Book Review: Circle in the Darkness: Memoir of a World Watcher

One theme that runs through the book is the need to reach out and engage with regular people. Johnstone recounts her experiences opposing the U.S. war on Vietnam. She and her allies launched a campaign to educate and engage with regular Minnesotans, to explain what was happening in Vietnam and why the war should be opposed. She helped organize teams of students and teachers who went door to door in Minneapolis. Later, they sent a citizen delegation to Paris to meet with, and hear from, Vietnamese representatives. Afterward, they reported back to communities throughout the state and country. Johnstone recalls how these actions did not get media attention yet were able to deepen opposition to the war in profound ways. The students and teachers going into the neighborhoods had to educate themselves in advance; they learned from the questions (and sometimes opposition) from community members; the delegation, which met the Vietnamese representatives in Paris, was deeply impressed and conveyed their experience on their return.

Johnstone is an unusually perceptive analyst. Her analyses of the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s resignation, for example, raise important but overlooked issues. Rather than seeing them as the hallmark of investigative journalism, she notes that they established a model of journalism that relies on unidentified government sources. Looking back, Watergate effectively deflected attention from the ongoing slaughter in Southeast Asia.

Getting rid of Nixon was a brilliant coup that united generations, torn asunder by opposing attitudes toward the war …..Watergate washed away the national sins. It prepared America to be ‘born again’ first as the innocent Gerald Ford and then as the good Christian Jimmy Carter, champion of human rights..

Moreover, she writes,

The shenanigans around Watergate were a distraction from the most significant acts of the Nixon administration, in particular the shakeup of the world economy by the August 1971 decision to suspend (meaning to end) the convertibility of the dollar into gold. This was a direct result of the huge U.S. debt resulting from the cost of the Vietnam War.”

Johnstone gives a stark assessment of what happened to the Left. “As for the American antiwar movement, half a century later, it has vanished almost without a trace as an influential political force. There are perhaps more intelligent critics of war than ever before, but they are largely confined to the virtual world of the web, without significant impact on a political system which is totally integrated into a military industrial complex that relies on endless conflicts.

Critical international events

Through her work at the Associated Press and Agence France Presse, Johnstone saw how stories are selected and prioritized depending on establishment bias. She also witnessed how the media promotes certain types of protest leaders. In her book, she offers critical assessments of protest leaders who became famous, including Daniel Cohn Bendit. She gives a scathing critique of celebrity French philosopher Bernard Henri Levy.

Johnson has valuable insights on many events over the 1970s and ‘80s. These include among others, the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme, who was likely behind it, and how it has led to Swedish subservience to the U.S. The causes and consequences of the assassination of Aldo Moro by ultra-leftists in Italy. The murder of Palestinian moderate Dr. Issa Sartawi at a Socialist Party conference. The attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II by a Turkish militant and the propaganda campaign trying to link him to Bulgaria and the Soviet Union, and the growing influence of Israel in western foreign policy.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Johnstone watched closely, interviewed key players, and reported on the rise of detente between the U.S. and Soviet Union, concluding, that “Not enough credit is given to Mikhail Gorbachev and to the 1980s peace movement.”

The book, subtitled “Memoirs of a World Watcher,” describes how radical Islamists were used to undermine the socialist Afghanistan government beginning 1979. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the U.S. had no restraints, Johnstone recalls. She summarizes “Mikhail Gorbachev was a naive negotiator, outfoxed by the Americans” and “The total surrender of ‘real existing’ communism in the East contributed to the defeat of the Western Left.”

In 1991, the U.S. seemingly invited Saddam Hussein to go into Kuwait, then built up a huge force to expel and then massacre thousands of retreating Iraqi soldiers. With operation “Desert Storm” viewed as a military success, President Bush declared: “The Vietnam syndrome is over!”

Yugoslavia and “humanitarian imperialism”

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, neoliberal economic policies quickly dominated the globe and the European Union was formed in 1992. Johnstone describes how the EU imposed rules and requirements that favored private banks and institutions and restricted or prevented state intervention and solutions. Yugoslavia, as the sole remaining socialist holdout, was under increasing pressure and media attack.

Johnstone describes how “humanitarian imperialism” emerged at this time. With the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needed a new mandate and reason for existing. They found this new purpose in media distortion and demonization of Serbia and Yugoslavia. NATO promoted the “Kosovo Liberation Army” and other divisive elements and then bombed Serbia for 78 consecutive days. Yugoslavia was broken into pieces.

