[Peace-discuss] Chomsky on the reason for the war

[jencart]

I loved this article, Carl.  Yeah, I'm a Chomsky fan, too.... 

Since when is the ever-irritating Christopher Hitchens -- he's annoying even when he happens to say something I agree with -- a "colleague on the left?

Jenifer C.
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Dealing with terror, Chomsky believes, requires a "dual programme" along the lines of "what the British did in Northern Ireland". He says: "The terrorist acts are criminal acts so you apprehend the guilty, use force if necessary and bring them to a fair trial. They want to appeal to the reservoir of understanding for what they're doing, even from people who hate and fear them. If they can mobilise that reservoir they win. We can help them mobilise that reservoir by violence or we can reduce it by dealing with legitimate grievances."

"Every resort to violence has been a gift to the jihadists.  Respond with violence which hits civilians and you're giving a gift to Osama bin Laden; you're giving him the propaganda weapon he wants so he can say, 'We have to defend Islam against the Western infidels trying to destroy it. We're fighting a war of defence'."

"If you want to mobilise that constituency that is the way to intervene. But there is another way and that is to pay attention to the legitimate grievance. That's intervention too."

THE CV

Born: 7 December, 1928 in Philadelphia, son of William Chomsky, a Hebrew scholar

1949: Marries linguist Carol Schatz. Three children

1955: Doctorate in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania.

1957: His book Syntactic Structures revolutionises the field of linguistics. Begins teaching at MIT

1964: Active against the Vietnam War, including organising tax strikes

1969: Lectures at MIT on "Government in the Future" and deeply impresses the young and impressionable C. G. Estabrook, who sees no reason to change his opinion 35 years later

1980-92: Cited as a source more than any other living scholar, Arts and Humanities Citation Index shows

2001: Likens the 9/11 attacks to US bombing of al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. Says in book after the attack: "Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism"

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