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Imperial Ambitions

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Imagine you could take years and years to carefully study political history, that you could read numerous sources of political news from around the world, that you could do your own research into declassified government documents and little known areas of information, and that you could travel extensively so that you might compare various societies and governments in the current day.

If you can get someone to pay you or feed you while you do all of that, then by all means do it. Otherwise, your second best option is to listen to Noam Chomsky. Chomsky knows an incredible amount of information and is brilliant at analyzing it. He does so without any theory or pretense, using a vocabulary that any high school graduate has mastered.

Sitting down and talking to Noam Chomsky at length about current affairs has to be one of the most illuminating experiences going. But, what if you got the chance to do that and couldn't always think of the best questions or cite the best examples for Noam to comment on?

Not to worry: David Barsamian has conducted a series of interviews with Chomsky between March 2003 and February 2005, and has consistently asked penetrating and provocative questions. These interviews have just been published in this book.

There is an exquisitely satisfying moment in the DVD documentary "Manufacturing Consent" where Noam Chomsky flatly contradicts William F. Buckley's version of events in Greece in the immediate aftermath of WWII. Clearly flabbergasted by Chomsky's command of the facts but perhaps even more so by his refusal to accept the standard cold-war inspired interpretation of these events, Buckley eventually loses his temper and is reduced to insisting that he is right and that Chomsky is wrong. At this remove, the interview, conducted sometime in the late 70s or early 80s, is a disturbing artifact of a time when facts were important in the making of political argument, for it is apparent that Buckley is chagrined by his inability to rebut Chomsky on the facts and reduced to repeating his position with greater and greater insistence. Now, of course, as the right itself acknowledges, conservatives do not deign to traffic in "fact-based reality." They instead weave and then don bright, shining garments of red, white and blue, and viciously attack anyone who might suggest they are clothed in raiment of gray lies and dun dissemblance.

And that is precisely why Chomsky is so valuable. He offers a compelling, fact-based counternarrative to the triumphalist ideology of Buckley and the scores of conservative apparatchiks that Buckley and his billionaire inheritance-baby buddies have spawned over the past 30 years -- that same triumphalist nonsense that, for instance, predicted US troops would be greeted in Baghdad as they were Paris in WWII -- with flowers, champagne and kisses. A self-described "anarcho-syndicalist" in the one-party state that is the US these days, Chomsky's views are apparently too dangerous to allow him more than an occasional interview on radio or television in this great democracy of ours. (Why is it that in the US media that is supposed to be so "liberal," Chomsky is rarely if ever seen, but that we have an endless supply of right wing provocateurs preaching their furious farrago of free market fantasy and unchristian Christianity?).

If you've never read Chomsky, this latest work is a very good introduction to his bracing, fact-based version of American history as imperial adventure and botched conquest. If you're content with the fumigated Sunday school version of reality offered by the mainstream media or the knee-jerk nationalism peddled by the revanchist reactionaries on Fox, Chomsky is probably not for you. But if as a thinking American you have come to doubt the infallibility of our president's heart as naturally right in all things -- e.g., his latest nomination to the Supreme Court, etc. -- you will in reading Chomsky come to use your own head and your own heart, and see American foreign policy for what it truly is.

There are always gems to be found in anything that Chomsky offers (I agree with the Boston Globe's assessment of him as "America's most useful citizen") but one can always be warned when the offering is interviews, double-spaced, over time.

In this instance, the Introduction is actually useful and I agree with David Barsamian when he describes Chomsky as an extraordinary distiller and interpreter of information, who represents all that intellectuals *should* be.

One aspect of the book that is new to Chomsky's writing is his clear and distinct appreciation for the freedom's that we enjoy in America. While we are all subject to the arbitrary declaration by the government that we are an "enemy combatant" with no rights, on balance Chomsky goes out of his way in this series of interviews to articulate his love for America and his appreciation of the privileges that attend one who is both a citizen and a tenured (now retired) professor.

