The Withdrawal by Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad: An Honest Review

I received an eARC of "The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power" by Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad from the publisher The New Press via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

“Even in the canons of international law, the United States cannot commit war crimes.”

George W. Bush asked, in 2002, the question of “why do they hate us?”

The Withdrawal is a series of finely edited conversations between Noam Chomsky, the linguist author of The Responsibility of Intellectuals, and Vijay Prashad, the historian author of The Darker Nations.
The book covers these geographic theatres in historical order:

1. Vietnam and Laos
2. 9/11 and Afghanistan
3. Iraq
4. Libya
5. Fragilities of U.S. Power
—with a foreword by Angela Davis and an afterword by Prashad.

The format of the book is presented in such a way that mimics a conversation between these two prominent intellectuals about the reams of American foreign policy failures.

The book’s length (208 pages) is just long enough to give you a good grasp of the history without being ridiculously excessive. Even the title itself is meant to be an eye-catcher for a reason in this “I-don’t-have-time-to-read-all-of-this” world.

The book is expected to be published on the 30th of August, 2022.

However, the book does not solely cover the recent withdrawal from Afghanistan (August 2021) as the main title might imply, but rather the sweeping policy failures by the United States of America over the last few decades, and the subsequent withdrawal of the U.S.’s Godfather figure which is looming over the world.

The authors managed rather successfully to present the recurring theme in all these failures of control that the U.S. supposedly had on these parts of the world. A series of withdrawals, coup reversals, needless suffering of civilians, and other utter disasters…

There is nothing new under the sun for most readers familiar with Chomsky’s “conscience of a country”—as Angela Davis called him in her foreword, but his unbending critic of the unfounded American exceptionalism¹ in his conversations with Prashad connects the dots and highlights the key events that tilted the odds against the U.S.’s initial plans and interests in these geographical theatres.

Henceforth, the book naturally whirls around Noam’s idea of the American Power.

Noam’s stance in this book is tied up to his essay “The Responsibility of Intellectuals” (1966) where he describes the hypocrisies of the intellectual world of the United States. “Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions,” wrote Chomsky, outlining, basically, the methodology for the critical intellectual.

Here I would like to share Noam’s reply to Prashad’s question about how Chomsky is able to muster all this “courage” to stand up and say the things he says.

“You can’t raise the question of courage about people as privileged as I am. You want to look at courage, go to the peasants fighting for their lives in southern Columbia, or the courage of the Kurds in eastern Turkey, or the Palestinians in the refugee camps and in the occupied territories. Places where you—as a journalist—have spent most of your life. There, you can talk about courage. Not for people like me.”

—This clicked with me on so many levels.

The book then goes on bombarding you with American foreign policy failures.
—Pun intended.

The authors argue that “there is a mafia quality in the way the U.S. has exercised its power” is derived from the settler/colonial history and the initial interaction (genocide) with the indigenous peoples of North America. Whether that is true or not, there is no denying that the U.S. has this Godfather attitude which it had exerted onto the world with military bullying since the world became unipolar after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
—This keeps left government officials wondering why there is often hatred and violence directed towards the U.S.

Vietnam and Laos

The authors open up (chronologically) with the war on Vietnam in which the U.S. failed to accomplish any of the objectives of its war. Then, they mention the “secret” bombing campaign against Laos between ’64 and ’73, marking Laos the most bombed country (per person) in the world.

“We owe them no debt. The destruction was mutual.”

That was the liberal president Carter’s answer in 1977 to whether the U.S. owed anything to the people of Southeast Asia.

—Reagan was worse; with his “it was a noble cause”.
—Even Bush senior, when he said he’s willing to “forgive the Vietnamese their crimes against us” if they are able to find the bones of the pilots who were flying in their B-52s over Vietnam to devastate the place; and “that’s George H. W. Bush, the statesman, not George W. Bush, his son, the maniac.”

9/11 and Afghanistan

The book goes back to analyse the U.S.’s proxy war against the U.S.S.R., for if it had been for the purpose of defending Afghanistan, one could argue that would have been legitimate, but it prolonged the war and induced more unnecessary suffering. The U.S. had a hand in the organisation and support of the forces, the mujahideen, who later morphed into who are now called Al-Qaeda in the Afghan-U.S.S.R. war.

