Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bela_ghoulashi who wrote (11771)	11/28/2001 12:09:43 AM
From: Constant Reader	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I am tempted to say that he has been doing that for quite some time (some would say he has made a career out of it), but it would not further the great conversation here so I will say that I thought Thomas Friedman's latest column (mentioned here earlier) was quite good and very thought-provoking.

To: bela_ghoulashi who wrote (11771)	11/28/2001 12:20:01 AM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Respond to of 281500

some comments on the Chomsky article slate.msn.com

To: bela_ghoulashi who wrote (11771)	11/28/2001 7:14:25 AM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Chomsky. Doesn't hate the US. He's obsessive. He starts down a certain path and doesn't stop till he gets to the end. Trouble is, the path sometimes leads through dark narrow places. He says that his intellectual job is to criticize his country since that's where he lives and that's where his responsibilities lie. I have a feeling that he may have become more abrasive and extreme in his expression the last few years. Be clear about Chomsky. He's not a pseudo-intellectual. If they gave Nobel prizes for linguistics/psychology/philosophy he would be nominated (but of course, I expect , given the source of the funds, he wouldn't accept it). <g> For a long time he was absolutely the most cited author in all the social sciences literature but NOT for his political writing. About the article in Dawn it certainly was very bad. I've read various stories about the lecture, he's on a tour and he gave a version of it in Chennai about two weeks ago. The article following is better not much better and reports the same lecture as Dawn. Note the first paragraph is not supported by the quote which i think is supposed to be evidence.... I got this story off the same left wing news service that is carrying the Dawn article. I read yet a third article about this particular lecture which has Chomsky skewering the Afghan/terrorist foreign policies of the US, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and just bout everyone else, except Togo. In it he is utterly devastating on the subject of the Kashmir policies of India and Pakistan.... Ther must have been some very uncomfortable folk in that lecture hall. Here's number 2 maybe I'll find number 3. indymedia.org US has no proof to get Osama convicted: Chomsky (english) by By Intikhab Hanif 10:36am Mon Nov 26 '01 US has no proof to get Osama convicted: Chomsky US has no proof to get Osama convicted: Chomsky By Intikhab Hanif LAHORE, Nov 25: US scholar Dr Noam Chomsky on Sunday said America wanted Osama bin Laden dead and not alive because it did not have any proof to get him convicted in a court of law. "If captured alive it will be difficult for America to try Osama in a court of law and that is why it considers it better to kill him," he said while replying to questions at a forum of a local newspaper. The Sept 11 plane attacks on America did not mark a beginning of its end. The happening merely changed the history, as it involved the first-ever massive attack this time on a major developed country in hundreds of years. But it will not change the social and economic and political system of America and the world, he said. Prof Chomsky said it was true that all past empires fell. But the peak of the US power was in 1945 when it possessed half of the world's wealth and a huge military force. But by 1970 this wealth was reduced to 25 per cent. Now, he said, there were three major power centres, the US based west, the German based West and the Japan and China based South East Asia. The events on Sept 11 will not change this set up. Prof Chomsky said the Kashmiri people had the right to self- determination but the dispute could be resolved only by Pakistan and India through the sympathetic recognition of each others stand point. "America is not favouring any of the parties to the conflict. It wants to go its own way and is showing one side of the picture to Pakistan and another to India. It merely wants both the countries to be nice subordinates, desiring that Islamabad must stop support to violence in the held Kashmir," the US scholar said. He termed the attack on Afghanistan merely an act of establishing the power and credibility of America and its allies. Even bombing Taliban soldiers was a crime, an illegal act and sheer exercise of power, he said. Prof Chomsky said the CIA, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries created mercenaries in Afghanistan. "Yes, Afghans had the right to defend the USSR invasion but America and Muslim countries had no right to raise mercenaries in Afghanistan," he said He said the USSR invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, which was a crime, but the US started supporting the Mujahideen there six months earlier to fight against their government and to "invite and trap" the USSR in Afghanistan. "The plan was successful," he said. Prof Chomsky said China and Iran too were playing their game in the region before 1978. Pakistan also got involved and they all destroyed Afghanistan, he claimed. He said both the USSR and the US used the cold war as a pretext to establish their hegemony in the world and to block each other. But the same policy continued even after the demise of the USSR as the US invaded Panama using this time not to defend the country against "Moscow but against Spanish drug lords". The cold war was an illusion and the Third World was its victim. The US scholar said the Central Asia had oil reserves but these were much less than those in the Gulf region. The Central Asian states were not the major source of attraction for their oil reserves as the cold energy (technology) will soon replace the hot energy. He said sarcastically referred to the pro-establishment intellectuals as wise men and said they were the associates of policy makers. "If you don't support the power, you are not considered intellectual," he said. Prof Chomsky said people in the US were not given full information but still there were occasions when public opinion led to a change in the policy. To prove his point he quoted the examples of the Kennedy and Reagan administrations which made military experiments in Vietnam and Central America and had to worry about the public reactions against it. He said the long war in Vietnam had created strong public opinion against the US administration but it stopped the aggression when the business community, which matters and not the people, said that the conflict had become costly. "A delegation of the business community went to Washington and asked the president to resign, stop bombing and start withdrawing army as the war is costing too much," he said. Prof Chomsky said the Reagan administration tried to duplicate the action of the Kennedy administration in Vietnam and the media supported both the regimes. "But, the US action against weaker nations must end rapidly because the public support erodes quickly," he said. America raised the slogan of the star war to eliminate nuclear weapons whereas it was meant to accelerate the arms race and was opposed by the people. "They do respond to public voice, but as they defend the power, it happens occasionally," he said. Prof Chomsky said those who press for democracy were not serving the West because this was the last thing the West would want. "The West want subordinate system no matter it is being run by military dictator," he said.