As a long-time reader of Chomsky, I found some delight in his recollection of the beginnings of propaganda (in England, with the stated intent "to direct the thought of most of the world") and I learned for the first time that Chomsky credits Walter Lippman with the phrase "manufacturing consent" that Chomsky used as the title of his most famous co-authored work.

Chomsky offers some fascinating geopolitical insights with his suggestion that the Trans-Siberian Railway might be extended to run down through North Korean into South Korea, and his views that ASEAN plus 3 (China, Korea, Japan) might rise to super-power status. I am especially taken with his view that China might be the power that saves America from itself, orchestrating a balance of power and sanity arrangement from that side of the world.

Chomsky returns to a familiar theme in this book, that of war crimes and the US being a very guilty party, but for the first time, I see Chomsky forgiving of the soldiers on the front lines, and even of their general officers, and placing all of the blame on the civilians that direct the military from the White House and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. This is new. I fully expect Americans to be brought up on war crime charges in the next ten years, and I expect the American public to support this when the evidence is presented in graphic terms.

Chomsky also returns to his theme of the US harboring terrorists and hence not being able to claim the high ground against other nations. I was impressed by how the Cubans gathered evidence on the Florida-based assassins and violators of US law, and how elegantly the Cubans presented this evidence to the FBI. I was dismayed but not surprised to find the FBI arresting the Cuban infiltrators rather than the assasins--this is the same FBI that has convicted fewer than five actual terrorists, each with an average jail sentence of 14 days, from thousands of arrests. So much for intelligent effective federal investigations.

The book concludes with a fascinating discussion of "intellectual self-defense" that is a call to arms for every intelligent American (we need to be concerned--that may only be about one fifth of us).

This is something of a quickie book, not at all as substantive as Chomsky's usual works, but with many gems never-the-less. Certainly worth buying and reading.

Recently I read "Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/II World," (2005, Metropolitan Books)," which contains interviews by David Barsamian with Noam Chomsky on a wide range of issues, including the Iraqi War. I was deeply disappointed with it. Not because there wasn't a lot of solid analysis in it. There was. My misgivings dealt with what was left out of the paperback. If the comedian Stephen Colbert could take on the hawkish Neocon William Kristol and his warmongering Project for the New American Century (PNAC)-a group which Kristol cofounded-why couldn't the leading Guru of the Left, also do so? In addition, Chomsky failed to mention either the repulsive Kristol or the PNAC.

Another thing missing: In Chomsky's book, the word, "Zionism," only appears once, and that is on p. 173, where he admitted that in his youth, during his Philadelphia salad days, he was "very involved in the Zionist Movement." I also noticed that the enormously powerful Israeli Lobby wasn't worth a cite at all in this paperback. Yet, we now know, thanks to the prestigious Harvard Study, that the Israeli Lobby, for over 40 years has exercised "unmatched power," which was not in the national interest, over the foreign policy of the U.S. Yet, Chomsky ignored this group completely! Why? Is this the same Chomsky, that Barsamian solemnly tells us, "sets the compass headings and describes the topography"? Barsamian goes on to say, "It is up to us to navigate the terrain...He [Chomsky] has an extraordinary power to distill and synthesize reams of information. And he misses nothing. "Really? Misses nothing! How can that be true if Chomsky missed that six ton elephant in the room of American politics: the Israeli Lobby?

When asked why the U.S. invaded Iraq, Chomsky said, at p. 6, it was about "the control of oil." Later on in the book, Chomsky cites Chalmers Johnson's tome, "Sorrows of Empire," but he doesn't tell the readers that Johnson believed that the Iraqi War was the result of the confluence of three special interests: "Big Oil," the Military Industrial Complex and the Israeli Lobby. Now, despite everything we know about Israel's role and the role of the Israeli Lobby in pushing for the Iraqi War, Chomsky insisted on stating, at p. 8, "As far as Israel is concerned, Iraq has never been much of an issue. They consider it a kind of a pushover." If the Zionists considered Iraq a "pushover," then why didn't they invade it? Isn't this the same Israel that invaded Lebanon, in 1982?

