The Most Wanted List: International Terrorism
On February 13, Imad Moughniyeh, a senior commander of Hizbollah, was assassinated in Damascus. “The world is a better place without this man in it,” State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said: “one way or the other he was brought to justice.” Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell added that Moughniyeh has been “responsible for more deaths of Americans and Israelis than any other terrorist with the exception of Osama bin Laden.”
Joy was unconstrained in Israel too, as “one of the U.S. and Israel’s most wanted men” was brought to justice, the London Financial Times reported. Under the heading, “A militant wanted the world over,” an accompanying story reported that he was “superseded on the most-wanted list by Osama bin Laden” after 9/11 and so ranked only second among “the most wanted militants in the world.”
The terminology is accurate enough, according to the rules of Anglo-American discourse, which defines “the world” as the political class in Washington and London (and whoever happens to agree with them on specific matters). It is common, for example, to read that “the world” fully supported George Bush when he ordered the bombing of Afghanistan. That may be true of “the world,” but hardly of the world, as revealed in an international Gallup Poll after the bombing was announced. Global support was slight. In Latin America, which has some experience with U.S. behavior, support ranged from 2% in Mexico to 16% in Panama, and that support was conditional upon the culprits being identified (they still weren’t eight months later, the FBI reported), and civilian targets being spared (they were attacked at once). There was an overwhelming preference in the world for diplomatic/judicial measures, rejected out of hand by “the world.”
Following the Terror Trail
In the present case, if “the world” were extended to the world, we might find some other candidates for the honor of most hated arch-criminal. It is instructive to ask why this might be true.
The Financial Times reports that most of the charges against Moughniyeh are unsubstantiated, but “one of the very few times when his involvement can be ascertained with certainty [is in] the hijacking of a TWA plane in 1985 in which a U.S. Navy diver was killed.” This was one of two terrorist atrocities that led a poll of newspaper editors to select terrorism in the Middle East as the top story of 1985; the other was the hijacking of the passenger liner Achille Lauro, in which a crippled American, Leon Klinghoffer, was brutally murdered. That reflects the judgment of “the world.” It may be that the world saw matters somewhat differently.
The Achille Lauro hijacking was a retaliation for the bombing of Tunis ordered a week earlier by Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. His air force killed 75 Tunisians and Palestinians with smart bombs that tore them to shreds, among other atrocities, as vividly reported from the scene by the prominent Israeli journalist Amnon Kapeliouk. Washington cooperated by failing to warn its ally Tunisia that the bombers were on the way, though the Sixth Fleet and U.S. intelligence could not have been unaware of the impending attack. Secretary of State George Shultz informed Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir that Washington “had considerable sympathy for the Israeli action,” which he termed “a legitimate response” to “terrorist attacks,” to general approbation. A few days later, the UN Security Council unanimously denounced the bombing as an “act of armed aggression” (with the U.S. abstaining). “Aggression” is, of course, a far more serious crime than international terrorism. But giving the United States and Israel the benefit of the doubt, let us keep to the lesser charge against their leadership.
A few days after, Peres went to Washington to consult with the leading international terrorist of the day, Ronald Reagan, who denounced “the evil scourge of terrorism,” again with general acclaim by “the world.”
The “terrorist attacks” that Shultz and Peres offered as the pretext for the bombing of Tunis were the killings of three Israelis in Larnaca, Cyprus. The killers, as Israel conceded, had nothing to do with Tunis, though they might have had Syrian connections. Tunis was a preferable target, however. It was defenseless, unlike Damascus. And there was an extra pleasure: more exiled Palestinians could be killed there.
The Larnaca killings, in turn, were regarded as retaliation by the perpetrators: They were a response to regular Israeli hijackings in international waters in which many victims were killed — and many more kidnapped and sent to prisons in Israel, commonly to be held without charge for long periods. The most notorious of these has been the secret prison/torture chamber Facility 1391. A good deal can be learned about it from the Israeli and foreign press. Such regular Israeli crimes are, of course, known to editors of the national press in the U.S., and occasionally receive some casual mention.
Klinghoffer’s murder was properly viewed with horror, and is very famous. It was the topic of an acclaimed opera and a made-for-TV movie, as well as much shocked commentary deploring the savagery of Palestinians — “two-headed beasts” (Prime Minister Menachem Begin), “drugged roaches scurrying around in a bottle” (Chief of Staff Raful Eitan), “like grasshoppers compared to us,” whose heads should be “smashed against the boulders and walls” (Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir). Or more commonly just “Araboushim,” the slang counterpart of “kike” or “nigger.”
Thus, after a particularly depraved display of settler-military terror and purposeful humiliation in the West Bank town of Halhul in December 1982, which disgusted even Israeli hawks, the well-known military/political analyst Yoram Peri wrote in dismay that one “task of the army today [is] to demolish the rights of innocent people just because they are Araboushim living in territories that God promised to us,” a task that became far more urgent, and was carried out with far more brutality, when the Araboushim began to “raise their heads” a few years later.
We can easily assess the sincerity of the sentiments expressed about the Klinghoffer murder. It is only necessary to investigate the reaction to comparable U.S.-backed Israeli crimes. Take, for example, the murder in April 2002 of two crippled Palestinians, Kemal Zughayer and Jamal Rashid, by Israeli forces rampaging through the refugee camp of Jenin in the West Bank. Zughayer’s crushed body and the remains of his wheelchair were found by British reporters, along with the remains of the white flag he was holding when he was shot dead while seeking to flee the Israeli tanks which then drove over him, ripping his face in two and severing his arms and legs. Jamal Rashid was crushed in his wheelchair when one of Israel’s huge U.S.-supplied Caterpillar bulldozers demolished his home in Jenin with his family inside. The differential reaction, or rather non-reaction, has become so routine and so easy to explain that no further commentary is necessary.
Car Bomb
Plainly, the 1985 Tunis bombing was a vastly more severe terrorist crime than the Achille Lauro hijacking, or the crime for which Moughniyeh’s “involvement can be ascertained with certainty” in the same year. But even the Tunis bombing had competitors for the prize for worst terrorist atrocity in the Mideast in the peak year of 1985.
