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-- Chomsky On The Anti War Movement
Chomsky On The Anti War Movement
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_a...62§ionID=51
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Chomsky On The Anti War Movement An Interview In The Guardian by Noam Chomsky; The Guardian; February 04, 2003 Matthew Tempest Tuesday February 4, 2003 Noam Chomsky: The [peace] demonstrations were another indication of a quite remarkable phenomenon. There is around the world and in the United States opposition to the coming war that is at a level that is completely unprecedented in US or European history both in scope and the parts of the population it draws on. There's never been a time that I can think of when there's been such massive opposition to a war before it was even started. And the closer you get to the region, the higher the opposition appears to be. In Turkey, polls indicated close to 90% opposition, in Europe it's quite substantial, and in the United States the figures you see in polls, however, are quite misleading because there's another factor that isn't considered that differentiates the United States from the rest of the world. This is the only country where Saddam Hussein is not only reviled and despised but also feared, so since September polls have shown that something like 60-70% of the population literally think that Saddam Hussein is an imminent threat to their survival. Now there's no objective reason why the US should be more frightened of Saddam than say the Kuwaitis, but there is a reason - namely that since September there's been a drumbeat of propaganda trying to bludgeon people into the belief that not only is Saddam a terrible person but in fact he's going to come after us tomorrow unless we stop him today. And that reaches people. So if you want to understand the actual opposition to the war in the US you have to extract that factor. The factor of completely irrational fear created by massive propaganda, and if you did I think you'd find it's much like everywhere else. What is not pointed out in the press coverage is that there is simply no precedent, or anything like a precedent, for this kind of public opposition to a war. And it extends itself far more broadly, it's not just opposition to war it's a lack of faith in the leaderships. You may have seen a study released by the world economic forum a couple of days ago which estimated trust in leaders, and the lowest was in leaders of the United States. Trusted by little over quarter of the population, and I think that reflects concerns over the adventurism and violence and the threats that are perceived in the actions and plans of the current administration. These are things that ought to be central. Even in the United States there is overwhelming opposition to the war and that corresponding decline in trust in the leadership that is driving the war. This has been developing for some time but it is now reaching an unusual state, and, just to get back to the demonstrations over the weekend, that's never happened before. If you compare it with the Vietnam war, the current stage of the war with Iraq is approximately like that of 1961 - that is, before the war actually was launched, as it was in 1962 with the US bombing of South Vietnam and driving millions of people into concentration camps and chemical warfare and so on, but there was no protest. In fact, so little protest that few people even remember. The protests didn't begin to develop until several years later when large parts of south Vietnam were being subjected to saturation bombing by B-52s, hundreds of thousands of troops where there, hundreds of thousands had been killed, and then even after that, when the protests finally did develop in the US and Europe it was mostly focused on a side-issue - the bombing of north Vietnam which was undoubtedly a crime, it was far more intense in the south which was always the US target, and that's continued. It's also, incidentally, recognised by the government. So when any administration comes into office the first thing it does is have a worldwide intelligence assessment - "What's the state of the world?" - provided by the intelligence services. These are secret and you learn about them 30 or 40 years later when they're declassified. When the first Bush administration came in 1989 parts of their intelligence assessment were leaked, and they're very revealing about what happened in the subsequent 10 years about precisely these questions. The parts that were leaked said that it was about military confrontations with much weaker enemies, recognising they were the only kind we were going to be willing to face, or even exist. So in confrontations with much weaker enemies the United States must win "decisively and rapidly" because otherwise popular support will erode, because it's understood to be very thin. Not like the 1960s when the government could fight a long, brutal war for years and years practically destroying a country without any protest. Not now. Now they have to win. They have to terrify the population to feel there's some enormous threat to their existence and carry out a mircaculous, decisive and rapid victory over this enormous foe and march on to the next one. Remember the people now running the show in Washington are mostly recycled Reaganites, essentially reliving the script of the 1980s - that's an apt analogy. And in the 1980s they were imposing domestic programmes which were quite harmful to the general population and which were