Although Chomsky co-wrote a book, called "Manufacturing Consent," about how the Establishment shapes the opinion of the masses, he didn't think about using that same kind of keen analysis in this book. In particular, with respect 9/11-neither here nor in his earlier book, entitled, "9/11," did Chomsky touch on the powerful idea that the power brokers both cause and interpret what's going on in a way that supports their agenda. This leads me to wonder: Was 9/11, too, manufactured? Did the Bush-Cheney Gang know it was coming and let it happen? Or, was it Machiavellian plot put into play by sinister intelligence agencies looking for a pretext to set the U.S. up to demonize Islam, attack Iraq and turn this country into a police state? Chomsky declines to open up that kind of necessary inquiry.

Chomsky talks a lot about "Propaganda," but he doesn't tell us who owns the biggest stake in the U.S. media market. He also make a big fuss over how corporate interests prevail over social concerns. Yet, he doesn't inform the readers the means by which the corporations, incluging huge multinationals, exercise their massive control. If you search the index of this book, you will not find any groups, for instance, such as: The Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Club of Rome or the Bilderbergers.

On p. 28, Chomsky admits that Israel is a "superpower," possessing "hundreds of nuclear weapons and massive armed forces." Then, he cleverly puts it all back on the U.S., labeling Israel - just "an offshore U.S. military base." Now, that's interesting, too, especially when you consider that this so-called "offshore U.S. military base" deliberately attacked the USS Liberty, on June 8, 1967, killing 34 members of its crew; bulldozed to death Olympia,WA peace activist, Rachel Corrie, in 2003; let loose that traitor Jonathan Pollard to steal our most sensitive military secrets; and since 1948, has extracted over $140 billion in aid from our national treasury. If a Mafia Boss had to pay tribute of $140 billion to someone, would he still be considered the Boss?

Jeffrey Blankfort, a gutsy critic of Chomsky's selective moralizing, particularly when it comes to his making excuses for Israel, said that because the Neocons and the Israeli Lobby have "paid no price for it [the Iraqi warmongering]...they are prepared to do the same with Iran." On Iran, Chomsky, at p. 8, said, "But Iran is a different story. Iran is a much more serious military and economic force. And for years Israel has been pressing the United States to take on Iran. Iran is `too big' for Israel to attack so they want the `big boys' to do it." Now, let's get this straight. Israel, "a superpower," according to Chomsky, which possesses tons of "nuclear weapons," (but is only as an "offshore" military base for America), wants the U.S. to take Iran down because it's "too big" for it to pull off. What a stretch this one is! How about if the inverse is true? Chomsky is big on utilizing the inverse concept in the book. Try this: Israel, the real Boss, who has extracted $140 billion from our treasury, wants its lackey, the U.S. to do its dirty work for it and attack Iran? What about that scenario, Chomsky?

Talking about Israel's nuclear weapons. There was one U.S. president who dared to oppose its nuclear weapon schemes. His name was John Fitzgerald Kennedy. We all know what happened to him in Dallas, Texas. In fact, the author Stephen Green wrote: "Perhaps the most significant development in 1963 for the Israeli nuclear weapons program... occurred on November 22 on a plane flying from Dallas to Washington, D.C. Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States, following the assassination of JFK. In the early years of the Johnson Administration, the Israeli nuclear weapons program was referred to in Washington as the `delicate topic.' Lyndon Johnson's White House's," contrary to JFK's, "saw no Dimona, [Israel's Los Alamos], heard no Dimona, and spoke no Dimona when the reactor went critical in early 1964." Green also emphasized that under the reign of LBJ, a rabid Zionist partisan, U.S. military aid to Israel also dramatically increased, reaching by then unprecedented levels of freebees, and that even more importantly, as corroborated by the scholarly Harvard Study, "Israel steadily began to act in ways that ignored U.S. national security interests." Chomsky, however, claims that Israel is merely an "offshore U.S. military base."

