Chomsky America's war on terror.pdf

The Human Nature Review

ISSN 1476-1084

URL of this document

http://human-nature.com/nibbs/01/chomsky.html

The New War Against Terror

By Noam Chomsky

October 18, 2001 - Transcribed from audio

recorded at The Technology & Culture

Forum at MIT

The Talk (audio)

Everyone knows it’s the TV people who run the world [crowd laugher]. I just

got orders that I’m supposed to be here, not there. Well the last talk I gave at

this forum was on a light pleasant topic. It was about how humans are an en-

dangered species and given the nature of their institutions they are likely to

destroy themselves in a fairly short time. So this time there is a little relief and

we have a pleasant topic instead, the new war on terror. Unfortunately, the

world keeps coming up with things that make it more and more horrible as we

proceed.

Assume Two Conditions for this Talk

I’m going to assume two conditions for this talk.

• The first one is just what I assume to be recognition of fact. That is that

the events of September 11 were a horrendous atrocity probably the most

devastating instant human toll of any crime in history, outside of war.

• The second assumption has to do with the goals. I’m assuming that our

goal is that we are interested in reducing the likelihood of such crimes

whether they are against us or against someone else.

If you don’t accept those two assumptions, then what I say will not be ad-

dressed to you. If we do accept them, then a number of questions arise,

closely related ones, which merit a good deal of thought.

The 5 Questions

One question, and by far the most important one is what is happening right

now? Implicit in that is what can we do about it? The second has to do with

the very common assumption that what happened on September 11 is a his-

toric event, one which will change history. I tend to agree with that. I think it’s

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The New War Against Terror

true. It was a historic event and the question we should be asking is exactly

why? The third question has to do with the title, The War Against Terrorism.

Exactly what is it? And there is a related question, namely what is terrorism?

The fourth question which is narrower but important has to do with the origins

of the crimes of September 11th. And the fifth question that I want to talk a lit-

tle about is what policy options there are in fighting this war against terrorism

and dealing with the situations that led to it.

I’ll say a few things about each. Glad to go beyond in discussion and don’t

hesitate to bring up other questions. These are ones that come to my mind as

prominent but you may easily and plausibly have other choices.

1. What’s Happening Right Now?

Starvation of Three to Four Million People

Well let’s start with right now. I’ll talk about the situation in Afghanistan. I’ll just

keep to uncontroversial sources like the New York Times [crowd laughter].

According to the New York Times there are seven to eight million people in

Afghanistan on the verge of starvation. That was true actually before Septem-

ber 11th. They were surviving on international aid. On September 16th, the

Times reported, I’m quoting it, that the United States demanded from Pakistan

the elimination of truck convoys that provide much of the food and other sup-

plies to Afghanistan’s civilian population. As far as I could determine there

was no reaction in the United States or for that matter in Europe. I was on na-

tional radio all over Europe the next day. There was no reaction in the United

States or in Europe to my knowledge to the demand to impose massive star-

vation on millions of people. The threat of military strikes right after Septem-

ber…..around that time forced the removal of international aid workers that

crippled the assistance programs. Actually, I am quoting again from the New

York Times. Refugees reaching Pakistan after arduous journeys from AF are

describing scenes of desperation and fear at home as the threat of American

led military attacks turns their long running misery into a potential catastrophe.

The country was on a lifeline and we just cut the line. Quoting an evacuated

aid worker, in the New York Times Magazine.

The World Food Program, the UN program, which is the main one by far,

were able to resume after three weeks in early October, they began to resume

at a lower level, resume food shipments. They don’t have international aid

workers within, so the distribution system is hampered. That was suspended

as soon as the bombing began. They then resumed but at a lower pace while

aid agencies leveled scathing condemnations of US airdrops, condemning

them as propaganda tools which are probably doing more harm than good.

That happens to be quoting the London Financial Times but it is easy to con-

tinue. After the first week of bombing, the New York Times reported on a back

page inside a column on something else, that by the arithmetic of the United

Nations there will soon be seven and a half million Afghans in acute need of

even a loaf of bread and there are only a few weeks left before the harsh win-

ter will make deliveries to many areas totally impossible, continuing to quote,

but with bombs falling the delivery rate is down to half of what is needed.