unpopular. People opposed most of their domestic programmes. And the way they succeeded in ramming it through was by repeatedly keeping the population in a state of panic. So one year it was an airbase in Grenada which the Russians were going to use to bomb the United States. It sounds ludicrous but that was the propaganda lie and it worked. Nicaragua was "two days' marching time from Texas" - a dagger pointed at the heart of Texas, to borrow Hitler's phrase. Again, you'd think the people would collapse with laughter. But they didn't. That was continually brought up to frighten us - Nicargua might conquer us on it's way to conquer the hemisphere. A national emergency was called because of the threat posed to national security by Nicargua. Libyan hitmen were wandering the streets of Washington to assassinate our leader - hispanic narco-terrorists. One thing after another was conjured up to keep the population in a state of constant fear while they carried out their major terrorist wars. Remember, the same people declared a war on terror in 1981 that was going to be the centrepiece of US foreign policy focused primarily on central America, and they carried out a war on terror in central America where they ended up killing about 200,000 people, leaving four countries devastated. Since 1990, when the US took them over again, they've declined still further into deep poverty. Now they're doing the same thing for the same purposes - they are carrying out domestic programmes to which the population is strongly opposed because they're being harmed by them. But the international adventurism, the conjuring up of enemies that are about to destroy us, that's second nature, very familiar. They didn't invent it, others have done the same thing, others have done it in history but they became masters of this art and are now doing it again. I don't want to suggest that they have no reasons for wanting to take over Iraq. Of course they do - long-standing reasons that everyone knows. Controlling Iraq will put the US in a very powerful position to extend it domination of the major energy resources of the world. That's not a small point. But look at the specific timing. It's rather striking that the propaganda drumbeat began in September - what happened in September? Well, it's when the Congressional campaign began and it was certain that the Republicans were not going to win it by allowing social and economic issues to dominate. They would have been smashed. They had to do exactly what they did in the '80s. Replace them by security issues and in the case of a threat to security people tend to rally around the president - a strong figure who'll protect us from horrible dangers. The more likely direction this will take [after a war with Iraq] will be Iran, and possibly Syria. North Korea is a different case. What they are demonstrating to the world with great clarity is that if you want to deter US aggression you better have weapons of mass destruction [WMD], or else a credible threat of terror. There's nothing else that will deter them - they can't be deterred by conventional forces. That's a terrible lesson to teach, but it's exactly what's being taught. For years, experts in the mainstream have been pointing out that the US is causing weapons proliferation by its adventures since others cannot protect themselves except by WMD or the threat of terror. Kenneth Waltz is one who recently pointed this out. But years ago, even before the Bush administration, leading commentators like Samuel Huntington in Foreign Affairs, the main establishment journal, were pointing out that the United States is following a dangerous course. He was talking about the Clinton administration but he pointed out that, for much of the world, the US is now regarded as a rogue state and the leading threat to their existence. In fact one of the striking things about the opposition to the war now, again unprecedented, is how broadly it extends across the political spectrum, so the two major foreign policy journals, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy have just in their recent issues run very critical articles by distinguished mainstream figures opposing the resort to war in this case. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences rarely takes a position on controversial current issues has just published a long monogram on this issue by its committee on international security giving as sympathetic as possible an account of the Bush administration position then simply dismantling it line by line on very narrow grounds - much narrower than I would prefer - but nevertheless successfully. [There is] just a lot of fear and concern about this adventurism, what one analyst called "sillier armchair fantasies". My concern is more "What's it going to do to the people of Iraq" and "What's it going to do to the region?" but these concerns are "What's it going to do to us?" Matthew Tempest: Will the propeganda rebound if democracy is not established in Iraq after "liberation"? NC: You're right to call it propaganda. If this is a war aim, why don't they say so? Why are they lying to the rest of the world? What is the point of having the UN inspectors? According to this propaganda, everything we are saying in public is pure farce - we don't care about the weapons of mass destruction, we don't care about disarmament, we have another goal in mind, which we're not telling you, and that is, all of a sudden, we're going to bring democracy by war. Well, if that's the goal, let's stop lying about it and put an end