Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 20:43:00 -0400
From: Ed Wall <ewall-AT-umich.edu>
Subject: Re: <fwd> Chomsky, Fisk


Jan

    Actually I agree (albeit a bit confused perhaps) with Chomsky's 
finale, however I remain somewhat puzzled by one thing. I don't 
*understand*, I admit, American missiles smashing into Palestinian 
homes and US helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 
1996 and American shells crashing into a village called Qana and a 
Lebanese militia - paid and uniformed by America's Israeli ally - 
hacking and raping and murdering their way through refugee camps." I 
think that this is, at its core, as Chomsky might put it an 
"atrocity" or as Fisk appears to have put it "wickedness and awesome 
cruelty." Would Chomsky insist that I try to "understand" this? Would 
he/has he insist(ed) that the Palestinians try to "understand" this? 
Has he tried to "understand" this? I would like to know more about 
Chomsky's trying-to-understand.

Ed Wall

>On the Bombings
>by Noam Chomsky
>
>The terrorist attacks were major atrocities. In scale they may 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 killing unknown
>numbers
>of people (no one knows, because the US blocked an inquiry at the UN and no
>one cares to pursue it). Not to speak of much worse cases, which easily come
>to mind. But that this was a horrendous crime is not in doubt. The primary
>victims,
>as usual, were working people: janitors, secretaries, firemen, etc. It is
>likely
>to prove to be a crushing blow to Palestinians and other poor and oppressed
>people. It is also likely to lead to harsh security controls, with many
>possible
>ramifications for undermining civil liberties and internal freedom.
>
>The events reveal, dramatically, the foolishness of the project of "missile
>defense." As has been obvious all along, and pointed out repeatedly by
>strategic
>analysts, if anyone wants to cause immense damage in the US, including weapons
>of mass destruction, they are highly unlikely to launch a missile attack, thus
>guaranteeing their immediate destruction. There are innumerable easier ways
>that are basically unstoppable. But today's events will, very likely, be
>exploited
>to increase the pressure to develop these systems and put them into place.
>"Defense"
>is a thin cover for plans for militarization of space, and with good PR, even
>the flimsiest arguments will carry some weight among a frightened public.
>
>In short, the crime is a gift to the hard jingoist right, those who hope to
>use force to control their domains. That is even putting aside the likely US
>actions, and what they will trigger -- possibly more attacks like this one,
>or worse. The prospects ahead are even more ominous than they appeared to be
>before the latest atrocities.
>
>As to how to react, we have a choice. We can express justified horror; we can
>seek to understand what may have led to the crimes, which means making an
>effort
>to enter the minds of the likely perpetrators. If we choose the latter course,
>we can do no better, I think, than to listen to the words of Robert 
>Fisk, whose
>direct knowledge and insight into affairs of the region is unmatched 
>after many
>years of distinguished reporting. Describing "The wickedness and awesome
>cruelty
>of a crushed and humiliated people," he writes that "this is not the war of
>democracy versus terror that the world will be asked to believe in the coming
>days. It is also about American missiles smashing into Palestinian homes and
>US helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American
>shells crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese militia - paid
>and uniformed by America's Israeli ally - hacking and raping and murdering
>their
>way through refugee camps." And much more. Again, we have a choice: we may try
>to understand, or refuse to do so, contributing to the likelihood that much
>worse lies ahead.
>
>Noam Chomsky
>http://www.zmag.org/chomnote.htm
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>--------------
>
>Terror in America
>
>The wickedness and awesome cruelty of a crushed and humiliated people
>http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=93623
>
>By Robert Fisk
>
>12 September 2001
>
>So it has come to this. The entire modern history of the Middle East
>- the collapse of the Ottoman empire, the Balfour declaration,
>Lawrence of Arabia's lies, the Arab revolt, the foundation of the
>state of Israel, four Arab-Israeli wars and the 34 years of Israel's
>brutal occupation of Arab land - all erased within hours as those who
>claim to represent a crushed, humiliated population struck back with
>the wickedness and awesome cruelty of a doomed people. Is it fair -
>is it moral - to write this so soon, without proof, when the last act
>of barbarism, in Oklahoma, turned out to be the work of home-grown
