Noam Chomsky is
one of those rare & brave intellectuals who can call a spade a
spade. He had been under the CIA watch list for a long time because of
his anti-American (and anti-imperialist) views. He also named Israel along with USA in these
words, “The United States and Israel.
The two major nuclear states in the world. I mean there’s a reason why,
in international polls, run by US polling agencies, the United States is
regarded as the greatest threat to world peace by an overwhelming
margin. No other country is even close. It’s kind of interesting that
the US media refused to publish this. But it doesn’t go away.”
Since World War II, a period
some describe as a “a period of unprecedented peace,” the US war machine
has wiped out some 20 million people, including more than 1 million in
Iraq since 2003, engaged in regime change of at least 36 governments,
intervened in at least 82 foreign elections, including Russia (1996),
planned more than 50 assassinations of foreign leaders, and bombed over
30 countries.
Chomsky says US is world's biggest terrorist
Isabelle Kumar: “The world in 2015 seems a very
unsettled place but if we take a big picture view do you feel optimistic
or pessimistic about the general state of play?”
Noam Chomsky:
“In the global scene we are racing towards a precipice which we are
determined to fall over which will sharply reduce the prospects for
decent survival.”
Isabelle Kumar: “What precipice is that?”
Noam Chomsky:
“There are actually two, one is environmental catastrophe which is
imminent and we don’t have a lot of time to deal with it and we are
going the wrong way, and the other has been around for 70 years, the
threat of nuclear war, which is in fact increasing. If you look at the
record it is a miracle we have survived.”
Isabelle Kumar: “Let’s look at the environmental
issues, we have asked our social media audience to send in questions and
we have hordes of questions. We received this question from Enoa Agoli
who asks, when you look at this issue of the environment and you look at
it through a philosopher’s lens, what do you think about climate
change?”
Noam Chomsky: “The human species has
been around for maybe a 100,000 years and it is now facing a unique
moment in its history. This species is now in a position where it will
decide very soon, in the next few generations, whether the experiment in
so-called intelligent life will proceed or are we determined to destroy
it? I mean scientists overwhelmingly recognise that most of the fossil
fuels have to be left in the ground if our grandchildren are going to
have decent prospects. But the institutional structures of our society
are pressuring to try to extract every drop. The effects, the human
consequences, of the predicted effects of climate change in the not very
distant future, are catastrophic and we are racing toward that
precipice.”
Isabelle Kumar: “In terms of nuclear
war we see the prospect of this Iran deal has reached a preliminary
agreement. Does that provide you with a glimmer of hope that the world
could potentially be a safer place?”
Noam Chomsky:
“I’m in favour of the Iran negotiations but they are profoundly flawed.
There are two states that rampage in the middle east carrying out
aggressions, violence, terrorist acts, illegal acts, constantly. They’re
both huge nuclear weapon states and their nuclear armorments. And their
nuclear weapons are not being considered.”
Isabelle Kumar: “And who exactly are you referring to?”
Noam Chomsky: “The United States and Israel. The
two major nuclear states in the world. I mean there’s a reason why, in
international polls, run by US polling agencies, the United States is
regarded as the greatest threat to world peace by an overwhelming
margin. No other country is even close. It’s kind of interesting that
the US media refused to publish this. But it doesn’t go away.”
Isabelle Kumar:
“You don’t hold US President Obama in very high esteem. But does this
deal make you think of him in slightly better terms? The fact that he is
trying to reduce the threat of nuclear war?”
Noam Chomsky:
“ Well, actually he isn’t. He’s just initiated a trillion dollar
programme of modernisation of the US nuclear weapon system, which means
expanding the nuclear weapon system. That’s one the reasons why the
famous doomsday clock, established by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
has, just a couple of weeks ago, been pushed two minutes closer to
midnight. Midnight is the end. It’s now three minutes from midnight.
That’s the closest it’s been in thirty years. Since the early Regan
years when there was a major war scare.”
Isabelle Kumar:
“You mentioned the US and Israel in terms of Iran. Now, Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu obviously doesn’t want the Iran nuclear deal
to work, and he says…”
Noam Chomsky: “That’s interesting. We should ask why.”
Isabelle Kumar: “Why?
Noam Chomsky:
“We know why. Iran has very low military expenditures, even by the
standards of the region, let alone the United States. Iran’s strategic
doctrine is defensive, it’s designed to hold off an attack long enough
for diplomacy to start, and the United States and Israel, the two rogue
states, do not want to tolerate a deterrent. No strategic analyst with a
brain function thinks that Iran would ever use a nuclear weapon. Even
if it were prepared to do so the country would simply be vaporised and
there’s no indication that the ruling clerics, whatever you think about
the, want to see everything they have destroyed.”
