The whole Linux thing was never supposed to be about following corporate leadership, but instead about grass root efforts. So don't pull this "why doesn't Redhat..." stuff. Get off your butt and burn some CDs of Debian, Redhat, or whatever good Linux distro you can get your hands on... start giving that out.
Something doesn't come from nothing. Redhat can't break that rule of thumb, and neither can you. If you have to dip into your pocket, then so be it.
Linux is all about everyone chipping in. Its not about everyone pissing and moaning about what Redhat does and does not do. Though with the recent rumors of the AOL purchasing of Redhat and other things... it seems that people have forgot what Linux is all about.
Actually, the USPS uses what is called a use-based tax. You use the service, then you pay. In my opinion, use-based taxes lead to far more efficient government programs.
Microsoft doesn't even have majority ownership of NBC. AOL/Timewarner/CNN are one big blob.
Look, I am a Linux zealot, and I don't like Microsoft one bit... but compared to AOL/Timewarner/CNN, Micrsoft is a small "mom & pop shop". Techies will be tearing their hair out, the day that Microsoft falls and is replaced by AOL/Timewarner/CNN. At least now we have two devils balancing each other out... somewhat.
Why do so many open source zealots care about commercial Linux distros? Debian is the most solid Linux distro out there, commercial or not. Debian is also run by the online Linux community.
A proposition with unbound variables implies universal closure (i.e. use of universal quantification over the unbound or unquantified variable). Not quantifying "Unix" in the proposition implies "all implementations of Unix". Basically, in the english language, lack of quantification implies universal quantification, except in specific cases. I mean, english is, however, context sensitive.
If Unix has bad fonts, then how can OSX have good fonts? I mean, I thought that OSX was Unix based. If so, then by reductio ad absurdum, the proposition that "Unix has bad fonts" is absurd.
Yeah, thats why I posted the Zeropaid link. They have a cracked version that doesn't autoshutdown. Hopefully we start seeing Xolox-like functionality in more GPL GNUtella clients. The network is only great because it is open... and widely adopted... thats what gives it an edge over the other guys.
Obviously you haven't used GNUtella for the past year. Xolox is a GNUtella client that allows for parallel downloading, resuming, and Xolox will even look for other sources of the file that you are currently downloading, if the current sources are too slow or down. Basically, with Xolox, you search for a file that you want, and you get results with numbers by them depicting how many sources have the file. That way you don't have to decide which source you want to download from. You decide which file you want to download... and Xolox figures out the rest.
My average download speeds on Xolox are around 160Mbs. Of course, I am use the ever so crappy AT&T cable modem service... so other people on faster DSL lines will most likely experience faster downloads.
Next thing you are going to tell me is that Windows is better than Linux because Linux doesn't have any good GUIs or desktop environments for it. Yeah, lets just ignore everything thats out there right now.
Not only that, but Limewire also supports multisource, segmented, or swarmed downloading. Though Limewire has only recently gotten such functionality, while Xolox has had it for the past year.
Oh, and GNUtella is free as in beer and as in speech.
Actually, Japan didn't give up until Russian declared that it was going to enter the War against Japan. Yeah, we nuked them once, and they didn't give up. We nuked them a second time, and they still didn't give up.
Honestly, as far as I know, we didn't have anymore nukes, and so if not for Russia, Japan would have continued the war.
Of course, commies are evil, and Hitler is the boogieman. Or maybe getting so fixated on one organization's and one man's evils blinds us to the numerous other crimes against humanity... such as the Israel occupation of Palestine by means of USA military aid, USA money, and USA propaganda.
Noam Chomsky, the guy that is talking in those transcripts is a US and Israeli citizen. Not only that, he is Jewish. Also, Computer Science students should also know Chomsky for his Chomsky Normal Form, for formal grammars. The guy is very respectable, and a good source for an intelligent, accurate, and truthful account of all things to do with 9-11. If you want to learn more, just run a google search for "Noam Chomsky". His articles, transcripts, etc are all over the web. You can even find MP3s of his speeches on GNUtella.
Stop listening to the lies fed to the masses through TV. The only way to get an accurate take on current events is to actively research things through several non-biased, respectable sources.
Chomsky Transcript: The New War Against Terror (3/3)
5. What are the Policy Options?
What are the policy options? Well, there are a number. A narrow
policy option from the beginning was to follow the advice of really
far out radicals like the Pope [audience laughter]. The Vatican
immediately said look it's a horrible terrorist crime. In the case
of crime, you try to find the perpetrators, you bring them to
justice, you try them. You don't kill innocent civilians. Like if
somebody robs my house and I think the guy who did it is probably
in the neighborhood across the street, I don't go out with an
assault rifle and kill everyone in that neighborhood. That's not
the way you deal with crime, whether it's a small crime like this
one or really massive one like the US terrorist war against Nicaragua,
even worse ones and others in between. And there are plenty of
precedents for that. In fact, I mentioned a precedent, Nicaragua,
a lawful, a law abiding state, that's why presumably we had to
destroy it, which followed the right principles. Now of course, it
didn't get anywhere because it was running up against a power that
wouldn't allow lawful procedures to be followed. But if the United
States tried to pursue them, nobody would stop them. In fact,
everyone would applaud. And there are plenty of other precedents.IRA
Bombs in London When the IRA set off bombs in London, which is
pretty serious business, Britain could have, apart from the fact
that it was unfeasible, let's put that aside, one possible response
would have been to destroy Boston which is the source of most of
the financing. And of course to wipe out West Belfast.
Well, you know, quite apart from the feasibility, it would have
been criminal idiocy. The way to deal with it was pretty much what
they did. You know, find the perpetrators; bring them to trial;
and look for the reasons.
Because these things don't come out of nowhere. They come from
something.
Whether it is a crime in the streets or a monstrous terrorist crime
or anything else. There's reasons. And usually if you look at the
reasons, some of them are legitimate and ought to be addressed,
independently of the crime, they ought to be addressed because they
are legitimate. And that's the way to deal with it. There are many
such examples.
But there are problems with that. One problem is that the United
States does not recognize the jurisdiction of international
institutions. So it can't go to them. It has rejected the jurisdiction
of the World Court. It has refused to ratify the International
Criminal Court. It is powerful enough to set up a new court if it
wants so that wouldn't stop anything. But there is a problem with
any kind of a court, mainly you need evidence. You go to any kind
of court, you need some kind of evidence. Not Tony Blair talking
about it on television. And that's very hard. It may be impossible
to find.
Leaderless Resistance
You know, it could be that the people who did it, killed themselves.
Nobody knows this better than the CIA. These are decentralized,
nonhierarchic networks. They follow a principle that is called
Leaderless Resistance.
That's the principle that has been developed by the Christian Right
terrorists in the United States. It's called Leaderless Resistance.
You have small groups that do things. They don't talk to anybody
else. There is a kind of general background of assumptions and then
you do it. Actually people in the anti war movement are very familiar
with it. We used to call it affinity groups. If you assume correctly
that whatever group you are in is being penetrated by the FBI, when
something serious is happening, you don't do it in a meeting. You
do it with some people you know and trust, an affinity group and
then it doesn't get penetrated. That's one of the reasons why the
FBI has never been able to figure out what's going on in any of
the popular movements. And other intelligence agencies are the
same. They can't.
That's leaderless resistance or affinity groups, and decentralized
networks are extremely hard to penetrate. And it's quite possible
that they just don't know. When Osama bin Laden claims he wasn't
involved, that's entirely possible. In fact, it's pretty hard to
imagine how a guy in a cave in Afghanistan, who doesn't even have
a radio or a telephone could have planned a highly sophisticated
operation like that. Chances are it's part of the background. You
know, like other leaderless resistance terrorist groups.
Which means it's going to be extremely difficult to find evidence.
Establishing Credibility
And the US doesn't want to present evidence because it wants to be
able to do it, to act without evidence. That's a crucial part of
the reaction. You will notice that the US did not ask for Security
Council authorization which they probably could have gotten this
time, not for pretty reasons, but because the other permanent
members of the Security Council are also terrorist states. They
are happy to join a coalition against what they call terror, namely
in support of their own terror. Like Russia wasn't going to veto,
they love it. So the US probably could have gotten Security Council
authorization but it didn't want it. And it didn't want it because
it follows a long-standing principle which is not George Bush, it
was explicit in the Clinton administration, articulated and goes
back much further and that is that we have the right to act
unilaterally. We don't want international authorization because we
act unilaterally and therefore we don't want it. We don't care
about evidence. We don't care about negotiation. We don't care
about treaties. We are the strongest guy around;
the toughest thug on the block. We do what we want. Authorization
is a bad thing and therefore must be avoided. There is even a name
for it in the technical literature. It's called establishing
credibility. You have to establish credibility. That's an important
factor in many policies. It was the official reason given for the
war in the Balkans and the most plausible reason.
You want to know what credibility means, ask your favorite Mafia
Don. He'll explain to you what credibility means. And it's the same
in international affairs, except it's talked about in universities
using big words, and that sort of thing. But it's basically the
same principle. And it makes sense.
And it usually works. The main historian who has written about this
in the last couple years is Charles Tilly with a book called
Coercion, Capital, and European States. He points out that violence
has been the leading principle of Europe for hundreds of years and
the reason is because it works. You know, it's very reasonable. It
almost always works. When you have an overwhelming predominance of
violence and a culture of violence behind it.