One challenger was a car-bombing in Beirut right outside a mosque, timed to go off as worshippers were leaving Friday prayers. It killed 80 people and wounded 256. Most of the dead were girls and women, who had been leaving the mosque, though the ferocity of the blast “burned babies in their beds,” “killed a bride buying her trousseau,” and “blew away three children as they walked home from the mosque.” It also “devastated the main street of the densely populated” West Beirut suburb, reported Nora Boustany three years later in the Washington Post.
The intended target had been the Shi’ite cleric Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, who escaped. The bombing was carried out by Reagan’s CIA and his Saudi allies, with Britain’s help, and was specifically authorized by CIA Director William Casey, according to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward’s account in his book Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987. Little is known beyond the bare facts, thanks to rigorous adherence to the doctrine that we do not investigate our own crimes (unless they become too prominent to suppress, and the inquiry can be limited to some low-level “bad apples” who were naturally “out of control”).
“Terrorist Villagers”
A third competitor for the 1985 Mideast terrorism prize was Prime Minister Peres’ “Iron Fist” operations in southern Lebanese territories then occupied by Israel in violation of Security Council orders. The targets were what the Israeli high command called “terrorist villagers.” Peres’s crimes in this case sank to new depths of “calculated brutality and arbitrary murder” in the words of a Western diplomat familiar with the area, an assessment amply supported by direct coverage. They are, however, of no interest to “the world” and therefore remain uninvestigated, in accordance with the usual conventions. We might well ask whether these crimes fall under international terrorism or the far more severe crime of aggression, but let us again give the benefit of the doubt to Israel and its backers in Washington and keep to the lesser charge.
These are a few of the thoughts that might cross the minds of people elsewhere in the world, even if not those of “the world,” when considering “one of the very few times” Imad Moughniyeh was clearly implicated in a terrorist crime.
The U.S. also accuses him of responsibility for devastating double suicide truck-bomb attacks on U.S. Marine and French paratrooper barracks in Lebanon in 1983, killing 241 Marines and 58 paratroopers, as well as a prior attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63, a particularly serious blow because of a meeting there of CIA officials at the time.
The Financial Times has, however, attributed the attack on the Marine barracks to Islamic Jihad, not Hizbollah. Fawaz Gerges, one of the leading scholars on the jihadi movements and on Lebanon, has written that responsibility was taken by an “unknown group called Islamic Jihad.” A voice speaking in classical Arabic called for all Americans to leave Lebanon or face death. It has been claimed that Moughniyeh was the head of Islamic Jihad at the time, but to my knowledge, evidence is sparse.
The opinion of the world has not been sampled on the subject, but it is possible that there might be some hesitancy about calling an attack on a military base in a foreign country a “terrorist attack,” particularly when U.S. and French forces were carrying out heavy naval bombardments and air strikes in Lebanon, and shortly after the U.S. provided decisive support for the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which killed some 20,000 people and devastated the south, while leaving much of Beirut in ruins. It was finally called off by President Reagan when international protest became too intense to ignore after the Sabra-Shatila massacres.
In the United States, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon is regularly described as a reaction to Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) terrorist attacks on northern Israel from their Lebanese bases, making our crucial contribution to these major war crimes understandable. In the real world, the Lebanese border area had been quiet for a year, apart from repeated Israeli attacks, many of them murderous, in an effort to elicit some PLO response that could be used as a pretext for the already planned invasion. Its actual purpose was not concealed at the time by Israeli commentators and leaders: to safeguard the Israeli takeover of the occupied West Bank. It is of some interest that the sole serious error in Jimmy Carter’s book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid is the repetition of this propaganda concoction about PLO attacks from Lebanon being the motive for the Israeli invasion. The book was bitterly attacked, and desperate efforts were made to find some phrase that could be misinterpreted, but this glaring error — the only one — was ignored. Reasonably, since it satisfies the criterion of adhering to useful doctrinal fabrications.
Killing without Intent
Another allegation is that Moughniyeh “masterminded” the bombing of Israel’s embassy in Buenos Aires on March 17, 1992, killing 29 people, in response, as the Financial Times put it, to Israel’s “assassination of former Hizbollah leader Abbas Al-Mussawi in an air attack in southern Lebanon.” About the assassination, there is no need for evidence: Israel proudly took credit for it. The world might have some interest in the rest of the story. Al-Mussawi was murdered with a U.S.-supplied helicopter, well north of Israel’s illegal “security zone” in southern Lebanon. He was on his way to Sidon from the village of Jibshit, where he had spoken at the memorial for another Imam murdered by Israeli forces. The helicopter attack also killed his wife and five-year old child. Israel then employed U.S.-supplied helicopters to attack a car bringing survivors of the first attack to a hospital.
After the murder of the family, Hezbollah “changed the rules of the game,” Prime Minister Rabin informed the Israeli Knesset. Previously, no rockets had been launched at Israel. Until then, the rules of the game had been that Israel could launch murderous attacks anywhere in Lebanon at will, and Hizbollah would respond only within Israeli-occupied Lebanese territory.
After the murder of its leader (and his family), Hizbollah began to respond to Israeli crimes in Lebanon by rocketing northern Israel. The latter is, of course, intolerable terror, so Rabin launched an invasion that drove some 500,000 people out of their homes and killed well over 100. The merciless Israeli attacks reached as far as northern Lebanon.
In the south, 80% of the city of Tyre fled and Nabatiye was left a “ghost town,” Jibshit was about 70% destroyed according to an Israeli army spokesperson, who explained that the intent was “to destroy the village completely because of its importance to the Shi’ite population of southern Lebanon.” The goal was “to wipe the villages from the face of the earth and sow destruction around them,” as a senior officer of the Israeli northern command described the operation.
Jibshit may have been a particular target because it was the home of Sheikh Abdul Karim Obeid, kidnapped and brought to Israel several years earlier. Obeid’s home “received a direct hit from a missile,” British journalist Robert Fisk reported, “although the Israelis were presumably gunning for his wife and three children.” Those who had not escaped hid in terror, wrote Mark Nicholson in the Financial Times, “because any visible movement inside or outside their houses is likely to attract the attention of Israeli artillery spotters, who… were pounding their shells repeatedly and devastatingly into selected targets.” Artillery shells were hitting some villages at a rate of more than 10 rounds a minute at times.
All of this received the firm support of President Bill Clinton, who understood the need to instruct the Araboushim sternly on the “rules of the game.” And Rabin emerged as another grand hero and man of peace, so different from the two-legged beasts, grasshoppers, and drugged roaches.