Isabelle Kumar:
“Just one more question on this issue and it’s via social media, from
Morten A. Andersen. He asks, “Do you believe that the US would ever
strike a deal that would be dangerous to Israel in the first place?”
Noam Chomsky:
“The United States is carrying out constant actions which are dangerous
to Israel, very seriously. Namely supporting Israeli policy. For the
last 40 years the greatest threat to Israel has been its own policies.
If you look back 40 years, say to 1970, Israel was one of the most
respected and admired countries in the world. There were lots of
favorable attitudes to it. Now, it’s one of the most disliked and feared
countries in the world. In the early 70s Israel made a decision. They
had a choice and they made a decision to prefer expansion to security
and that carries with it dangerous consequences. Consequences which were
obvious at the time – I wrote about them and other people did – if you
prefer expansion to security it is going to lead to internal
degeneration, anger, opposition, isolation and possibly ultimate
destruction. And by supporting those policies, the United States is
contributing to the threats that Israel faces.”
Isabelle Kumar:
“That’s brings me to the subject of terrorism then. Because that is
really a global blight and some people, I think including yourself, will
say that this is blowback for US terrorist policy around the world. How
far is the US and its allies responsible for what we’re seeing now in
terms of the terrorist attacks around the world?”
Noam Chomsky:
“Remember the worst terrorist campaign in the world by far is the one
that’s being orchestrated in Washington. That’s the global assassination
campaign. There’s never been a terrorist campaign of that scale.”
Isabelle Kumar: “When you say global assassination campaign…?”
Noam Chomsky:
“The drone campaign – that’s exactly what it is. Over large parts of
the world, the United States is systematically, publically, openly –
there’s nothing secret about what I’m saying, we all know it – it’s
carrying out regular campaigns to assassinated people who the US
government suspects of intending to harm it someday. And indeed it is,
as you mentioned, a terror generated campaign, and when you bomb a
village in Yemen, say, and you kill somebody – maybe the person you were
aiming at maybe not – and other people who happened to be in the
neighbourhood – how do you think they are going to react? They’re going
to take revenge.”
Isabelle Kumar: “You describe the US as the leading terrorist state. Where does Europe fit into that picture then?”
Noam Chomsky:
“Well, that’s an interesting question. So for example there was
recently a study. I think it was done by the Open Society Foundation…
the worst form of torture is rendition. Rendition means you take
somebody you suspect of something, and you send them off to your
favourite dictator, maybe Assad or Gadaffi or Mubarak, to be tortured,
hoping that maybe something will come out of it. That’s extraordinary
rendition. The study reviewed the countries that participated in this,
well obviously the Middle East dictatorships because that’s where they
were sent to be tortured, and Europe. Most of Europe participated;
England, Sweden, other countries. In fact, there’s only one region in
the world where nobody participated: Latin America. Which is pretty
dramatic. And first of all Latin America has now become pretty much out
of US control. When it was controlled by the United States, not very
long ago, it was the world’s centre of torture. Now, it didn’t
participate in the worst form of torture, which is rendition. Europe
participated. If the master roars, the servants cower.”
Isabelle Kumar: “So Europe is the servant of the United States?”
Noam Chomsky: “ Definitely. They are too cowardly to take an independent position.”
Isabelle Kumar: “Where does Vladimir Putin fit into this picture? He’s painted as one of the greatest threats to security. Is he?”
Noam Chomsky:
“Like most leaders, he’s a threat to his own population. He’s taken
illegal actions, obviously. But to depict him as a crazed monster who is
suffering from brain disease and has Alzheimer’s, and is a rat-faced
evil creature, that’s standard Orwellian fanaticism. I mean, whatever
you think about his policies, they are understandable. The idea that
Ukraine might join a Western military alliance would be quite
unacceptable to any Russian leader. This goes back to 1990 when the
Soviet Union collapsed. There was a question about what would happen
with NATO. Now Gorbachov agreed to allow Germany to be unified and to join NATO. It was a pretty remarkable concession with a quid pro quo: that NATO would not expand one inch to the east. That was the phrase that was used.”
Isabelle Kumar: “So Russia has been provoked?”
Noam Chomsky: “Well, what happened? NATO instantly moved into East Germany and then Clinton came along and expanded NATO
right to the borders of Russia. Now, the new Ukrainian government, the
government established after the overthrow of the preceding one, now the
parliament voted 300 to 8 or something like that, to move to join NATO.”
Isabelle Kumar: “But you can understand why they would want to join NATO, you can see why Petro Porochenko’s government would probably see it as protecting their country?”
Noam Chomsky:
“No, no, no, no. That’s not protecting. Crimea was taken away after the
overthrow of the government, right. And this is not protecting Ukraine,
it is threatening Ukraine with major war. Now that’s not protection.