So therefore it makes sense to follow it. Well, those are all
problems in pursuing lawful paths. And if you did try to follow
them you'd really open some very dangerous doors. Like the US is
demanding that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden. And they are
responding in a way which is regarded as totally absurd and outlandish
in the west, namely they are saying, Ok, but first give us some
evidence. In the west, that is considered ludicrous. It's a sign
of their criminality. How can they ask for evidence? I mean if
somebody asked us to hand someone over, we'd do it tomorrow. We
wouldn't ask for any evidence. [crowd laughter].
Haiti
In fact it is easy to prove that. We don't have to make up cases.
So for example, for the last several years, Haiti has been requesting
the United States to extradite Emmanuel Constant. He is a major
killer. He is one of the leading figures in the slaughter of maybe
4000 or 5000 people in the years in the mid 1990's, under the
military junta, which incidentally was being, not so tacitly,
supported by the Bush and the Clinton administrations contrary to
illusions. Anyway he is a leading killer. They have plenty of
evidence. No problem about evidence. He has already been brought
to trial and sentenced in Haiti and they are asking the United
States to turn him over. Well, I mean do your own research. See
how much discussion there has been of that. Actually Haiti renewed
the request a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't even mentioned. Why
should we turn over a convicted killer who was largely responsible
for killing 4000 or 5000 people a couple of years ago.
In fact, if we do turn him over, who knows what he would say. Maybe
he'll say that he was being funded and helped by the CIA, which is
probably true.
We don't want to open that door. And he is not he only one.
Costa Rica
For the last about 15 years, Costa Rica which is the democratic
prize, has been trying to get the United States to hand over a John
Hull, a US land owner in Costa Rica, who they charge with terrorist
crimes. He was using his land, they claim with good evidence as a
base for the US war against Nicaragua, which is not a controversial
conclusion, remember. There is the World Court and Security Council
behind it. So they have been trying to get the United States to
hand him over. Hear about that one? No.
They did actually confiscate the land of another American landholder,
John Hamilton. Paid compensation, offered compensation. The US
refused. Turned his land over into a national park because his land
was also being used as a base for the US attack against Nicaragua.
Costa Rica was punished for that one. They were punished by
withholding aid. We don't accept that kind of insubordination from
allies. And we can go on. If you open the door to questions about
extradition it leads in very unpleasant directions. So that can't
be done.
Reactions in Afghanistan
Well, what about the reactions in Afghanistan. The initial proposal,
the initial rhetoric was for a massive assault which would kill
many people visibly and also an attack on other countries in the
region. Well the Bush administration wisely backed off from that.
They were being told by every foreign leader, NATO, everyone else,
every specialist, I suppose, their own intelligence agencies that
that would be the stupidest thing they could possibly do. It would
simply be like opening recruiting offices for bin Laden all over
the region. That's exactly what he wants. And it would be extremely
harmful to their own interests. So they backed off that one. And
they are turning to what I described earlier which is a kind of
silent genocide. It's a. well, I already said what I think about
it. I don't think anything more has to be said. You can figure it
out if you do the arithmetic.
A sensible proposal which is kind of on the verge of being considered,
but it has been sensible all along, and it is being raised, called
for by expatriate Afghans and allegedly tribal leaders internally,
is for a UN initiative, which would keep the Russians and Americans
out of it, totally.
These are the 2 countries that have practically wiped the country
out in the last 20 years. They should be out of it. They should
provide massive reparations. But that's their only role. A UN
initiative to bring together elements within Afghanistan that would
try to construct something from the wreckage. It's conceivable that
that could work, with plenty of support and no interference. If
the US insists on running it, we might as well quit. We have a
historical record on that one.
You will notice that the name of this operation.remember that at
first it was going to be a Crusade but they backed off that because
PR (public relations) agents told them that that wouldn't work
[audience laughter]. And then it was going to be Infinite Justice,
but the PR agents said, wait a minute, you are sounding like you
are divinity. So that wouldn't work. And then it was changed to
enduring freedom. We know what that means. But nobody has yet
pointed out, fortunately, that there is an ambiguity there. To
endure means to suffer. [audience laughter]. And a there are plenty
of people around the world who have endured what we call freedom.
Again, fortunately we have a very well-behaved educated class so
nobody has yet pointed out this ambiguity. But if its done there
will be another problem to deal with. But if we can back off enough
so that some more or less independent agency, maybe the UN, maybe
credible NGO's (non governmental organizations) can take the lead
in trying to reconstruct something from the wreckage, with plenty
of assistance and we owe it to them. Them maybe something would
come out. Beyond that, there are other problems.
An Easy Way To Reduce The Level Of Terror
We certainly want to reduce the level of terror, certainly not
escalate it.
There is one easy way to do that and therefore it is never discussed.
Namely stop participating in it. That would automatically reduce
the level of terror enormously. But that you can't discuss. Well
we ought to make it possible to discuss it. So that's one easy way
to reduce the level of terror.
Beyond that, we should rethink the kinds of policies, and Afghanistan
is not the only one, in which we organize and train terrorist
armies. That has effects. We're seeing some of these effects now.
September 11th is one.
Rethink it.
Rethink the policies that are creating a reservoir of support.
Exactly what the bankers, lawyers and so on are saying in places
like Saudi Arabia. On the streets it's much more bitter, as you
can imagine. That's possible. You know, those policies aren't graven
in stone.
And further more there are opportunities. It's hard to find many
rays of light in the last couple of weeks but one of them is that
there is an increased openness. Lots of issues are open for
discussion, even in elite circles, certainly among the general
public, that were not a couple of weeks ago. That's dramatically
the case. I mean, if a newspaper like USA Today can run a very good
article, a serious article, on life in the Gaza Stripthere has been
a change. The things I mentioned in the Wall Street Journalthat's
change. And among the general public, I think there is much more
openness and willingness to think about things that were under the
rug and so on.
These are opportunities and they should be used, at least by people
who accept the goal of trying to reduce the level of violence and
terror, including potential threats that are extremely severe and
could make even September 11th pale into insignificance. Thanks.
Chomsky Transcript: The New War Against Terror (2/3)
US & UK Backed South African Attacks
It was happening elsewhere in the world too, take say Africa. During
the Reagan years alone, South African attacks, backed by the United
States and Britain, US/UK-backed South African attacks against the
neighboring countries killed about a million and a half people and
left 60 billion dollars in damage and countries destroyed. And if
we go around the world, we can add more examples.
Now that was the first war against terror of which I've given a
small sample. Are we supposed to pay attention to that? Or kind of
think that that might be relevant? After all it's not exactly
ancient history. Well, evidently not as you can tell by looking at
the current discussion of the war on terror which has been the
leading topic for the last month.
Haiti, Guatemala, and Nicaragua
I mentioned that Nicaragua has now become the 2nd poorest country
in the hemisphere. What's the poorest country? Well that's of course
Haiti which also happens to be the victim of most US intervention
in the 20th century by a long shot. We left it totally devastated.
It's the poorest country.
Nicaragua is second ranked in degree of US intervention in the 20th
century.
It is the 2nd poorest. Actually, it is vying with Guatemala. They
interchange every year or two as to who's the second poorest. And
they also vie as to who is the leading target of US military
intervention. We're supposed to think that all of this is some sort
of accident. That is has nothing to do with anything that happened
in history. Maybe.
Colombia and Turkey
The worst human rights violator in the 1990's is Colombia, by a
long shot.
It's also, by far, the leading recipient of US military aid in the
1990's maintaining the terror and human rights violations. In 1999,
Colombia replaced Turkey as the leading recipient of US arms
worldwide, that is excluding Israel and Egypt which are a separate
category. And that tells us a lot more about the war on terror
right now, in fact.
Why was Turkey getting such a huge flow of US arms? Well if you
take a look at the flow of US arms to Turkey, Turkey always got a
lot of US arms. It's strategically placed, a member of NATO, and
so on. But the arms flow to Turkey went up very sharply in 1984.
It didn't have anything to do with the cold war. I mean Russian
was collapsing. And it stayed high from 1984 to 1999 when it reduced
and it was replaced in the lead by Colombia. What happened from
1984 to 1999? Well, in 1984, [Turkey] launched a major terrorist
war against Kurds in southeastern Turkey. And that's when US aid
went up, military aid. And this was not pistols. This was jet
planes, tanks, military training, and so on. And it stayed high as
the atrocities escalated through the 1990's. Aid followed it. The
peak year was 1997. In 1997, US military aid to Turkey was more
than in the entire period 1950 to 1983, that is the cold war period,
which is an indication of how much the cold war has affected policy.
And the results were awesome. This led to 2-3 million refugees.
Some of the worst ethnic cleansing of the late 1990's. Tens of
thousands of people killed, 3500 towns and villages destroyed, way
more than Kosovo, even under NATO bombs. And the United States was
providing 80% of the arms, increasing as the atrocities increased,
peaking in 1997. It declined in 1999 because, once again, terror
worked as it usually does when carried out by its major agents,
mainly the powerful. So by 1999, Turkish terror, called of course
counter-terror, but as I said, that's universal, it worked. Therefore
Turkey was replaced by Colombia which had not yet succeeded in its
terrorist war. And therefore had to move into first place as
recipient of US arms.
