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Noam Chomsky Lecture
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Miss Fluff wrote:I only found this thread now and can't believe I missed it!! I reckon everyone should HAVE to read Understanding Power. Where was it advertised as a matter of interest?
I heard about it on the radio Newstalk I think.0 -
theres an interview with him on newstalk with eamon dunphy,its repeated at 10pm tonight on 106fm.Miss Fluff wrote:I only found this thread now and can't believe I missed it!! I reckon everyone should HAVE to read Understanding Power. Where was it advertised as a matter of interest?0 -
bonkey wrote:Need me for what?
To help with the deification of Chomsky? Not gonna happen.
To help show that those criticising him are generally using the very same types of tactics and techniques that they are criticising Chomsky for employing? Should already be obvious to anyone willing to do more than have their information spoon-fed to them.
To argue that the truth is somewhere in the middle? Has been said by enough people on this thread that I didn't feel it needed repeating.
jc
I was (trying anyway) being smart when said that bonkey
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" Ive provided backup, from multiple sources"
A blog, wikipedia and a cartoon.
If you wanna slag the guy of you should do better than that.
Like an actual quote from him or something?
A) Why quote the entire post if youre only going to respond to a partial sentence?
Slagging implies personal insults - Ive only criticised his work and analysis. He might be the greatest guy to know ever, but I dont care either way.
C) Both the links quoted Chomsky. They then examined and criticised his stated views. A link to Chomskys quote alone is useless without the criticism. Seeing as you refuse to accept any source other than Chomsky, perhaps you should visit his site and read some of his articles, perhaps the article cited and demolished in that blog you dismissed without reading.
From the articleThe September 11 attacks were major atrocities. In terms of number of victims they do not reach the level of many others, for example, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and probably killing tens of thousands of people (no one knows, because the US blocked an inquiry at the UN and no one cares to pursue it).
The blog you ignored already examined the bombing. One janitor died in it as it was carried out in the middle of the night to minimise casualties. It was bombed on intelligence that nerve agents were being produced there and in response to the Embassy bombings carried out by AQ only 2 weeks before which killed 257 people, mainly Africans.
No NGO or other reputable agency working in Sudan reported any spike in deaths due to the bombing or loss of pharmaceutical supplies. the HRW communications director specifically denied Chomskys claim that they had prepared estimates of tens of thousands of deaths. Oh I know, you wont believe that. Heres the HRW documents on Sudan, knock yourself out digging out the one where HRW link the bombing to a medical shortage causing tens of thousands of deaths. You might start with the only document mentioning the bombing at all, the one which doesnt mention any such deaths or shortage. His other source was a German ambassador having a rant. And yet Chomsky persists in talking rubbish to the gullible.
Do you know what I find odd? Its that in every single source Ive found for Chomskys quote above, it never says "in terms of number of victims", it says "in terms of scale". Only Chomskys online, easily edited article uses that phrase instead of scale... Who knows, perhaps every other single source out there made the exact same mistake in quoting it. Even sites like Commondreams there on the first page. Maybe Chomsky went back and altered it slightly so it said the same thing but being different enough that he could fight it better. If he says scale, its a question of his judgement, if he says numbers he can later pretend he was only misinformed. Hard to say without access to a hardcopy of the article.Actually I was correcting mis-statements in the article.
...and the "no-fly zone" was not UN mandated.
Of course it wasnt. UN mandates restricted the armies that had liberated Kuwait from doing anything about the suffering of the Shias and Kurds in Iraq. But then, isnt the UN the greatest thing ever? If only the UN could run everything.
To do the right thing, the UN had to be sidelined. The more things change, the more they stay the same.0 -
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Sand wrote:A) Why quote the entire post if youre only going to respond to a partial sentence? Slagging implies personal insults - Ive only criticised his work and analysis. He might be the greatest guy to know ever, but I dont care either way.
