Why did they change the subject just when Perle was getting slaughtered?

CHOMSKY: Now if you want to have this discussion on development models, I'd be perfectly happy to have it. It's just irrelevant here. I mean, in fact, let's take a look at the development models you say have worked. If you look at them you'll notice something very interesting. The ones you mentioned are the right ones. They worked in a particular way, the Pacific basin. But in order to understand those development models, you have to look at the history of those regions. History and documents and so on really are important. You can't just make this stuff out of your head. Now the countries that have developed in the Pacific basin are in fact the countries that are former Japanese colonies. And there's a reason for that: Japanese colonialism was very brutal, but was quite different from European colonialism. If you look back at the record, you'll find that it operated in a different way. Japanese colonialism, while extremely brutal, actually carried out development. And in fact, if you look at the history of these countries since the period of Japanese colonization, you'll find that development took place -- industrial development, in fact, under conditions of extraordinary brutality. It then of course stopped during the second world war and post-world war period, and then took off again where it was under pretty much the same model, namely, a state-controlled, directed economy. What they have, we call it capitalism, has in fact very little to do with capitalism. Well, that's a particular kind of development model. It didn't just come by free choice. I mean, in Korea, say, it came after ten years of war: the Korean war started in 1945, remember. In 1945, when the United States intervened in South Korea, and the Soviet Union came into North Korea, what happened was that a civil war began. And in South Korea, about a hundred thousand people were killed before what we call the Korean war broke out, with plenty of conflicts across the borders -- the Russians pulled out, incidentally. That's the basis for the Korean war, then came the fighting, the destruction of Korea, the control over it by the conquerors. You may say it's good or bad or whatever, it certainly wasn't free. In Taiwan, the development was carried out under, in fact, a conquering army, he Kuomintang army. And similarly, in Indonesia, let's say, the development again wasn't just free. In Indonesia there was a military coup in 1965, strongly supported by the United States. 700,000 people, approximately, were slaughtered within four months, mostly landless peasant. That destroyed the only mass-based political party in the country, with US enthusiastic support, I should say. Then came a certain kind of development model, one which opened up the country to exploitation by Canada, by Japan, by the United States, and a certain kind of development, if you like.
All of these are forms of development, but they didn't come by free choice: they came by forceful imposition. Just as the development in Hungary didn't come by free choice, it came by forceful imposition. Of a different kind, undoubtedly: the forms of US intervention are different from the forms of intervention of other countries, for all sorts of reasons, but it's rammed down people's throats, it's not their choice.
When moves began to take place in a way inconsistent with our officially stated goals, namely the threat of ultra-nationalism began to develop, independent regimes responsive to the demands of the population for improvement in their living standards and diversification of production, we have repeatedly intervened by force to block it. We did so in Guatemala since 1954, over and over again, we did it in the Dominican Republic, we've done it in the Southern Cone, we've done it extensively throughout Central America. In the current period, we're doing it now in the Philippines. There's case after case after case.
Let me separate again two issues: what's the right kind of development model, the proper topic for an academic seminar. What's the right kind of policy? The right kind of policy is one that allows people to be as free as they can to determine the course of their own affairs, without foreign intervention, without violence.

HERMANN: I'm going to turn now to some questions from you. The first one:
QUESTION: What would you consider a viable alternative to the current Palestinian situation? Would the current Occupied Territories serve as an adequate sovereign state, with a government independent from Jewish influence? Mr. Perle, can we start with you?