Self Congratulation on the Part of Western Intellectuals
Well, what makes this all particularly striking is that all of this
was taking place right in the midst of a huge flood of self-congratulation
on the part of Western intellectuals which probably has no counterpart
in history. I mean you all remember it. It was just a couple years
ago. Massive self-adulation about how for the first time in history
we are so magnificent; that we are standing up for principles and
values; dedicated to ending inhumanity everywhere in the new era
of this-and-that, and so-on-and-so-forth. And we certainly can't
tolerate atrocities right near the borders of NATO. That was repeated
over and over. Only within the borders of NATO where we can not
only can tolerate much worse atrocities but contribute to them.
Another insight into Western civilization and our own, is how often
was this brought up? Try to look. I won't repeat it. But it's
instructive. It's a pretty impressive feat for a propaganda system
to carry this off in a free society. It's pretty amazing. I don't
think you could do this in a totalitarian state.
Turkey is Very Grateful
And Turkey is very grateful. Just a few days ago, Prime Minister
Ecevit announced that Turkey would join the coalition against
terror, very enthusiastically, even more so than others. In fact,
he said they would contribute troops which others have not willing
to do. And he explained why.
He said, We owe a debt of gratitude to the United States because
the United States was the only country that was willing to contribute
so massively to our own, in his words "counter-terrorist" war, that
is to our own massive ethnic cleansing and atrocities and terror.
Other countries helped a little, but they stayed back. The United
States, on the other hand, contributed enthusiastically and decisively
and was able to do so because of the silence, servility might be
the right word, of the educated classes who could easily find out
about it. It's a free country after all. You can read human rights
reports. You can read all sorts of stuff. But we chose to contribute
to the atrocities and Turkey is very happy, they owe us a debt of
gratitude for that and therefore will contribute troops just as
during the war in Serbia. Turkey was very much praised for using
its F-16's which we supplied it to bomb Serbia exactly as it had
been doing with the same planes against its own population up until
the time when it finally succeeded in crushing internal terror as
they called it. And as usual, as always, resistance does include
terror. Its true of the American Revolution. That's true of every
case I know. Just as its true that those who have a monopoly of
violence talk about themselves as carrying out counter terror.
The Coalition - Including Algeria, Russia, China, Indonesia
Now that's pretty impressive and that has to do with the coalition
that is now being organized to fight the war against terror. And
it's very interesting to see how that coalition is being described.
So have a look at this morning's Christian Science Monitor. That's
a good newspaper. One of the best international newspapers, with
real coverage of the world. The lead story, the front-page story,
is about how the United States, you know people used to dislike
the United States but now they are beginning to respect it, and
they are very happy about the way that the US is leading the war
against terror. And the prime example, well in fact the only serious
example, the others are a joke, is Algeria. Turns out that Algeria
is very enthusiastic about the US war against terror. The person
who wrote the article is an expert on Africa. He must know that
Algeria is one of the most vicious terrorist states in the world
and has been carrying out horrendous terror against its own population
in the past couple of years, in fact. For a while, this was under
wraps. But it was finally exposed in France by defectors from the
Algerian army. It's all over the place there and in England and so
on. But here, we're very proud because one of the worst terrorist
states in the world is now enthusiastically welcoming the US war
on terror and in fact is cheering on the United States to lead the
war. That shows how popular we are getting.
And if you look at the coalition that is being formed against terror
it tells you a lot more. A leading member of the coalition is Russia
which is delighted to have the United States support its murderous
terrorist war in Chechnya instead of occasionally criticizing it
in the background. China is joining enthusiastically. It's delighted
to have support for the atrocities it's carrying out in western
China against, what it called, Muslim secessionists. Turkey, as I
mentioned, is very happy with the war against terror. They are
experts. Algeria, Indonesia delighted to have even more US support
for atrocities it is carrying out in Ache and elsewhere. Now we
can run through the list, the list of the states that have joined
the coalition against terror is quite impressive. They have a
characteristic in common.
They are certainly among the leading terrorist states in the world.
And they happen to be led by the world champion.
What is Terrorism?
Well that brings us back to the question, what is terrorism? I have
been assuming we understand it. Well, what is it? Well, there happen
to be some easy answers to this. There is an official definition.
You can find it in the US code or in US army manuals. A brief
statement of it taken from a US army manual, is fair enough, is
that terror is the calculated use of violence or the threat of
violence to attain political or religious ideological goals through
intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear. That's terrorism. That's
a fair enough definition. I think it is reasonable to accept that.
The problem is that it can't be accepted because if you accept
that, all the wrong consequences follow. For example, all the
consequences I have just been reviewing. Now there is a major effort
right now at the UN to try to develop a comprehensive treaty on
terrorism. When Kofi Annan got the Nobel prize the other day, you
will notice he was reported as saying that we should stop wasting
time on this and really get down to it.
But there's a problem. If you use the official definition of
terrorism in the comprehensive treaty you are going to get completely
the wrong results.
So that can't be done. In fact, it is even worse than that. If you
take a look at the definition of Low Intensity Warfare which is
official US policy you find that it is a very close paraphrase of
what I just read. In fact, Low Intensity Conflict is just another
name for terrorism. That's why all countries, as far as I know,
call whatever horrendous acts they are carrying out, counter
terrorism. We happen to call it Counter Insurgency or Low Intensity
Conflict. So that's a serious problem. You can't use the actual
definitions. You've got to carefully find a definition that doesn't
have all the wrong consequences.
Why did the United States and Israel Vote Against a Major Resolution
Condemning Terrorism?
There are some other problems. Some of them came up in December
1987, at the peak of the first war on terrorism, that's when the
furor over the plague was peaking. The United Nations General
Assembly passed a very strong resolution against terrorism, condemning
the plague in the strongest terms, calling on every state to fight
against it in every possible way. It passed unanimously. One country,
Honduras abstained. Two votes against; the usual two, United States
and Israel. Why should the United States and Israel vote against
a major resolution condemning terrorism in the strongest terms, in
fact pretty much the terms that the Reagan administration was using?
Well, there is a reason. There is one paragraph in that long
resolution which says that nothing in this resolution infringes on
the rights of people struggling against racist and colonialist
regimes or foreign military occupation to continue with their
resistance with the assistance of others, other states, states
outside in their just cause. Well, the United States and Israel
can't accept that. The main reason that they couldn't at the time
was because of South Africa. South Africa was an ally, officially
called an ally. There was a terrorist force in South Africa. It
was called the African National Congress. They were a terrorist
force officially. South Africa in contrast was an ally and we
certainly couldn't support actions by a terrorist group struggling
against a racist regime. That would be impossible.
And of course there is another one. Namely the Israeli occupied
territories, now going into its 35th year. Supported primarily by
the United States in blocking a diplomatic settlement for 30 years
now, still is. And you can't have that. There is another one at
the time. Israel was occupying Southern Lebanon and was being
combated by what the US calls a terrorist force, Hizbullah, which
in fact succeeded in driving Israel out of Lebanon. And we can't
allow anyone to struggle against a military occupation when it is
one that we support so therefore the US and Israel had to vote
against the major UN resolution on terrorism. And I mentioned before
that a US vote againstis essentially a veto. Which is only half
the story. It also vetoes it from history. So none of this was ever
reported and none of it appeared in the annals of terrorism. If
you look at the scholarly work on terrorism and so on, nothing that
I just mentioned appears. The reason is that it has got the wrong
people holding the guns. You have to carefully hone the definitions
and the scholarship and so on so that you come out with the right
conclusions; otherwise it is not respectable scholarship and
honorable journalism. Well, these are some of problems that are
hampering the effort to develop a comprehensive treaty against
terrorism. Maybe we should have an academic conference or something
to try to see if we can figure out a way of defining terrorism so
that it comes out with just the right answers, not the wrong answers.
That won't be easy.
4. What are the Origins of the September 11 Crime?
Well, let's drop that and turn to the 4th question, What are the
origins of the September 11 crimes? Here we have to make a distinction
between 2 categories which shouldn't be run together. One is the
actual agents of the crime, the other is kind of a reservoir of at
least sympathy, sometimes support that they appeal to even among
people who very much oppose the criminals and the actions. And
those are 2 different things.
Category 1: The Likely Perpetrators
Well, with regard to the perpetrators, in a certain sense we are
not really clear. The United States either is unable or unwilling
to provide any evidence, any meaningful evidence. There was a sort
of a play a week or two ago when Tony Blair was set up to try to
present it. I don't exactly know what the purpose of this was.
Maybe so that the US could look as though it's holding back on some
secret evidence that it can't reveal or that Tony Blair could strike
proper Churchillian poses or something or other. Whatever the PR
[public relations] reasons were, he gave a presentation which was
in serious circles considered so absurd that it was barely even
mentioned. So the Wall Street Journal, for example, one of the more
serious papers had a small story on page 12, I think, in which they
pointed out that there was not much evidence and then they quoted
some high US official as saying that it didn't matter whether there
was any evidence because they were going to do it anyway. So why
bother with the evidence? The more ideological press, like the New
York Times and others, they had big front-page headlines. But the
Wall Street Journal reaction was reasonable and if you look at the
so-called evidence you can see why. But let's assume that it's
true. It is astonishing to me how weak the evidence was. I sort of
thought you could do better than that without any intelligence
service [audience laughter]. In fact, remember this was after weeks
of the most intensive investigation in history of all the intelligence
services of the western world working overtime trying to put
something together. And it was a prima facie, it was a very strong
case even before you had anything. And it ended up about where it
started, with a prima facie case. So let's assume that it is true.