Chomsky also tried to smear our martyred president, JFK, for supposedly wanting to escalate the Vietnam War. The truth is that Kennedy wanted a withdrawal of U.S. troops, whether military conditions allowed it or not, and issued, on Oct. 11, 1963, "NSAM 263" to that effect. Johnson, with strong ties to the Military Industrial Complex, immediately reversed that policy after taking power. The author Peter Dale Scott, in his book, "Deep Politics and the Death of JFK," took Chomsky to task for his badly-flawed analysis of JFK's intentions, calling it, a theory that "assumes the continuity of a mind-set that he is trying to prove."

Another topic in this book, which I found irritating, dealt also with the issue of Iraq. Chomsky pontificated, at p. 2, "The new doctrine was not one of preemptive war...The U.S. will rule the world by force, and if there is any challenge to its domination...[it] will have the right to destroy that challenge before it becomes a threat. That's preventive war, not preemptive war." Well, I'm sure that Paul Wolfowitz, the prime architect of the "Preemption Doctrine," along with Dick Cheney, another flaming Neocon, are going to feel off the hook after reading that one. Chomsky said the "preventive war" idea goes back to diplomat Dean Acheson, in 1963, which is of course, far removed from those crafty Neocons.

In another odd twist, Chomsky quotes a poll that was taken in Iraq where Iraqis were asked, why they thought their country was invaded. Seventy percent, at p. 79, said, "The goal was to take over Iraq's resources and to reorganize the Middle East. They agreed with Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz..." Now, here was a point in the book, where Chomsky could have easily added his critical position, and elaborated on the Neocons', Israel's and the Israeli Lobby's roles in agitating for the war against Iraq. But, the man who "misses nothing," let it pass by. Ask yourself, "Why?"

Despite all of the above, I'm recommending this book. It has plenty of wisdom from the iconic Chomsky on matters, like: Regime Change; a new vision for the future; the need for dedicated activism; the Cult of Ronald Reagan; and rebutting the attacks on the Labor Movement, Social Security and the proposals for a Universal Health Care System. It's only on the subjects of Israel and JFK, where Chomsky's advice, at p. 32, needs to be strictly followed. He said that one is mandated in combatting propaganda to use common sense and to ask, "Where is the evidence?"

You have to love many of the Amazon-supported 'professional' reviews of Chomsky's books. "Conspiracy theories." "Hatred of America." "Comparisons to Nazi Germany always close at hand." "Naive populism." Should have worked a little harder in your undergraduate political science classes, guys. Well, I suppose in their long-paragraph reviews it's hard to argue meaningfully against the critical arguments he has constructed in other works against corporatized media. They certainly can't concede that he quotes just about everyone in his attempt to form far-reaching analyses. That would be too much. Democrat-type and Republican-type authors receive much better treatment, more or less giving credence to Chomsky's claims that we live in a surprisingly monolithic nation-state where it doesn't pay to be different or to have your own opinion. Also, it's always better to be a freshman news anchor or editorialist than a seasoned dissident academic if you want people to listen to your views. You can have one of two opinions, or else you are a crazy conspiracy theorist. Thank you Publishers Weekly for helping to make Chomsky's point.

Regardless of my reasonably high regard for Chomsky as an important voice of American dissent, I would say this is one of his lesser works. The booklist review states it better than publishers weekly; Chomsky's editorializing and interviews are RARELY anywhere near the quality of his academic analyses. Thus they are a poor introduction; he never states the assumptions that are so hard to prove in a short time, such as the complicity of private media and the surprisingly small ideological space separating Republicans and Democrats. If you're already well-informed about the arguments, you can see where he is going. If you're new to Chomsky or dissident literature generally, you're not going to pick up much. Which would explain all the cries of "anti-American." Not understanding Chomsky's views will make those cries almost make sense, at least until you consider that anyone accusing a native-born American citizen of being "anti-American" must have been dropped on their head as a child. Also, if an American politician says "we are right and anyone who disagrees will be bombed into the stone age," I think we can all be forgiven for pointing out that Hitler or Stalin would have said the exact same thing.