This is only a small sample of facts that the world might find of interest in connection with the alleged responsibility of Moughniyeh for the retaliatory terrorist act in Buenos Aires.
Other charges are that Moughniyeh helped prepare Hizbollah defenses against the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, evidently an intolerable terrorist crime by the standards of “the world,” which understands that the United States and its clients must face no impediments in their just terror and aggression.
The more vulgar apologists for U.S. and Israeli crimes solemnly explain that, while Arabs purposely kill people, the U.S. and Israel, being democratic societies, do not intend to do so. Their killings are just accidental ones, hence not at the level of moral depravity of their adversaries. That was, for example, the stand of Israel’s High Court when it recently authorized severe collective punishment of the people of Gaza by depriving them of electricity (hence water, sewage disposal, and other such basics of civilized life).
The same line of defense is common with regard to some of Washington’s past peccadilloes, like the destruction in 1998 of the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. The attack apparently led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people, but without intent to kill them, hence not a crime on the order of intentional killing — so we are instructed by moralists who consistently suppress the response that had already been given to these vulgar efforts at self-justification.
To repeat once again, we can distinguish three categories of crimes: murder with intent, accidental killing, and murder with foreknowledge but without specific intent. Israeli and U.S. atrocities typically fall into the third category. Thus, when Israel destroys Gaza’s power supply or sets up barriers to travel in the West Bank, it does not specifically intend to murder the particular people who will die from polluted water or in ambulances that cannot reach hospitals. And when Bill Clinton ordered the bombing of the al-Shifa plant, it was obvious that it would lead to a humanitarian catastrophe. Human Rights Watch immediately informed him of this, providing details; nevertheless, he and his advisers did not intend to kill specific people among those who would inevitably die when half the pharmaceutical supplies were destroyed in a poor African country that could not replenish them.
Rather, they and their apologists regarded Africans much as we do the ants we crush while walking down a street. We are aware that it is likely to happen (if we bother to think about it), but we do not intend to kill them because they are not worthy of such consideration. Needless to say, comparable attacks by Araboushim in areas inhabited by human beings would be regarded rather differently.
If, for a moment, we can adopt the perspective of the world, we might ask which criminals are “wanted the world over.”
Noam Chomsky is the author of numerous best-selling political works. His latest books are Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy and What We Say Goes, a conversation book with David Barsamian, both in the American Empire Project series at Metropolitan Books. The Essential Chomsky (edited by Anthony Arnove), a collection of his writings on politics and on language from the 1950s to the present, has just been published by the New Press.
Copyright 2008 Noam Chomsky
Generally in criminal statutes, an act committed by a perpetrator with knowledge that a person would likely be killed is punished similarly to an act committed with the intention to kill. In Texas, under Penal Code Section 19.02, the offense of murder is committed if the individual “intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual”.
How come such a distinction (between “knowingly” and “intentionally”) is not considered so important for individuals but is deemed critical when judging nation-states and “terrorist” groups?
By mentioning Clinton in a negative context Chomsky proves he is employed by the Republicans.
Once again, for the ten-thousanth time Chomsky, in his 80th year, with impeccable analysis, calls the emperor buck-naked.
But to what effect? No one will hear him. His words are absolutely banned from the US media - outside of tiny struggling dissident magazines like Z-magazine and a few, preach-to-the-choir blogs.
Do you think Obama or Hillary have ever heard of him?
And barely human, I like your humor, but I doubt the likes of Daniel David have heard of Chomsky either.
By demonstrating sheer paranoia and idiocy, barely human proves he is just that.
Let’s parse the point made by “barely human.” He/she’s doing the same thing folks are now doing to Ralph Nader: implying we must accept the Dems uncritically, because the Repubs are demonstrably worse. Well, that’s the logic, indeed the connivance that has brought us perpetual war and murderous “humanitarian” intervention, the latter being just one small part of the disastrous Clinton legacy.
By mentioning [Chomsky] in a negative context [barely human]
proves s/he is employed by the [right-wing].
i wonder if “barely human” would agree when the faulty logic is turned on him/her?
barely human,
Ms. clinton is part of the problem, She is one of the power elite. If Mr. Obama is not a member now, he soon will be.
The USA is infallable , just like the Pope. Only terrorists do despicable acts. If anyone commits an act of terrorism in support of the USA , they are to be commended. It is not terror. For the USA to do anything wrong, it is absolutely unthinkable, just talk to the ordinary citizen. The ordinary American citizen is oblivious to world events, history, geography, science, literature, etc.
barely human,
Ms. clinton is part of the problem, She is one of the power elite. If Mr. Obama is not a member now, he soon will be.
The USA is infallable , just like the Pope. Only terrorists do despicable acts. If anyone commits an act of terrorism in support of the USA , they are to be commended. It is not terror. For the USA to do anything wrong, it is absolutely unthinkable, just talk to the ordinary citizen. The ordinary American citizen is oblivious to world events, history, geography, science, literature, etc. “never try to teach apig to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the pig”
Yawn…Robot Chomsky is doing his imitation of Spock on the Starship Enterprise. He is logical, informed, correct, and totally boorinnnnng!
Oh Noam, I fear you need to join the scarecrow, lion, and tin man on their way with Dorothy to see the Wizard of Oz. When you arrive there you should ask for some emotion and a personality!
Zzzzz. . .Poet is trying his best to be clever and coming up short.
And, with regard to the responses to barely human, a few CD readers need to go to the Wizard of Oz to ask for a funny (specifically, recognize sarcasm) bone…
And Poet, Chomsky has himself noted that he is a boring speaker (and writer). Increasingly, he also sounds tired - weighted down with 80 years of observing profound, blood-soaked hypocracy. But to those who hear him speak or read his books for the first time the blunt truth he exposes make his dry sarcastic wit hardly noticable. In spite of the media blackout on mentioning his name, he can still fill sports arenas on every campus he visits.
the USA and Israel are the two-headed beast slouching towards Jerusalem.
but, thanks to a propoganda effort that wo=uld make Hitler proud, most Americans and Israelis beleive they are the good guys…just like most Nazis beleived THEY were.
Native Americans who resisted Euro-American imperialism were labeled as “savages”.