So let's assume that, it looked obvious the first day, still does,
that the actual perpetrators come from the radical Islamic, here
called, fundamentalist networks of which the bin Laden network is
undoubtedly a significant part. Whether they were involved or not
nobody knows. It doesn't really matter much.
Where did they come from?
That's the background, those networks. Well, where do they come
from? We know all about that. Nobody knows about that better than
the CIA because it helped organize them and it nurtured them for
a long time. They were brought together in the 1980's actually by
the CIA and its associates elsewhere:
Pakistan, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China was involved,
they may have been involved a little bit earlier, maybe by 1978.
The idea was to try to harass the Russians, the common enemy.
According to President Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbigniew
Brzezinski, the US got involved in mid 1979. Do you remember, just
to put the dates right, that Russia invaded Afghanistan in December
1979. Ok. According to Brzezinski, the US support for the mujahedin
fighting against the government began 6 months earlier. He is very
proud of that. He says we drew the Russians into, in his words, an
Afghan trap, by supporting the mujahedin, getting them to invade,
getting them into the trap. Now then we could develop this terrific
mercenary army.
Not a small one, maybe 100,000 men or so bringing together the best
killers they could find, who were radical Islamist fanatics from
around North Africa, Saudi Arabia.anywhere they could find them.
They were often called the Afghanis but many of them, like bin
Laden, were not Afghans. They were brought by the CIA and its
friends from elsewhere. Whether Brzezinski is telling the truth or
not, I don't know. He may have been bragging, he is apparently very
proud of it, knowing the consequences incidentally. But maybe it's
true. We'll know someday if the documents are ever released.
Anyway, that's his perception. By January 1980 it is not even in
doubt that the US was organizing the Afghanis and this massive
military force to try to cause the Russians maximal trouble. It
was a legitimate thing for the Afghans to fight the Russian invasion.
But the US intervention was not helping the Afghans. In fact, it
helped destroy the country and much more.
The Afghanis, so called, had their own...it did force the Russians
to withdrew, finally. Although many analysts believe that it probably
delayed their withdrawal because they were trying to get out of
it. Anyway, whatever, they did withdraw.
Meanwhile, the terrorist forces that the CIA was organizing, arming,
and training were pursuing their own agenda, right away. It was no
secret. One of the first acts was in 1981 when they assassinated
the President of Egypt, who was one of the most enthusiastic of
their creators. In 1983, one suicide bomber, who may or may not
have been connected, it's pretty shadowy, nobody knows. But one
suicide bomber drove the US army-military out of Lebanon.
And it continued. They have their own agenda. The US was happy to
mobilize them to fight its cause but meanwhile they are doing their
own thing. They were clear very about it. After 1989, when the
Russians had withdrawn, they simply turned elsewhere. Since then
they have been fighting in Chechnya, Western China, Bosnia, Kashmir,
South East Asia, North Africa, all over the place.
The Are Telling Us What They Think
They are telling us just what they think. The United States wants
to silence the one free television channel in the Arab world because
it's broadcasting a whole range of things from Powell over to Osama
bin Laden. So the US is now joining the repressive regimes of the
Arab world that try to shut it up.
But if you listen to it, if you listen to what bin Laden says, it's
worth it. There is plenty of interviews. And there are plenty of
interviews by leading Western reporters, if you don't want to listen
to his own voice, Robert Fisk and others. And what he has been
saying is pretty consistent for a long time. He's not the only one
but maybe he is the most eloquent. It's not only consistent over
a long time, it is consistent with their actions.
So there is every reason to take it seriously. Their prime enemy
is what they call the corrupt and oppressive authoritarian brutal
regimes of the Arab world and when the say that they get quite a
resonance in the region.
They also want to defend and they want to replace them by properly
Islamist governments. That's where they lose the people of the
region. But up till then, they are with them. From their point of
view, even Saudi Arabia, the most extreme fundamentalist state in
the world, I suppose, short of the Taliban, which is an offshoot,
even that's not Islamist enough for them. Ok, at that point, they
get very little support, but up until that point they get plenty
of support. Also they want to defend Muslims elsewhere. They hate
the Russians like poison, but as soon as the Russians pulled out
of Afghanistan, they stopped carrying out terrorist acts in Russia
as they had been doing with CIA backing before that within Russia,
not just in Afghanistan. They did move over to Chechnya. But there
they are defending Muslims against a Russian invasion. Same with
all the other places I mentioned. From their point of view, they
are defending the Muslims against the infidels. And they are very
clear about it and that is what they have been doing.
Why did they turn against the United States?
Now why did they turn against the United States? Well that had to
do with what they call the US invasion of Saudi Arabia. In 1990,
the US established permanent military bases in Saudi Arabia which
from their point of view is comparable to a Russian invasion of
Afghanistan except that Saudi Arabia is way more important. That's
the home of the holiest sites of Islam. And that is when their
activities turned against the Unites States. If you recall, in 1993
they tried to blow up the World Trade Center. Got part of the way,
but not the whole way and that was only part of it. The plans were
to blow up the UN building, the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, the
FBI building. I think there were others on the list. Well, they
sort of got part way, but not all the way. One person who is jailed
for that, finally, among the people who were jailed, was a Egyptian
cleric who had been brought into the United States over the objections
of the Immigration Service, thanks to the intervention of the CIA
which wanted to help out their friend. A couple years later he was
blowing up the World Trade Center. And this has been going on all
over. I'm not going to run through the list but it's, if you want
to understand it, it's consistent. It's a consistent picture. It's
described in words. It's revealed in practice for 20 years. There
is no reason not to take it seriously. That's the first category,
the likely perpetrators.
Category 2: What about the reservoir of support?
What about the reservoir of support? Well, it's not hard to find
out what that is. One of the good things that has happened since
September 11 is that some of the press and some of the discussion
has begun to open up to some of these things. The best one to my
knowledge is the Wall Street Journal which right away began to run,
within a couple of days, serious reports, searching serious reports,
on the reasons why the people of the region, even though they hate
bin Laden and despise everything he is doing, nevertheless support
him in many ways and even regard him as the conscience of Islam,
as one said. Now the Wall Street Journal and others, they are not
surveying public opinion. They are surveying the opinion of their
friends: bankers, professionals, international lawyers, businessmen
tied to the United States, people who they interview in McDonalds
restaurant, which is an elegant restaurant there, wearing fancy
American clothes. That's the people they are interviewing because
they want to find out what their attitudes are. And their attitudes
are very explicit and very clear and in many ways consonant with
the message of bin Laden and others. They are very angry at the
United States because of its support of authoritarian and brutal
regimes; its intervention to block any move towards democracy; its
intervention to stop economic development; its policies of devastating
the civilian societies of Iraq while strengthening Saddam Hussein;
and they remember, even if we prefer not to, that the United States
and Britain supported Saddam Hussein right through his worst
atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds, bin Laden brings
that up constantly, and they know it even if we don't want to.
And of course their support for the Israeli military occupation
which is harsh and brutal. It is now in its 35th year. The US has
been providing the overwhelming economic, military, and diplomatic
support for it, and still does. And they know that and they don't
like it. Especially when that is paired with US policy towards
Iraq, towards the Iraqi civilian society which is getting destroyed.
Ok, those are the reasons roughly. And when bin Laden gives those
reasons, people recognize it and support it.
Now that's not the way people here like to think about it, at least
educated liberal opinion. They like the following line which has
been all over the press, mostly from left liberals, incidentally.
I have not done a real study but I think right wing opinion has
generally been more honest. But if you look at say at the New York
Times at the first op-ed they ran by Ronald Steel, serious left
liberal intellectual. He asks Why do they hate us? This is the same
day, I think, that the Wall Street Journal was running the survey
on why they hate us. So he says "They hate us because we champion
a new world order of capitalism, individualism, secularism, and
democracy that should be the norm everywhere." That's why they hate
us. The same day the Wall Street Journal is surveying the opinions
of bankers, professionals, international lawyers and saying `look,
we hate you because you are blocking democracy, you are preventing
economic development, you are supporting brutal regimes, terrorist
regimes and you are doing these horrible things in the region.' A
couple days later, Anthony Lewis, way out on the left, explained
that the terrorist seek only "apocalyptic nihilism," nothing more
and nothing we do matters. The only consequence of our actions, he
says, that could be harmful is that it makes it harder for Arabs
to join in the coalition's anti-terrorism effort. But beyond that,
everything we do is irrelevant.
Well, you know, that's got the advantage of being sort of comforting.
It makes you feel good about yourself, and how wonderful you are.
It enables us to evade the consequences of our actions. It has a
couple of defects. One is it is at total variance with everything
we know. And another defect is that it is a perfect way to ensure
that you escalate the cycle of violence. If you want to live with
your head buried in the sand and pretend they hate us because
they're opposed to globalization, that's why they killed Sadat 20
years ago, and fought the Russians, tried to blow up the World
Trade Center in 1993. And these are all people who are in the midst
of corporate globalization but if you want to believe that,
yehcomforting. And it is a great way to make sure that violence
escalates. That's tribal violence. You did something to me, I'll
do something worse to you. I don't care what the reasons are. We
just keep going that way. And that's a way to do it. Pretty much
straight, left-liberal opinion.
