Chomsky on the invasion of Afghanistan and our moral responsibility. Date: 10/18/2001 Full lecture: • Noam Chomsky The New W... Full Q&A (source): • Noam Chomsky The New W...
Hilarious, he questioned IF Osama was behind 9/11 when every intelligence agency knew it was him 10 minutes after the attack. Poor Noam, never wants the bad guys to suffer.
@@BlueHen123 What kind of investigation and evidence gathering goes into "everybody knowing" someone did something ten minutes after the event happened? Why didn't they stop it if they were following things so closely? Sounds more like we all agreed to point to him as the scapegoat.
@@BlueHen123 Intelligence agency🤔, like Sadam,s wmd right, this is not about whether he was guilty or not its about the right to inavade a hole country just to prove that 😉
That robber hiding in a mansion analogy is so hilarious and very reflective about how the Americans just assume they own the world and their role as the world police.
True, we're Murica the best country that god ever created.. Just the assumption in itself is so ridiculous. After ww 2 the US really hasn't done a single military mission that made the affected country a better place. It's time to get rid of Nato and other military alliances alike and to enhance the United Nations instead. The US as well as any other country will have to fully follow their rule, no exemptions.
If you're accustomed to seeing the now-quite-elderly Chomsky, often cranky and with half the speaking voice he once had---you're in danger of forgetting that he[along with Howard Zinn, who might be mentioned here] has been one of our great activists, and assets, for decades. He has been a force for good since before many in the discussion were even born. Much love to you, sir.
American hero.. Everything he says the attitude can be found in Paine and Jeffersons writings.. In my view hes a real patriot trying to clear up the conscience of his country
Well it is not lack of reason. What USA does is perfectly reasonable and beneficial if you are Halliburton, Boeing or Lockheed Martin. Then it makes perfect sense. To everybody else it makes zero sense.
Its easy to sit back and criticize - how does an American intervene in American foreign policies, WHEN IN FACT it is companies like Halliburton, Boeing or Lockheed Martin THAT actually CREATE and set foreign policies
Chomsky compares the media coverage of the two genocides and makes the case that one (Cambodia) was played up because it suited the interests of U.S. elites and the other (East Timor) was played down because it did not. In other words, there was "benign terror" which suited U.S. foreign policy interests and was ignored, and there was "constructive terror" which it suited U.S. interests to pay close attention to. Now, all this shows a lack of sensitivity to Cambodian victims, but Chomsky's main interest in clearly in exploring his "propaganda model."
@@jb-vb8un Only if you put those words in his mouth. I'm sure he didn't say that the Cambodian genocide was "played up", but that it received focus where East Timor did not.
At least 100.000 civilians, at least! amongst them many many women and children killed by US/NATO drones. This western military adventure has never been about building schools for girls etc. etc.
I was listening to the young guy asking the questions and laying out the scenarios/analogies ..and I was thinking that I could never remember all his questions if I were the one who had to answer. But then, I don’t have a Chomsky brain.
I think Chomsky was helped by the fact that he's heard these same arguments before, some maybe even related to other topics. It reminds me of Bill Cosby's (sorry) old routine about playing handball against an old guy. Cosby would hit a shot and the old guy would just "walk to a spot" and smash the ball in return. That's what Chomsky's doing here, just walking to a spot.
@@chetonabaaz7298 That is not a grammatically correct sentence. Go and improve your English first and then come back, and we'll discuss the intellectual gap between you and Chomsky in a language we can both, hopefully, understand.
@@chetonabaaz7298 Yeah I know. "I feel the happiest when I can light my American cigarettes with Soviet matches" -- Mohammed Daoud Khan, Prime Minister of Afghanistan (1953 to 1963)
Been watching sir chomsky for the past 20 years and watching this today after the US military has been running out of afghanistan his insight into things has just been astonishing.
It's the bravest act to tell your own people that you are wrong. The more difficult it is when you are the minority voice. Tried doing it in a small way, but it is really difficult. Chomsky you not only provide me a moral strength but also the bravery. ❤️
@@nancysanders2398 For Pakistan: Help from China, Europe, N Korea--and some native talent, some native money. For India: native talent and money, with a very minor assist from Canada.
It's called a gish-gallop, and It's probably the most annoying tactic to argue against, because usually you can't possibly respond to every single stupid thing they said
LOL...true.....that ''2 minute monologue'' felt like a 1/2 hour diatribe being delivered by a soon-to-be Ex. Dude was trying that shotgun approach of ''throw everything at him and see what sticks"....Chomsky still prevailed though...I salute his cognitive skills to sort through all that excess verbiage.
