From:       Michael Albert
Subject:    ZNet Commentary /
            Noam Chomsky / Albert Interviews Chomsky /
            Sept. 30

Date sent:  Sun, 30 Sep 2001 10:31:05 -0400

Albert Interviews Chomsky...

I sent six questions to Noam Chomsky. His answers, by email, are
below.


(1) There has been an immense movement of troops and extreme
use of military rhetoric, up to comments about terminating
governments, etc. Yet, to many people there appears to be
considerable restraint...what happened?  

>From the first days after the attack, the Bush
administration has been warned by NATO leaders, specialists
on the region, and presumably its own intelligence agencies
(not to speak of many people like you and me) that if they
react with a massive assault that kills many innocent
people, that will be answering bin Laden's most fervent
prayers. They will be falling into a "diabolical trap," as
the French foreign minister put it. That would be true --
perhaps even more so -- if they happen to kill bin Laden,
still without having provided credible evidence of his
involvement in the crimes of Sept.  11. He would then be
perceived as a martyr even among the enormous majority of
Muslims who deplore those crimes, as bin Laden himself has
done, for what it is worth, denying any involvement in the
crimes or even knowledge of them, and condemning "the
killing of innocent women, children, and other humans" as an
act that "Islam strictly forbids...even in the course of a
battle" (BBC, Sept. 29). His voice will continue to resound
on tens of thousands of cassettes already circulating
throughout the Muslim world, and in many interviews,
including the last few days.  An assault that kills innocent
Afghans -- not Taliban, but their terrorized victims --
would be virtually a call for new recruits to the horrendous
cause of the bin Laden network and other graduates of the
terrorist networks set up by the CIA and its associates 20
years ago to fight a Holy War against the Russians,
meanwhile following their own agenda, from the time they
assassinated President Sadat of Egypt in 1981, murdering one
of the most enthusiastic of the creators of the "Afghanis"
-- mostly recruits from extremist radical Islamist elements
around the world who were recruited to fight in
Afghanistan.   After a little while, the message apparently
got through to the Bush administration, which has -- wisely
from their point of view -- chosen to follow a different
course.

  However, "restraint" seems to me a questionable word. On
Sept.  16, the New York Times reported that "Washington has
also demanded [from Pakistan] a cutoff of fuel
supplies,...and the elimination of truck convoys that
provide much of the food and other supplies to Afghanistan's
civilian population." Astonishingly, that report elicited no
detectable reaction in the West, a grim reminder of the
nature of the Western civilization that leaders and elite
commentators claim to uphold, yet another lesson that is not
lost among those who have been at the wrong end of the guns
and whips for centuries. In the following days, those
demands were implemented. On Sept. 27, the same NYT
correspondent reported that officials in Pakistan "said
today that they would not relent in their decision to seal
off the country's 1,400- mile border with Afghanistan, a
move requested by the Bush administration because, the
officials said, they wanted to be sure that none of Mr.  bin
Laden's men were hiding among the huge tide of refugees"
(John Burns, Islamabad). According to the world's leading
newspaper, then, Washington demanded that Pakistan slaughter
massive numbers of Afghans, millions of them already on the
brink of starvation, by cutting off the limited sustenance
that was keeping them alive. Almost all aid missions
withdrew or were expelled under the threat of bombing. Huge
numbers of miserable people have been fleeing to the borders
in terror, after Washington's threat to bomb the shreds of
existence remaining in Afghanistan, and to convert the
Northern Alliance into a heavily armed military force that
will, perhaps, be unleashed to renew the atrocities that
tore the country apart and led much of the population to
welcome the Taliban when they drove out the murderous
warring factions that Washington and Moscow now hope to
exploit for their own purposes. When they reach the sealed
borders, refugees are trapped to die in silence. Only a
trickle can escape through remote mountain passes. How many
have already succumbed we cannot guess, and few seem to
care. Apart from the relief agencies, I have seen no attempt
even to guess. Within a few weeks the harsh winter will
arrive. There are some reporters and aid workers in the
refugee camps across the borders. What they describe is
horrifying enough, but they know, and we know, that they are
seeing the lucky ones, the few who were able to escape --
and who express their hopes that ''even the cruel Americans
must feel some pity for our ruined country,'' and relent in
this savage silent genocide (Boston Globe, Sept. 27,
p. 1). Perhaps the most apt description was given by the
wonderful and courageous Indian writer and activist
Arundhati Roy, referring to Operation Infinite Justice
proclaimed by the Bush Administration: "Witness the infinite
justice of the new century. Civilians starving to death
while they're waiting to be killed" (Guardian, Sept. 29).  
 