C) Both the links quoted Chomsky. They then examined and criticised his stated views. A link to Chomskys quote alone is useless without the criticism. Seeing as you refuse to accept any source other than Chomsky, perhaps you should visit his site and read some of his articles, perhaps the article cited and demolished in that blog you dismissed without reading.
From the article
The blog you ignored already examined the bombing. One janitor died in it as it was carried out in the middle of the night to minimise casualties. It was bombed on intelligence that nerve agents were being produced there and in response to the Embassy bombings carried out by AQ only 2 weeks before which killed 257 people, mainly Africans.
No NGO or other reputable agency working in Sudan reported any spike in deaths due to the bombing or loss of pharmaceutical supplies. the HRW communications director specifically denied Chomskys claim that they had prepared estimates of tens of thousands of deaths. Oh I know, you wont believe that. Heres the HRW documents on Sudan, knock yourself out digging out the one where HRW link the bombing to a medical shortage causing tens of thousands of deaths. You might start with the only document mentioning the bombing at all, the one which doesnt mention any such deaths or shortage. His other source was a German ambassador having a rant. And yet Chomsky persists in talking rubbish to the gullible.
Do you know what I find odd? Its that in every single source Ive found for Chomskys quote above, it never says "in terms of number of victims", it says "in terms of scale". Only Chomskys online, easily edited article uses that phrase instead of scale... Who knows, perhaps every other single source out there made the exact same mistake in quoting it. Even sites like Commondreams there on the first page. Maybe Chomsky went back and altered it slightly so it said the same thing but being different enough that he could fight it better. If he says scale, its a question of his judgement, if he says numbers he can later pretend he was only misinformed. Hard to say without access to a hardcopy of the article.
Of course it wasnt. UN mandates restricted the armies that had liberated Kuwait from doing anything about the suffering of the Shias and Kurds in Iraq. But then, isnt the UN the greatest thing ever? If only the UN could run everything.
To do the right thing, the UN had to be sidelined. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
a) Its quicker
b) He repeatedy talks crap is kind of slagging but who cares its immaterial.
c) The guy lectures all the time. He probably does the same lecture many times with small differences, he also gets interviewed a lot so there are probably loads of slightly different versions of what he says. Considering the amount he publishes it must be easy to find mistakes, contradictions etc.
Regarding his point about the factory bombing in Sudan I have the hard copy of his 911 book. He's probably made this point many times talking and writing so there are probably many versions of the quote. He is refering to how the west has attacked many times. Imagine if the British fired a missile at Dublin in retaliation for Canary Wharf bombing. It would be an outrage. Yet we retaliate like that in the middle east and its ok. Besides the moral issue of doing this it also helps create more terrorists. How many people died because of that I don't know, doubt anybody knows.
In terms of scale, number of victims, don't see much difference between the two terms and like I said he writes and talks a lot so he's hardly going to use the same terms everytime. An attack doesn't just consist of those who die immediatly it also has long term cosequences. American NGO's and charities left the Sudan as a result, how many died because of that? Then the lack of medicines many more. The head of HRW said that they didn't investigate it and it would need thorough research to find out. HRW has repeatedly asked the US to investigate it and to show why they thought the factory was producing chemicals but they have not done so.
Its also a bit much assuming that anyone who goes to the lecture or reads him is doing so because he's some kind of media figure or fashionable dissident. Like everyone else people listen then take what they want from it. Very few people believe every word that someone says. As Chomsky says himself look at the facts and make up your own mind.
Considering the given view for the motivations of terrorists and the war in Iraq is one line slogans "they hate our freedom" etc many people want to hear other views that are a bit more sophisticated. I agree he does seem a bit "everything is Americas fault" but he is American so of course he talks a lot about America. If we want to understand why the west is being attacked we have to look at how the west has behaved towards the middle east. Saying this does in no way indicate support for the terrorists. Understanding the situation is the first step in solving it. All we hear about in the west is faceless psycho's brainwashed by Islam. Taking away human characteristics from people there and portraying them that way is simplistic and designed to numb us to whats happening over there.0 -
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The bombing wasn't carried out because it was allegedly a nerve-agent factory. The decision to bomb was made - as you point out - as a form of "retaliation" for a prior attack against US interests. The implication is that had the bombnig which killed hundreds not been carried out, this factory would not have been bombed.