>Americans? I fear it is. America is at war and, unless I am mistaken,
>many thousands more are now scheduled to die in the Middle East,
>perhaps in America too. Some of us warned of "the explosion to
>come''. But we never dreamt this nightmare.
>
>And yes, Osama bin Laden comes to mind, his money, his theology, his
>frightening dedication to destroy American power. I have sat in front
>of bin Laden as he described how his men helped to destroy the
>Russian army in Afghanistan and thus the Soviet Union. Their
>boundless confidence allowed them to declare war on America. But this
>is not the war of democracy versus terror that the world will be
>asked to believe in the coming days. It is also about American
>missiles smashing into Palestinian homes and US helicopters firing
>missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American shells
>crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese militia -
>paid and uniformed by America's Israeli ally - hacking and raping and
>murdering their way through refugee camps.
>
>No, there is no doubting the utter, indescribable evil of what has
>happened in the United States. That Palestinians could celebrate the
>massacre of 20,000, perhaps 35,000 innocent people is not only a
>symbol of their despair but of their political immaturity, of their
>failure to grasp what they had always been accusing their Israeli
>enemies of doing: acting disproportionately. All the years of
>rhetoric, all the promises to strike at the heart of America, to cut
>off the head of "the American snake'' we took for empty threats. How
>could a backward, conservative, undemocratic and corrupt group of
>regimes and small, violent organisations fulfil such preposterous
>promises? Now we know.
>
>And in the hours that followed yesterday's annihilation, I began to
>remember those other extraordinary assaults upon the US and its
>allies, miniature now by comparison with yesterday's casualties. Did
>not the suicide bombers who killed 241 American servicemen and 100
>French paratroops in Beirut on 23 October 1983, time their attacks
>with unthinkable precision?
>
>There were just seven seconds between the Marine bombing and the
>destruction of the French three miles away. Then there were the
>attacks on US bases in Saudi Arabia, and last year's attempt - almost
>successful it now turns out - to sink the USS Cole in Aden. And then
>how easy was our failure to recognise the new weapon of the Middle
>East which neither Americans nor any other Westerners could equal:
>the despair-driven, desperate suicide bomber.
>
>And there will be, inevitably, and quite immorally, an attempt to
>obscure the historical wrongs and the injustices that lie behind
>yesterday's firestorms. We will be told about "mindless terrorism'',
>the "mindless" bit being essential if we are not to realise how hated
>America has become in the land of the birth of three great religions.
>
>Ask an Arab how he responds to 20,000 or 30,000 innocent deaths and
>he or she will respond as decent people should, that it is an
>unspeakable crime. But they will ask why we did not use such words
>about the sanctions that have destroyed the lives of perhaps half a
>million children in Iraq, why we did not rage about the 17,500
>civilians killed in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. And those
>basic reasons why the Middle East caught fire last September - the
>Israeli occupation of Arab land, the dispossession of Palestinians,
>the bombardments and state-sponsored executions ... all these must be
>obscured lest they provide the smallest fractional reason for
>yesterday's mass savagery.
>
>No, Israel was not to blame - though we can be sure that Saddam
>Hussein and the other grotesque dictators will claim so - but the
>malign influence of history and our share in its burden must surely
>stand in the dark with the suicide bombers. Our broken promises,
>perhaps even our destruction of the Ottoman Empire, led inevitably to
>this tragedy. America has bankrolled Israel's wars for so many years
>that it believed this would be cost-free. No longer so. But, of
>course, the US will want to strike back against "world terror'', and
>last night's bombardment of Kabul may have been the opening salvo.
>Indeed, who could ever point the finger at Americans now for using
>that pejorative and sometimes racist word "terrorism''?
>
>Eight years ago, I helped to make a television series that tried to
>explain why so many Muslims had come to hate the West. Last night, I
>remembered some of those Muslims in that film, their families burnt
>by American-made bombs and weapons. They talked about how no one
>would help them but God. Theology versus technology, the suicide
>bomber against the nuclear power. Now we have learnt what this means.
>
>
>
>
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