Barsamian is not a challenging interviewer, already a Chomsky true believer. It almost seems as if they're sometimes wink-wink nudge-nudging each other, rehashing old jokes about the ridiculousness of mainstream political commentary or other weird imperial artifacts. Also, he doesn't cover very much that is new in this edition; anyone who has read 9/11 and hegemony and survival will be familiar with 90% of the material. Anyone who's read a significant number of Chomsky interviews will notice that he often gets asked the same questions, and not surprisingly cites the same or similar evidence in taking a stance that is familiar to him.

Basically, I think Chomsky is one of the most important political commentators around. You should definitely read his books, and I hate to give this book even 3 stars considering it's way better than most of the political claptrap being published these days. But this is not his best work, whether you are a die-hard dissident academic or an average person having suddenly become suspicious that there's something seriously going wrong in our American republic. There is something very dangerous about the new American system of elitism, imperialism, unitary belief, and stifling of dissent and free speech. But this is not Chomsky's most eloquent critique of that system.

Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important left-wing intellectual in modern America. However 'Imperial Ambitions' does not represent Chomsky at the peak of his intellectual prowess.

In this series of interviews Chomsky discusses a range of topics, but mainly U.S. foreign policy and specifically, that implemented in the middle-east. Although Chomsky expresses many pertinent and intelligent ideas on the subject, one of the most interesting is the idea of a sort of 'reversed oppression' that exists in modern America. That is to say that the Bush administration, as well as many other regimes throughout history, convince the population that they are under constant threat and danger from a nation which, in reality, they are brutally oppressing.

One criticism that could be made about these interviews is the interviewing technique that David Barsamian chooses to pursue. Barsamian does not challenge Chomsky enough and the interviews would have somewhat more bite if he were to play devil's advocate more often and provoke Chomsky into a more vigourous defence of his viewpoints.

However this criticism does not take much from what is overall a very worthwhile read. Experienced readers of Chomsky will be familiar with some of what he outlines here. However this book would probably be an ideal introduction to Chomsky's work for those who are uninitiated.

In this new set of interviews, America's foremost intellectual activist looks at new questions of US domestic and foreign policy.

In September 2002, the American government announced a new national security strategy. Instead of pre-emptive war, which might be covered by the UN Charter, the new strategy will be one of preventive war, which is not permitted at all under international law. In other words, America will rule the world by force, and if any challenge to that domination comes about, whether imagined, invented or perceived in the distance, America has the right to destroy that challenge before it becomes a threat.

The Bush Administration talks about going after countries that harbor terrorists. Orlando Bosch, described by the Justice Department as a threat to American security, is quietly living in Miami, recipient of a Presidential Pardon. In 1976, Bosch was involved in the shooting down of a Cuban airliner, killing 73 people, among other crimes. Emanuel Constant is responsible for the deaths of at least 4000 Haitians. He is living in Queens, New York, because America refuses to even respond to extradition requests, let alone actually say No. Such doctrines are unilateral; they grant America the right to harbor terrorists and use violence, but not anyone else.

The people around George Bush are very open about their desire to destroy the progressive achievements of the last 100 years. They have generally gotten rid of the progressive income tax. They are next going after Social Security and health care. They do not want a small government. They are interested in a huge, massively intrusive government, but one that works for them.

This is another excellent and eye-opening book from Chomsky and Barsamian. For another very interesting look at the way America and the world Really Works, this is highly recommended.

"Imperial Ambitions: Conversation on the Post 9/11 World" is a collection of interviews conducted by David Barsamian with Noam Chomsky. The interviews cover a multitude of important and at times complex topics that affect present and future societies.

