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Monday, December 9, 2002 |
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"I think they are desperately eager to win an easy victory over a defenseless enemy, so they can strut around as heroes and liberators, to the rousing cheers of the educated classes. It's as old as history."
- - Noam Chomsky
RHINO HERE:
Many know of Noam Chompsky as an outspoken social critic and political dissident regarding issues like U.S. interventionism in the developing world, the political economy of human rights and the propaganda role of corporate media.
He's written more than 70 books, his latest being, "Rogue State: The Rule of Force in World Affairs." But only thirty of his works have been political. A professor of linguistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he developed a theory of transformational (sometimes called generative) grammar that revolutionized scientific study of language. Here's a bite of his work in that field:
"Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation" - - Noam Chompsky
Below the line today is a recent interview with Chomsky by Anthony DiMaggio, a junior at Illinois State U, & a writer for the Indy, a weekly rag in Bloomington/Normal, Illinois. He covers the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein, shrub & company's obsession with Iraq, & the Republican election sweep.
CHOMPSKY'S BIO:
http://www.psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/KeyTheorists/Chomsky.htm
CHOMPSKY ARCHIVES- HIS POLITICAL WORKS:
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/index.cfm
WHAT IF Chompsky represented the left in the U.S., & Thomas Friedman represented the right?
Here's a quote from & a link to an article from "Arab News" entitled, "America between Chomsky and Friedman", that while I think misunderstands our situation, is somewhat telling of theirs.
"When approaching the present problem we should try to begin from within ourselves. It is, however, becoming increasingly evident that we are facing an America very different from what we have known in the past. It has changed totally. It is looking for an enemy and is behaving like a wounded lion. The Americans now believe that "whoever is not with us is against us."
"America between Chomsky and Friedman", Arab News, 9/2/02
http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=18278
8:28:08 AM 
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Anthony DiMaggio: I've always believed that the Bush Administration's proposed war on Iraq was for two main reasons: to secure the last oil reserves in the Middle East that are not under U.S. control, and to divert Americans' attention from the policies that Bush is conducting at home against the common worker. In your opinion, how much of the war on Iraq has to do with securing Iraqi oil reserves and how much has to do with diverting American's attention from the Bush Administration's war on the American people? Is one more of a factor than the other?
Noam Chomsky: It's quite widely assumed, right within the mainstream, that these are the two primary reasons. I agree. Regaining control over Iraq's oil resources (not access, but control; a very different matter) is longstanding. 9/11 provided a pretext for the resort to force, not only by the US: also Russia, China, Indonesia, Israel, many others. And the need to divert the attention of the population from what is being done to them accounts for the timing. [It] worked brilliantly in the congressional elections, and by the next presidential elections, it'll be necessary to have a victory and on to the next campaign.
Do you believe the Gulf War was primarily to secure American access to Kuwaiti oil? Did it also have to do with teaching Saddam a lesson for his aggressive behavior with Kuwait? Do you have any insight into which factor was more of a determinant for the Bush Administration?
I think the main reason for the first Gulf War was what's called "credibility": Saddam had defied orders; no one can get away with that. Ask any Mafia Don and you'll get the explanation. There's good reason to suppose that a negotiated withdrawal would have been possible, but that wouldn't make the point; again, ask your favorite Don.
The reason for leaving Saddam in place was explained very openly and frankly: As the diplomatic correspondent of the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, explained when the US backed Saddam's crushing of the Kurds, "the best of all worlds" for Washington would be an "iron-fisted junta" ruling Iraq just as Saddam did, but with a different name, because his is now embarrassing, and since no one like that seemed to be around, they'd have to settle with second-best, their old friend and ally the butcher of Baghdad himself. You can find plenty of material about all of this in what I wrote at the time, reprinted in "Deterring Democracy"; more has appeared since.
What makes the current Administration think they can secure Iraqi oil now as compared to 10 years ago? It seems that the country is just as unstable now as it was then. What's changed in the minds of the members of the Bush Administration since the Gulf War?
At the time, the US was unwilling to risk taking over Iraq. It has nothing to do with stability. The Iraqi dictatorship is very stable. It had to do with the coalition and domestic support, not willing then for a conquest, and as noted, there was no suitable replacement in sight. Now it's different....
THE REST OF THE INTERVIEW IS AT:
http://www.ALTERNET.ORG/story.html?StoryID=14701
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8:16:23 AM
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