Chomsky on Vietnam

Jonathan Goodwin jgoodwin at nwe.ufl.edu
Wed Apr 10 11:12:08 PDT 2002


On Wed, 10 Apr 2002, Bradford DeLong wrote:


> 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?

Why should you? Forgive me for being simple-minded, but I cannot see the logic of your point at all. Are you suggesting that the countries you list were not under U.S. influence during their period of rapid growth? That the war was an unsuccessful effort to liberate the Vietnamese markets for peace-loving peoples everywhere?

Chomsky seems like a very modest man, and I don't understand this personal rancor.



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