> Well, yes, South Korea did benefit substantially (and Thailand
> benefited in the decade around 1970s) from U.S. military spending.
> But in what sense does this make them, today, "not independent"
> countries?
Since 1953, by treaty obligation, the South Korean military has been formally under the command of a U.S. general. Not terribly independent. But of course, despite the mischaracterization by Brad, Chomsky did not say South Korea is not "an independent country." He said South Korean economic development, unlike Vietnam's threatened course, was not "independent" of the US-led multilateral economic system. It's a distinction - independent vs. US-led development - that US officials themselves often made in the internal documentary record. To use an example Chomsky often cites, Arthur Schlesinger's 1961 report to JFK on the threat of the spread throughout Latin American of "the Castro idea of taking matters into one's own hands," while "Russia is hovering in the background, offering development loans and presenting itself as a model for industrialization in a single generation."
Seth