The Passion for
Free Markets-
Exporting
American values through the new
World
Trade Organization
By Noam Chomsky
For more than half a century,
the United Nations has been the main forum for the United States to
try to create a world in its image, maneuvering with its allies to forge
global accords about human rights, nuclear tests or the environment
that Washington insisted would mirror its own values."
So runs postwar history,
we learn from the opening paragraph of a front-page story by New York
Times political analyst David Sanger. But times are changing. Today,
the headline reads: "U.S. Is Exporting Its Free-Market Values Through
Global Commercial Agreements." Going beyond the traditional reliance
on the UN, the Clinton administration is turning to the new World Trade
Organization (WTO) to carry out the task of "exporting American
values." Down the road, Sanger continues (quoting the U.S. trade
representative), it is the WTO that may be the most effective instrument
for bringing "Americas passion for deregulation" and
for the free market generally, and "the American values of free
competition, fair rules, and effective enforcement," to a world
still fumbling in darkness. These "American values" are illustrated
most dramatically by the wave of the future: telecommunications, the
Internet, advanced computer technology, and the other wonders created
by the exuberant American entrepreneurial spirit unleashed by the market,
at last freed from government interference by the Reagan revolution.
Today "governments are
everywhere embracing the free-market gospel preached in the 1980s by
President Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain,"
Youssef Ibrahim reports in another Times front-page story, reiterating
a common theme. Like it or hate it, enthusiasts and critics over a broad
range of opinion agreejust to keep to the liberal-to-left part
of the spectrumabout "the implacable sweep of what its exponents
call the market revolution": "Reaganesque rugged
individualism" has changed the rules of the game worldwide, while
here at home "Republicans and Democrats alike are ready to give
the market full sway" in their dedication to "the new orthodoxy."
There are a number of problems
with the picture. One is the account of the last half-century. Even
the most dedicated believers in "Americas mission" must
be aware that U.S./UN relations have been virtually the opposite of
what the opening passage depicts ever since the UN fell out of control
with the progress of decolonization, leaving the U.S. regularly isolated
in opposition to global accords on a wide range of issues and committed
to undermining central components of the UN, particularly those with
a third world orientation. Many questions about the world are debatable,
but surely not this one.
As for "Reaganesque
rugged individualism" and its worship of the market, perhaps it
is enough to quote the review of the Reagan years in Foreign Affairs
by a Senior Fellow for International Finance at the Council on Foreign
Relations, noting the "irony" that Ronald Reagan, "the
postwar chief executive with the most passionate love of laissez faire,
presided over the greatest swing toward protectionism since the 1930s"no
"irony," but the normal workings of "passionate love
of laissez faire": for you, market discipline, but not for me,
unless the "playing field" happens to be tilted in my favor,
typically as a result of large-scale state intervention. Its hard
to find another theme so dominant in the economic history of the past
three centuries. The current enthusiasms about the communications revolution
that Sanger is reporting are a textbook case.
Reaganites were following
a well-trodden courserecently turned into a comedy act by Gingrich
"conservatives"when they extolled the glories of the
market and issued stern lectures about the debilitating culture of dependency
of the poor at home and abroad while boasting proudly to the business
world that Reagan had "granted more import relief to U.S. industry
than any of his predecessors in more than half a century"; in fact,
more than all predecessors combined, as they led "the sustained
assault on [free trade] principle" by the rich and powerful from
the early 1970s, deplored in a scholarly review by GATT secretariat
economist Patrick Low, who estimates the restrictive effects of Reaganite
measures at about three times those of other leading industrial countries.
The radical "swing toward
protectionism" was only a part of the "sustained assault"
on free trade principles that was accelerated under "Reaganite
rugged individualism." Another chapter of the story includes the
huge transfer of public funds to private power, often under the traditional
guise of "security." Without such extreme measures of market
interference, it is doubtful that the U.S. automotive, steel, machine
tool, semiconductor industries, and others, would have survived Japanese
competition or been able to forge ahead in emerging technologies, with
broad effects through the economy.
"Thatchers Britain"
is another good choice to illustrate "free market gospel."
Just to keep to a few revelations of early 1997, "during the period
of maximum pressure to make arms sales to Turkey," the London Observer
reported, Prime Minister Thatcher "personally intervened to ensure
a payment of 22 million pounds was made out of Britains overseas
aid budget, to help build a metro in the Turkish capital of Ankara.