“President George Bush rejected as ‘non-negotiable’ an offer by the Taliban to discuss turning over Osama bin Laden if the United States ended the bombing in Afghanistan.” (14 Oct 2001)
@@kierangallagher315 Every american news outlet reported on this at the time. If you look up the quote it's exceptionally easy to verify. Bush had every opportunity to work with the Afghan government to avoid war, and chose to avoid it because it furthered US military interests to do so.
@@kierangallagher315 Fun fact, Taliban actually proposed to send Osama to the UN court for trial even before US invaded. But the US didn't want to talk because they don't "negotiate with terrorists". And after 20 years they hand over the country to the same terrorists with whom they didn't want to negotiate even at the cost of a war and death of thousands of people.
@@kierangallagher315 How about highlight the text and right mouse button and click "search google for ..."? Well as you are obviously a computer illiterate person, thinking that thing under your desk or in your hand is just a fancy deck of cards, either that or you are a dishonest shill, here some links that come up with it: www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5 www.nytimes.com/2001/10/15/world/nation-challenged-president-president-rejects-offer-taliban-for-negotiations.html www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/bushaddress_092001.html webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:piFB4VomUOcJ:www.baltimoresun.com/bal-te.attacks15oct15-story.html+&cd=4&hl=en& edition.cnn.com/2001/US/10/14/ret.retaliation.facts/index.html www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/gna/Quellensammlung/13/13_freedomandfearatwar_2001.htm georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/bushrecord/documents/Selected_Speeches_George_W_Bush.pdf p.73 ADDRESS TO THE JOINT SESSION OF THE 107TH CONGRESS UNITED STATES CAPITOL WASHINGTON, D.C. SEPTEMBER 20, 2001
@@scoutmahdi6107 The Taliban refused an earlier UN order to extradite bin Laden for the 98 embassy bombings. It was later revealed that the Taliban had in fact made several counter offers to turn bin Laden over to a kind of multinational Muslim tribunal, which the US in turn rejected.
taliban has every reason to invade US and free them from economic inequality as we all know afganistan has one of the lowest econmonic inequality except they will not as they dont have white man's burden
@@sunset2.00 " white man's burden" and what would that be excactly?? I don't think Taliban has an actual reason to invade any other country, as mush as USA has to invade others (especially done when it is in the name of 'democratic freedom'. Let them decide, or else it's just rude).
In short : America, you need to mind your own damn business. Go fix the roads and highways, go provide free education and take care of your veteran's first..
If they had done that in 1942, millins more of us would be speaking German. Rather than minding their own business, I'd rather America just be a little more selective in military use.
@@OrthodoxAtheist Just... a little.... Like don't invade every 2nd country they come across ... It's true what you say about ww2, but germany was seriously getting out of hand and being the agressor. America doesn't even need an excuse anymore nowadays.
How about we stop creating veterans first. The Lions share of everyone's collective tax dollars already go to the active and veterans. The country is killing itself feeding our military adventurism.
A classic moment where the smartest person in the room is obligated to answer bad-faith or ill-informed questions from the guy who wants to be perceived as the smartest person in the room.
And notice how eagerly fawning/applauding the squids' cohort rightwingers were -- based simply on the perception that his questions SOUNDED like well-reasoned logic. That encapsulates Lil' Ben Shapiro's dim audience entirely...just impressed enough by his slick fraudulence -- to not just buy into it, but to childishly claim some imaginary victory was thereby achieved.
The fact that the Taliban was willing to have conversations about turning over bin laden alive which Bush and Obama refused is a critical point and overlooked in most discussions. It’s good to be reminded of it.
if you want to see more on that, theres a good 2004 interview that jeffrey and cockburn from counterpunch did with Kabir Mohabbat, search for "how bush was offered bin laden and blew it" in CP
His analogy really tells a lot of how American's view their role in the world. They are the government that ultimately can 'cut the power' going to the house they don't like. All other countries are simply houses in the neighbourhood administered by the US.
The calm voice of informed wisdom, this needs to played repeatedly over the next few months. We need to hear this very loudly and clearly. Thank goodness for Chomsky’s relentless commitment to truth and political responsibility.
@@kierangallagher315 never said that nor does the comment suggest that. I merely made a statement regarding how ignorant the student was by how his view of the topic was. Kinda like yours but at least he had some what of a valid point. Yours is just based on assumptions coming from such a fragile ego.
@@alexanderjackson9302 Chomsky's reply begs so many questions that would probably occur to a half-intelligent person. He says the Taliban could solve a lot of problems by disappearing! And will they? What a delusional, self-congratulatory way of looking at the world. Refering to the Russian invasion, Chomsky says why did a Russian not criticize what the Afgans are doing to each other? Why not criticise stonings, beheadings, child-marriage etc? He says the relevance of our view of the Taliban is zero. Perhaps redundant if we can remove them from power?