Any oppressed person on earth resisting modern American imperialism is now a “terrorist”.
And note, the film “Redacted” is now out on DVD and in rental stores.
This Brian De Palma docu-drama is based on true events in Samarra when American troops raped a 15 years old Iraqi girl, killed most of her family, burned her body after killing her and made every attempt to cover up the war crimes. It is a good depiction of the ignorant Nazi mentality of our troops as an occupying force for corporate Big Oil in the endless “War On Terror”.
Do Not Support The Troops !
In watching CSPAN and lately NPR (with its week long interview of “conservative thinkers” like Glenn Beck and Grover Norquist on Morning Edition I was remembering that Noam Chomsky cannot get air time on any mainstream media programs. Right wingers like Beck (his credentials are what?)and all the Heritage Foundation and CPAC shindigs are covered by our “Public Media” with great seriousness. Chomsky did make it once on Brian Lamb’s program (Booknotes I think)a number of years ago. You could have knocked me over with a feather!! However, once was enough I guess. Do remember that NPR and Public TV have been bullied, threatened and undermined pretty much from their inception, but especially since the advent of the Gingrich Congress and have been receiving corporate underwriting forever. Be grateful that we still have Chomsky’s voice and others engaged in critical thought and (real) journalism while they last.
Barely human,
You need to get out more — obviously, you have no clue about the Clinton’s (both) real history — they have both sold their souls to the right wing corporatocracy a long time ago.
Noam Chomsky - our main man.
Chomsky has a unique ability to always see events from the perspective of equal rights, and pointing to how lopsided the State(s) of international affairs USually are. He hears the roaring silence that’s deafening most of US to the atrocities we’re complicit in. He listens intently to the sound of that silence, and mentions it plainly. And has been doing so for 50 years now. Few else reaches Chomsky’s clear-mindedness on this scourge of militarism mangling our world.
We’ve met the international Terrorists and they’re US.
—
Watch a lot of good Chomsky Lectures, Readings, Q&As etc, at:
http://www.brightcove.tv/channel.jsp?channel=219646953&lineup=276024253&firstVideo=0
After WW2 most Germans pleaded ignorance about the camps. I think part of the reason Americans don’t educate themselves about the world is they are happy to benefit from the appalling things their country does but need to prepare an ignorance defence in advance.
If boring means you don’t want people to make you use your brains, as Noam Chomsky is obviously trying to do, then the man is very boring, but we need people like him and lots of them, because most of us don’t know anything about history and are therefore not able to see what’s really going on in this world. Politicians and the media like to explain what’s happening, but don’t want to go into specifics, like history and what makes those ‘terrorists’ tick. If they did that, we might start seeing things from another perspective.
We need Chomskies in places like the White House and class-rooms too, we might be able to get out of the mess we’re stuck in.
Thank you Noam for proving how right most of the CDERS - not all by a long shot! - are in proving in their own ways their total opposition to the establishment and disapproval of ‘the world’ and trying to align themselves with the rest of the world.
thank you professer chomsky for placing ‘terrorist’ actions in context. for those interested in additional atrocities being committed daily, visit
http://www.electronicintifada.net/.
we need an international justice system that’s ‘objective’ (relative to rich and poor peoples) and capable of administrating justice upon those responsible for committing acts of political violence and subsequent military aggression. a great first step would be US participation in the international court in the hague. US particpation with the understanding that US citizens could be held accountable in the ICC.
it also would be nice if zionists in america would recognize that their military support of israel (and our sheepish willingness to finance their support) is causing such suffering. it’s mind boggling that american/israeli atrocities are viewed as a moral truth, a falsehood placed out of context by so many americans. money and influence (aipac,the media) trumping our deeper truths (murder/preventable death bad) - thou shall not kill……..Thank you prof chomsky for reminding us of b clinton’s reckless bombing of the pharmaceutical plant in al-Shifa sudan.
Eric Barth February 27th, 2008 3:24 pm
your observations about n chomsky’s voice being excluded from the mainstream discussion are right on.
….peace……………………
O boy, another opportunity to post my favorite quote:
“All the bombs are in the hands of terrorists!!!”
Barely Human says: “By mentioning Clinton in a negative context Chomsky proves he is employed by the Republicans.”
Well, you’re at least right with your moniker “Barely Human”, for you are a filthy troll. How could you possibly say that one of our country’s most gifted and prolific progressive scholars is employed by Republicans? Just because his wife is running for Prez doesn’t mean we can’t talk about his history of human rights abuse. Some Democrats like to whitewash Bill’s record in the White House, but if we do this we can’t possibly hold others accountable for similar atrocities. There is no excuse for anyone who considers themselves a progressive to defame Noam Chomsky in such an ignorant manner. If you want to ignore logic and fact in order to protect your man (or woman, as it seems), go join the other side.
I seemed to miss Poet’s insightless post earlier. Chomsky is boring? Yes, these dates and facts and use of logic are just (yawn) boring. Does he need to add a little sex and violence, maybe a dash of Britney or some other pop-culture trash in order to make his excellent points interesting to you? Where’s your personality smart guy? Go write a poem you intellectually lazy son of a b#%^&!
Chomsky’s intent in his public analysis is not to entertain. It is not to persuade. It is not to keep us awake. It is to participate in an informed dialogue where, through time, people can come to a greater understanding of the issues. That takes hard work. He does that. So do many other progressives. He once said that if knew how to persuade others through charisma he wouldn’t do it. He wants others to think for themselves, not adore him or take his word for anything. I think his role as a true educator (educe: to draw out) is truly progressive.
Dear, mahaffey, NancyH, tbenner, truthaddict, jbspula, Peace Czar,
Jeeesus! You people are dense!
I repeat….
Can’t any of you recognize that barely human’s remark was sarcasm???
He was making fun of the popular media asigning Bill Clinton a position on the left end of permissible discourse (per Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent”, so among typical Daniel-David type Democrats, criticising Clinton must mean one is a Republican.
OK?
P.S. Read The Chomsky Effect by Barsky. It is a fabulous study of Chomsky and it makes my above point with many facts.
The Chomsky Effect: a radical works beyond the ivory tower
Barsky, Robert F.
How odd that truth bores people.
Human rights for all people, regardless of color or religion, or gender or ethnicity is the only hope for humanity. How is that boring?