The project was uneconomical, and in 1995 it was admitted" by Foreign
Secretary Douglas Hurd that it was "unlawful." The incident
was particularly noteworthy in the aftermath of the Pergau Dam scandal,
which revealed illegal Thatcherite subsidies "to sweeten
arms deals with the Malaysian regime," with a High Court judgment
against Hurd. Thats aside from government credit guarantees and
financing arrangements, and the rest of the panoply of devices to transfer
public funds to "defense industry," yielding a familiar range
of benefits to advanced industry generally.
A few days before, the same
journal reported that "up to 2 million British children are suffering
ill-health and stunted growth because of malnutrition" as a result
of "poverty on a scale not seen since the 1930s." The trend
to increasing child health has reversed and childhood diseases that
had been controlled are now on the upswing thanks to the (highly selective)
"free market gospel" that is much admired by the beneficiaries.
A few months earlier, a lead
headline reported "One in three British babies born in poverty,"
as "child poverty has increased as much as three-fold since Margaret
Thatcher was elected." "Dickensian diseases return to haunt
todays Britain," another headline reads, reporting studies
concluding that "social conditions in Britain are returning to
those of a century ago." Particularly grim are the effects of cutting
off gas, electricity, water, and telephones to "a high number of
households" as privatization takes its natural course, with a variety
of devices that favor "more affluent customers" and amount
to a "surcharge on the poor," leading to a "growing gulf
in energy between rich and poor," also in water supply and other
services. The "savage cuts" in social programs are placing
the nation "in the grip of panic about imminent social collapse."
But industry and finance are benefiting very nicely from the same policy
choices. To top it all off, public spending after 17 years of Thatcherite
gospel was the same 42 1/4 percent of GDP that it was when she took
over.
Not exactly unfamiliar here.
Exporting American Values
Let us put aside the intriguing
contrast between doctrine and reality, and see what can be learned by
examining the new era that is coming into view. Quite a lot, I think.
Sanger is celebrating the
WTO agreement on telecommunications. One of its welcome effects is to
provide Washington with a "new tool of foreign policy." The
agreement "empowers the WTO to go inside the borders of the 70
countries that have signed it," and it is no secret that international
institutions can function insofar as they keep to the demands of the
powerful, in particular, the United States. In the real world, then,
the "new tool" allows the U.S. to intervene profoundly in
the internal affairs of others, compelling them to change their laws
and practices. Crucially, the WTO will make sure that other countries
are "following through on their commitments to allow foreigners
to invest" without restriction in central areas of their economy.
In the specific case at hand, the likely outcome is clear to all: "The
obvious corporate beneficiaries of this new era will be U.S. carriers,
who are best positioned to dominate a level playing field," the
Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) points out, along with one UK-U.S.
megacorporation.
Not everyone is delighted
by the prospects. The winners recognize that fact, and offer their interpretation:
in Sangers words, others fear that "American telecommunication
giants...could overwhelm the flabby government-sanctioned monopolies
that have long dominated telecommunications in Europe and Asia"as
in the United States, long past the period when it had become by far
the worlds leading economy and most powerful state. It is also
worth noting that major contributions to modern technology came from
the research laboratories of the "flabby government-sanctioned
monopoly" that dominated telecommunications here until the 1970s,
using its freedom from market discipline to provide for the needs of
advanced sectors of industry generally by transfer of public funds (in
indirect ways, unlike the more direct modalities of the Pentagon system).
Those who cling irrationally
to the past see matters a bit differently. The FEER points out that
"jobs will be lost" in Asia and "many Asian consumers
will have to pay more for phone service before they will pay less."
When will they pay less? For that bright future to dawn, it is only
necessary for foreign investors to be "encouraged...to act in socially
desired ways," not simply with an eye to profit and service to
the rich and the business world. How this miracle will come to pass
is unexplained, though doubtless the suggestion will inspire serious
reflection in corporate headquarters.