Taliban was welcome back again, in most places outside Kabul. But the western media only focuses on Kabul, because that’s where the privileged Afghans live and there was no drone killings or night raids happening.
@@tribalque2232 You‘re like the dude in the video. You don’t know anything. Afghanistan’s mountainous regions are full of precious resources. By the way: Which woman seriously wants to live under the regime of the Taliban. Women basically don‘t have any rights there but to stay at home. Most of them even get raped by the Taliban. You must be ill to think that people would welcome that bullshit. Western media messed with your head
@@dershittalkpodcast What the people of afghanistan fear most is war. That includes women who risk seeing themselves or their children blown up. The Taliban have already shown that while they are not good, they are rational and they wouldnt have survived for 20 years without decent support from the civilian population.
There's another problem with the analogy of the house and the government. You have assumed that the USA is the government and the house is Afghanistan. So, the USA/government is the provider/guarantor of safety of the neighbourhood in which the house/Afghanistan is present. And that the USA/government is sending it's police/military into that house to take care of the 'problem'; a problem which the USA had itself created. In this manner, you have already assumed the supremacy of the USA/government and that the residents of that house need to comply by the government's rules, policies and demands. The people asking these kinds of questions and making these analogies are high on their 'western superiority complex'; that we are the 'good' people, the 'police', the 'Superman' etc. The real world is nothing like this rather quite the opposite as it's a reality that wherever there is conflict in the world now, there is almost always a direct or indirect US involvement.
@@billweir1745 Your communist cult leader in the video above was saying America ought to refrain from striking at Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Doing such a strike is not police work, it's military defense work. The idiocy of Bush/Obama in following that strike with the occupation is a *different* issue.
@@kreek22 Retaliation and defense are not the same thing. And didn't they offer up Osama Bin Laden on multiple occasions? How about the shitshow of Iraq? Obviously we never learned our lesson from Vietnam, and had our asses handed to us yet again by a tiny faction of an army compared to our completely over bloated money pit of an army.
It is amazing how one person’s voice of reason can shape the public discource of not just one country but entire world. It is a pity we don‘t have another person like Chomsky.
I remember studying the history of Afghanistan for about 20 minutes. The invasion had overwhelming support and we tipped one side of a civil war with air strikes an special forces. I was the only American I knew who was more afraid of the American response than further terrorist attacks. This kind of stupidity went down so easily it was just like a speedbump on the way to attack Iraq. We had the power to target an individual inside a country and we failed to find him. 20 years of military adventure as a political replacement for the cold war.
For every Einstein or Hawking who discovered how things in this realm worked and what to do with such knowledge, there are people like Chomsky who discovered the goings on in this realm and why these things matter.
now after two decades of war usa lost over 3000 of their solders, 20+k injured solders and over 2.2triliion $ lost and taliban now controls all afganistan
There is this arrogance of Americans to compare other countries with America. People of another country don't do that. They compare yesterday with today. If today is bad but better than yesterday, then today is better. Tomorrow they hope will be better still. But it is ridiculous to say, if you adopt capitalism, you will be like America. Or the reverse of that is you are not as wealthy as us because you don't adopt the American way.
A slanted ten minute diatribe of a question... Immediately Rebutted in the first 4 sentences. Questioner Still believes he owned Chomsky. Conservative Punditry in a nutshell.
They are worse off due to the economic sanctions placed by the west including the seizing of the Afghan central bank reserves. It is this blindness which plagues your analysis.
This first minute is spoiled by a person who doesn't know the difference between a question and am oration. Furthermore it doesn't seem like he is waiting for an answer but for a conformation of his bias.
Do you honestly believe that? C'mon man. Bin Laden had nothing to do with 9/11. He was a CIA asset (Tim Osman) that outlived his usefulness so they made him into the ultimate Boogie Man. He died of natural causes well before they claimed to have killed him. Did you ever notice the supposed Bin Laden videos kept showing different looking Bin Ladens who seemed to age in reverse?! lol. Or how about this one... they conveniently dumped his supposed "body" into the ocean after they supposedly killed him in Pakistan before any verification could be done. Yeah, that makes total sense! You gotta be as naive as the kid asking questions in this video to believe the whoppers we were asked to believe about Bin Laden. First lesson: Never believe anything coming from the MSM.
@@c.s.7097 Good point. For example you can use calories to judge poverty. I am 50's and in the 70's look at pictures and you can see how skinny average people are.and now we are fat. One can say we must be better off as the average high school graduate is 20 pounds heavier. That must mean they have ate more food.