Hating people with tempers flaring may be exciting but it is counterproductive.
Peaceful protests and nonviolent resistence for 40 years sounds boring, but it alone allowed a skinny, bald-headed Gandhi with no teeth to inspire the faith of his people enough to eventually defeat the world’s most powerful empire (at the time).
Could such faithful resistence find its genesis right here online? What’s in your heart?
It sounds boring when I analyze it myself, “Truth will set you free and only love can conquer hate.” But it is true. I feel these in my bones. Love your enemies; ultimately they are our brothers and sisters.
Violence, intolerance, hatred, bigotry, and plain old meaness sell comercial time, don’t they? If you want excitement, go watch Jerry Springer.
Why do I get the distinct impression Chomsky heard the bell and is dropping the gloves for a bare-knuckle Round 15 with Dershowitz.
The sad thing is he has already bludgeoned Dershowitz to a quivering pulp. Further poundings become somewhat grotesque and unsporting.
Ahh, on second thought, it’s too much fun to watch. I can’t wait to see the 100% ad hominem response from Dershowitz and the ensuing verbal barbs on both sides.
It’s a damn thing having the truth on your side.
wiredwilly,
Make you post a petition and I will be your first signer! Some of you others, watch your language. Chomsky is an honored linguist.
i thought these threads were related to n chomsky’s comments above concerning perception of US/Israeli atrocities and perception of palestinian/islamic acts of violence. why the egocentric discussions about postings? chomsky’s voice has been excluded, drawing observations that the inclusion of his voice in ‘mainstream’ venues (meet the pres, 60 minutes, npr all thing considered, as a ‘political’ analysits w/ legitimate observations on any mainstream news programs (including jim lehrers program). n chomsky is internationally recognized as one of the foremost critiques of us media and american f policy and it’s geopolitical implications. why ridicule those who admire him? why not redirect the discussion to how us policy could change or how we as activists can redirect public discourse…
again documentation of ongoing us/israeli atrocities against palestinians can be found at
http://www.electronicintifada.net/.
peace……………………………
iowablackbird, I agree. Why is it that when articles by people like Nader or Chomsky appear here, 90% of the posts consist of personality bashing or defense, while the articles contends are barely mentioned, or discussed.
USan notes:
And Poet, Chomsky has himself noted that he is a boring speaker (and writer). Increasingly, he also sounds tired - weighted down with 80 years of observing profound, blood-soaked hypocracy. But to those who hear him speak or read his books for the first time the blunt truth he exposes make his dry sarcastic wit hardly noticable. In spite of the media blackout on mentioning his name, he can still fill sports arenas on every campus he visits.
*********************
I have both read and heard Chomsky for many years. I agree with your estimation about his being tired. A previous nemesis, William F. Buckley Jr. (former CIA and founder of National Review Magazine) just recently died at 82. This brings to mind just how close Noam may be to a similar demise.
Democracy Now had an extended excerpt of a speech given in Massachusetts earlier this week and to see and listen to Noam was both painful and instructive. He and Buckley (despite being antipodal opposites in their analyses) were really two birds of the same feather–elaboratly wordy intellects whose greatest contentment was (”is” in the case of Noam) in their own loquaciousness.
At least Noam doesn’t talk like a condescending snob like Buckley did.
Poet,
I don’t think you are correct. I don’t think Chomsky revels in the sound of his own voice or basks in the glow of adulation.
I just think he’s an angry old man. He gets upset at the injustices and contradictions, and decides to use his skills to do something about it by bringing as many people as possible into some historical understanding of US foreign policy. I’ve even heard interviews where he admits as much. He is upset, and uses it as fuel to continue on, like many activists.
As people try to ask him questions after lectures or speeches, you can see his fristration. He does not have infinite patience with other people who don’t get it. And the group of people who don’t exactly get it is everyone but him — because his memory of detail is frightening and his mental facility is on the order of Isaac Newton.
People don’t discuss all the facts in his articles because they have no basis for confirming or refuting them. The process would be incredibly laborious. Even people who are supposed to be experts in the field, in various areas of the world, get eaten up by Chomsky.
I remember Buckley trying to beat Chomsky in a discussion about Latin America in the 60s. This is Buckley’s turf, where he worked for the CIA. He got killed by Noam and caught in lies and resorted to the same ad hominem tactics Dershowitz is reduced to in dealing with him.
Terrorism is terrorism is terrorism. It makes no difference from which side of the fence the stones are thrown. To not recognize the thousand year old hate filled rascism and ideology of either side is ignorance and folly.
What we need is a call to peace, a true peace, and not the kind where once there is peace the imperialists OR globalists come in to rape your land and culture. A peace that respects the right of ALL people to exist and live in peace and freedom, without attempting to assimilate others into your particular brand of hatred and superiority, or your obsession with conquest and acquisition.
To a globalist, imperialist, or elitist, the struggle against tyranny and fascism of ANY kind is the anomally in the matrix.
Peace is not merely the absence of conflict,…it is the victory over the struggle within, and the responsibility of every human being.
J Conrad,
Hi there.
Saying “Do not support the troops” is fairly harsh. I of course do not excuse the despicable acts of the soldiers described in the film. But remember, many soldiers have been through 2 or 3 back to back tours in Iraq, are suffering PTSD and other mental disorders, are breathing depleted uranium dust, and many of them now realize they are trapped in a horrific and unjust enterprise. Most of the troops deserve our full sympathy, as well as medical and psychological support.
Chomsky is not boring as a lecturer in person. He is riveting. His encyclopedic knowledge of history and little known but important facts is staggering, as is his ability to string together trends over many years and different parts of the world. Don’t miss him if he comes to your town.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2008/02/24/issas-house-gets-broken-into-as-intimidation-increases-in-tel-rumeda/
” ‘Issa’s house gets broken into as intimidation increases in Tel Rumeda
February 24th, 2008 | Posted in Reports, Hebron Region
This week in Hebron, soldiers have continued their expansion of duty and further harassment of Palestinians.’
On Wednesday night Human Rights Workers (HRWs) discovered the door of an empty Palestinian house next to the checkpoint leading to Tel Rumeida had been removed. Soldiers are already using the house on the other side of the checkpoint as a military outpost and habitually use the roof as an opportunity to throw snow or gravel at Palestinian children.