In the time span relevant
to planning, the WTO agreement will raise phone service costs for most
Asian consumers, the Review predicts. "The fact is, comparatively
few customers in Asia stand to benefit from cheaper overseas rates"
that are anticipated with the takeover by huge foreign corporations,
mostly American. In Indonesia, for example, only about 300,000 of 190
million people make overseas calls at all, specifically the business
sector. "Its very likely the cost of local telecoms service,
in general, will rise" in Asia, according to David Barden, regional
telecoms analyst at J.P. Morgan Securities in Hong Kong. But that is
all to the good, he continues: "if there is no profitability in
the business, there will be no business." And now that still more
public property is being handed over to foreign corporations, they had
better be guaranteed profitability telecommunications today,
and a far wider range of related services tomorrow. The business press
predicts that "personal communications over the Internet [including
corporate networks and interactions] will overtake telecommunications
in five or six years, and telephone operators have the biggest interest
in getting into the online business." Contemplating the future
of his own company, Intel CEO Andrew Grove sees the Internet as "the
biggest change in our environment" at present. He expects large-scale
growth for "the connection providers, the people involved in generating
the World Wide Web, the people who make the computers" ("people"
meaning corporations), and the advertising industry, already running
at almost $350 billion annually and anticipating new opportunities with
the privatization of the Internet, which is expected to convert it to
a global oligopoly.
Meanwhile privatization precedes
apace elsewhere. To take one important case, over considerable popular
opposition the government of Brazil has decided to privatize the Vale
Company, which controls vast uranium, iron, and other mineral resources
and industrial and transport facilities, including sophisticated technology.
Vale is highly profitable, with a 1996 income of over $5 billion, and
excellent prospects for the future; it is 1 of 6 Latin American enterprises
ranked among the 500 most profitable in the world. A study by specialists
of the Graduate School of Engineering at the Federal University in Rio
estimated that the government has seriously undervalued the Company,
noting also that it relied on an "independent" analysis by
Merrill Lynch, which happens to be associated with the Anglo American
conglomerate that is seeking to take over this central component of
Brazils economy. The government angrily denies the conclusions.
If they are accurate, as one may plausibly surmise, it will fall into
a very familiar pattern.
Side comment: Communications
are not quite the same as uranium. Where there is even a pretense of
democracy, communications are at its heart. Concentration of communications
in any hands (particularly foreign hands) raises some rather serious
questions about meaningful democracy. Similar questions arise about
concentration of finance, which undermines popular involvement in social
and economic planning. Control over food raises even more serious questions,
in this case about survival. A year ago the secretary-general of the
UN Food and Agricultural Organization, discussing the "food crisis
following huge rises in cereals prices this year," warned that
countries "must become more self reliant in food production,"
the London Financial Times reported. The FAO is warning "developing
countries" to reverse the policies imposed on them by the "Washington
Consensus," policies that have had a disastrous impact on much
of the world, while proving a great boon to subsidized agribusinessincidentally,
also to narcotrafficking, perhaps the most dramatic success of neoliberal
reforms as judged by the "free market values" that the "U.S.
is exporting."
Control over food supplies
by foreign corporate giants is well under way, and with the agreement
on telecommunications signed and delivered, financial services are next
in line.
Summarizing, the expected
consequences of the victory for "American values" at the WTO
are: (1) a "new tool" for far-reaching U.S. intervention into
the internal affairs of others; (2) the takeover of a crucial sector
of foreign economies by U.S.-based corporations; (3) benefits for business
sectors and the wealthy; (4) shifting of costs to the general population;
(5) new and potentially powerful weapons against the threat of democracy.
A rational person might ask
whether these expectations have something to do with the celebration,
or whether they are just incidental to a victory of principle that is
celebrated out of commitment to higher values. Skepticism is heightened
by comparison of the Times picture of the postwar era with uncontested
fact. It is further enhanced by a look at some of historys striking
regularities, among them, that those in a position to impose their projects
not only hail them with enthusiasm but also typically benefit from them,
whether the values professed involve free trade or other grand principleswhich
turn out in practice to be finely tuned to the needs of those running
the game and cheering the outcome. Logic alone would suggest a touch
of skepticism when the pattern is repeated. History should raise it
a notch higher.
In fact, we need not even
search that far.
