#11: 04.12.30=5: Oh, Iraq! #2

1) Oh, Iraq! #2 (1) "Civilization versus Barbarism? : An Interview with Noam Chomsky", [by] M. Junaid Alam with Noam Chomsky, Dec. 27, 2004's Left Hook, "A Radical Youth Journal Based in the US: December marks the first full year of publication...": http://www.lefthook.org/Interviews/AlamChomsky122304.html "" On December 17th, Left Hook co-editor M. Junaid Alam met with Professor Noam Chomsky at his MIT office to get his thoughts on the ideological justifications and historical realities behind America's "war on terror." Professor Chomsky spent a half-hour taking apart the framework of "civilization" versus "barbarism," pointing to Western and particularly US state-sponsored atrocities, laying out the grave nature of war crimes committed in Iraq, attacking the intellectual culture which sanctions massive suffering, and explaining the elite's knowledge of the roots of terrorism. Below is the audio link and then the transcript for the interview. "" "" Alam: Professor Chomsky, thank you for doing this interview with Left Hook. In the time we have, I wanted to discuss with you the consequences and implications of America's current war stance, how some of its programs or objectives might be interrelated. The first thing I wanted to bring up is, it seems that the general ideological picture painted for us by the administration and conservative outlets is that the overall so-called war on terror is about the "civilized" world combating "barbarism," a position Business Week recently voiced. In what ways do you think is - in what ways do you think this is historically or politically inaccurate, in terms of the scale and intensity of the crimes committed by ourselves versus the "barbarians," presumably Islamists and nationalists in Iraq and Palestine? Chomsky: Well, it doesn't even come close. I mean, the level of destruction and terror and violence carried out by the powerful states far exceeds anything that can imaginably can be done by groups that are called terrorists and subnational groups. I mean just take, say, Iraq. The best current estimate of deaths after the invasion is 100,000 maybe more, maybe less. Take a long time for Islamic terrorists to kill 100,000 people. Take say, the most extensive terrorist act attributed to Islamic terrorists, 9-11. About 3,000 people killed, which is a pretty horrible atrocity. But as atrocities go, it doesn't rank very high. Take for example, what south of the Rio Grande is often called the other 9-11. September 11th, 1973, in which the United States was very heavily involved -- that's the bombing of the presidential palace, the military coup, the death of the president, the destruction of the leading democracy, the oldest democracy, in Latin America. The official death toll for that 9-11 is - the official death toll is over 3,000, but that's just the bodies they can actually count. The estimated toll is probably twice that. If you give that number in comparative terms, comparative population terms, that'd be the equivalent of about 50 to 100,000 people killed in the United States. We've just learned recently the detailed numbers of people tortured -- it's 30,000, that's 700,000 in the United States, thousands of cases of rapes and other abuse, and many people just lost, disappeared, who knows what happened to them. It also set up international terrorist operations, under the rubric of what was called Operation Condor, which brought together similar state terrorist organizations in neighboring countries which the US also had a major role in establishing -- The US intelligence compared DINA, the Chilean state terror organization, compared them to the Gestapo and KGB. They didn't fool around, and that's the way they were viewed by the United States while the US was supporting them, and Britain was supporting them enthusiastically, and so on. In fact their international terror activities only stopped when they went one step too far. They murdered a well-known diplomat in Washington DC, and that's not allowed, so they were sort of called off and stayed pretty brutal, but not that bad. ""