HRWs were scheduled to hold a Gaza Solidarity Action at Issa’s House Saturday morning but on Friday night soldiers from the military outpost within the settlement broke into the long coveted property and stole gas, cameras, a stereo, a laptop, a water heater and all the preparation for next year’s summer camp. Complaints have been filed to the police.
Furthering their patrols into Palestinian daily life, HRWs in Hebron were called this morning into the centre of the city where soldiers had declared access to a shop, library and Palestinian homes as a Secured Area. They refused entry to HRWs but allowed the inhabitants unrestricted access to the building. Two soldiers guarded the entrance whilst four more went into the shop beneath the flats and “searched” the premises. The shopkeeper told us that they had not taken anything and it appeared another attempt to remind Palestinians that H1 is not an autonomous area.”
—————–
i don’t give a shit how many times you’ve listened to dr chomsky will you people wake up and acknowledge what is happening, call/write your congressperson and demand an end to us military aid…..
support sites like international solidarity movement and electronicinfitada.
peace…………………
Chomsky is a national/international treasure. On 9/12/01 the air was thick with fascism. Dylan and other “unpatriotic” musicians were banished from some big media outlets. Somebody called for the end of irony. Corporate media fanned the flames for war and invasion. It was too reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s, with a potential for becoming a little like life as portrayed in the film, the Swing Kids.
On TV, a constant drumbeat for “America’s New War.” Flags flew from cars. Searching frantically for a rational perspective, I remembered there was something called Pacifica Radio. On the web, I found Amy Goodman & and Democracy Now. And, she was playing full-length speeches of 2 old men from Boston(Howard Zinn & Noam) as they criss-crossed the country. I was rewarded with truth and clarity, with biting dry sarcasm. We are lucky they are both still alive!
“…most Americans and Israelis believe they are the good guys…just like most Nazis believed THEY were.”
–How true! The extreme irony is that some of those (the few that are still alive) who fought the Nazis in WW2 have become exactly what they profess to despise. That is the epitome of self-deception! Sadly, my father is one of those: an extreme right-wing fascist who loves Rush Limbaugh and faux news.
hamster:
In the US, “support our troops” has the moral equivalence of “support the Manson family”. The laws of war make it clear that both the intent and means of waging war in Afghanistan and Iran and Palestine by the invading powers is illegal and immoral.
One nation’s military has killed far more US citizens than any other. That nation is the US itself. Also, every major attack on the US was a response to military action undertaken by the US. The US invaded British Canada, they responded in kind. Pearl Harbor was deliberately incited by FDR and the US military, who also actively aided the attack by refusing to defend against it. 9/11/2001 occurred in the 11th year of a US war against the (mostly) Arab people of Iraq.
The US military does not stand for freedom, since civil liberties are reduced when they go off to war. They do not really defend US shores, the oceans do, although they would if needed. They kill people overseas for the benefit of a privileged few. Nothing has changed since Smedley Butler’s famous speech. War is a racket, and those who wage it are racketeers.
Noam Chomsky is a sane and logical voice in a madding media world. .His Cassandra voice is drowned out by the blaring double-speak speeches of Bush and his NeoCon Gang.
Yet these Western War Lords fear his message. .The truth and the messanger are attacked, dismissed, vilified, and branded…WMD
When the Forces of Fascism silence Noam Chomsky; then Democracy as we know it will have been destroyed………
Can we get off of how Chomsky says it and focus on what he says? I agree with it all except the three categories of crimes: murder with intent, accidental killing, and murder with foreknowledge but without specific intent. Well he did say typically not always. Let’s not forget that in 1991 the Defense Intelligence Agency did a study to see how vulnerable the Iraq water supply was and how its destruction would effect the civilian population. One report is here: http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/spinoza06042003/
And when the report correctly predicted massive sickness, suffering and death especially among the elderly and young; our loving leaders of Democracy and Christian values went ahead with sanctions against water treatment supplies and eventually bombed water facilities in the first Gulf war (second one too after they fixed it). So this is clearly a premeditated war crime with the intent of hurting the civilian population. Hmm, wonder when it will ever be brought to the international court?
gde,
The arguments against our foreign policy, which is clearly criminal, are separate from those about the morality of the troops themselves. Many of those troops had very limited job opportunity and chose the military. What they were forced to do after they signed up is truly tragic. It is not surprising that some of them went off the deep end.
barely human indeed chose a valid username, while more precise might be ‘not human’ or ‘inhuman’, or ass…..
” USAn February 27th, 2008 12:30 pm
Once again, for the ten-thousanth time Chomsky, in his 80th year, with impeccable analysis, calls the emperor buck-naked.”
DEFINITELY EXCELLENT and important this article is, and I’ll express my thanks to Chomsky for providing such telling of history, while combining or completing it with an irrefutably valid “take” on moral, ethical law.
Continuing to quote USAn:
“But to what effect? No one will hear him. His words are absolutely banned from the US media - outside of tiny struggling dissident magazines like Z-magazine and a few, preach-to-the-choir blogs.”
I DO NOT appreciate such [defeatist] or self-defeatist or ‘doomsday’ attitude; prefering a constructive one, svp.
F.e., if you think that posting such qualitative articles in ‘preach-to-the-choir’ blogs is not beneficial, then I differ in this regard. After all, I (and surely many other people) certainly gain important historical facts from the article, and to argue a righteous perspective without being armed with important facts is far less good than when we’re armed with plenty of strong facts. I much prefer to be well prepared for battle.
That’s an example that is polar-opposite of your defeatist attitude. I’m not seeing the battle as lost before enough efforts have been made to win, and enough haven’t been made.
After all, and if what I read over the past few years is true, then increasing numbers of USA’ns have lost faith in the corp. msm news media and began using alternative sources on the Internet. So all people need to do is to do each our own part to let others know of this article by Chomsky.
Anyway, knowing and saying that you’re right is one thing; but combining it with facts supporting your claim, and then presenting the whole of this ensemble, is far better base to argue upon or with.
Too many people take positions that I might also take, but they do not provide supportive facts for my careful consideration; and I am not one to try to lead as if I’m incapable of thinking for myself. Besides, when we truly [respect] others, then we don’t try to lead them based on unsupported claims.