The point is, this is a serious strategic threat to Russia, which any
Russian leader would have to react to. That’s well understood.”
Isabelle Kumar:
“If we look at the situation in Europe though, there’s also another
interesting phenomenon that’s taking place. We’re seeing Greece moving
towards the East, potentially, with the Syriza government. We’re also
seeing Podemos, which is gaining power in Spain, also in Hungary. Do you
see that there is a potential for Europe to start shirting and aligning
itself more with Russian interests?”
Noam Chomsky:
“Take a look at what’s happening. Hungary is a different situation
entirely. Syriza came into office on the basis of a popular wave which
said that Greece should no longer subject itself to policies from
Brussels and the German banks which are destroying the country. The
effect of these policies has been actually to increase Greece’s debt
relative to its wealth production; probably a half of young people are
unemployed, probably 40% of the population is living under the poverty
line, Greece is being destroyed.”
Isabelle Kumar: “So should their debt be written off?”
Noam Chomsky:
“Yes, just like Germany’s was. In 1953, when Europe wrote off most of
Germany’s debt. Just like that, so that Germany would be able to
reconstruct from wartime damage.”
Isabelle Kumar: “But then what about all the other European countries…?”
Noam Chomsky: “ Same story.”
Isabelle Kumar: “So Portugal should have its debt written off, Spain should have its debt written off…?”
Noam Chomsky:
“Who incurred this debt? And who is the debt owed to? In part, the debt
was incurred by dictators. So in Greece it was the fascist
dictatorship, which the US supported, that incurred a large part of the
debt. The debt I think was more brutal than the dictatorship, and that’s
what’s called in international law, “odious debt” which need not be
paid, and that’s a principal introduced into international law by the
United States, when it was in their interest to do so. Much of the rest
of the debt, what is called payments to Greece are in fact payments to
banks, German and French banks, which had decided to make extremely
risky loans with not very high interest and are now being faced with the
fact that they can’t be paid back.”
Isabelle Kumar:
“I’d like to ask this question now, from Gil Gribaudo, who asks, “How
will Europe transform then, versus the existential challenges it’s
facing?” Because yes there’s the economic crisis, and there’s also a
rise in nationalism, and you’ve also described some cultural fault lines
which have been created across Europe. How do you see Europe
transforming itself?”
Noam Chomsky:
“ Europe has serious problems. Some of the problems are the result of
economic policies designed by the bureaucrats in Brussels, the European
Commission and so on, under the pressure of NATO
and the big banks, mostly German ones. These policies make some sense
from the point of view of the designers. For one thing they want to be
paid back for their risky and hazardous loans and investments, and the
other thing is that these policies are eroding the welfare state, which
they’ve never liked. But the welfare state is one of Europe’s major
contributions to modern society, but the rich and powerful have never
liked it and the fact that these policies are eroding it is good from
their point of view. There’s another problem in Europe, it’s extremely
racist. I’ve always felt that Europe is probably more racist than the
United States. It wasn’t as visible in Europe because the European
populations in the past tended to be pretty homogeneous. So if everybody
is blonde and blue-eyed, then you don’t seem racist, but as soon as the
population begins to change racism comes out of the woodwork. Very
fast. And that’s a serious cultural problem in Europe.”
Isabelle Kumar:
“I’d like to end, because we’re very short of time, with a question
from Robert Light on a more positive note. He asks, “What gives you
hope?”
Noam Chomsky: “ What gives me hope is a
couple of things we’ve talked about. Latin American independence for
example. That’s of historic significance. We’re going to see it right
now, in the Summit of Americas meeting in Panama. In the recent
hemispheric meetings, the United States has been completely isolated.
It’s a radical change from 10 or 20 years ago, when the United States
ran [Latin American affairs]. In fact the reason why Obama made his
gestures towards Cuba was to try to overcome American, US isolation.
It’s the US that’s isolated, not Cuba. And probably it will fail. We
will see. The signs for optimism in Europe are Syriza and Podemos.
Hopefully there is finally a popular uprising against the the crushing,
destructive economic and social policies that come from the bureaucracy
and the banks, and that’s very hopeful. Should be."
Isabelle Kumar: “Noam Chomsky, many thanks for being with us.”
Who is Noam Chomsky ?
- Noam Chomsky was born on December 7, 1928 in Philadelphia, US
- He began working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1955
- He is a famous linguist, philosopher and political activist
- His work from the 1950s revolutionised the field of linguistics
- He rose to prominence for his anti-Vietnam war activism
- He opposes ruling elites and is a sharp critic of US and western foreign policy
- He has authored hundreds of books
No comments:
Post a Comment