Then the authors discuss the U.S.’s “illegitimate aggression”—years later—against Afghanistan, which surprisingly (to me) Noam supposes there was no grand motive behind it, no strategic benefit, other than “to show the world its muscle and intimidate everyone.”

—I humbly disagree, as it is obvious (to me), the need for the U.S. to stay as close as possible to the central Asian countries, and a constant nuisance for Russia (which has a historical link to these countries) and China (with its world-changing Belt and Road Initiative). Afghan’s precious metals comes to mind as well (estimated at over one trillion dollars—or even three!). Others would even add the Afghan opiates as a side-hustle for the U.S. as well…

“Whatever happens, we have got The Maxim gun, and they have not.”

Hilaire Belloc

Iraq

Delving back into the history, the authors’ starting point is with the U.S.’s full support of Saddam Hussain (Iraq) in his 1980s eight-year hostile war on Iran, just because Khomeini’s revolution transferred Iran from the U.S.’s watchdog in the region into a neutral country (not aligned with either U.S. nor U.S.S.R. at least); refusing to take more orders from its former master.

—“The love affair between the United States and Saddam was so extreme that Saddam received a gift that no country other than Israel (USS Liberty 1967) could receive, which was the allowance to attack a U.S. warship and face no retaliation (USS Stark 1987).”

—“Americans never apologize for anything that they do.” Even during the Iraq-Iran War, when their USS Vincennes in 1988 (July 3) shot down Iran Air Flight 655 killing 290 civilians on board; and instead of an apology, the captain (Will Rogers) was given a medal by Bush senior!

Fast forward years later and Saddam Hussain becomes the U.S.’s number one enemy, branding him with a false accusation of amassing weapons of mass destruction, legalising the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 for themselves.

—Oh, just now (2003), the chemical weapons (provided by the West) that Saddam used on more than a hundred thousand Iranian civilians (1980s), and on thousands of Iraqi Kurds (Halabja 1988), was a seriously bad thing.

—And when France (and Germany) publicly opposed the invasion of 2003, their “French fries” became “Freedom fries”.

“Are the people of Iraq entitled to start legal cases in the United States to ask for trillions of dollars for the illegal U.S. invasion and destruction of their country, leaving behind misery and ethnic conflict that did not exist before, which is now tearing the region to shreds?”

Libya

The authors explain how the NATO’s bombing of Libya in 2011 undermined the promising peace negotiations which was led by the “outflanked” African Union.

“The African states gave cover for an imperialist attack on a fellow African state.”

—It’s not just the U.S., take France’s imperialistic attitude for example as well towards Haiti (a former major colony). France refused to pay reparations to Haiti, and when Haiti demanded these reparations (again) in 2002, a successful coup happened in 2004 backed by France and the U.S., in which the new government of Haiti renounced it’s own demands for reparations. “It was convenient.”

—Britain as well… “Look at all the wonderful things we’re doing for India after we’ve destroyed them.”

“Nobody can demand anything from the mafia don, since the don just determines what happens in the world, taking what is needed. If U.S. citizens say, Starving Afghans paying reparations to us is necessary, then this is what is going to happen. The courts say, Yes, that’s right. We’re the rulers of the world. We determine what happens. If any of the huge number of victims of U.S. crimes request even an investigation of the crimes, the answer is, Sorry, the mafia don doesn’t do that. That’s not the job of the Godfather. In a nutshell, that’s it.”

For my reading tastes in this genre, I didn’t mind the podcast-trascript-like style, but I am not a fan.

This book feels like a reiteration of Noam’s forever take on the U.S.’s power and a commentary-like additions—which adds context, refines, and polishes—from Prashad, an intellectual who is “highly-influenced” by Chomsky.

Moreover, I would have liked more stories, more in-depth plunges into the muds and murk of these geographical theatres. Just more details in general would have sated my appetite, especially regarding the recent withdrawal from Afghanistan.

There have also been some facts which are outdated today; they mentioned that “Iraq has the second largest reserves of oil in the world…”—It is now considered to have the fifth largest oil reserves.

All in all, it is a very good book. I recommend it to anyone interested in world politics, and the U.S.’s imperialistic foreign policies over the last few decades.

¹American exceptionalism is an American ideology that says that the United States is unique in its benevolence despite the historical record of violence and savagery.
—A similar self-image all the previous imperial centres had: British, French, Portugese, Dutch…