Human Nature Review – Volume 1, 2001, Page 38

Noam Chomsky

Casual comment. Which tells us that Western civilization is anticipating the

slaughter of, well do the arithmetic, three to four million people or something

like that. On the same day, the leader of Western civilization dismissed with

contempt, once again, offers of negotiation for delivery of the alleged target,

Osama bin Laden, and a request for some evidence to substantiate the de-

mand for total capitulation. It was dismissed. On the same day the Special

Rapporteur of the UN in charge of food pleaded with the United States to stop

the bombing to try to save millions of victims. As far as I’m aware that was un-

reported. That was Monday. Yesterday the major aid agencies OXFAM and

Christian Aid and others joined in that plea. You can’t find a report in the New

York Times. There was a line in the Boston Globe, hidden in a story about

another topic, Kashmir.

Silent Genocide

Well we could easily go on….but all of that….first of all indicates to us what’s

happening. Looks like what’s happening is some sort of silent genocide. It

also gives a good deal of insight into the elite culture, the culture that we are

part of. It indicates that whatever, what will happen we don’t know, but plans

are being made and programs implemented on the assumption that they may

lead to the death of several million people in the next few months….very

casually with no comment, no particular thought about it, that’s just kind of

normal, here and in a good part of Europe. Not in the rest of the world. In fact

not even in much of Europe. So if you read the Irish press or the press in

Scotland…that close, reactions are very different. Well that’s what’s happen-

ing now. What’s happening now is very much under our control. We can do a

lot to affect what’s happening. And that’s roughly it.

2. Why was it a Historic Event?

National Territory Attacked

Alright let’s turn to the slightly more abstract question, forgetting for the mo-

ment that we are in the midst of apparently trying to murder three or four mil-

lion people, not Taliban of course, their victims. Let’s go back…turn to the

question of the historic event that took place on September 11th. As I said, I

think that’s correct. It was a historic event. Not unfortunately because of its

scale, unpleasant to think about, but in terms of the scale it’s not that unusual.

I did say it’s the worst…probably the worst instant human toll of any crime.

And that may be true. But there are terrorist crimes with effects a bit more

drawn out that are more extreme, unfortunately. Nevertheless, it’s a historic

event because there was a change. The change was the direction in which

the guns were pointed. That’s new. Radically new. So, take US history.

The last time that the national territory of the United States was under attack,

or for that matter, even threatened was when the British burned down Wash-

ington in 1814. There have been many…it was common to bring up Pearl

Harbor but that’s not a good analogy. The Japanese, what ever you think

about it, the Japanese bombed military bases in two US colonies not the na-

tional territory; colonies which had been taken from their inhabitants in not a

Human Nature Review – Volume 1, 2001, Page 39

The New War Against Terror

very pretty way. This is the national territory that’s been attacked on a large

scale, you can find a few fringe examples but this is unique.

During these close to two hundred years, we, the United States expelled or

mostly exterminated the indigenous population, that’s many millions of people,

conquered half of Mexico, carried out depredations all over the region, Carib-

bean and Central America, sometimes beyond, conquered Hawaii and the

Philippines, killing several hundred thousand Filipinos in the process. Since

the Second World War, it has extended its reach around the world in ways I

don’t have to describe. But it was always killing someone else, the fighting

was somewhere else, it was others who were getting slaughtered. Not here.

Not the national territory.

Europe

In the case of Europe, the change is even more dramatic because its history

is even more horrendous than ours. We are an offshoot of Europe, basically.

For hundreds of years, Europe has been casually slaughtering people all over

the world. That’s how they conquered the world, not by handing out candy to

babies. During this period, Europe did suffer murderous wars, but that was

European killers murdering one another. The main sport of Europe for hun-

dreds of years was slaughtering one another. The only reason that it came to

an end in 1945, was….it had nothing to do with Democracy or not making war

with each other and other fashionable notions. It had to do with the fact that

everyone understood that the next time they play the game it was going to be

the end for the world. Because the Europeans, including us, had developed

such massive weapons of destruction that that game just have to be over.