Chomsky Transcript: The New War Against Terror (1/3)
The New War Against Terror
Noam Chomsky October 18, 2001 - Transcribed from audio recorded at
The Technology & Culture Forum at MIT
Everyone knows it's the TV people who run the world [crowd laugher].
I just got orders that I'm supposed to be here, not there. Well
the last talk I gave at this forum was on a light pleasant topic.
It was about how humans are an endangered species and given the
nature of their institutions they are likely to destroy themselves
in a fairly short time. So this time there is a little relief and
we have a pleasant topic instead, the new war on terror. Unfortunately,
the world keeps coming up with things that make it more and more
horrible as we proceed.
Assume 2 Conditions for this Talk
I'm going to assume 2 conditions for this talk.
The first one is just what I assume to be recognition of fact. That
is that the events of September 11 were a horrendous atrocity
probably the most devastating instant human toll of any crime in
history, outside of war.
The second assumption has to do with the goals. I'm assuming that
our goal is that we are interested in reducing the likelihood of
such crimes whether they are against us or against someone else.
If you don't accept those two assumptions, then what I say will
not be addressed to you. If we do accept them, then a number of
questions arise, closely related ones, which merit a good deal of
thought.
The 5 Questions
One question, and by far the most important one is what is happening
right now? Implicit in that is what can we do about it? The 2nd
has to do with the very common assumption that what happened on
September 11 is a historic event, one which will change history.
I tend to agree with that. I think it's true. It was a historic
event and the question we should be asking is exactly why? The 3rd
question has to do with the title, The War Against Terrorism.
Exactly what is it? And there is a related question, namely what
is terrorism? The 4th question which is narrower but important has
to do with the origins of the crimes of September 11th. And the
5th question that I want to talk a little about is what policy
options there are in fighting this war against terrorism and dealing
with the situations that led to it.
I'll say a few things about each. Glad to go beyond in discussion
and don't hesitate to bring up other questions. These are ones that
come to my mind as prominent but you may easily and plausibly have
other choices.
1. What's Happening Right Now?
Starvation of 3 to 4 Million People
Well let's start with right now. I'll talk about the situation in
Afghanistan. I'll just keep to uncontroversial sources like the
New York Times [crowd laughter]. According to the New York Times
there are 7 to 8 million people in Afghanistan on the verge of
starvation. That was true actually before September 11th. They were
surviving on international aid. On September 16th, the Times
reported, I'm quoting it, that the United States demanded from
Pakistan the elimination of truck convoys that provide much of the
food and other supplies to Afghanistan's civilian population. As
far as I could determine there was no reaction in the United States
or for that matter in Europe. I was on national radio all over
Europe the next day.
There was no reaction in the United States or in Europe to my
knowledge to the demand to impose massive starvation on millions
of people. The threat of military strikes right after September..around
that time forced the removal of international aid workers that
crippled the assistance programs.
Actually, I am quoting again from the New York Times. Refugees
reaching Pakistan after arduous journeys from AF are describing
scenes of desperation and fear at home as the threat of American
led military attacks turns their long running misery into a potential
catastrophe. The country was on a lifeline and we just cut the
line. Quoting an evacuated aid worker, in the New York Times
Magazine.
The World Food Program, the UN program, which is the main one by
far, were able to resume after 3 weeks in early October, they began
to resume at a lower level, resume food shipments. They don't have
international aid workers within, so the distribution system is
hampered. That was suspended as soon as the bombing began. They
then resumed but at a lower pace while aid agencies leveled scathing
condemnations of US airdrops, condemning them as propaganda tools
which are probably doing more harm than good. That happens to be
quoting the London Financial Times but it is easy to continue.
After the first week of bombing, the New York Times reported on a
back page inside a column on something else, that by the arithmetic
of the United Nations there will soon be 7.5 million Afghans in
acute need of even a loaf of bread and there are only a few weeks
left before the harsh winter will make deliveries to many areas
totally impossible, continuing to quote, but with bombs falling
the delivery rate is down to = of what is needed. Casual comment.
Which tells us that Western civilization is anticipating the
slaughter of, well do the arithmetic, 3-4 million people or something
like that. On the same day, the leader of Western civilization
dismissed with contempt, once again, offers of negotiation for
delivery of the alleged target, Osama bin Laden, and a request for
some evidence to substantiate the demand for total capitulation.
It was dismissed. On the same day the Special Rapporteur of the UN
in charge of food pleaded with the United States to stop the bombing
to try to save millions of victims. As far as I'm aware that was
unreported. That was Monday. Yesterday the major aid agencies OXFAM
and Christian Aid and others joined in that plea. You can't find
a report in the New York Times. There was a line in the Boston
Globe, hidden in a story about another topic, Kashmir.
Silent Genocide
Well we could easily go on.but all of that.first of all indicates
to us what's happening. Looks like what's happening is some sort
of silent genocide. It also gives a good deal of insight into the
elite culture, the culture that we are part of. It indicates that
whatever, what will happen we don't know, but plans are being made
and programs implemented on the assumption that they may lead to
the death of several million people in the next couple of weeks.very
casually with no comment, no particular thought about it, that's
just kind of normal, here and in a good part of Europe. Not in the
rest of the world. In fact not even in much of Europe. So if you
read the Irish press or the press in Scotlandthat close, reactions
are very different. Well that's what's happening now. What's
happening now is very much under our control. We can do a lot to
affect what's happening. And that's roughly it.
2. Why was it a Historic Event?
National Territory Attacked
Alright let's turn to the slightly more abstract question, forgetting
for the moment that we are in the midst of apparently trying to
murder 3 or 4 million people, not Taliban of course, their victims.
Let's go backturn to the question of the historic event that took
place on September 11th. As I said, I think that's correct. It was
a historic event. Not unfortunately because of its scale, unpleasant
to think about, but in terms of the scale it's not that unusual.
I did say it's the worstprobably the worst instant human toll of
any crime. And that may be true. But there are terrorist crimes
with effects a bit more drawn out that are more extreme, unfortunately.
Nevertheless, it's a historic event because there was a change.
The change was the direction in which the guns were pointed. That's
new. Radically new. So, take US history.
The last time that the national territory of the United States was
under attack, or for that matter, even threatened was when the
British burned down Washington in 1814. There have been manyit was
common to bring up Pearl Harbor but that's not a good analogy. The
Japanese, what ever you think about it, the Japanese bombed military
bases in 2 US colonies not the national territory; colonies which
had been taken from their inhabitants in not a very pretty way.
This is the national territory that's been attacked on a large
scale, you can find a few fringe examples but this is unique.
During these close to 200 years, we, the United States expelled or
mostly exterminated the indigenous population, that's many millions
of people, conquered half of Mexico, carried out depredations all
over the region, Caribbean and Central America, sometimes beyond,
conquered Hawaii and the Philippines, killing several hundred
thousand Filipinos in the process.
Since the Second World War, it has extended its reach around the
world in ways I don't have to describe. But it was always killing
someone else, the fighting was somewhere else, it was others who
were getting slaughtered. Not here. Not the national territory.
Europe
In the case of Europe, the change is even more dramatic because
its history is even more horrendous than ours. We are an offshoot
of Europe, basically.
For hundreds of years, Europe has been casually slaughtering people
all over the world. That's how they conquered the world, not by
handing out candy to babies. During this period, Europe did suffer
murderous wars, but that was European killers murdering one another.
The main sport of Europe for hundreds of years was slaughtering
one another. The only reason that it came to an end in 1945, was.it
had nothing to do with Democracy or not making war with each other
and other fashionable notions. It had to do with the fact that
everyone understood that the next time they play the game it was
going to be the end for the world. Because the Europeans, including
us, had developed such massive weapons of destruction that that
game just had to be over. And it goes back hundreds of years. In
the 17th century, about probably 40% of the entire population of
Germany was wiped out in one war.
But during this whole bloody murderous period, it was Europeans
slaughtering each other, and Europeans slaughtering people elsewhere.
The Congo didn't attack Belgium, India didn't attack England,
Algeria didn't attack France.
It's uniform. There are again small exceptions, but pretty small
in scale, certainly invisible in the scale of what Europe and us
were doing to the rest of the world. This is the first change. The
first time that the guns have been pointed the other way. And in
my opinion that's probably why you see such different reactions on
the two sides of the Irish Sea which I have noticed, incidentally,
in many interviews on both sides, national radio on both sides.
The world looks very different depending on whether you are holding
the leash or whether you are being whipped by it for hundreds of
years, very different. So I think the shock and surprise in Europe
and its offshoots, like here, is very understandable. It is a
historic event but regrettably not in scale, in something else and
a reason why the rest of the worldmost of the rest of the world
looks at it quite differently. Not lacking sympathy for the victims
of the atrocity or being horrified by them, that's almost uniform,
but viewing it from a different perspective.
Something we might want to understand.