An Improper Forum
The same day that the front
page was reporting the victory for American values at the World Trade
Organization, New York Times editors warned the European Union not to
turn to the WTO to rule on its charge that the U.S. is violating free
trade agreements. Narrowly at issue is the Helms-Burton Act, which "compels
the United States to impose sanctions against foreign companies that
do business in Cuba." The sanctions "would effectively exclude
these firms from exporting to, or doing business in, the United States,
even if their products and activities have nothing to do with Cuba"
(Peter Morici, former director of economics at the U.S. International
Trade Commission). That is no slight penalty, even apart from more direct
threats against individuals and companies who cross a line that Washington
will draw unilaterally. The editors regard the Act as a "misguided
attempt by Congress to impose its foreign policy on others"; Morici
opposes it because it "is creating more costs than benefits"
for the U.S. More broadly at issue is the embargo itself, "the
American economic strangulation of Cuba" that the editors term
"a cold war anachronism," best abandoned because it is becoming
harmful to U.S. business interests.
But broader questions of
right and wrong do not arise, and the whole affair is "essentially
a political dispute," the Times editors stress, not touching on
Washingtons "free-trade obligations." Like most others,
the editors apparently assume that if Europe persists, the WTO is likely
to rule against the United States. Accordingly, the WTO is not a proper
forum.
The logic is simple, and
standard. Ten years ago, on the same grounds, the International Court
of Justice was found to be an inappropriate forum for judging Nicaraguas
charges against Washington. The U.S. rejected ICJ jurisdiction, and
when the Court condemned the U.S. for the "unlawful use of force,"
ordering Washington to cease its international terrorism, violation
of treaties, and illegal economic warfare, and to pay substantial reparations,
the Democrat-controlled Congress reacted by instantly escalating the
crimes while the Court was roundly denounced on all sides as a "hostile
forum" that had discredited itself by rendering a decision against
the United States. The Court judgment itself was scarcely reported,
including the words just quoted and the explicit ruling that U.S. aid
to the contras is "military" and not "humanitarian."
Along with U.S. direction of the terrorist forces, the aid continued
until the U.S. imposed its will, always called "humanitarian aid."
Public history keeps to the same conventions.
The U.S. then vetoed a Security
Council resolution calling on all states to observe international law
(scarcely reported), and voted alone (with El Salvador and Israel) against
a General Assembly Resolution calling for "full and immediate compliance"
with the Courts rulingunreported in the mainstream, as was
the repetition the following year, this time with only Israel on board.
The whole affair happens to be a typical illustration of how the U.S.
used the UN as a "forum" for imposing "its own values."
Returning to the current
WTO case, in November 1996, Washington voted alone (with Israel and
Uzbekistan) against a General Assembly Resolution, backed by the entire
European Union, urging the U.S. to drop the embargo against Cuba. The
Organization of American States had already voted unanimously to reject
the Helms-Burton Act, and had asked its judicial body (the Inter-American
Juridical Committee) to rule on its legality. In August 1996, the IAJC
ruled unanimously that the Act violated international law. A year earlier,
the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the OAS had condemned
the U.S. restrictions on shipments of food and medicine to Cuba as a
violation of international law. The Clinton administrations response
was that shipments of medicine are not literally barred, only prevented
by conditions so onerous and threatening that even the largest corporations
here and abroad are unwilling to face the prospects (huge financial
penalties and imprisonment for what Washington determines to be violations
of "proper distribution," banning of ships and aircraft, mobilization
of media campaigns, etc.). And while food shipments are indeed barred,
the Administration argues that there are "ample suppliers"
elsewhere (at far higher cost), so that the direct violation of international
law is not a violation.
As the issue was brought
by the EU to the World Trade Organization, the U.S. withdrew from the
proceedings on the ICJ model, effectively bringing the matter to a close.
In short, the world that
the U.S. has sought "to create in its image" through international
institutions is one based on the principle of the rule of force. The
"American passion for free trade" entails that the U.S. government
may violate trade agreements at will. No problem arises when communications,
finance, and food supplies are taken over by foreign (mainly U.S.) corporations.
Matters are different, however, when trade agreements and international
law interfere with the projects of the powerful.
We learn more by investigating
the reasons for U.S. rejection of international law and trade agreements.