And it goes back hundreds of years. In the 17th century, about probably forty

percent of the entire population of Germany was wiped out in one war.

But during this whole bloody murderous period, it was Europeans slaughtering

each other, and Europeans slaughtering people elsewhere. The Congo didn’t

attack Belgium, India didn’t attack England, Algeria didn’t attack France. It’s

uniform. There are again small exceptions, but pretty small in scale, certainly

invisible in the scale of what Europe and us were doing to the rest of the

world. This is the first change. The first time that the guns have been pointed

the other way. And in my opinion that’s probably why you see such different

reactions on the two sides of the Irish Sea which I have noticed, incidentally,

in many interviews on both sides, national radio on both sides. The world

looks very different depending on whether you are holding the lash or whether

you are being whipped by it for hundreds of years, very different. So I think

the shock and surprise in Europe and its offshoots, like here, is very under-

standable. It is a historic event but regrettably not in scale, in something else

and a reason why the rest of the world…most of the rest of the world looks at

it quite differently. Not lacking sympathy for the victims of the atrocity or being

horrified by them, that’s almost uniform, but viewing it from a different per-

spective. Something we might want to understand.

Human Nature Review – Volume 1, 2001, Page 40

Noam Chomsky

3. What is the War Against Terrorism?

Well, let’s go to the third question, ‘What is the war against terrorism?’ and a

side question, ‘What’s terrorism?’. The war against terrorism has been de-

scribed in high places as a struggle against a plague, a cancer which is

spread by barbarians, by “depraved opponents of civilization itself.” That’s a

feeling that I share. The words I’m quoting, however, happen to be from

twenty years ago. Those are…that’s President Reagan and his Secretary of

State. The Reagan administration came into office twenty years ago declaring

that the war against international terrorism would be the core of our foreign

policy….describing it in terms of the kind I just mentioned and others. And it

was the core of our foreign policy. The Reagan administration responded to

this plague spread by depraved opponents of civilization itself by creating an

extraordinary international terrorist network, totally unprecedented in scale,

which carried out massive atrocities all over the world, primarily….well, partly

nearby, but not only there. I won’t run through the record, you’re all educated

people, so I’m sure you learned about it in High School. [crowd laughter]

Reagan-US War Against Nicaragua

But I’ll just mention one case which is totally uncontroversial, so we might as

well not argue about it, by no means the most extreme but uncontroversial.

It’s uncontroversial because of the judgments of the highest international au-

thorities the International Court of Justice, the World Court, and the UN Secu-

rity Council. So this one is uncontroversial, at least among people who have

some minimal concern for international law, human rights, justice and other

things like that. And now I’ll leave you an exercise. You can estimate the size

of that category by simply asking how often this uncontroversial case has

been mentioned in the commentary of the last month. And it’s a particularly

relevant one, not only because it is uncontroversial, but because it does offer

a precedent as to how a law abiding state would respond to…did respond in

fact to international terrorism, which is uncontroversial. And was even more

extreme than the events of September 11th. I’m talking about the Reagan-US

war against Nicaragua which left tens of thousands of people dead, the coun-

try ruined, perhaps beyond recovery.

Nicaragua’s Response

Nicaragua did respond. They didn’t respond by setting off bombs in Washing-

ton. They responded by taking it to the World Court, presenting a case, they

had no problem putting together evidence. The World Court accepted their

case, ruled in their favor, ordered the…condemned what they called the

“unlawful use of force,” which is another word for international terrorism, by

the United States, ordered the United States to terminate the crime and to pay

massive reparations. The United States, of course, dismissed the court judg-

ment with total contempt and announced that it would not accept the jurisdic-

tion of the court henceforth. Then Nicaragua then went to the UN Security

Council which considered a resolution calling on all states to observe interna-

tional law. No one was mentioned but everyone understood. The United

States vetoed the resolution. It now stands as the only state on record which

Human Nature Review – Volume 1, 2001, Page 41

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