When that happens, either:
a) they are speaking of a perspective I already have, so they are by no measure going to be able to persuade me of what I’m already convinced about; or,
b) I will tell them that they need to provide supporting facts and links to resources where these facts can be read about, preferably independent resources or sources.
If ‘b’ is the case and they don’t provide the needed support, then I’ll just tell them that they’re going to be ignored (by me).
Again continuing with USAn:
“Do you think Obama or Hillary have ever heard of him?”
They most surely have, for very few people haven’t. But Chomsky’s article is too far above the morality of Billary, if she has any at all, which she evidently does not; while Obama cannot be excused for his very strong and total support of the hellbent Israeli govt, hence the hellbent US+Israel govt duo or combo perpetrators of hell on earth, upon humanity.
Of course his campaign supporters don’t want to pay any careful ATTENTION to the fact that he has strongly spoken totally in favour of Israel, as if he’s totally clueless about its extreme criminality, which he surely is not unaware of; he can’t be. Or, if he is unaware of it, then he would clearly be unfit to serve in any office of the Senate, Congress, or executive branch.
After all, we don’t need to know half of the facts that Chomsky presents in his article in order to know that the US+Israel pair is hellbent criminal and criminally refuses to adhere to intl laws, which the US Constitution specifically makes supreme. And any politician who relies only on corp. msm news media is [UNFIT] to be ever re-elected, or elected the first time around; depending on which of the two cases applies to a candidate a voter has in mind.
So, his supporters evidently do NOT truly or seriously care a single iota about these crimes, besides the additional ones not related to the Israel-Palestine and -Lebanon contexts. There are no good facts supporting Obama, but plenty of facts of incriminating nature, yes!
Billary is beyond hope, while Obama has major corrections to make and to then firmly maintain and energetically use for fighting for HUMAN RIGHTS and international and therefore US laws. I doubt that he will do this though; if elected president. After all, he definitely has not done it at all, only having done the opposite, as a senator. John McCain probably has a considerably better Senate record than Obama does!
His 2002 words against war on Iraq have been rendered meaningless in terms of what needs to be considered about him in the present campaign. The only thing that people can say about those 2002 words is what is of the category of appearances, only; nothing more. After all, everyone pretending the opposite ignores, usually wittingly, his Senate record, and none can personally prove anything about those 2002 words, except that he stated them. Why he did though, this is a whole other matter that none of these omitters can prove; while we can reality-based, enough, argue that it may have been out of political opportunism.
Systems consist of multiple input parameters and some fixed, constant factors. Each parameter that’s used for input usually is of variable nature, the engine then does its processing of the inputs, and the output parameter(s) returns the results.
In the case of the 2002 pre-official campaigning for senatorial office, Obama would have had incentive to speak from an anti-war platform, for the huge and strong support for the war on Iraq in the US wasn’t yet known; the news of the threat having been newly known or released information, newly enough anyway. He would not have overlooked the value of this parameter, if he was acting as a political opportunist, which is not unlikely, for it’s extremely common in politics.
I’m not saying it’s why he then spoke those words; what I am saying is that the above is a likely scenario, and if it’s what happened, then he was being a political opportunist, intead of truly sincere. His Senate record of votes and statements points strongly to political opportunism having been his basis in 2002; but if it wasn’t, then he’s damn incapable of being ethically integral, enough to be highly unfit to be elected.
God knows the entire truth of all of this; while the best we can do is to try to be very careful in our evaluations of what we try to judge and/or understand. However, it’s damn wrong to disregard his Senate record, and it’s ever more wrong and childish to pretend that his 2002 words outweigh his official office record.
During periods of desperation, people often make hasty choices, and this is now such a period, but not a time for hasty decisions.
May Nader run if it’s what he wishes to do!
Anyone opposed to it and using this to trying to tell others whether or not they can, or not, vote for him is just another pointy-headed pion fascist dictator wannabe. And they only deserve to be told this, that they’re taking the anti-[democracy] position.
I don’t know anything about his campaign yet, and wonder if he’s teaming up with Cynthia McKinney. I don’t know why he wouldn’t choose to do so, for she’s a good candidate as far as I’m aware, and he’s run for the Green Party before; although they burned him “good” last time. Not all supporters of the GP went along with that bad decision of the GP pointy-headed-bosses, PHBs, though.
I could see a problem with him and McKinney not teaming up, for this will make not a third-party candidate, but two different ones, and this doesn’t seem like a good strategy for this year, I think. If she wasn’t a good candidate, then I would understand him not teaming up with her, but if she’s good, and I think she is, then I’d like to see them forming a team. Maybe there’d be an ego-brawl though, both wanting to be candidates for only president.
To err is human.
And to be anti-democracy is to be fascist, even when these people [pretend] to be pro-democracy. Appearances are often deceiving.
Thanks Noam Chomsky.
USrael, the top terrorist.
Military activity alone will not solve this terrorist problem for Turkey….They need to deal with some of the issues and complaints that some of the Kurds have and move this in a non-military direction in order to get a long term solution.
- US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Feb 27 2008.
Gee, I wish the US had this attitude 6 years ago.
POET,
Chomsky is a scholar of linguistics who understands the power embodied in the presentation of words. He is clearly an intellectual who writes with a consciousness of the heart - not with emotion.
Noam Chomsky; His clarity with understanding the framing and contexting and spinning of truth make him invaluable, a gift….one whom many, many people do know of, and have been influenced by.
With Gratitude.
I was gong 2 respond 2 a prior post butt my knee wuz jerkin 2 much.
I say forget the troops! They signed up for their war, so let them have all the problems they deserve. If you are drafted, you don’t have many options but to run. But they vollintered. They could have worked at Macs, like the rest of us.
I recommend checking the original copy of the article, while specifically meaning the Tomgram introductory part; and furthermore specifically the article linked for ‘CIA running car bombs into Baghdad’. There’s also one for ‘car and camel bombs into Afghanistan’, just that I’ve only looked at the one on Baghdad, so far.
Perhaps there is some difference in the article by Chomsky, but I expect that the copy here at CD is the same.
I always look forward to reading anything written by Chomsky. Just watched him on DemocracyNow who devoted most of the hour to one of his lectures. In that, he really came across with the term, unpeople.