Chomsky and Barsamian ponder topics ranging from Nazi Germany to the war in Iraq, with special attention given to the various forms of propaganda used by governments to fulfill their objectives. Chomsky's thoughts on Social Security, Medicaid, health care, rogue nations, US nation building, education, activism, the economy, corporate greed . . . are all too engaging. According to Chomsky, there are few straightforward answers to today's complex issues; facts are hidden behind a veil of secrecy and deception. Chomsky recommends that individuals become critical thinkers - take nothing for granted.

While readers may not fully agree with all of Chomsky's assessments or analysis of political and societal assertions and conclusions, Chomsky does give readers cause to reflect. His suggestions are crucially simple; people must learn to use "skeptical intelligence" and "critical examination" on important issues. Chomsky contends that history has shown propaganda to be a powerful, yet an abused and/or misused tool of governments. . . .

Much of what readers will get from "Imperial Ambitions" is that fear is the fuel that drives the propaganda machine and that governments make use of propaganda to control public opinion. Chomsky posits that by using the concept of "intellectual self defense" people can decode manipulated and surreptitious information disseminated by the government and the media.

"Imperial Ambitions: Conversation on the Post 9/11 World" makes interesting reading. It is a first-hand introduction to Chomsky's philosophical views on a range of issues -- at times controversial, but always engaging.

Chomsky observes that U.S. pronouncements on terrorism fall apart when contemplating such facts as that Cuban exile terrorists are roaming free in this country. Orlando Bosch helped instigate the blowing up a Cubana airliner in 1976, killing 73 people. The Justice Department wanted him for a bunch of other terrorist actions on U.S. soil and warned he was a threat to U.S. national security. But at the beginning of the 90's, when Bosch returned to the U.S., Jeb Bush at the behest of his wonderful friends in the Cuban exile establishment, convinced his father President Bush I to grant Bosch a pardon. The U.S. of course started supporting exile terror attacks against Cuba after Castro took power and Kennedy's terror campaign called Operation Mongoose provided justification for the USSR to send missiles to Cuba. Luis Posada Carilles and others continued to oversee terror attacks against Cuban civilian instillations until at least the late 90's with U.S. toleration thought without its active support. Chomsky outlines the case of the "Cuban Five" who are languishing in U.S. jails after infiltrating exile groups to gather info on future terror attacks on Cuba.

Then there is Emanuel Constant, leader of the Haitian death squad FRAPH, who helped kill probably about five thousand people in Haiti in the early 90's. He resides in Queens New York, because the U.S. refused extradition requests for him when Aristide was in power. Chomsky also notes that two Venezuelan generals who took part in the short-lived coup against Hugo Chavez in April 2002 are in the U.S. seeking asylum after being accused in their country of being involved in a plot to set off bombs in Caracas. They had been set free by the Venezuelan judicial system,which is controlled by the Venezuelan ruling class and were not molested by the government of Chavez which they were attempting to overthrow and probably kill its members.

Shortly after Bush's Neocon NSS was released the U.S. Air Force Space Command released a report which explained that the U.S. would move from having "control" of Outer Space to "ownership" of it. Any country which might attempt to challenge U.S. "ownership" of Space will be destroyed according to this document. The Bush administration has set off an extremely dangerous arms race. Its so-called Missile Defense, the Star Wars, is actually an offensive weapon in the sense that it (if it ever works) will prevent retaliation by a country attacked by the U.S.. All of this is of course is leading Russia and China to upgrade their conventional and non-conventional forces to counter U.S. upgrades and to invest heavily in Space related military technology. Russia's very fragile command and control systems are now set on "launch on warning" i.e. computer directed. These computer systems interpreted a scientific missile launch in Norway in 1995 as the first strike of an attack on Russia and they went into action before Boris Yeltsin halted them. Similarly dangerous Chomsky points out, is the U.S. encirclement of Iran with military bases in Central Asia, Iraq, Turkey and elsewhere. Ten percent of the Israeli air force, he writes, has been for several years flying reconnaissance missions from Turkey to Iranian border areas. It is rumored, he writes, that the U.S., Turkey and Israel have been trying to start dismantling Iran by covertly fomenting Azeri nationalism in the North of the country.

