At War With Asia - Noam Chomsky

This highly academic collection of essays from the early 70s is not exactly light reading. Pick this up if you have a serious interest in American foreign policy and the patience to wade through the facts and undecorated analysis. Chomsky examines - in great detail - the military involvement of the United States in the Southeast Asian nations of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, drawing on extensive research and his own visits to the area. He is, of course, relentlessly critical of the American government and its policies - the general point seems to be that claims of good intentions and benevolence were/are all bullshit, and that US interventions there and throughout the world were/are really aimed at maintaining the dependence of developing countries on the United States (for the sake of expanding both military and markets). But he also looks home to America, contemplating the health (or existence) of a democracy that allows its government to wage wars against poor nations, especially when against public opinion. "Either the war will have to go," Chomsky says, "or the democracy." While these essays are mostly over thirty years old, they may offer more than just a critical look back in time, as the US has moved on to different regions but its motives remain essentially the same.

Worth Reading
3.5 out of 5
Buy this book: At War With Asia: Essays on Indochina