Chomsky on Vietnam

[Bradford DeLong]

>I asked Noam Chomsky if I had remembered correctly that he argues 
>that the U.S. didn't lose the Vietnam War. He responds:
>
>>Your memory is right.  I had, actually, always assumed that the US 
>>would win the war for simple power reasons, just as it wins every 
>>war.  That is, win the war in terms of its actual aims, even if not 
>>its maximal ones.  The actual aims, which were always pretty clear 
>>I thought and could hardly be denied after the Pentagon Papers came 
>>out, were to prevent the "virus"-"rotten apple" effect of 
>>successful independent development...

Now, the development of South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, 
Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Singapore since 1960 has been the fastest 
in the world, ever. So that if U.S. policy was to stop "development" 
in the region, U.S. policy was a catastrophic failure. But I suppose 
development wasn't, in some sense, "independent"--that these 
countries are still clients of the United States out of which 
"surplus" is being pumped at a furious rate.

Why should I not conclude that this is total lunacy?

Brad DeLong