In the Nicaragua case, State Department Legal Adviser Abraham Sofaer
explained that when the U.S. accepted World Court jurisdiction in the
1940s, most members of the UN "were aligned with the United States
and shared its views regarding world order." But now "A great
many of these cannot be counted on to share our view of the original
constitutional conception of the UN Charter," and "This same
majority often opposes the United States on important international
questions." It is therefore understandable that the U.S. should
be far in the lead since the 1960s in vetoing UN resolutions on a wide
range of issues including international law, human rights, environmental
protection, and so on (UK second, France a distant third), precisely
contrary to the standard version repeated in the opening paragraph above.
The U.S. advanced its lead another notch shortly after this account
appeared, casting its 71st veto since 1967. When the question (Israeli
settlements in Jerusalem) moved to the General Assembly, the U.S. and
Israel stood alone in opposition, again a standard pattern.
Drawing the natural conclusions
from the unreliability of the world, Sofaer went on to explain that
we must now "reserve to ourselves the power to determine whether
the Court has jurisdiction over us in a particular case." The long-standing
principle, now to be enforced in a world that is no longer obedient,
is that "the United States does not accept compulsory jurisdiction
over any dispute involving matters essentially within the domestic jurisdiction
of the United States, as determined by the United States." The
"domestic matters" in question were the U.S. attack against
Nicaragua.
The basic operative principle
was stated elegantly by the new Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright,
when she lectured the UN Security Council about its unwillingness to
go along with U.S. demands concerning Iraq: The U.S. will "behave,
with others, multilaterally when we can and unilaterally as we must,"
recognizing no external constraints in an area deemed "vital to
U.S. national interests"as determined by the United States.
The UN is an appropriate forum when its members "can be counted
on" to share Washingtons views, but not when the majority
"opposes the United States on important international questions."
International law and democracy are fine thingsbut as judged by
outcome, not process; like free trade.
The current U.S. stand in
the WTO case thus breaks no new ground. Washington declared that the
WTO "has no competence to proceed" on an issue of American
national security; we are to understand that our existence is at stake
in the strangulation of the Cuban economy. A WTO ruling against the
U.S. in absentia would be of no significance or concern, a Clinton administration
spokesperson added, because "we do not believe anything the WTO
says or does can force the U.S. to change its laws." Recall that
the great merit of the WTO telecommunications agreement was that this
"new tool of foreign policy" forces other countries to change
their laws and practices, in accord with our demands.
The principle is that the
U.S. is exempt from WTO interference with its laws, just as it is free
to violate international law at will; uniquely, though the privilege
may be extended to client states as circumstances require. The fundamental
principles of world order again resound, loud and clear.
The earlier GATT agreements
had allowed for national security exceptions, and under them, Washingon
had justified its embargo against Cuba as "measures taken in pursuit
of essential US security interests." The WTO agreement also permits
a member to take "any action it considers necessary for the protection
of its essential security interests," but only in relation to three
designated issues: fissionable materials, traffic in armaments, and
actions "taken in time of war or other emergency in international
relations." Perhaps not wishing to be officially on record with
an utter absurdity, the Clinton administration did not formally invoke
its "national security exemption," though it did make clear
that the issue was "national security."
At the time of writing, the
EU and the U.S. are trying to arrange a deal before April 14, when the
WTO hearings are scheduled to begin. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal
reports, Washington "says it wont cooperate with the WTO
panels, arguing that the trade organization doesnt have jurisdiction
over national security issues."
Indecent Thoughts
Polite people are not supposed
to remember the reaction when Kennedy tried to organize collective action
against Cuba in 1961: Mexico could not go along, a diplomat explained,
because "If we publicly declare that Cuba is a threat to our security,
forty million Mexicans will die laughing." Here we take a more
sober view of threats to the national security.
There were also no reported
deaths from laughter when Administration spokesperson Stuart Eizenstat,
justifying Washingtons rejection of the WTO agreements, "argued
that Europe is challenging three decades of American Cuba policy
that goes back to the Kennedy Administration, and is aimed entirely
at forcing a change of government in Havana" (NYT). A sober reaction
is entirely in order on the assumption that the U.S. has every right
to overthrow another government; in this case, by aggression, large-scale
terror, and economic strangulation.