Chomsky quotes the prominent historian John Lewis Gaddis as approvingly endorsing Bush's Iraq war, comparing it to John Quincy Adam's and Andrew Jackson's "conquest" of Florida in 1818. Of course Chomsky notes, Gaddis did not quote from the scholarship he, Gaddis used, that that conquest involved genocidal war on Florida Indians, using the justification that then Spanish Florida was being used as an attack on the U.S. by Indians and as a haven for runaway black slaves. The Indians attacking the U.S. from Florida were being attacked by white settlers who had driven them off their land in Georgia and wanted to exterminate them. Gaddis actually calls Florida at this time a "failed state" that the U.S. had to take over. In another area, Chomsky notes, the effects of U.S. chemical warfare in South Vietnam are sometimes alluded to, as in a New York Times article by Barbara Crossette in the early 90's. That writer observed that the hundreds of thousands of victims continuing to die hideous deaths from cancers and birth deformities and the untold numbers of dead fetuses,a result of the U.S. dumping Agent Orange all over South Vietnam, could provide an interesting scientific study of the effects of dioxin. Obviously any thought of massive reparations for this crime is out of the question, nor for the overall crime of what Bernard Fall the right wing military analyst anguished about in 1967 as he wrote that Vietnam as a historical and cultural entity was threatened with extinction as its countryside was dying under the blows of U.S. bombs. Similarly for U.S. bombing of Cambodia, where Kissinger it was recently revealed to no comment in the mainstream media, transmitted orders from Nixon to the Pentagon to the effect that anything that moves in Cambodia should be bombed. In late 2004, the New York Times on its front page reported that U.S. forces in Fallujah had invaded the main hospital in the country and forced its patients and doctors to lie on the floor shackled. The hospital was invaded because U.S. forces claimed that it was "inflating" casualties from the attack, which apparently the Times found to be a legitimate reason given that our holy government proclaimed it to be so. That Fallujah hospital invasion is a major war crime according to the Geneva conventions. The Times also ran a tiny story this time actually using the term "possible" war crime in describing U.S. forces turning back male refugees from Fallujah back into the battle zone while allowing women and children to flee. The military was apparently using the same logic of the Bosnian Serbs at Srebrenica in 1995, hoping to kill as many males as possible so that potential male fighters could be eliminated.

The Democrat Clinton bombed the Sudan in 1998, which greatly spurred recruitment for Al Qaeda Chomsky writes, destroying a plant producing most of the medicine and veterinary products for that country. The few people who have looked into the effects of this crime have written that as one might predict, tens of thousands of Sudanese have died. But no powerful person really cares to look further.

George Orwell maintained that clarity of language is directly related to clarity of thought - viewed by some perhaps as a commonplace observation it nevertheless is, I believe, a valid observation. Mr Chomsky to my mind is a genuine inheritor of the legacy of George Orwell whose target was particularly the bureaucracy of modern Russia under communism. Ironic that modern corporations have overtaken communism as the Big Brothers of the 21st century. Mr Chomsky's central argument seems to be that we must trust in the people, whereas, modern America is governed by elites who look after their own base interests. Indeed, corporations seem to act like uncivilized beasts.

"The United States is basically what's called "a failed state". It has formal democratic institutions, but they barely function. So it doesn't matter that approximately three fourths of the population think we ought to have some kind of government funded health care system. It doesn't even matter if a large majority regards health care as a moral value. When commentators rave about moral values, they're talking about banning gay marriage, not the ideas that everyone should have decent health care. And the reason is that it's not in their interest. They're like me; they get fine health care. What do they care?" p. 198

Brilliant stuff - and IN CONVERSATION!! This man has a mind. And a voice to express it clearly.