to the whole farce of inspections and everything else and just say now we're on a crusade to bring democracies to countries that are suffering under miserable leadership. Actually that is a traditional crusade, that's what lies behind the horrors of colonial wars and their modern equivalents, and we have a very long rich record to show just how that worked out. It's not something new in history. In this particular case you can't predict what will happen once a war starts. In the worst case it might be what the intelligence agencies and the aid agencies are predicting - namely an increase in terror as deterence or revenge, and for the people of Iraq, who are barely on the edge of survival, it could be the humanitarian catastrophe of which the aid agencies and the UN have been warning. On the other hand, it's possible it could be what the hawks in Washington hope - a quick victory, no fighting to speak of, impose a new regime, give it a democratic fa�ade, make sure the US has big military bases there, and effectively controls the oil. The chances that they will allow anything approximating real democracy are pretty slight. There's major problems in the way of that - problems that motivated Bush No 1 to oppose the rebellions in 1991 that could have overthrown Saddam Hussein. After all, he could have been overthrown then if the US had not authorised Saddam to crush the rebellions. One major problem is that roughly 60% of the population is Shi'ite. If there's any form of democratic government, they're going to have a say, in fact a majority say, in what the government is. Well they are not pro-Iranian but the chances are that a Shi'ite majority would join the rest of the region in trying to improve relations with Iran and reduce the levels of tension generally in the region by re-integrating Iran within it. There have been moves in that direction among the Arab states and Shi'ite majority in Iraq is likely to do that. That's the last thing the US wants. Iran is its next target. It doesn't want improved relations. Furthermore if the Shi'ite majority gets for the first time a real voice in the government, the Kurdish minority will want something similar. And they will want a realisation of their quite just demands for a degree of autonomy in the northern regions. Well Turkey is not going to tolerate that. Turkey already has thousands of troops in Northern Iraq basically to prevent any such development. If there' s move towards Kirkuk, which they regard as their capital city, Turkey will move to block it, the US will surely back them, just as the United States has strongly supported Turkey in its massive atrocities against the Kurds in the 1990s in the south-eastern regions. What you're going to be left with is either a military dictatorship with some kind of democratic fa�ade, like maybe a parliament that votes while the military runs it behind the scenes - it's not unfamiliar - or else putting power back into the hands of something like the Sunni minority which has been running it in the past. Nobody can predict any of this. What happens when you start a war is unknown. The CIA can't predict it, Rumsfeld can't predict it, nobody can. It could be anywhere over this range. That's why sane people refrain from the use of violence unless there are overwhelming reasons to undertake it - the dangers are simply far too great. However it's striking that neither Bush nor Blair present anything like this as their war aim. Have they gone to the security council and said let's have a resolution for the use of force to bring democracy to Iraq? Of course not. Because they know they'd be laughed at. Bush and his administration were telling the security council back in November very openly and directly that the UN will be "relevant" if it grants us the authority to do what we want, to use force when we want, and if the UN does not grant us that authority it will be irrelevant. It couldn't be clearer. They said we already have the authority to do anything we want, you can come along and endorse that authorisation or else you're irrelevant. There could not have been a more clear and explicit way of informing the world that we don't care what you think, we'll do what we want. That's one of the primary reasons why US leaders' authority collapsing in the World Economic Forum poll. Other countries will presumably go along with the US war - but out of fear |
I like Noam Chomsky and all but I just can't take someone who spoke out FOR the Khmer Rouge all that seriously.
Re: Chomsky On The Anti War Movement
Disappointing. What is his argument?
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sane people refrain from the use of violence unless there are overwhelming reasons to undertake it - the dangers are simply far too great |
I knew that reading this article would bring me closer to the truth. Chomsky is pure genius. I wish this could be published on the cover of all newspapers around the US.... but thats just wishful thinking.
Re: Re: Chomsky On The Anti War Movement
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| Originally posted by Arbiter If we really want to establish a just and free Iraq, it is going to be a 30-50 year process, not setting up a government and waving goodbye. |
in order to achieve political reforms, cultural reforms within the arab world have to take place first or at least simultaneously. That would also reduce the chance of an Islamistic revolution or sabotage by neighbouring arab countries.
as for chomsky: not only is he a crock he can also suck my......shmock.