3. What is the War Against Terrorism?
Well, let's go to the third question, 'What is the war against
terrorism?' and a side question, 'What's terrorism?'. The war
against terrorism has been described in high places as a struggle
against a plague, a cancer which is spread by barbarians, by
"depraved opponents of civilization itself." That's a feeling that
I share. The words I'm quoting, however, happen to be from 20 years
ago. Those arethat's President Reagan and his Secretary of State.
The Reagan administration came into office 20 years ago declaring
that the war against international terrorism would be the core of
our foreign policy.describing it in terms of the kind I just
mentioned and others. And it was the core of our foreign policy.
The Reagan administration responded to this plague spread by depraved
opponents of civilization itself by creating an extraordinary
international terrorist network, totally unprecedented in scale,
which carried out massive atrocities all over the world, primarily.well,
partly nearby, but not only there. I won't run through the record,
you're all educated people, so I'm sure you learned about it in
High School. [crowd laughter]
Reagan-US War Against Nicaragua
But I'll just mention one case which is totally uncontroversial,
so we might as well not argue about it, by no means the most extreme
but uncontroversial. It's uncontroversial because of the judgments
of the highest international authorities the International Court
of Justice, the World Court, and the UN Security Council. So this
one is uncontroversial, at least among people who have some minimal
concern for international law, human rights, justice and other
things like that. And now I'll leave you an exercise. You can
estimate the size of that category by simply asking how often this
uncontroversial case has been mentioned in the commentary of the
last month. And it's a particularly relevant one, not only because
it is uncontroversial, but because it does offer a precedent as to
how a law abiding state would respond todid respond in fact to
international terrorism, which is uncontroversial. And was even
more extreme than the events of September 11th. I'm talking about
the Reagan-US war against Nicaragua which left tens of thousands
of people dead, the country ruined, perhaps beyond recovery.
Nicaragua's Response
Nicaragua did respond. They didn't respond by setting off bombs in
Washington. They responded by taking it to the World Court, presenting
a case, they had no problem putting together evidence. The World
Court accepted their case, ruled in their favor, condemned what
they called the "unlawful use of force," which is another word for
international terrorism, by the United States, ordered the United
States to terminate the crime and to pay massive reparations. The
United States, of course, dismissed the court judgment with total
contempt and announced that it would not accept the jurisdiction
of the court henceforth. Then Nicaragua went to the UN Security
Council which considered a resolution calling on all states to
observe international law. No one was mentioned but everyone
understood. The United States vetoed the resolution. It now stands
as the only state on record which has both been condemned by the
World Court for international terrorism and has vetoed a Security
Council resolution calling on states to observe international law.
Nicaragua then went to the General Assembly where there is technically
no veto but a negative US vote amounts to a veto. It passed a
similar resolution with only the United States, Israel, and El
Salvador opposed. The following year again, this time the United
States could only rally Israel to the cause, so 2 votes opposed to
observing international law. At that point, Nicaragua couldn't do
anything lawful. It tried all the measures. They don't work in a
world that is ruled by force.
This case is uncontroversial but it's by no means the most extreme.
We gain a lot of insight into our own culture and society and what's
happening now by asking 'how much we know about all this? How much
we talk about it? How much you learn about it in school? How much
it's all over the front pages?' And this is only the beginning.
The United States responded to the World Court and the Security
Council by immediately escalating the war very quickly, that was
a bipartisan decision incidentally. The terms of the war were also
changed. For the first time there were official orders givenofficial
orders to the terrorist army to attack what are called "soft
targets," meaning undefended civilian targets, and to keep away
from the Nicaraguan army. They were able to do that because the
United States had total control of the air over Nicaragua and the
mercenary army was supplied with advanced communication equipment,
it wasn't a guerilla army in the normal sense and could get
instructions about the disposition of the Nicaraguan army forces
so they could attack agricultural collectives, health clinics, and
so onsoft targets with impunity. Those were the official orders.
What was the Reaction Here?
What was the reaction? It was known. There was a reaction to it.
The policy was regarded as sensible by left liberal opinion. So
Michael Kinsley who represents the left in mainstream discussion,
wrote an article in which he said that we shouldn't be too quick
to criticize this policy as Human Rights Watch had just done. He
said a "sensible policy" must "meet the test of cost benefit
analysis" -- that is, I'm quoting now, that is the analysis of "the
amount of blood and misery that will be poured in, and the likelihood
that democracy will emerge at the other end." Democracy as the US
understands the term, which is graphically illustrated in the
surrounding countries. Notice that it is axiomatic that the United
States, US elites, have the right to conduct the analysis and to
pursue the project if it passes their tests. And it did pass their
tests. It worked. When Nicaragua finally succumbed to superpower
assault, commentators openly and cheerfully lauded the success of
the methods that were adopted and described them accurately. So
I'll quote Time Magazine just to pick one. They lauded the success
of the methods adopted: "to wreck the economy and prosecute a long
and deadly proxy war until the exhausted natives overthrow the
unwanted government themselves,"
with a cost to us that is "minimal," and leaving the victims "with
wrecked bridges, sabotaged power stations, and ruined farms," and
thus providing the US candidate with a "winning issue": "ending
the impoverishment of the people of Nicaragua." The New York Times
had a headline saying "Americans United in Joy" at this outcome.
Terrorism Works - Terrorism is not the Weapon of the Weak
That is the culture in which we live and it reveals several facts.
One is the fact that terrorism works. It doesn't fail. It works.
Violence usually works. That's world history. Secondly, it's a very
serious analytic error to say, as is commonly done, that terrorism
is the weapon of the weak. Like other means of violence, it's
primarily a weapon of the strong, overwhelmingly, in fact. It is
held to be a weapon of the weak because the strong also control
the doctrinal systems and their terror doesn't count as terror.
Now that's close to universal. I can't think of a historical
exception, even the worst mass murderers view the world that way.
So pick the Nazis. They weren't carrying out terror in occupied
Europe. They were protecting the local population from the terrorisms
of the partisans. And like other resistance movements, there was
terrorism. The Nazis were carrying out counter terror. Furthermore,
the United States essentially agreed with that. After the war, the
US army did extensive studies of Nazi counter terror operations in
Europe. First I should say that the US picked them up and began
carrying them out itself, often against the same targets, the former
resistance. But the military also studied the Nazi methods published
interesting studies, sometimes critical of them because they were
inefficiently carried out, so a critical analysis, you didn't do
this right, you did that right, but those methods with the advice
of Wermacht officers who were brought over here became the manuals
of counter insurgency, of counter terror, of low intensity conflict,
as it is called, and are the manuals, and are the procedures that
are being used. So it's not just that the Nazis did it. It's that
it was regarded as the right thing to do by the leaders of western
civilization, that is us, who then proceeded to do it themselves.
Terrorism is not the weapon of the weak. It is the weapon of those
who are against 'us' whoever 'us' happens to be. And if you can
find a historical exception to that, I'd be interested in seeing
it.
Nature of our Culture - How We Regard Terrorism
Well, an interesting indication of the nature of our culture, our
high culture, is the way in which all of this is regarded. One way
it's regarded is just suppressing it. So almost nobody has ever
heard of it. And the power of American propaganda and doctrine is
so strong that even among the victims it's barely known. I mean,
when you talk about this to people in Argentina, you have to remind
them. Oh, yeah, that happened, we forgot about it. It's deeply
suppressed. The sheer consequences of the monopoly of violence can
be very powerful in ideological and other terms.
The Idea that Nicaragua Might Have The Right To Defend Itself
Well, one illuminating aspect of our own attitude toward terrorism
is the reaction to the idea that Nicaragua might have the right to
defend itself.
Actually I went through this in some detail with database searches
and that sort of thing. The idea that Nicaragua might have the
right to defend itself was considered outrageous. There is virtually
nothing in mainstream commentary indicating that Nicaragua might
have that right. And that fact was exploited by the Reagan
administration and its propaganda in an interesting way. Those of
you who were around in that time will remember that they periodically
floated rumors that the Nicaraguans were getting MIG jets, jets
from Russia. At that point the hawks and the doves split. The hawks
said, 'ok, let's bomb 'em.' The doves said, `wait a minute, let's
see if the rumors are true. And if the rumors are true, then let's
bomb them.
Because they are a threat to the United States.' Why, incidentally
were they getting MIGs? Well they tried to get jet planes from
European countries but the United States put pressure on its allies
so that it wouldn't send them means of defense because they wanted
them to turn to the Russians. That's good for propaganda purposes.
Then they become a threat to us. Remember, they were just 2 days
march from Harlingen, Texas. We actually declared a national
emergency in 1985 to protect the country from the threat of Nicaragua.
And it stayed in force. So it was much better for them to get arms
from the Russians. Why would they want jet planes? Well, for the
reasons I already mentioned. The United States had total control
over their airspace, and was using that to provide instructions to
the terrorist army to enable them to attack soft targets without
running into the army that might defend them. Everyone knew that
that was the reason.
They are not going to use their jet planes for anything else. But
the idea that Nicaragua should be permitted to defend its airspace
against a superpower attack that is directing terrorist forces to
attack undefended civilian targets, that was considered in the
United States as outrageous and uniformly so. Exceptions are so
slight, you know I can practically list them. I don't suggest that
you take my word for this. Have a look. That includes our own
senators, incidentally.
Honduras - The Appointment of John Negroponte as Ambassador to the
United Nations
Another illustration of how we regard terrorism is happening right
now. The US has just appointed an ambassador to the United Nations
to lead the war against terrorism a couple weeks ago. Who is he?
