Noam Chomsky Quotes

What the [James] Monroe Doctrine stated, in effect, is that the US should dominate the hemisphere.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.

I always ask two questions: How many countries have military bases in the United States? And in how many countries does the United States not have military bases?

The conservation of monarchy in any portion of South America will tend to break the shock of that inevitable divorce by which the New World is about to be divided by the Old... But as to putting it forward, as a project or proposition of ours, that is out of the question. Monarchy in Mexico, and monarchy in Brazil, would cure the evils of universal democracy, and prevent the drawing of the line which I almost dread – America versus Europe. The United States, naturally enough, aim at this division and cherish the democracy which leads to it.

the avowed pretension of the United States, to put themselves at the head of the confederacy of all the Americas, and to sway that confederacy against Europe (Great Britain included), is not a pretension identified with our interests, or one that we can countenance or tolerate. It is, however, a pretension which there is no use in contesting in the abstract; but we must not say anything that seems to admit this principle.

It does not accord with the policy of the United States to acknowledge any monarchial Government erected on the ruins of any republican Government in America ...

I don’t think America wants democracies in the Middle East. They wouldn’t be nearly as friendly to us

The power that rules the Pacific ... is the power that rules the world. And, with the Philippines, that power is and will forever be the American Republic.

The American continents ... are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.... We should consider any attempt [by European countries] to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European Power we have not interfered, and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their independence, and maintained it ... we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling, in any other manner, their destiny, by any European Power, in any other light than as the manifestations of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States. [The "Monroe Doctrine."]

The real threat to the world is the imperialistic threat posed by the U.S., and Israel is one of its imperialistic instruments in this part of the world.

The future policy of Japan towards Asiatic countries should be similar to that of the United States towards their neighbors …. A “Japanese Monroe Doctrine” in Asia will remove the temptation of European encroachment, and Japan will be recognized as the leader of the Asiatic nations.

The United States does not tolerate distant great powers deploying military forces anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, much less on its borders. Imagine the outrage in Washington if China built an impressive military alliance and tried to include Canada and Mexico in it. Logic aside, Russian leaders have told their Western counterparts on many occasions that they consider NATO expansion into Georgia and Ukraine unacceptable, along with any effort to turn those countries against Russia.

If you want to look at the Monroe Doctrine and what happened when we wrote that, we stated what the business would be for America's power, especially in this hemisphere. We have always been the colonizer of this hemisphere, wherever we've been.

The United States was born with an imperialist impulse. There has been a long confrontation between Monroe and Bolivar... It is necessary that the Monroe Doctrine be broken.

In the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrong doing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.

It happened: the first 9/11, it happened on September 11, 1973, in Chile. We did it. Was that interfering or hacking a party? This record is all over the world, constantly overthrowing governments, invading, forcing people to follow what we call democracy, as in the cases I mentioned. As I say, if every charge is accurate, it's a joke, and I'm sure half the world is collapsing in laughter about this, because people outside the United States know it. You don't have to tell people in Chile about the first 9/11.

At the end of the Cold War, the prevailing view in Washington was that the U.S. was strong, and Russia was weak and did not count in a unipolar world. We disregarded Russia's opposition to NATO expansion, the Iraq War, and the U.S.-led military intervention in Serbia for the independence of Kosovo.

America likes you only if you're on the side she selects. If you don't go along with her totally, you're automatically considered to have entered the Soviet bloc.

Israel is part of the free world led by the United States, no matter what.

Putin wants nothing less than to return Russia to the center of global politics by challenging the primacy that the United States has enjoyed since the end of the Cold War.

American global economic imperialism is a fact. It's a known fact. It's a simple fact.

Allowing an independent and sovereign Iraq could be a nightmare for the United States. It would mean that it would be Shi'ite-dominated, at least if it's minimally democratic. It would continue to improve relations with Iran, just what the United States doesn't want to see. And beyond that, right across the border in Saudi Arabia where most of Saudi oil is, there happens to be a large Shi'ite population, probably a majority.

In 2001, we were told that the war in Afghanistan was a feminist mission. The marines were liberating Afghan women from the Taliban. Can you really bomb feminism into a country? And now, after 25 years of brutal war - 10 years against the Soviet occupation, 15 years of US occupation - the Taliban is riding back to Kabul and will soon be back to doing business with the United States.

Liberals could not be less interested in democracy when it came to taking out Saddam Hussein... Now a loyal American ally [Mubarak] comes under attack and they are burning for democracy.

[American's government] thinking they are the judge of the world; they're not.