(2) The UN has indicated that the threat of starvation in
Afghanistan is enormous. International criticism on this
score has grown and now the U.S. and Britain are talking
about providing food aid to ward off hunger. Are they caving
in to dissent in fact, or only in appearance? What is their
motivation? What will be the scale and impact of their
efforts?  

The UN estimates that some 7-8 million are at risk of
imminent starvation. The NY Times reports in a small item
(Sept. 25) that nearly six million Afghans depend on food
aid from the UN, as well as 3.5 million in refugee camps
outside, many of whom fled just before the borders were
sealed. The item reported that some food is being sent, to
the camps across the border. If people in Washington and the
editorial offices have even a single gray cell functioning,
they realize that they must present themselves as
humanitarians seeking to avert the awesome tragedy that
followed at once from the threat of bombing and military
attack and the sealing of the borders they
demanded. "Experts also urge the United States to improve
its image by increasing aid to Afghan refugees, as well as
by helping to rebuild the economy" (Christian Science
Monitor, Sept. 28). Even without PR specialists to instruct
them, administration officials must comprehend that they
should send some food to the refugees who made it across the
border, and at least talk about air drop of food to starving
people within: in order "to save lives" but also to "help
the effort to find terror groups inside Afghanistan" (Boston
Globe, Sept. 27, quoting a Pentagon official, who describes
this as "winning the hearts and minds of the people"). The
New York Times editors picked up the same theme the
following day, 12 days after the journal reported that the
murderous operation is being put into effect.   On the scale
of aid, one can only hope that it is enormous, or the human
tragedy may be immense in a few weeks. But we should also
bear in mind that there has been nothing to stop massive
food drops from the beginning, and we cannot even guess how
many have already died, or soon will. If the government is
sensible, there will be at least a show of the "massive air
drops" that officials mention.    

(3) International legal institutions would likely ratify
efforts to arrest and try bin Laden and others, supposing
guilt could be shown, including the use of force. Why does
the U.S. avoid this recourse?

Is it only a matter of not wishing to legitimate an approach
that could be used, as well, against our acts of terrorism,
or are other factors at play?   Much of the world has been
asking the US to provide some evidence to link bin Laden to
the crime, and if such evidence could be provided, it would
not be difficult to rally enormous support for an
international effort, under the rubric of the UN, to
apprehend and try him and his collaborators. However, that
is no simple matter. Even if bin Laden and his network are
involved in the crimes of Sept. 11, it may be quite hard to
produce credible evidence. As the CIA surely knows very
well, having nurtured these organizations and monitored them
very closely for 20 years, they are diffuse, decentralized,
non-hierarchic structures, probably with little
communication or direct guidance. And for all we know, most
of the perpetrators may have killed themselves in their
awful missions.   There are further problems in the
background. To quote Roy again, "The Taliban's response to
US demands for the extradition of Bin Laden has been
uncharacteristically reasonable: produce the evidence, then
we'll hand him over. President Bush's response is that the
demand is non-negotiable'." She also adds one of the many
reasons why this framework is unacceptable to Washington:
"While talks are on for the extradition of CEOs can India
put in a side request for the extradition of Warren Anderson
of the US? He was the chairman of Union Carbide, responsible
for the Bhopal gas leak that killed 16,000 people in
1984. We have collated the necessary evidence. It's all in
the files. Could we have him, please?" Such comparisons
elicit frenzied tantrums at the extremist fringes of Western
opinion, some of them called "the left." But for Westerners
who have retained their sanity and moral integrity, and for
great numbers among the usual victims, they are quite
meaningful. Government leaders presumably understand that.

