concern about the European Union. What do you think will happen as Europe becomes less tied to the U.S. and the U.K.?  Chomsky: The E.U. has fundamental problems, notably the single currency with no political union. It also has many positive features. There are some sensible ideas aimed at saving what is good and improving what is harmful. Yanis Varoufakis's DiEM25 initiative for a democratic Europe is a promising approach. The U.K. has often been a U.S. surrogate in European politics. Brexit might encourage Europe to take a more independent role in world affairs, a course that might be accelerated by Trump policies that increasingly isolate us from the world. While he is shouting loudly and waving an enormous stick, China could take the lead on global energy policies while extending its influence to the west and, ultimately, to Europe, based on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the New Silk Road. That Europe might become an independent "third force" has been a matter of concern to U.S. planners since World War II. There have long been discussions of something like a Gaullist  conception  of  Europe  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Urals  or, in more recent years, Gorbachev's vision of a common Europe from Brussels to Vladivostok. Whatever happens, Germany is sure to retain a dominant role in European affairs. It is rather startling to hear a conservative German chancellor, Angela Merkel, lecturing her U.S. counterpart on human rights, and taking the lead, at least for a time, in confronting the refugee issue, Europe's deep moral crisis. On the other hand, Germany's insistence on austerity and paranoia about inflation and its policy of promoting exports by limiting domestic consumption have no slight responsibility for Europe's economic distress, particularly the dire situation of the peripheral economies. In the best case, however, which is not beyond imagination, Germany could influence Europe to become a generally positive force in world affairs. Barsamian: What do you make of the conflict between the Trump administration and the U.S. intelligence communities? Do you believe in the "deep state"? Chomsky: There is a national security bureaucracy that has persisted since World War II. And national security analysts, in and out of government, have been appalled by many of Trump's wild forays. Their concerns are shared by the highly credible experts who set the Doomsday Clock, advanced to two and a half minutes to midnight as soon as Trump took office -- the closest it has been to terminal disaster since 1953, when the U.S. and USSR exploded thermonuclear weapons. But I see little sign that it goes beyond that, that there is any secret "deep state" conspiracy.  Barsamian: To conclude, as we look forward to your 89th birthday, I wonder: Do you have a theory of longevity?  Chomsky: Yes, it's simple, really. If you're riding a bicycle and you don't want to fall off, you have to keep going -- fast. Noam Chomsky is the author of numerous bestselling political works, including Hegemony or Survival and Failed States. A laureate professor at the University of Arizona and professor emeritus of linguistics and philosophy at MIT, he is widely credited with having revolutionized modern linguistics. His newest book (with David Barsamian) is Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy (Metropolitan Books, December 2017) from which this piece was excerpted.  He lives in Tucson, Arizona. David Barsamian is the award-winning founder and director of Alternative Radio, an independent syndicated radio program. In addition to his 10 books with Noam Chomsky, his works include books with Tariq Ali, Howard Zinn, Edward Said, Arundhati Roy, and Richard Wolff. He lives in Boulder, Colorado. This article first appeared on TomDispatch.com, a weblog of the Nation Institute, which offers a steady flow of alternate sources, news, and opinion from Tom Engelhardt, long time editor in publishing, co-founder of the American Empire Project, author of The End of Victory Culture, as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing. His latest book is Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World (Haymarket Books). Call to action