Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs

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Pluto Press, 2000 - Law - 252 pages
Noam Chomsky argues that, contrary to popular perception, the real 'rogue' states in the world today are not the dictator-led developing countries we hear about in the news, but the United States and its allies. He challenges the legal and humanitarian reasons given to justify intervention in global conflicts in order to reveal the West's reliance on the rule of force.He examines NATO's intervention in Kosovo, the crisis in East Timor, and US involvement in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Chomsky relies on both historical context and recently released government documents to trace the paths of self-interest and domination that fuelled these violent regional conflicts. Throughout, he reveals the United States's increasingly open dismissal of the United Nations and international legal precedent in justifying its motives and actions. Characteristically incisive and provocative, Chomsky demonstrates that the rule of law has been reduced to farce.
 

Contents

Rogues Gallery Who Qualifies?
1
Rogue States
12
Crisis in the Balkans
34
East Timor Retrospective
51
Plan Colombia
62
Cuba and the US Government David vs Goliath
82
Putting on the Pressure Latin America
93
Jubilee 2000
101
The United States and the Challenge of Relativity
124
The Legacy of War
156
Millennium Greetings
174
Power in the Domestic Arena
188
Socioeconomic Sovereignty
199
Notes
215
Index
242
Copyright

Recovering Rights A Crooked Path
108

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About the author (2000)

Noam Chomsky was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 7, 1928. Son of a Russian emigrant who was a Hebrew scholar, Chomsky was exposed at a young age to the study of language and principles of grammar. During the 1940s, he began developing socialist political leanings through his encounters with the New York Jewish intellectual community. Chomsky received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied linguistics, mathematics, and philosophy. He conducted much of his research at Harvard University. In 1955, he began teaching at MIT, eventually holding the Ferrari P. Ward Chair of Modern Language and Linguistics. Today Chomsky is highly regarded as both one of America's most prominent linguists and most notorious social critics and political activists. His academic reputation began with the publication of Syntactic Structures in 1957. Within a decade, he became known as an outspoken intellectual opponent of the Vietnam War. Chomsky has written many books on the links between language, human creativity, and intelligence, including Language and Mind (1967) and Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin, and Use (1985). He also has written dozens of political analyses, including Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), Chronicles of Dissent (1992), and The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many (1993).

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