  And the single example that Roy mentions is only the
beginning, of course, and one of the lesser examples, not
only because of the scale of the atrocity, but because it
was not explicitly a crime of state. Suppose Iran were to
request the extradition of high officials of the Carter and
Reagan administrations, refusing to present the ample
evidence of the crimes they were implementing -- and it
surely exists. Or suppose Nicaragua were to demand the
extradition of the US ambassador to the UN, newly appointed
to lead the "war against terror," a man whose record
includes his service as "proconsul" (as he was often called)
in the virtual fiefdom of Honduras, where he surely was
aware of the atrocities of the state terrorists he was
supporting, and was also overseeing the terrorist war for
which the US was condemned by the World Court and the
Security Council (in a resolution the US vetoed). Or many
others. Would the US even dream of responding to such
demands presented without evidence, or even if the ample
evidence were presented?   Those doors are better left
closed, just as it is best to maintain the silence on the
appointment of a leading figure in managing the operations
condemned as terrorism by the highest existing international
bodies -- to lead a "war on terrorism."  Jonathan Swift
would also be speechless.   That may be the reason why
administration publicity experts preferred the usefully
ambiguous term "war" to the more explicit term "crime" --
"crime against humanity as Robert Fisk, Mary Robinson, and
others have accurately depicted it. There are established
procedures for dealing with crimes, however horrendous. They
require evidence, and adherence to the principle that "those
who are guilty of these acts" be held accountable once
evidence is produced, but not others (Pope John Paul II, NYT
Sept. 24). Not, for example, the unknown numbers of
miserable people starving to death in terror at the sealed
borders, though in this case too we are speaking of crimes
against humanity.    

(4) The war on terror was first undertaken by Reagan, as a
substitute for the cold war -- that is, as a vehicle for
scaring the public and thus marshalling support for programs
contrary to the public's interest -- foreign campaigns, war
spending in general, surveillance, and so on. Now we are
seeing a larger and more aggressive attempt to move in the
same direction. Does the problem that we are the world's
foremost source of attacks on civilians auger complications
for carrying through this effort? Can the effort be
sustained without, in fact, a shooting war?  

The Reagan administration came into office 20 years ago
declaring that its leading concern would be to eradicate the
plague of international terrorism, a cancer that is
destroying civilization. They cured the plague by
establishing an international terrorist network of
extraordinary scale, with consequences that are -- or should
be -- well-known in Central America, the Middle East,
Africa, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere -- while using the
pretexts, as you say, to carry out programs that were of
considerable harm to the domestic population, and that even
threaten human survival. Did they carry out a "shooting
war"? The number of corpses they left in their wake around
the world is impressive, but technically, they did not
usually fire the guns, apart from transparent PR exercises
like the bombing of Libya, the first crime of war in history
that was timed precisely for prime time TV, no small trick
considering the complexity of the operation and the refusal
of continental European countries to collaborate. The
torture, mutilation, rape, and massacre were carried out
through intermediaries.   Even if we exclude the huge but
unmentionable component of terrorism that traces back to
terrorist states, our own surely included, the terrorist
plague is very real, very dangerous, and truly
terrifying. There are ways to react that are likely to
escalate the threats to ourselves and others; there are
ample precedents for more sane and honorable methods, which
we've discussed before, and are not in the least obscure,
but are scarcely discussed. Those are the basic choices.    

(5) If the Taliban falls and bin Laden or someone they claim
is responsible is captured or killed, what next? What
happens to Afghanistan? What happens more broadly in other
regions?  