The assumption remains in
place and apparently unchallenged, but Eizenstats statement was
criticized on narrower grounds by historian Arthur Schlesinger. Writing
"as one involved in the Kennedy Administrations Cuban policy,"
Schlesinger pointed out that Under Secretary of Commerce Eizenstat had
misunderstood the policies of the Kennedy administration. Its concern
was Cubas "troublemaking in the hemisphere" and "the
Soviet connection." But these are now behind us, so the Clinton
policies are an anachronism, though otherwise, it seems, unobjectionable.
Schlesinger did not explain
the meaning of the phrases "troublemaking in the hemisphere"
and "the Soviet connection," but he has elsewhere, in secret.
Reporting to the incoming President on the conclusions of a Latin American
Mission in early 1961, Schlesinger spelled out the problem of Castros
"troublemaking": it is "the spread of the Castro idea
of taking matters into ones own hands," a serious problem,
he added shortly after, when "The distribution of land and other
forms of national wealth greatly favors the propertied classes...[and]
The poor and underprivileged, stimulated by the example of the Cuban
revolution, are now demanding opportunities for a decent living."
Schlesinger also explained the threat of the "Soviet connection":
"Meanwhile, the Soviet Union hovers in the wings, flourishing large
development loans and presenting itself as the model for achieving modernization
in a single generation." The "Soviet connection" was
perceived in a similar light far more broadly in Washington and London,
from the origins of the Cold War in 1917 into the 1960s, when the documentary
record currently ends.
Schlesinger also recommended
to the incoming president "a certain amount of high-flown corn"
about "the higher aims of culture and spirit," which "will
thrill the audience south of the border, where metahistorical disquisitions
are inordinately admired." Meanwhile well take care of serious
matters. Just to show how much things change, Schlesinger also realistically
criticized "the baleful influence of the International Monetary
Fund," then pursuing the 1950s version of todays "Washington
Consensus" ("structural adjustment," "neoliberalism").
With these (secret) explanations
of Castros "troublemaking in the hemisphere" and the
"Soviet connection," we come a step closer to an understanding
of the reality of the Cold War. But that is another topic.
Similar troublemaking beyond
the hemisphere has also been no slight problem, and continues to spread
dangerous ideas among people who "are now demanding opportunities
for a decent living." In late February 1996, while the U.S. was
in an uproar over Cubas downing of two planes of a Florida-based
anti-Castro group that had regularly penetrated Cuban airspace, dropping
leaflets in Havana calling on Cubans to revolt (also participating in
the continuing terrorist attacks against Cuba, according to Cuban sources),
the wire services were running different stories. AP reported that in
South Africa, "a cheering, singing crowd welcomed Cuban doctors"
who had just arrived at the invitation of the Mandela government "to
boost medical care in poor rural areas." "Cuba has 57,000
doctors for its 11 million people, compared to 25,000 in South Africa
for 40 million people." The 101 Cuban doctors included top medical
specialists who, if they were South African, would "very likely
be working in Cape Town or Johannesburg" at twice the salaries
they will receive in the poor rural areas where they go. "Since
the program of sending public health specialists overseas began in Algeria
in 1963, Cuba has sent 51,820 doctors, dentists, nurses and other medical
doctors" to "the poorest Third World nations," providing
"medical aid totally free of charge" in most cases. A month
later Cuban medical experts were invited by Haiti to study a meningitis
outbreak.
This kind of troublemaking
goes back a long way. A leading West German journal (Die Zeit) reported
that Third World countries regard Cuba as "an international superpower"
because of the teachers, construction workers, physicians, and others
involved in "international service." In 1985, it reported,
16,000 Cubans worked in Third World countries, more than twice the total
of Peace Corps and AID specialists from the United States. By 1988,
Cuba had "more physicians working abroad than any industrialized
nation, and more than the UNs World Health Organization."
Most of this aid is uncompensated, and Cubas "international
emissaries" are "men and women who live under conditions that
most development aid workers would not accept," which is "the
basis for their success." For Cubans, the report continues, "international
service" is regarded as "a sign of political maturity"
and taught in the schools as "the highest virtue." The warm
reception by an ANC delegation in South Africa in 1996, and the crowds
singing "long live Cuba," attest to the same phenomenon.