I’ll never forget when Hugo Chavez at the UN was holding up Chomsky’s book, Hegemony or Survival, America’s Quest For Global Dominance. While, I received that book for Xmas beforehand. Chavez goes on to call Bush the devil and gets a standing ovation. Sad, that we don’t get more great moments like that.
It’s always disappointing to have to point out when I’ve been sarcastic. It’s especially disappointing that so many leftists and liberals have lost enough of their sense of humor to not spot my ridiculous statement as a joke. But it’s most disappointing that so many Democrats use the “logic” I did my statement doesn’t seem as outlandish as it really is.
If we so-called leftists and liberals are so reactionary, the Right truly is acendent.
Mike Corbvell,
Few comments.
One does not change the world with well reasoned, well footnoted agguments. How does one logically substantiate a moral conviction anyway? Some things - like imperialist aggression, are simply manifestly vile. Even if one does provide citations, the sources themselves are just opinions.
As far as people who have heard of Noam Chomsky, I can assure you that if I walked around my workplace right now - full of people with master’s degrees and a couple PhD’s (in Civil and/or Mining Engineering), the name “Noam Chomsky” would draw a complete blank.
And Gail,
Chomsky himself has said that his linguistics work has nothing to do with his political work. However, I can help thinking that his finding that the language faculty and basic grammatical syntax is hard-wired in humans from birth, does inform the underlying belief in an innate compassion in humans, albeit corruptable by the cognitive process. His anarchist, libertaiian socialist beliefs require such an assumption.
And I never thought of chomsky as at all eloquent, his power is simply that he call out things the way they are armed with the golden rule and a few other moral truisms, free of distorting lenses of rationalizations and profound hypocracy that surround the presentation of reality by the powerful and greedy.
barely human,
I tried three times to point out your were being humorous, the latest on the February 27th, 2008 5:06 pm post. Like I wrote, they are dense as a brick.
I see an inability to recognize sarcasm, particularly in young people, as a national affliction. It is possibly related to people spending too much time in front of a keyboards and not actually interacting with humans face-to face.
(oops… I was writing under “USAn” in those posts)
If you want an eloquent Noam Chomsky, go to Utube and look for Chomsky-Perle debate held at Ohio State in the 1980″s. Then listen to Dr. Chomsky’s closing statement. Pretty much says it all and very eloquently, I might add.
Criticism is painful but the person being criticized to benefit from it.
There are a great number of human beings, even self-called believers. who are frightened and feel threatened with truth. Therefore they attack it and call it all kinds of names, yes even terrorism!
Only intelligent (mentally and emotionally) people can benefit from truth and criticism.
Noam Chomsky, Daniel Barenboim are a few of the lovers and followers of Truth.
Criticism is painful but it behooves the person being criticized to benefit from it.
There are a great number of human beings, even self-called believers. who are frightened and feel threatened with truth. Therefore they attack it and call it all kinds of names, yes even terrorism!
Only intelligent (mentally and emotionally) people can benefit from truth and criticism.
Noam Chomsky is one of the few lovers and followers of Truth.
There are a great number of human beings, even self-called believers. who are frightened and feel threatened with truth. Therefore they attack it and call it all kinds of names, yes even terrorism!
Only intelligent (mentally and emotionally) people can benefit from truth and criticism.
Noam Chomsky is one of the few lovers and followers of Truth.
Criticism is painful but it behooves the person being criticized to benefit from it.
There are a great number of human beings, even self-called believers. who are frightened and feel threatened with truth. Therefore they attack it and call it all kinds of names, yes even terrorism!
Only intelligent (mentally and emotionally) people can benefit from truth and criticism.
I have a dear uncle, a great lover of opera, and the music of Brahms, Mahler, Berlioz, and Richard Strauss.
He was disappointed when I gravitated towards baroque music during my teens– not to mention the “Switched-On Bach” genre. To him, Bach was one vast collection of “scales”, i.e. music exercises.
I find Chomsky riveting, despite his monotonous style and lack of inflection. He is like a Vulcan– but then, I like Mr. Spock, too. The esthetic satisfaction is in the content, not the delivery.
Only intelligent (mentally and emotionally) people can benefit from truth and criticism.
Noam Chomsky, Daniel Barenboim are a few of the lovers and followers of Truth.
Noam Chomsky, sets out the rational for how murder of people on the international front is achieved by the most powerful nations in the world. He has always tried to present the psychological and philosophical understanding of the issues that lead to the senseless killing that takes place in the world often as a result of America’s democratic ideals and foreign policy.
Nothing is simple in the way the US policy is undertaken with diplomacy. The entire concept of diplomatic negotiation addresses expediency not solutions to human well-being.
Noam Chomsky, a great thinker, we must applaud his efforts but his ideas about civilization and human behavior fall before the western economic imperative of money and profit before all else.
Chompsky starts a list of the “candidates for the honor of most hated arch-criminal” , but then drifts off.
Kissenger could the world’s most-mass-murderer, that would be my nominee, considering his ‘work’ behind the scenes from before Nixon to babyBush, from Cambodia to Baghdad and Darfur.
Or is this list only of the other worlders?
Brilliant article. Mr Chomsky may be ignored by the main stream media in which the antics of the finalists in the American Idol competition attract more advertising dollars than truth-seeking political discourse, but his voice is heard. Remember Hugo Chavez displaying Noam Chomsky’s book “Hegemony or Survival” at the UN in Sep ‘06? The book became a best-seller overnight. Seems there’s quite a few of us out there who (i) smell the devil Bush’s sulfur, and (ii) seek the truth, and (iii) enjoy a good read.
Noam Chomsky, Daniel Barenboim are a few of the lovers and followers of Truth.
Criticism is painful but it behooves the person being criticized to benefit from it.
There are a great number of human beings, even self-called believers. who are frightened and feel threatened with truth. Therefore they attack it and call it all kinds of names, yes even terrorism!
Only intelligent (mentally and emotionally) people can benefit from truth and criticism.
God bless Noam Chomsky. His courage and intellect are much to be admired.
“and murder with foreknowledge but without specific intent” I’d question that US and Israeli murders have no specific intent. Since they know that their attacks will inevitably kill civilians, they know that they are going to kill civilians whenever they strike. To avoid these murders they need only desist and seek other means to resolve the situation. They choose instead to kill. I think they have a secondary intention, not just to kill the target, but to terrorise civilians. This terrorism is their intent.