Chomsky

From Shia News Today:

Renowned American scholar Dr Noam Chomsky said on Saturday that the United
States did not seek authorization for launching air strikes on Afghanistan
from the United Nations because the involvement of the world body could have
limited its unilateral power to act.
JR:-yes, the U.N. are not too swift in their military abilities. They might
have slowed things down enough to prevent the distribution of food which is
presently occurring.

Delivering a lecture and then answering questions from a packed hall at a
hotel as well as an on-line audience in Karachi, he said Russia and China
were happy because of their own interests.
JR-No one is happy. Terrorism endangers all, an equal-opportunity threat.

Hundreds of people had come to listen to the scholar, many of them without
invitation with the result that most of them had to sit on the floor. They
gave a standing ovation to Prof Chomsky as he stepped into the hall.

Prof Chomsky said that except for standing on the side of the international
coalition, Pakistan had few options in the situation - partly because of
Islamabad's role in the past, especially its support for the CIA and then the
Taliban.
JR-self-interest like everyone else, including Professor Chomsky.

He said the Muslim world as a whole was in serious trouble. Making an obvious
reference to the Arab states, he said they were surviving on oil wealth which
would not last long. Resources of these countries were being drained to the
West and in case the situation remained unchanged, the future of next
generations would not be good.
JR: of course oil "drained to the West" is paid for in money which can be
invested wisely in all sorts of good ways. Guess, the cruel leaders are
withholding this amassed wealth. And oil is a found object, after all.
Personally, I'm for other energy resources, but still would like to avoid the
possible ruin of important nature reserves.

He did not agree with the suggestion that the American people had supported
US attacks on Afghanistan, or that the results of the opinion polls in this
regard were reflective of their thinking. In fact, he said, the response by
the American people depended on the questions put to them.
JR-this sounds like double-speak to me. The American people believe they
should defend themselves. There are shades of difference on how it should
be done. Most trust the government enough that Afghanistan allowed al-Queda
to make a "base" for terrorist destruction against Americans. Accordingly,
this base had to be dismantled.

If they were asked whether action should be taken against the perpetrators of
the Sept 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, their
response would be in the affirmative. But if they were asked whether innocent
people should be targeted, their answer would be quite different.
JR-Once again, "targeting" civilians is a poisonous bias, in my opinion. I
do not believe that the pilots are rabid murderers out to kill children.
Then again, I don't believe this of Israeli soldiers either, contrary to much
of Shia News, and others outside the U.S.

When a questioner tried to support the US action against a 'repressive'
regime in Afghanistan, Prof Chomsky said it was not for America to take
action against repressive regimes. He said the governments of India and
Pakistan were "highly repressive" but this did not mean that they should be
destroyed.
JR-This argument is especially smelly to me. Why not consider all
governments containing Moslems to be "highly repressive" and maybe all
countries are repressive. This is the very marginalization of right and
wrong that is abhorrent in light of what happened on September 11th. How
generous of Professor Chomsky to defer destruction of the democratic
government of India. Damn he was clever to remain an American citizen so
that he can sell his first hand view opinions/product and produce it to a
major population.

In his opinion the US system was most fundamentalist in the world, more
fundamentalist than even that of Iran. He said a fundamentalist system could
be possible even in a democracy.
JR-This is vague. The U.S. is not a democracy according to the above. (At
least that's my reading.)
There is no clear meaning of "fundamentalist."

Answering a question, the American dissident said that going by the
definition of terrorism, the US itself was a terrorist state.
JR-whose definition? Is Chomsky saying the U.S. is just like all the other
states in the region?

He did not agree with the suggestion that American people were supporting
what their government was doing in Afghanistan. He said the media was not
portraying the entire picture because of which people were not fully aware of
the ground situation.
JR-Surely, he must be aware at how positive so many of the results have been
to removing the Taliban. Chomsky would not intervene for slavery, genocide,
hey, neither would the U.N. But that does not mean they are correct, either.

He recalled a UN agency's request that US should withdraw the threat of
bombing of Afghanistan as it was obstructing humanitarian assistance in that
country and creating danger for starvation of millions of people there. But,
he regretted, it was ignored by the media. The paper which carried the report
made only a passing remark at the tail of some other story.
JR-This is not true. I knew and saw repeatedly this on television
broadcasts, that there was a big push to hold up the bombing so that food
could be distributed before winter began. Bush said no, he would continue to
prosecute because of the danger of al-Queda readying new attacks. He turns
out to have been right (Bush, not Chomsky).

In reply to a question about the US establishment's assertion that after
Afghanistan they would target more countries, Iraq being one of them, Prof
Chomsky said the US had said at the outset that they would go after everyone,
every defenceless.
JR-"every defenceless" certainly shows up the deficiencies in the translation
from English But the implication that there is NO reason whatsoever for the
U.S. to be concerned about biological and nuclear weapons in the hands of
madmen is surely not made with America's best interest at heart.

He said the US would not touch countries where its own interests were hurt.
Oil-rich Saudi Arabia, he added, was one example.
JR-good comment to ingratiate himself in the Near and Middle East. All these
charismatic family leaderships with their built in nepotism are equally bad,
and all are serving in their own best interests. This is why Sadaam is off
the hook for the starving children: he is expected to be depraved.

He pointed out that statements by Osama bin Laden and President Bush and
Prime Minister Blair were identical, although both sides interpreted them
differently. While Osama said he would use force to drive aggressors out of
Afghanistan, Bush and Blair meant that they would drive such people from the
world.
JR-The world trade center was driven from the world, just to be clear. And
Osama did admit to it according to the London Telegraph. How does linguist
Chomsky create grey area here? Only by following the Bin Laden line.

Prof Chomsky said the US was pressing Afghanistan to "hand over" Osama and
not "extradite" him as in the latter case the US would have required the
Security Council's sanction.

He said it was strange that war against terrorism was being led by a country
which was condemned by the world for terrorism. Referring to American plans
for militarization of space, he said no other country was in race with the US
and it alone was its competitor.
JR-Is this related to the Zionism is Racism theme of the U.N. with which the
U.S. walked out? (Another reason not to trust your self-defense to the
U.N.) "Condemned by the world"? Isn't this a little loose? How strange
is it when the U.S. was essentially entrapped to attack?

He was critical of the US support to Israel, saying when an Israeli
helicopter killed somebody, it should be taken as an American helicopter
because the Jewish state did not manufacture helicopters.
JR-Good, some meat for the dogs. Always a good idea to provide a Jewish
treat.

Prof Chomsky paid glowing tributes to Dr Eqbal Ahmad, saying he never wavered
from his cause despite reversals and always supported good neighbourly
relations between Pakistan and India. He also wanted an end to religious and
secular fanaticism in the two states.

The race for nuclear arms between the two countries and cycle of repression
was yet another matter of serious concern for Dr Eqbal, Prof Chomsky said.

The lecture was organized by The Friday Times and Eqbal Ahmad Foundation.
This was the fourth lecture of the series and the next year's guest speaker
will be Prof Edward Said.

Dr Pervaiz Hoodbhoy, Najam Sethi and Jugnu Mohsin also spoke.

Ministers, politicians, diplomats, etc., attended the lecture and the
proceedings were also relayed to a hall in Karachi.

JR-Prof. Chomsky is a smart man who is expert at using words in lectures. He
is stoking the fire.

Johnny Reinhard

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