Got a book by him and immediately went to change it. Attention whores who break so called (self-proclaimed!)tabooes and call Israel an Apartheid State and the USA terrorists, deserve no respect. He, Susan Sontag, this Indian Roy girlie, Finkelstein and the rest of the Ivy League "I'm A jew and bash Israel 'nevertheless' " gang are pathetic idiots.
sorry
You guys just cant handle the analytic truth!
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| Originally posted by Cyrus King You guys just cant handle the analytic truth! |
Well, the Antiwar Movement is gaining strength. My website is getting more hits than ever, a large protest is being organized in my city, and it's even advertised in local publications and on TV. Even more stunning, truly huge protests will be held in New York and San Francisco.
We can argue here all we like, but the simple fact is millions of people world wide oppose this war.
Here are some words from a New York State resident, they help to illustrate my point:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showart...=51&ItemID=2995
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| Anti War We Will March by Brian Dominick; February 07, 2003 Today I called the office of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. I left a short message for him, stating that I will be marching on the streets of his town next Saturday, February 15, in protest of a renewed war on Iraq. I added that I will do so whether a permit is granted for the demonstration or not. I also mentioned that I intend to bring two or three hundred of my neighbors with me on buses fellow organizers and I have chartered. I made it quite clear that, permit or no permit, we will march. As a US invasion force builds in the Middle East, the largest, most diverse movement ever to challenge a war expands in scope and intensity throughout the world. This latest clash between the streets and the elites is at this phase neither cataclysmic nor revolutionary, but it is certainly momentous. The coordinated, global actions of February 15th will almost certainly constitute the largest grassroots mobilization in history. Citing a concern that people's "everyday lives" would be disrupted by a massive demonstration in Manhattan, police and city officials have refused to provide protest organizers a permit to march outside the United Nations headquarters. Somehow the preposterousness of that statement seems to be lost on authorities and most reporters: It is the destruction and cessation of peoples' lives we will be marching to prevent. Disruption of lives the world over is guaranteed by the policies being aggressively pursued by the US government. To oppose the elimination of lives, we will march. Bloomberg's attempt to deflate demonstration sizes by denying a permit is remarkably transparent. It has been tried before, in New York and many other cities throughout the United States. There's a significant likelihood that, as is typical, a permit will be granted at the eleventh hour, once officials are satisfied that a substantial number of would-be demonstrators have cancelled their plans to participate. Ironically, if a permit is not handed down, officials will be partly responsible for transforming what would otherwise be a legally sanctioned expression of dissent, into a truly massive act of civil disobedience. The remainder of that responsibility rests on the shoulders of those of us who can participate. If the state wishes to offer us a choice between silence and civil disobedience, they leave us no choice at all. If we number in the tens of thousands, they will have no capacity to stop us, and any attempt to do so would be massively detrimental to the City's image. We will look around at ourselves, at the sheer mass of protesters, and we will march. We are motivated, at this point, by something no politician can so easily manipulate or stifle. We are repulsed by the anti-democratic process by which our leaders have settled on the course of war. We are disgusted by the disdain their carelessness demonstrates toward the security of the Middle East and the world. We are terrified of what missiles, bombs and bullets will do to the people of a country already tortured by more than a decade of vicious sanctions. These motivations have compelled us to pour out into the streets of countless cities large and small, in unprecedented numbers. And as the buildup of invasion forces in the Middle East continues, a comparable escalation in the size and intensity of antiwar forces is approaching a boiling point throughout the world. Now that the government has revealed its objective is to use crude repression to quell our dissent, those of us who live in the Northeastern US have even more reason to turn out in New York City. Instead of letting them frighten off a movement they have no practical ability to restrict, we will demonstrate their efforts to quiet us can only backfire by inspiring still more action. We will march! Brian is an antiwar organizer in Syracuse, NY. He and other local activists have organized 5 charter buses and numerous carpools to NYC for February 15. For more information on the demonstrations in New York and San Francisco, check out http://unitedforpeace.org. To tell New York City officials you intend to march on New York streets come February 15: NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg: 212-788-9600, 212-788-3010, 212-788-3040 NYC Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly: 646-610-8526 NYPD Chief of Department Joseph Esposito: 646-610-6710 |
Great posts JohnSmith!