The only major newspaper Chomsky ever trusted was The Financial Times. He always said that while the NY Times is manufacturing consent, the people who actually control the money have to have this newspaper in order to communicate. They can't lie to each other, in other words.
Chomsky rightly said regarding handing over of Osama to US and Talibans offered 3 options: - try him inside Afghanistan - try him in a few Muslim countries (dont remember the names) - try in international court of justice But US simply rejected this offer and went for a full fledge war. And after 20 yrs, everyone saw precious lives lost, huge money wasted and last but not the least credibility loss for US and NATO.
Noam took down every point that was hurled at him, that was truly amazing. And for me was this: Noam doesn't hate America that young man does, sadly, that rhetoric echoes to this day.
Hey kid, the US trained the core fighters in the Taliban to fight the USSR in the 70's and 80's. What did Americans think these guys would do once we stopped giving them cash? Oh, wait, we didn't even know we were fighting there at the time.......
One interesting thing I found is that in the 20 year occupation Afganistan was like a limbo, half dead, half alive, confused and aimless, In the video he talked about the starvation crisis and now after 20 years that NATO went out they are right back to start with exact same problems,
Yeah, by people who countenance and condone America's empire and the aggression routinely used to maintain it. They're the real traitors, to humanity itself. Fuck them.
What they don't understand is that a traitor is someone who doesn't hold their government accountable for their actions and as a result, abrogates their moral responsibility to act on decisions that lead to wars and increased acts of domestic terrorism.
Please discuss the TAPI pipeline and the close relationship with the TAPI project leader, ENRON CORP and BUSH. The Taliban came to Houston in 1997 to negotiate with ENRON to facilitate the pipeline. ENRON was Bush's NUMBER ONE supporter in 2000.
Thanks to the USA undermining the Soviet Union in Afghanistan which was a catalyst to the end of Soviet Communism, Nelson Mandela was released from prison (and later became President of South Africa). Most people don't appreciate the reality of the cold war and cannot make the connection between, say, Afghanistan war, Angola war, fall of the Berlin Wall and the release of Mandela. Yet there is a clear historic link between all of those. . The Soviet Union went bankrupt, the Reagan administration realised this and accelerated the Soviet economic demise (Afghan war, Star Wars program and sanctions of Soviet oil). . The USA clearly chose to sacrifice one country (Afghanistan) in order to save many countries in this "global trolley dilemma". . Min 6:49- Chomsky was proven wrong! Turns out the USA was absolutely right in accusing Osama Bin Laden (after this discussion was made, a video surfaced where Osama was discussing how his 9/11 attack yielded better results than he imagined) ie: he admitted his guilt. Hence the student was right in the "Criminal in the House Analogy". . As for the impact on aid and starving civilians we have a second "trolley dilemma". Do nothing and more people starve on an ongoing basis, actively attempt to take out the Taliban (kill innocent civilians in the process) and you have the opportunity to make effective positive change. What decision would you make? . The only thing that the USA totally missed is the base principle that average Afghans have little to no patriotic will to literally fight to improve the future their country for the sake of their children. If you handed guns to every single Afghan who sat at the airport (desperate to leave in 2021) you would already have a formidable force to fend off the Taliban. But by and large Afghans don't see it that way. They focused on the prosperity of their own personal lives only - which is okay if you live in, say, the USA or Norway. But under the environment of Afghanistan? Then, just to make matters worse, every Afghan leader cared less about a patriotic future and more about their own corruption. . All of this at the expense of the US tax payer? . Biden was right: "Cut-em-off" and then let's deal with the consequences by monitoring them closely and be ready to make sporadic attacks to destabilise the Taliban - particularly if they export their tyranny. (much like the current US policy on Cuba) . . . So let's turn back the clock and seek out a Chomsly alternative: The USA stays out of stopping the Soviets and allows them to continue at will: The Soviets murdered millions of civilians with little regard to morality (remember the Ethiopian great famine? - that was a Soviet product). Afghanistan would fall so to would Ethiopia, Somalia, Angola, Malaysia, Thailand, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela. Countries that would come into the Soviet realm would include India, Let's not forget that even Western European countries had a heavy left extreme shift like Portugal and Spain. South Africa's Apartheid regime would continue to remain in power as fending off Communism was it's biggest excuse (SA fought Communist Cubans in Angola, Mozambique and even Zimbabwe). Mandela would not have seen the light of day. . I regard myself as a liberal. I vote for the local Liberal party and I despise what I see in the GOP in the USA. The USA is by no means a perfect nation but its roll in setting the world in a trajectory towards democracy, capitalism and basic human rights has been the greatest historical redirection of our human history..... and we still are living it.