On the side, we might ask
how the U.S. would react to Libyan planes flying over New York and Washington
dropping leaflets calling on Americans to revolt, after years of terrorist
attacks against U.S. targets at home and abroad. By garlanding them
with flowers, perhaps? A hint was given by Barrie Dunsmore of ABC a
few weeks before the downing of the two planes, citing Walter Porges,
former "ABC News" vice president for News Practices. Porges
reports that when an ABC news crew on a civilian plane attempted to
take photographs of the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, "it
was told to move immediately or it would be shot down," which "would
have been legal under provisions of International Law defining military
air space." A small country under attack by a superpower is a different
matter, however.
A further look at history
may be useful. The policy of overthrowing the government of Cuba does
not go back to the Kennedy administration, as Eizenstat asserted, but
to its predecessor: the formal decision to overthrow Castro in favor
of a regime "more devoted to the true interests of the Cuban people
and more acceptable to the U.S." was taken in secret in March 1960,
with the addendum that the operation must be carried out "in such
a manner as to avoid any appearance of U.S. intervention," because
of the expected reaction in Latin America and the need to ease the burden
on doctrinal managers at home. At the time, the "Soviet connection"
and "troublemaking in the hemisphere" were nil, apart from
the Schlesingerian version.
Since Washington is the arbiter
of the "true interests of the Cuban people," it was unnecessary
for the Eisenhower administration to attend to the public opinion studies
it received, reporting popular support for Castro and optimism about
the future. For similar reasons, current information about these matters
is of no account. The Clinton Administration is serving the true interests
of the Cuban people by imposing misery and starvation, whatever studies
of Cuban opinion may indicate: for example, the polls reported in December
1994 by an affiliate of the Gallup organization that found that half
the population consider the embargo to be the "principal cause
of Cubas problems" while 3 percent found the "political
situation" to be the "most serious problem facing Cuba today";
that 77 percent regard the USA as Cubas "worst friend"
(no one else reached 3 percent); that by 2 to 1, the population feel
that the revolution has registered more achievements than failures,
the "principal failure" being "having depended on socialist
countries like Russia which betrayed us"; and that half describe
themselves as "revolutionary," another 20 percent "communist"
or "socialist."
Right or wrong, the conclusions
about public attitudes are irrelevant, again a regular pattern, at home
as well.
History buffs might recall
that the policy actually dates back to the 1820s, when Washingtons
intention to take control of Cuba was blocked by the British deterrent.
Cuba was regarded by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams as "an
object of transcendent importance to the commercial and political interests
of our Union," but he advised patience: over time, he predicted,
Cuba would fall into U.S. hands by "the laws of political...gravitation,"
a "ripe fruit" for harvest. So it did, as power relations
shifted enough for the U.S. to liberate the island (from its people)
at the end of the century, turning it into a U.S. plantation and haven
for crime syndicates and tourists.
The historical depth of the
commitment to rule Cuba may help account for the element of hysteria
so apparent in the execution of the enterprise; for example, the "almost
savage" atmosphere of the first cabinet meeting after the failed
Bay of Pigs invasion described by Chester Bowles, the "almost frantic
reaction for an action program," a mood reflected in President
Kennedys public statements about how failure to act would leave
us "about to be swept away with the debris of history." Clintons
initiatives, public and indirect, reveal a similar streak of vindictive
fanaticism, as in the threats and prosecutions that ensured that "the
number of companies granted U.S. licences to sell [medicines] to Cuba
has fallen to less than 4 percent" of the levels prior to the Cuban
Democracy Act (CDA) of October 1992, while "only a few of the worlds
medical companies have attempted to brave U.S. regulations" and
penalties, a review in Britains leading medical journal reports.
Considerations such as these
carry us from the abstract plane of international law and solemn agreements
to the realities of human life. Lawyers may debate whether the ban on
food and (effectively) medicine violates international agreements stating
that "food must not be used as an instrument for political and
economic pressure" (Rome Declaration, 1996) and other declared
principles and commitments. But the victims have to live with the fact
that the CDA has "resulted in a serious reduction in the trade
of legitimate medical supplies and food donations, to the detriment
of the Cuban people" (Joanna Cameron, Fletcher Forum). A recently
released study of the American Association for World Health concludes
that the embargo has caused serious nutritional deficits, deterioration
in the supply of safe drinking water, and sharp decline in availability
of medicines and medical information, leading to low birth-rate, epidemics
of neurological and other diseases with tens of thousands of victims,
and other severe health consequences. "Health and nutrition standards
have been devastated by the recent tightening of the 37-year-old US
embargo, which includes food imports," Victoria Brittain writes
in the British press, reporting the year-long study by U.S. specialists,
which found "hospitalised children lying in agony as essential
drugs are denied them" and doctors compelled "to work with
medical equipment at less than half efficiency because they have no
spare parts." Similar conclusions are drawn in other current studies
in professional journals.