The sensible administration plan would be to pursue the
ongoing program of silent genocide, combined with
humanitarian gestures to arouse the applause of the usual
chorus who are called upon to sing the praises of the noble
leaders committed to "principles and values" and leading the
world to a "new era" of "ending inhumanity." The
administration might also try to convert the Northern
Alliance into a viable force, perhaps to bring in other
warlords hostile to it, like Gulbudin Hekmatyar, now in
Iran.  Presumably they will use British and US commandoes
for missions within Afghanistan, and perhaps resort to
selective bombing, but scaled down so as not to answer bin
Laden's prayers. A US assault should not be compared to the
failed Russian invasion of the 80s. The Russians were facing
a major army of perhaps 100,000 men or more, organized,
trained and heavily armed by the CIA and its associates. The
US is facing a ragtag force in a country that has already
been virtually destroyed by 20 years of horror, for which we
bear no slight share of responsibility. The Taliban forces,
such as they are, might quickly collapse except for a small
hard core. And one would expect that the surviving
population would welcome an invading force if it is not too
visibly associated with the murderous gangs that tore the
country to shreds before the Taliban takeover. At this
point, most people would be likely to welcome Genghis
Khan.   What next?  Expatriate Afghans and, apparently, some
internal elements who are not part of the Taliban inner
circle have been calling for a UN effort to establish some
kind of transition government, a process that might succeed
in reconstructing something viable from the wreckage, if
provided with very substantial reconstruction aid, channeled
through independent sources like the UN or credible
NGOs. That much should be the minimal responsibility of
those who have turned this impoverished country into a land
of terror, desperation, corpses, and mutilated victims. That
could happen, but not without very substantial popular
efforts in the rich and powerful societies. For the present,
any such course has been ruled out by the Bush
administration, which has announced that it will not be
engaged in "nation building" -- or, it seems, an effort that
would be more honorable and humane: substantial support,
without interference, for "nation building" by others who
might actually achieve some success in the enterprise. But
current refusal to consider this decent course is not graven
in stone. What happens in other regions depends on internal
factors, on the policies of foreign actors (the US dominant
among them, for obvious reasons), and the way matters
proceed in Afghanistan. One can hardly be confident, but for
many of the possible courses reasonable assessments can be
made about the outcome -- and there are a great many
possibilities, too many to try to review in brief
comments.    

(6) What do you believe should be the role and priority of
social activists concerned about justice at this time?
Should we curb our criticisms, as some have claimed, or is
this, instead, a time for renewed and enlarged efforts, not
only because it is a crisis regarding which we can attempt
to have a very important positive impact, but also because
large sectors of the public are actually far more receptive
than usual to discussion and exploration, even it other
sectors are intransigently hostile?  

It depends on what these social activists are trying to
achieve. If their goal is to escalate the cycle of violence
and to increase the likelihood of further atrocities like
that of Sept. 11 -- and, regrettably, even worse ones with
which much of the world is all too familiar -- then they
should certainly curb their analysis and criticisms, refuse
to think, and cut back their involvement in the very serious
issues in which they have been engaged. The same advice is
warranted if they want to help the most reactionary and
regressive elements of the political-economic power system
to implement plans that will be of great harm to the general
population here and in much of the world, and may even
threaten human survival.   If, on the contrary, the goal of
social activists is to reduce the likelihood of further
atrocities, and to advance hopes for freedom, human rights,
and democracy, then they should follow the opposite
course. They should intensify their efforts to inquire into
the background factors that lie behind these and other
crimes and devote themselves with even more energy to the
just causes to which they have already been committed. The
opportunities are surely there. The shock of the horrendous
crimes has already opened even elite sectors to reflection
of a kind that would have been hard to imagine not long ago,
and among the general public that is even more true. Of
course, there will be those who demand silent obedience. We
expect that from the ultra-right, and anyone with a little
familiarity with history will expect it from some left
intellectuals as well, perhaps in an even more virulent
form. But it is important not to be intimidated by
hysterical ranting and lies and to keep as closely as one
can to the course of truth and honesty and concern for the
human consequences of what one does, or fails to do. All
truisms, but worth bearing in mind.   Beyond the truisms, we
turn to specific questions, for inquiry and for action.    

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