In 2002, Johnstone wrote a book about the NATO attack, western propaganda, and show trial. Following the publication of that book, titled “Fool’s Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions,” she was attacked in the media for challenging the dominant assumptions about the conflict. Johnstone responded to the attacks saying,” I do not deny atrocities, but unlike others, I give them a political context.” Others strongly defended her. Canadian law professor Michael Mandel wrote, “Fools Crusade is not only the definitive work on the Balkans Wars, it is also an inspiring example of how to rescue truth from the battlefield when it has become war’s first casualty.”

Western media distortion and intervention in Yugoslavia went almost unopposed. The antiwar movement was widely confused and silent. This was followed by the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and then Iraq.

Along with media distortions and comparisons to Hitler and the Holocaust, there emerged the justification for violating national sovereignty based on the “Right to Protect” (R2P). This was the pretext for overthrowing the Libyan government of Moammar Gadhafi. Johnstone discusses how R2P has been used to confuse and silence antiwar forces, even some prominent traditional antiwar analysts. She has interacted with Noam Chomsky many times over the decades and is overall very positive, but notes that “even he might get something wrong.” She documents how the coauthor of Chomsky’s seminal work, “Manufacturing Consent” was evidently fooled into believing media reports from Benghazi, Libya. Chomsky said the western sponsored uprising was “wonderful.” It has since been made clear that media reports and NGO accusations from Benghazi were false. They were the pretense to launch the NATO campaign to overthrow the government.

Western intervention, including the sponsorship of terrorist armies in Syria, has been sold to the unwitting public using this model. Wherever the U.S. and NATO wish to intervene, there is a “humanitarian crisis” and “responsibility to protect.”

Critical current issues

“Circle in the Darkness” analyzes current issues of contention and debate on the left. In it, Johnstone argues that suppression of debate and free speech, whether by the Right or the Left, is counter-productive. She argues that violence and vandalism hurt the progressive cause even when it gives a spurt of publicity and media attention. She describes many examples over the past 50 years and how frequently the instigators were government or police agents.

Johnstone describes the spectacular growth of the “Yellow Vest” movement in France. She documents how it began, how it was supported and joined by common people, and how it reached across party lines. She contrasts the broad support of the Yellow Vest movement with narrow support of the student protests of May 1968, writing, “Sociologically, this revolt was the opposite of May ’68. Instead of privileged students, imagining a non-existent working class revolution in a time of prosperity, this was the working class itself, in hard times.”

Johnstone describes how French police attacked the Yellow Vest protesters with many injuries and even deaths. She writes, “Curiously, all this heavy handed repression totally failed to prevent masked ‘Black Bloc’ members from taking advantage of this opportunity to attack the police, set fires, break shop windows ….. Police did nothing to prevent unidentified intruders from invading the ground floor of the Arc de Triomphe to smash up a statue of Marianne…. It is noteworthy that almost all the seriously injured were peaceful Yellow Vest protesters, whereas the Black Blocs often got away unscathed. Perhaps the Black Blocs believe they are fighting the system. Whatever their intentions, they have served as a useful auxiliary to government repression.”

On the massive media effort to control popular thoughts and anger, Johnstone notes:

The mainstream media have moved farther and farther away from informing the public and nearer to instructing them in what they should think and do.”

She writes in her belief that the Left is infused with dogma. Johnstone recounts her falling out with Counterpunch magazine after they published a “barrage of attacks” on analyst and writer Caitlin Johnstone (no relation).

That was indeed the start of Caitlin’s rise to great prominence in anti-war circles and beginning of CounterPunch’s decline from ‘fearless muckraking’ to snide sniping at the genuine heirs to the independent spirit of the founder, Alexander Cockburn. The gist of the CounterPunch attacks on the Australian Johnstone were that she dared say she would join even with someone on the right against war. That is simple good sense, but it was picked up by the Antifa purification squad as proof of tendencies toward fascism. When I saw them coming after Caitlin, I figured they’d be coming after me, and that my association with CounterPunch was soon coming to an end.”

Johnstone argues in favor of working for peace with all forces which agree on that issue, whether or not they agree on all issues of “identity politics.” She argues that we should not be distracted from the root causes of war and social inequality. When the Left focuses on the fringe right, the establishment is not only happy, they encourage and promote this diversion.

The specialty of the AntiFa is to situate the threat of tyranny on the powerless margins of society – from isolated groups of costume party neo-Nazis to outspoken persons on the left accused of ‘red-brown’ tendencies. This amounts to keeping the Left herded into its sheep pen, while the wolves roam freely.”

Johnstone is hopeful and encouraged by two things: a new generation of truthseekers and that life is full of surprises.

This book is full of insights and analysis about where the world is and how we got here. It includes important ideas and thoughts about what we can do to resist the drift toward global war and catastrophe. Above all, Diana Johnstone argues for the importance of discussion, debate, and keeping it real.

Rick Sterling is an independent journalist based in the SF Bay Area. He can be reached at rsterling1@gmail.com