"Both Israelis and Palestinians have elected governments committed to peace and progress, and the way forward is clear"...,
2005-08-22 19:04:58
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if few really give a shit about iraq...,
2005-08-23 13:16:41
from young contrarian to Colonel Blimp?:
others enjoin to waste their breath on fruitless endeavors, and so shall we. This is amusing, we merely note that Chomsky never pointed "to US crimes as a provocation for September 11". He argued that the ostensible provacation was the US basing its troops on Saudi soil in an agreement with the Saudi government - unwise policy perhaps but hardly a "crime", and in no way justifying the attacks. Support for the criminals involved is something else again, and that he argued has some basis in "US crimes", among other things, but primarily bad policy that probably ought to be criminal, but I am as of yet unaware of any serious laws against foreign military aid to whoever we please (the State Department must sanction it, e.g. the executive is legally obligated to allow the executive to do so).
"US crimes" didn't really figure into it until we get to the "war on terror", where he argues that terrorism on a scale comparable to 9-11 is not at all rare, noting that a major source of "the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological" was the United States, among others, and then going so far as to suppose that a campaign - rather than the pretense of one - to end such behavior wouldn't be a bad idea. Thus he endorsed a campaign to end terror, so defined. This is what made Hitchens and others pissy, confusing one point with the other. We acknowledge that the difference between these distinct positions is extremely difficult to grasp. Whether "provocation" amounts to some amount of "responsibility" let alone "culpability" is another matter left to the legally minded, and without a thorough check we don't recall him touching upon the matter. Rather, in order to delude his readers, he just regurgitated the same old shit without significant comment, as is his infuriating manner. His refusal, for instance, to call the attackers "Islamo-fascists" must be held as a distinct low point among low points for somebody who routinely quotes the Wall Street Journal. He is clearly beneath contempt.
Here are some other positions we find hard to reconcile:
On the Sudan bombings, 1998: "a very large number of people are going to die or are dying now... it is the children and old people and those who are already sick who die...", alleging that it was to misdirect from the Lewinsky affair. On September 13, 2001, "... attacks that destroyed a Sudanese aspirin factory". On October 8: "to mention this banana-republic degradation of the United States in the same breath... is to abandon every standard that makes intellectual and moral discrimination possible." Indeed, we have very discriminating bombs, our checkpoints even moreso!