So it was bombed simply because it happened to be in a Islamic region of the world? They were out to get some random Muslim as payback so it was just some poor guys bad luck to be Muslim and a janitor of a factory in an industrial park?
For the relationship between the bombings and the factory strike, Id imagine Clinton had the intel on this factory on his desk for quite some time but couldnt see his way to justifying a strike out of the blue on intelligence that could always be wrong. When the embassy bombings came along, like the WTC attacks, they placed the onus on striking at terrorist targets rather than preparing the case for the prosecution. Call it revenge if you like, but it wasnt some random angry lashing out, it was carried out because the bombings changed the political realities facing Clinton, making strikes that were politically impossible, possible. They did not provide Clinton with the impetus to deal decisively with AQ and Co though, it took 9/11 for that.
BJs analalogy is that the British just randomly bomb somewhere in Dublin as payback for a bombing in London. Theres a lot wrong with the analogy between Ireland and Sudan for starters. Irelands a lawful country that co-operates in defeating terrorism. Sudan is not, and is currently engaging in ethnic cleansing in Darfur which does not impress me with their zeal for doing the right thing. Why would Britain bomb Ireland when we are their ally in defeating the IRA? The whole Ireland-Sudan analogy breaks down before it even lifts off.
Secondly the US strike was not random, they didnt just carpet bomb Khartoum. They struck a specific target, with specific cause, taking measure to minimise casualities so that only one person died. So again, the analogy of the UK just bombing Dublin as payback breaks down.
Thirdly, BJs analogy links the UK attack on Dublin with the action of Irish (or to be realistic, theyre more than likely from Belfast/UK) terrorists. An attack on Ireland in retaliation for Irish terrorists. There is no indication that the Embassy bombers were Sudanese, though they may have had links there. It is known Bin Laden spent time there and had business interests in Sudan. Neither were their aims some form of Sudanese nationalism. The Sudanese factory was targeted because of intelligence on the activity carried out there, not simply because it was a Sudanese factory.
An accurate analogy would be
"So Sand, say you lived in a lawless 3rd world state riven by civil war, ethnic cleansing and poverty. A factory in this state is identified by some distant, demonised superpower as producing nerve agents as part of a terrorist plot. They do not trust your government, representive as it is of the Sudanese people (who they might end up being is currently being decided with systematic rape, machetes and bullets), to investigate and arrest the wrongdoers and instead launch a pinpoint missle strike on the factory in the middle of the night, killing one person and destroying the factory - How does that make you feel!?!?!?"
Well seeing as theres a good chance my Sudanese government is trying to kill me and/or my family, who can say if that nerve gas is intended for me? Id say good on them. But then, Im not a sucker for the "800 years" justification of SFIRA either, so Im maybe not a good test case for tribalistic appeals.So the analagy is fully accurate. A nation was bombed in response to an attack carried out by terrorists with some tenuous connection to the nation.
Why limit yourself to a nation Bonkey? Why not "a continent was bombed", or even better yet "a planet was bombed"? We could do re-enactments with clips from Star Wars IV.Claiming that its a completely unrelated, spurious, what-if scenario is disingenuous.
And claiming Ireland is a good substitute for Sudan isnt? Its a lazy and illogical analogy that has only served to distract attention from the actual topic.Sand, what do you base your assumptions about the people that go to the Chomsky lectures on? I've seen the sort of dismissive debating style that you have, how can I trust your analysis?