These are the real crimes,
far more than the casual and reflexive violation of legal instruments
that are used as weapons against official enemies, with the cynicism
that only the truly powerful can display.
In fairness, it should be
added that the suffering caused by the embargo is sometimes reported
here as well. A lead story in the New York Times business section is
headlined: "Exploding Cuban Cigar Prices: Now Embargo Really Hurts
as Big Smokes Grow Scarcer." The story reports the tribulations
of business executives at "a plush smoking room" in Manhattan,
who lament "that its really tough to get a Cuban cigar in
the States these days" except at "prices that catch in the
throats of the most devoted smokers."
While the Clinton administration,
exploiting the privilege of the powerful, attributes the grim consequences
of economic warfare without parallel in current history to the policies
of the regime from which it promises to "liberate" the suffering
Cuban people, a more plausible conclusion is more nearly the reverse:
the "American economic strangulation of Cuba" has been designed,
maintained, and in the post-Cold War era intensified, for the reasons
implicit in Arthur Schlesingers report to incoming President Kennedy.
Much as Kennedys Latin American Mission feared, the successes
of programs to improve health and living standards had been helping
to spread "the Castro idea of taking matters into ones own
hands," stimulating "the poor and underprivileged" in
the region with the worst inequality in the world to "demand opportunities
for a decent living," and with dangerous effects beyond as well.
There is a substantial and compelling documentary record, accompanied
by consistent action based on quite rational motives, which lends no
slight credibility to this assessment. To evaluate the claim that the
policies flow from concern for human rights and democracy, the briefest
look at the record is more than sufficient, at least for those who even
pretend to be serious.
It is improper, however,
to have any thoughts or recollections about such matters as we celebrate
the triumph of "American values." Nor are we supposed to remember
that a few months ago, inspired by the same passion for free trade,
Clinton "pressured Mexico into an agreement that will end the shipment
of low-price tomatoes to the United States," a gift to Florida
growers that costs Mexico about $800 million annually, and that violates
NAFTA as well as the WTO agreements (though only "in spirit,"
because it was a sheer power play and did not require an official tariff).
The Administration explained the decision forthrightly: Mexican tomatoes
are cheaper and consumers here prefer them. The free market is working,
but with the wrong outcome. Or perhaps tomatoes too are a threat to
national security.
To be sure, tomatoes and
telecommunications are in very different leagues. Any favors Clinton
might owe to Florida growers are dwarfed by the requirements of the
telecommunications industry, even apart from what Thomas Ferguson describes
as "the best-kept secret of the 1996 election": that "more
than any other single bloc, it was the telecommunications sector that
rescued Bill Clinton," who received major campaign contributions
from "this staggeringly profitable sector." The Telecommunications
Act of 1996 and the WTO agreement are, in a sense, "thank you"
notes, though it is unlikely that the outcome would have been very different
if a different mix of largesse had been chosen by the business world,
suffering at the time from what Business Week had just called "spectacular"
profits in yet another "Surprise Party for Corporate America."
Prominent among the truths
that are not to be recalled are the ones briefly mentioned earlier:
the actual record of "Reaganesque rugged individualism" and
the "free market gospel" that was preached (to the poor and
defenseless) while protectionism reached unprecedented heights and the
Administration poured public funds into high tech industry with unusual
abandon. Here we begin to reach the heart of the matter. The reasons
for skepticism about the "passion" that have just been reviewed
are valid enough, but they are a footnote to the real story: how U.S.
corporations came to be so well-placed to take over international markets,
inspiring the current celebration of "American values."
But that, again, is a larger
tale, one that tells us a lot about the contemporary world: its social
and economic realities, and the grip of ideology and doctrine, including
those doctrines crafted to induce hopelessness, resignation, and despair.