I've read a few things from Chomsky and I've even attended one of his public appearences. I usually find the man talking a lot of sense and it seems his critics never can argue against his facts. He is usally more informed in the matter than them. Usually they end up picking on his persona (which is very irrelevant) and making a fool out of themselves. The political editor in our daily newspaper where I live almost popped a blood vessel when he found out Chomsky was coming to Sweden. In his op-ed piece on page 2 he resorted to name calling against Chomsky and accusing his followers of being mindless and fooled into a sect. Needless to say, he made quite a fool out of himself. However, because of the way Chomsky usually writes one can find it easy to argue against his "assumptions" or conclusions from the facts.
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| Originally posted by Dj_Irish Great posts JohnSmith! Usually they end up picking on his persona (which is very irrelevant) and making a fool out of themselves. |
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| Originally posted by TranceGiant as for chomsky: not only is he a crock he can also suck my......shmock |
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| Originally posted by Yoepus To bad his antics read like a thriller novel, and not the real world. |
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| Originally posted by Izzy personally im not a fan chomsky, in fact i think he's a crock |
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| Originally posted by Dj_Irish However, because of the way Chomsky usually writes one can find it easy to argue against his "assumptions" or conclusions from the facts. |
it's simple JonSmith: A person who's already disqualified himself as a serious objective critic wont make me read his long, tiring never-changing bullshit. Trust me that I did try to get "into" his arguments concerning the US and Israel but it's just a mission impossible.
so basically, you don't think he's objective so you won't listen? sorry that's weak. and if it's true, it means i can disbelieve everything that the bush administration, or any US president for that matter has ever said, simply based on them proving to be wrong, or not providing sources for their information, or providing a biased view of the situation.
I do not do that however, i evaulate each statement made on it's own merit.
Why don't you try and dispute some of chomskys information? then i will agree that you have a reason to criticize him.
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| Originally posted by JohnSmith I do not do that however, i evaulate each statement made on it's own merit. Why don't you try and dispute some of chomskys information? then i will agree that you have a reason to criticize him. |
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Matt Welch National Post " ...If there were a patron saint for this kind of rhetorical one-sidedness, it would be Noam Chomsky. Over five decades of campus lectures, anthology introductions and pocket-sized paperback Q&A reactions to world events, the famous linguist has perfected the art of boiling each and every critique down to America's culpability as "a leading terrorist state." When asked in 9-11 to react to the news of foreigners celebrating the Sept. 11 massacre, Chomsky replied: "A U.S.-backed army took control in Indonesia in 1965, organizing the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people, mostly landless peasants...." When asked whether Arab nations "should have taken responsibility to remove terrorists" from their leadership, Chomsky concluded: "It is rather unfair to blame citizens of harsh and brutal regimes that we support for not undertaking this responsibility, when we do not do so under vastly more propitious circumstances." Chomsky is chiefly concerned with condemning the history of U.S. foreign policy, with special emphasis on 1980s Nicaragua, the Soviet-era Afghanistan War, sanctions on Iraq, support for Israel and the 1998 bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan -- which he continues to describe as a much worse crime, comparatively, than Sept. 11. Chomsky, however, is far less sloppy with the facts than the contributors to Beyond the Curtain, unless you count the many facts he chooses to leave out. As a result, it's his conclusions that are suspect, such as this reductive explanation of U.S. involvement in Yugoslavia: "In the early 90s, primarily for cynical power reasons, the U.S. selected Bosnian Muslims as their Balkan clients, hardly to their benefit." What about public outcry over Serb atrocities and the siege of Sarajevo? Or former secretary of state Madeleine Albright's very personal belief that appeasing European dictators is bad strategy? Or eloquent and persuasive pressure from international leaders such as Vaclav Havel? Apparently irrelevant, compared to sliming Washington and spreading conspiracy theories. Chomsky's logical gimmick, which involves taking the loftiest of U.S. rhetoric and comparing