On what Chomsky offers his audience. Bad analysis supported by bad information. And with Chomskys relentlessly unsurprising conclusions, I suspect that the analysis comes first, and the "facts" come later. He may get it right sometimes, like a stopped clock is right twice a day, but are my standards of asking analysis to be at least reasonably trustworthy ridiculously high? Claiming a HRW estimate exists is credible, but it was a lie. How many other credible "facts" are in Chomskys work that slip by because A) Theyre little lies, like saying a HRW study exists that doesnt or Because Chomsky fans are extremely forgiving of his "mistakes" despite kicking and screaming over any accusation of inaccuracy in Chomskys work?
A guy like Chomsky would be destroyed on this board with its constant requests for links to backup and sources. If a lecturer cant meet the standards of a message board, then hes not really worth seeing for anything other than the media circus? Are people saying that Chomsky is as good as it gets for those who oppose US foreign policy? A guy whose a notoriously bad fact checker?Say, for example, do you really believe your filibuster cartoon site? Would you really trust an American political site like that to give an accurate represenation of the position of Al-Q? No chance it might be over simplified?
Its a cartoon, of course its simplified. And its Canadian, not American. But it does make the point that yes, a large part of the AQ view of the world is hostile towards secularism or what we would describe as liberal democracy, despite the "informed" sneering that greeted the "they hate our freedoms" speech. And youll have to forgive me and my over-simplified view of Bin Laden and Co, but why is AQ in Iraq targeting Shia Muslims and trying to provoke a Shia-Sunni civil war? Arent they all Middle Easterners motivated to join AQ by Western inteference in the ME? Shouldnt they be teaming up, not trying to kill each other? Why are they blowing up Jordanian hotels full of Muslims celebrating weddings when they should be getting feted by these guys as heroes fighting the Great Satan? Im sorry, Ive just got this crazy idea that theres more to AQ than being some sort of Arab vigilante force.
Theres a lot of simple analysis out there. Not all of them are offered by Bush. The cartoon was making that point, not providing a detailed analysis of its own.- but you would probably dismiss his research, right? I mean, I've not actually read the Scheuer reference, nor was I part of any Pentagon advisory panel and Chomsky is obviously unhinged since he's so opposed to the establishment...
I wouldnt trust Chomsky to have quoted him correctly or in context, given the way he quotes newspaper reviews of his books. Even if he were accurate, Id disagree with the analysis. Bin Laden and AQ have a vision for the Arab and Islamic world. They would not be satisfied with an Islamic world without American troops and embassies, but still with local secular dictatorships, or even secular, representitive democracies. To claim otherwise, would be, dare I say it, overly simple. And ironic, because no one is willing to extend Bush the credibility that he may have gone to war in Iraq because he thought they had WMDs, but are quite willing to believe Bin Laden that hes going to war because the US protected Bosnian muslims from genocide in the Balkans. But then, only American leaders can lie about their intentions or motivations, right?
As for the Pentagon panel, are "AQ" and "Muslims" interchangeable now? Bush was not referring to Muslims when he said "they hate our freedoms".Before you find the temptation irresistable to shout, "Ah HA - implicit support for Hussein by Al-Q!!", I'll just point you at pg 5 of this document prepared by the Library of Congress on Al-Q statements and ideology. Bin Laden is quoted as saying “We, as Muslims, do not like the Iraqi regime but we think that the Iraqi people and their children are our brothers and we care about their future.”
A) I do not consider it all that likely that Saddam had anything to do with AQ, despite the enemy of my enemy stuff. IIRC, my position was that seeing as Saddam had already developed and employed WMDs it was quite likely they would do so again, but that I didnt care either way because removing Saddam was justification in itself. So, wasting your time with that tbh. Im sure his brothers are delighted with the care he has extended so far. Does he gift wrap all the suicide bombers he sends them to exspress his love for them?So, why would I go to the trouble of researching the goals of an organisation that I detest?
I dont know, why wouldnt you?'Peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by understanding' - EinsteinThere are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.
George Orwell
Yes, I know I quote Orwell too much, but he is very quotable.0 -
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