Well, his name is John Negroponte. He was the US ambassador in the
fiefdom, which is what it is, of Honduras in the early 1980's.
There was a little fuss made about the fact that he must have been
aware, as he certainly was, of the large-scale murders and other
atrocities that were being carried out by the security forces in
Honduras that we were supporting. But that's a small part of it.
As proconsul of Honduras, as he was called there, he was the local
supervisor for the terrorist war based in Honduras, for which his
government was condemned by the world court and then the Security
Council in a vetoed resolution. And he was just appointed as the
UN Ambassador to lead the war against terror. Another small experiment
you can do is check and see what the reaction was to this. Well,
I will tell you what you are going to find, but find it for yourself.
Now that tells us a lot about the war against terrorism and a lot
about ourselves.
After the United States took over the country again under the
conditions that were so graphically described by the press, the
country was pretty much destroyed in the 1980's, but it has totally
collapsed since in every respect just about. Economically it has
declined sharply since the US take over, democratically and in
every other respect. It's now the second poorest country in the
Hemisphere. I should say.I'm not going to talk about it, but I
mentioned that I picked up Nicaragua because it is an uncontroversial
case. If you look at the other states in the region, the state
terror was far more extreme and it again traces back to Washington
and that's by no means all.
Blowing on the connectors for a Nintendo game actually makes the problem worse in the long run because it speeds up the corrosion of the connectors, which is what is wrong in the first place.
The proper way to deal with the issue would be to clean the connectors on your games and your NES using an electrical contact cleaner/enhancer. Not expensive at all, and it is consider proper care for electrical connections.
Next thing you are going to tell me is that Honda Civics are crappy unreliable cars because they stop working, even after you blew really really hard into the oil tank as opposed to changing the oil like you are supposed to do. Please don't tell me that you use spit for heat sink grease on your computer's CPU. Oh wait, even better, do you kick your computer chasis whenever something doesn't work, in the belief that you are fixing things?
Yeah, my Playstation CD had some dust on it, so I used a piece of sandpaper to brush off the dust. Oh no, my games don't work anymore. Maybe if I spit on the Playstation, it will start working... no, maybe if I kick it really hard.
I have a few NES systems that I still play to this day, and as long as you take care of them, they work %100 of the time.
Re:Afraid the MPAA won't let them give them money?
on
In Line for Episode II
·
· Score: 2
I thought that Lucas Arts wasn't a member of the MPAA. Lucas kind of does his own thing.
Re:agreed (as is Ximian and Red Carpet)
on
GNOME 3.16 Released
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· Score: 3, Informative
Might I suggest distinguishing between your needs, with desktop environment in one group and package management in another? I suggest choosing Gnome or KDE for the first group and Debian and apt-get for the second group. That way you won't be messing with figuring out dependencies and install/uninstall ordering on your own. *ouch* Not sure what that Red Carpet and Ximian crap is doing for you that Gnome ontop of Debian hasn't been doing for the couple of years.
Yeah, I am putting a Honda Civic backend into my F50. Oh wait, the backends for both cars are so different that trying to use the same backend for both cars is just silly. You ever wonder why the auto industry doesn't put the same backend into every car?
Yes it could be done, two wrappers around the same backend resulting in QT and GTK. However, such a task would require so much additional coding that it would negate any benefits that it was supposed to have.
I hate to say this, but what will happen, is one of the desktop environments will die out. Its the nature of Open Source Software. Things can't stay splintered forever. Eventually natural forces (user's needs, technical needs, development needs, market needs, etc) will cause the gap between both desktop environments to widen. However, the initial competition that exists when there is still more than one option helps the end user get a better desktop environment sooner.
Now this has nothing to do with other ultra-feather weight desktop environments, which will compete amongst eachother for the bare bones performance niche.
Back to the dying out of one of Gnome or KDE... well, you can give any prediction you want, but the productive thing would be to contribute to the development of the desktop you like the best. Contribute by using the desktop and reporting bugs. Contribute by writing code. Contribute by making art (icons, themes, sounds, wallpaper, etc). Contribute by educating others about the desktop of your choice.
Finally, my point is that the dream of unifying Gnome and KDE is silly. One of them will kill the other, and thats a good thing because it won't happen until one is orders of magnitude better than the other meaning that natural community and technical forces will choose the best desktop for us.
No, actually, the logical and hence mathematical way to go about such a thing would be to do just what Carmack said, "Do both".
It could be argued that what Carmack is preaching is a generalization of the elimination rule for the disjunctive logical connective ("or") in intuitionistic logic. You know "A or B" are options for constructing "C", and therefore you construct "C" assuming "A" as your choice AND you construct "C" assuming "B" as your choice. Either way, you are covered as far as constructing "C" is concerned.
I realize Carmack isn't going by formalized logic or anything, but he is a very logical guy... so you can extract such things from his decision making. After all, formalized intuitionistic logic is supposed to reflect the thinking of the "creative subject". Of course, in the USA, students are usually only exposed to classical logic, which isn't "constructive" in the mathematical sense... so I am probably just pissing in the wind here.
Also, who said that doing math excludes testing assumptions? When you are writing a computer program, it can be argued that you are writing a constructive proof (search for "constructive mathematics and computer science" on google). Several famous proofs have shown that constructive proof and program are the same thing (search for "curry howard isomorphism and computer science"). Surely you don't think that mathematicians sit in a meditation position, and then all of a sudden start writing a perfect proof proving what they were after. Just like writing programs, writing proofs requires many many many failed or partially successful attempts before a satisfactory proof is created.
I mean, I doubt Carmack sits in his office and "divines" perfect code the first time. Though, I could be wrong;-) Maybe he will take the time and write a "Mythical Man Month" type of book, where he tells us how he does it.
Writing formal constructive proofs and writing computer programs are very much similar in how you go about doing the actual work. A computer scientist is another name for a mathematician. If you can't see the marriage between the two, then you have more learning to do.
At least someone has gotten my point. Stating something like the parent of my original post did without backing it up is just as silly as stating the opposite proposition without any proof.
Slashdot Mirror
The whole Linux thing was never supposed to be about following corporate leadership, but instead about grass root efforts. So don't pull this "why doesn't Redhat..." stuff. Get off your butt and burn some CDs of Debian, Redhat, or whatever good Linux distro you can get your hands on... start giving that out.
Something doesn't come from nothing. Redhat can't break that rule of thumb, and neither can you. If you have to dip into your pocket, then so be it.
Linux is all about everyone chipping in. Its not about everyone pissing and moaning about what Redhat does and does not do. Though with the recent rumors of the AOL purchasing of Redhat and other things... it seems that people have forgot what Linux is all about.
Actually, the USPS uses what is called a use-based tax. You use the service, then you pay. In my opinion, use-based taxes lead to far more efficient government programs.
The average gamer will hate it when the console system they "just bought" can't run the latest games.
Microsoft doesn't even have majority ownership of NBC. AOL/Timewarner/CNN are one big blob.
Look, I am a Linux zealot, and I don't like Microsoft one bit... but compared to AOL/Timewarner/CNN, Micrsoft is a small "mom & pop shop". Techies will be tearing their hair out, the day that Microsoft falls and is replaced by AOL/Timewarner/CNN. At least now we have two devils balancing each other out... somewhat.
Debian is by no means a for profit company like Redhat, Mandrake, SuSe, etc... Debian is developed by people that do it for the love of the labor.
Why do so many open source zealots care about commercial Linux distros? Debian is the most solid Linux distro out there, commercial or not. Debian is also run by the online Linux community.
A proposition with unbound variables implies universal closure (i.e. use of universal quantification over the unbound or unquantified variable). Not quantifying "Unix" in the proposition implies "all implementations of Unix". Basically, in the english language, lack of quantification implies universal quantification, except in specific cases. I mean, english is, however, context sensitive.
If Unix has bad fonts, then how can OSX have good fonts? I mean, I thought that OSX was Unix based. If so, then by reductio ad absurdum, the proposition that "Unix has bad fonts" is absurd.
Doink! Fingure-Freudian-slip there. I meant "kbs", not "Mbs". Sorry bout that. The intent should have been obvious though, to people like you anyway.
Yeah, thats why I posted the Zeropaid link. They have a cracked version that doesn't autoshutdown. Hopefully we start seeing Xolox-like functionality in more GPL GNUtella clients. The network is only great because it is open... and widely adopted... thats what gives it an edge over the other guys.
Obviously you haven't used GNUtella for the past year. Xolox is a GNUtella client that allows for parallel downloading, resuming, and Xolox will even look for other sources of the file that you are currently downloading, if the current sources are too slow or down. Basically, with Xolox, you search for a file that you want, and you get results with numbers by them depicting how many sources have the file. That way you don't have to decide which source you want to download from. You decide which file you want to download... and Xolox figures out the rest.
My average download speeds on Xolox are around 160Mbs. Of course, I am use the ever so crappy AT&T cable modem service... so other people on faster DSL lines will most likely experience faster downloads.
Next thing you are going to tell me is that Windows is better than Linux because Linux doesn't have any good GUIs or desktop environments for it. Yeah, lets just ignore everything thats out there right now.
