Great link, though. And Scottie is right on about the debate itself. It’s disappointing in a way for WFB to rely on a friendly audience when there was ample ammunition for him to tackle Chomsky with the facts but perhaps it’s easier in retrospect. History has changed our perspective after all.

And I find it hard to imagine in a debate such as that to be able to come up with a reasonable response when someone with such a scholarly straight face says things like “there was no outside influence,” and “it may or may not have been better than if the Communists would have won…we just don’t know.”

my question begins at time 29:58 of the interview, and Tillawi cut me off before I could finish setting up my question, but I finished the set-up on Finkelstein’s site with one of my many reader letter entries.

pretty amazing that a small market interview can end up on google, pretty cool at the same time

thank god for the internet, otherwise americans would still be getting their “news” from the mainstream outlets

his main point was basically if you put x dollars into defense or x dollars into social programs, economists have found the net effect on the economy is the same.

his thesis is that the choice to put the x dollars into the defense sector has compromised the US since WW2, because every time there is a lag in the economy, conflicts abroad tend to normalize the economy.

now, there is the cynical point of view that says war drives the US economy, on a basis of the post-WW2 decisions made.

there is some compelling evidence for this cynical point of view, however

look at all the US interventions immediately after WW2, they were all executed under the umbrella of “fighting communism”.

the CIA coup of Mossadegh in 1953
the CIA coup of Arbenz-Guzman in 1954
Castro, and his allegiance to the USSR (with many qualifications)
the Korean “conflict”
the Vietnam war
the Allende coup in 1973
the Iran-Contra affair in the 80’s
again, fighting Communism
Grenada, the nutmeg capital of the world, could have been the staging point for the impending Russian hordes, at least that was the Gov rhetoric (joke)
huge military expenditures
the nuclear arms race

and what happened in 1989?

communism died, and in a public way

and if you look closely at the media and their reporting, and the nuances coming from governmental agencies at the time, the next scourge of civilization was the war on drugs.

why?

well, if the reason for arming yourself to the teeth vanishes like a fart in the wind, you must justify the ongoing expenditures somehow

thus, we saw the war on drugs emerge

the likes of Noriega, even though he was on the CIA payroll

all of a sudden, he is the boogeyman?

the military campaign in Panama is thus justified

and after the war on drugs went away, then emerged the war on terrorism ….

and there are many underlying factors to this one, which should be openly discussed

the point is that the cynics have some pretty strong points

and if you are not convinced, then read “war is a racket” by marine corps general Smedley Butler.

The guy is a legend, and he got it all right in his monumental essay.

Cheers

These investments allowed the Europeans to be better off materially, period. Chomsky and the revisionist historians can complain all they want because they don’t like the motive, but can they at least appreciate the result? The Chilean, the Thai, the Greek, the South Korean are success stories of the expansion of American power. Ask them now what they think of America?

BTW Scottie you are probably on Google Video with the Finkelstein question.

WW2 helped drag the US out of the depression, and there was serious debate post-war what to do:

do you limit production and revert to a sluggish economy, or do you expand markets, and keep the economy growing? history has shown us the path taken.

the marshall plan was considered to be an investment by many, so that the US could keep post-war production high, and have friendly markets abroad.

With regards to the debate, it is very hard to debate statements like, “I don’t know what kind of government they (the Greeks) would have had had it gone the other way (i.e. the communists defeat the American backed forces).

Also the Dr gets real squishy by not saying the Marshall Plan was a good idea, just so he doesn’t get backed into a corner with the Truman doctrine. Like I said he comes off looking better but to imply that the Marshall Plan is part of a grand colonial scheme, that western Europe is part of American colonialism post WWII is laughable. And to equate the Truman doctrine with USSR’s eastern european policy equally so. Greece is part of the EU with a relatively good standard of living, they recently held the Olympics. Compared to any of it’s communist counterparts in eastern Europe it is far better off. Moreover, the lack of American intervention into Greek affairs after Communism indicates that the Truman doctrine was not propaganda for a land grab there.

I have the DVD Manufacturing Consent which has the debate between them.

It was a long time ago, and I never thought I would see someone get the best of Buckley, whom I consider to be one of the best debaters of all time.

This one was close, but Chomsky edged him out, using more facts to support his arguments. Buckley relied more on wit in that debate, but his arguments were not as compelling, in my opinion.

He has a weekly TV show on the open access public channel in which he bashes all things Jewish.

Whereas he gets many things correct when he criticizes Israeli policy in the OT, he crosses the line too many times to count.

He interviews via telephone real Holocaust Deniers, real anti-semites (not the contrived ones), and basically anyone who says things which support his stances, regardless of their credibility.

He uses good scholarship from respectable people to peddle his transparent agenda.

The first time I watched his show, I thought it was amazing to see someone criticize Israel so heavily on TV, even if it is a small market.

The more I watched his show, the more I realized he gets info from places like JewWatch.com and NationalVanguard.com and he is giving pro-Palestinians like myself a bad name because everything that charlatans like Dershowitz claims about Chomsky and Finkelstein and Michael Lerner et al , which is way off, is actually right on point with this Tillawi.

Last year, he had Finkelstein call in for a radio interview, and I called into the show and asked Norman a question on the Gaza “disengagement”.

After I figured out Tillawi’s MO, I wrote Norman an email and told him about Tillawi, and what he says on the majority of his shows, and that he should be more selective to whom he grants tele-interviews.

How’s that for an answer?