it with the grimiest of U.S. history, is seductive as it is paralytic, for those inclined to blame America or seek out subversive explanations for official history. The bombing of Serbia couldn't possibly have been motivated by "humanitarian intervention," he argues, because if humanitarian intervention was a real concern, Washington wouldn't have looked the other way while Indonesia massacred the East Timorese. This rhetorical cul-de-sac gains a conspiratorial edge (as it must, to explain away that vast majority of international thinkers who find his theories bunk), by liberal use of the phrase "of course," sprinkled with sarcastic comments about how "the doors are better left closed" on certain topics. But there is a lie in Chomsky's premise. Again and again, he presents his concerns as being rooted in humanism, yet more often than not, his rancid ideology produces analysis that sounds alarmingly inhumane. As in this horrifying exchange, which begins with a feeble stab at hope by one of Chomsky's softball interviewers: "Q: If the Taliban regime falls and bin Laden or someone they claim is responsible is captured or killed, what next? What happens to Afghanistan? What happens more broadly in other regions?" "A: The sensible administration plan would be to pursue the ongoing program of silent genocide, combined with humanitarian gestures to arouse the applause of the usual chorus who are called upon to sing the praises of the noble leaders who are dedicated to 'principles and values' for the first time in history and are leading the world to a 'new era' of idealism and commitment to 'ending inhumanity' everywhere." Ultimately, the questions Chomsky never asks are the ones most damning for him and his followers, who number in the hundreds of thousands: Why is the world a much better place than it was 13 years ago? Why have more than 100 countries ended single-party or military rule? The Chomskyites can rarely bring themselves to admit that the United States has been, in tangible ways, an agent for actual good in the world (though Chomsky's recent acknowledgement, on CNN, that the United States is "the greatest country in the world" was a surprising departure). This stance, coupled with the one-sided drumbeat of criticism, has created a distorting, if attractive, dogma of its own. For years, this ideological subculture thrived in the academic shadows, far from the glare of public attention, comfortable in its grievances about being ignored. After Sept. 11, this cushy arrangement came to a crashing end. When Islamo-fascists mouth Berkeley slogans while waving around severed American heads, an engaged citizenry is now bound to take note. "It is important," Chomsky concludes in 9-11,"not to be intimidated by hysterical ranting and lies and to keep as closely as one can to the course of truth and honesty and concern for the human consequences of what one does, or fails to do." Unluckily for Noam Chomsky's false world, people are finally taking his advice to heart." CHOMSKY FALLS FLAT BY CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON islamabad -- american dissi-dent professor Noam Chomsky has a cult following in Pakistan among the political and academic establishment whose American counterparts shun him, and he's often quoted here in the kind of respected newspapers that ignore him in his homeland. Dawn, this country's largest English-language daily, sponsored Chomsky's gala speaking tour of Lahore and Islamabad this week with the kind of fanfare usually reserved for pop stars. The paper pictured the Cold War warrior and MIT prof on the front page Tuesday, November 27, affording him more play than the meeting of Pakistani president General Pervez Musharraf and Japanese foreign minister Makiko Tanaka. The gala Chomsky affair a day earlier was as close as this conservative Muslim capital gets to a rock concert. People in traditional shalwar kameez dress lined up outside a glittering convention centre, a cross between a concert hall, parliament and an Islamic shrine. No tickets were available for the invitation-only event, a privilege of the elite of this military-run nation. "We have been waiting for a long time for this," says Mehr Shah, daughter of a retired colonel. "We don't often get visiting professors here." Indeed. The audience of about 1,500, including cabinet ministers, professors, colonels, journalists, students and nuclear scientists, took this afternoon off -- during the height of the Afghan crisis, no less -- to hear Chomsky pontificate on the news of the day. Pakistani cricket-legend-turned-politician Imran Khan was also in attendance. Organizers, seemingly lacking a sound technician, fumbled to correct the annoying acoustics. When they could finally hear him, many a wrinkled nose and raised eyebrow were evident. They were baffled, no doubt, by Chomsky's ramblings into irrelevant tangents and hasty conclusions based on thin evidence, dubious statistics and official statements taken out of context. Instead of leading opinion about contemporary issues, Chomsky dusted off his tired 80s commentaries about the Cold War arms race and American bullying of Nicaragua. At a time of unprecedented urgency, his academic abstractions had the intelligentsia yawning. He spoke more about Reagan and Schulz than about Bush and Powell, more about the U.S. Civil War and the history of massacres of indigenous peoples in America and Mexico than about the carnage next door in Afghanistan. Asked whether the world was giving Pakistan strongman President Musharraf a blank cheque, Chomsky rambled for 10 minutes about the crimes of U.S.-backed former Indonesian dictator Suharto. On how to solve the India-Pakistan conflict, which threatens to evolve into nuclear confrontation over Kashmir, Chomsky shocked the audience by suggesting the two countries form one state, which is as likely as Iran joining Iraq. Later, Chomsky admitted what many in attendance had gathered -- that he had only been studying the politics of the region for the last month. "He doesn't seem to know about our history," said disappointed lecture-goer Shahrazad Shah. Chomsky completely overlooked gender issues, which have been a hot topic on campuses here since the Taliban imposed traditional Pashtun village culture on urbanites and other ethnic groups. He also shed no light on how to bridge the gap between rich and poor. He stayed on the vague side when asked if the military could restore democracy here. In a country where hundreds of Islamic extremists have been jailed in recent weeks for protesting the killing of Muslims by American infidels, where mothers are mourning the massacre of hundreds of Pakistanis who crossed the border to fight in Afghanistan, where students idolize the soft-spoken preachings of Osama bin Laden, Chomsky said there was no clash of religions. Not long after, a disappointed crowd filed out to break their Ramadan fast and sink deeper into introspection. The slow-moving processes of academia seemed left behind in a world where news is breaking by the hour. |
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| Originally posted by occrider I am by no means well-versed on chomsky at all ... so I'm not going to try to dispute him directly. Given the time to write a good research paper however, it seems that I could argue many of his claims. I'm just trying to make a point that you can't really trust everything that you read or find on the internet (Even these articles that I posted ... I don't really trust anything that doesn't come from a major news source, and that includes chomsky). |
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| Originally posted by Dj_Irish I wouldn't put much faith in the major news sources either actually. Most of them are run by economical interests, often as private owned companies, which means that by the end of the day they must make a profit. This can (not always) result in news that's not deemed "selling" enough to be omitted and that a cheaper news item is preferred before an big expensive investigating journalistic one. This could lead to less scrutinizing regarding the various news item which in turn could lead to less quality and sometimes even factual errors. Then we have news sources run as a public service (BBC etc). They might not feel the same economic constraints as a private one but they can on the other hand be a bit too controlled by the owning government. That's why I try to get news from various different places, big or small, so I can try to get a better picture of this jig-zaw puzzle we call reality. |
Very well-reasoned article. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Noam Chomsky and his views, it has to be respected that the man looks at issues, takes a stance, and argues for it up in a calm and straightforward manner. In my opinion, he hits the nail on the head in the second paragraph:
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| Now there's no objective reason why the US should be more frightened of Saddam than say the Kuwaitis, but there is a reason - namely that since September there's been a drumbeat of propaganda trying to bludgeon people into the belief that not only is Saddam a terrible person but in fact he's going to come after us tomorrow unless we stop him today. And that reaches people. So if you want to understand the actual opposition to the war in the US you have to extract that factor. The factor of completely irrational fear created by massive propaganda, and if you did I think you'd find it's much like everywhere else. |
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| as for chomsky: not only is he a crock he can also suck my......shmock. Got a book by him and immediately went to change it. Attention whores who break so called (self-proclaimed!)tabooes and call Israel an Apartheid State and the USA terrorists, deserve no respect. He, Susan Sontag, this Indian Roy girlie, Finkelstein and the rest of the Ivy League "I'm A jew and bash Israel 'nevertheless' " gang are pathetic idiots. |
Reminder, Noam Chomsky spoke up FOR the Khmer Rouge.
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