Not only that, but Limewire also supports multisource, segmented, or swarmed downloading. Though Limewire has only recently gotten such functionality, while Xolox has had it for the past year.
Oh, and GNUtella is free as in beer and as in speech.
Yeah except that 100:1 compression for arbitrary (i.e. "random") binary strings is impossible. This doesn't take a genius to figure out why.
Whatever dude, when I run Linux, I run Debian. Debian will be here as long as Linux is.
Last time I checked, free is better than not free.
Actually, Japan didn't give up until Russian declared that it was going to enter the War against Japan. Yeah, we nuked them once, and they didn't give up. We nuked them a second time, and they still didn't give up.
Honestly, as far as I know, we didn't have anymore nukes, and so if not for Russia, Japan would have continued the war.
Of course, commies are evil, and Hitler is the boogieman. Or maybe getting so fixated on one organization's and one man's evils blinds us to the numerous other crimes against humanity... such as the Israel occupation of Palestine by means of USA military aid, USA money, and USA propaganda.
Noam Chomsky, the guy that is talking in those transcripts is a US and Israeli citizen. Not only that, he is Jewish. Also, Computer Science students should also know Chomsky for his Chomsky Normal Form, for formal grammars. The guy is very respectable, and a good source for an intelligent, accurate, and truthful account of all things to do with 9-11. If you want to learn more, just run a google search for "Noam Chomsky". His articles, transcripts, etc are all over the web. You can even find MP3s of his speeches on GNUtella.
Stop listening to the lies fed to the masses through TV. The only way to get an accurate take on current events is to actively research things through several non-biased, respectable sources.
Chomsky Transcript: The New War Against Terror (3/3)
5. What are the Policy Options?
What are the policy options? Well, there are a number. A narrow
policy option from the beginning was to follow the advice of really
far out radicals like the Pope [audience laughter]. The Vatican
immediately said look it's a horrible terrorist crime. In the case
of crime, you try to find the perpetrators, you bring them to
justice, you try them. You don't kill innocent civilians. Like if
somebody robs my house and I think the guy who did it is probably
in the neighborhood across the street, I don't go out with an
assault rifle and kill everyone in that neighborhood. That's not
the way you deal with crime, whether it's a small crime like this
one or really massive one like the US terrorist war against Nicaragua,
even worse ones and others in between. And there are plenty of
precedents for that. In fact, I mentioned a precedent, Nicaragua,
a lawful, a law abiding state, that's why presumably we had to
destroy it, which followed the right principles. Now of course, it
didn't get anywhere because it was running up against a power that
wouldn't allow lawful procedures to be followed. But if the United
States tried to pursue them, nobody would stop them. In fact,
everyone would applaud. And there are plenty of other precedents.IRA
Bombs in London When the IRA set off bombs in London, which is
pretty serious business, Britain could have, apart from the fact
that it was unfeasible, let's put that aside, one possible response
would have been to destroy Boston which is the source of most of
the financing. And of course to wipe out West Belfast.
Well, you know, quite apart from the feasibility, it would have
been criminal idiocy. The way to deal with it was pretty much what
they did. You know, find the perpetrators; bring them to trial;
and look for the reasons.
Because these things don't come out of nowhere. They come from
something.
Whether it is a crime in the streets or a monstrous terrorist crime
or anything else. There's reasons. And usually if you look at the
reasons, some of them are legitimate and ought to be addressed,
independently of the crime, they ought to be addressed because they
are legitimate. And that's the way to deal with it. There are many
such examples.
But there are problems with that. One problem is that the United
States does not recognize the jurisdiction of international
institutions. So it can't go to them. It has rejected the jurisdiction
of the World Court. It has refused to ratify the International
Criminal Court. It is powerful enough to set up a new court if it
wants so that wouldn't stop anything. But there is a problem with
any kind of a court, mainly you need evidence. You go to any kind
of court, you need some kind of evidence. Not Tony Blair talking
about it on television. And that's very hard. It may be impossible
to find.
Leaderless Resistance
You know, it could be that the people who did it, killed themselves.
Nobody knows this better than the CIA. These are decentralized,
nonhierarchic networks. They follow a principle that is called
Leaderless Resistance.
That's the principle that has been developed by the Christian Right
terrorists in the United States. It's called Leaderless Resistance.
You have small groups that do things. They don't talk to anybody
else. There is a kind of general background of assumptions and then
you do it. Actually people in the anti war movement are very familiar
with it. We used to call it affinity groups. If you assume correctly
that whatever group you are in is being penetrated by the FBI, when
something serious is happening, you don't do it in a meeting. You
do it with some people you know and trust, an affinity group and
then it doesn't get penetrated. That's one of the reasons why the
FBI has never been able to figure out what's going on in any of
the popular movements. And other intelligence agencies are the
same. They can't.
That's leaderless resistance or affinity groups, and decentralized
networks are extremely hard to penetrate. And it's quite possible
that they just don't know. When Osama bin Laden claims he wasn't
involved, that's entirely possible. In fact, it's pretty hard to
imagine how a guy in a cave in Afghanistan, who doesn't even have
a radio or a telephone could have planned a highly sophisticated
operation like that. Chances are it's part of the background. You
know, like other leaderless resistance terrorist groups.
Which means it's going to be extremely difficult to find evidence.
Establishing Credibility
And the US doesn't want to present evidence because it wants to be
able to do it, to act without evidence. That's a crucial part of
the reaction. You will notice that the US did not ask for Security
Council authorization which they probably could have gotten this
time, not for pretty reasons, but because the other permanent
members of the Security Council are also terrorist states. They
are happy to join a coalition against what they call terror, namely
in support of their own terror. Like Russia wasn't going to veto,
they love it. So the US probably could have gotten Security Council
authorization but it didn't want it. And it didn't want it because
it follows a long-standing principle which is not George Bush, it
was explicit in the Clinton administration, articulated and goes
back much further and that is that we have the right to act
unilaterally. We don't want international authorization because we
act unilaterally and therefore we don't want it. We don't care
about evidence. We don't care about negotiation. We don't care
about treaties. We are the strongest guy around;
the toughest thug on the block. We do what we want. Authorization
is a bad thing and therefore must be avoided. There is even a name
for it in the technical literature. It's called establishing
credibility. You have to establish credibility. That's an important
factor in many policies. It was the official reason given for the
war in the Balkans and the most plausible reason.
You want to know what credibility means, ask your favorite Mafia
Don. He'll explain to you what credibility means. And it's the same
in international affairs, except it's talked about in universities
using big words, and that sort of thing. But it's basically the
same principle. And it makes sense.
And it usually works. The main historian who has written about this
in the last couple years is Charles Tilly with a book called
Coercion, Capital, and European States. He points out that violence
has been the leading principle of Europe for hundreds of years and
the reason is because it works. You know, it's very reasonable. It
almost always works. When you have an overwhelming predominance of
violence and a culture of violence behind it.
So therefore it makes sense to follow it. Well, those are all
problems in pursuing lawful paths. And if you did try to follow
them you'd really open some very dangerous doors. Like the US is
demanding that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden. And they are
responding in a way which is regarded as totally absurd and outlandish
in the west, namely they are saying, Ok, but first give us some
evidence. In the west, that is considered ludicrous. It's a sign
of their criminality. How can they ask for evidence? I mean if
somebody asked us to hand someone over, we'd do it tomorrow. We
wouldn't ask for any evidence. [crowd laughter].
Haiti
In fact it is easy to prove that. We don't have to make up cases.
So for example, for the last several years, Haiti has been requesting
the United States to extradite Emmanuel Constant. He is a major
killer. He is one of the leading figures in the slaughter of maybe
4000 or 5000 people in the years in the mid 1990's, under the
military junta, which incidentally was being, not so tacitly,
supported by the Bush and the Clinton administrations contrary to
illusions. Anyway he is a leading killer. They have plenty of
evidence. No problem about evidence. He has already been brought
to trial and sentenced in Haiti and they are asking the United
States to turn him over. Well, I mean do your own research. See
how much discussion there has been of that. Actually Haiti renewed
the request a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't even mentioned. Why
should we turn over a convicted killer who was largely responsible
for killing 4000 or 5000 people a couple of years ago.
In fact, if we do turn him over, who knows what he would say. Maybe
he'll say that he was being funded and helped by the CIA, which is
probably true.
We don't want to open that door. And he is not he only one.
Costa Rica
For the last about 15 years, Costa Rica which is the democratic
prize, has been trying to get the United States to hand over a John
Hull, a US land owner in Costa Rica, who they charge with terrorist
crimes. He was using his land, they claim with good evidence as a
base for the US war against Nicaragua, which is not a controversial
conclusion, remember. There is the World Court and Security Council
behind it. So they have been trying to get the United States to
hand him over. Hear about that one? No.
They did actually confiscate the land of another American landholder,
John Hamilton. Paid compensation, offered compensation. The US
refused. Turned his land over into a national park because his land
was also being used as a base for the US attack against Nicaragua.
Costa Rica was punished for that one. They were punished by
withholding aid. We don't accept that kind of insubordination from
allies. And we can go on. If you open the door to questions about
extradition it leads in very unpleasant directions. So that can't
be done.
Reactions in Afghanistan
Well, what about the reactions in Afghanistan. The initial proposal,
the initial rhetoric was for a massive assault which would kill
many people visibly and also an attack on other countries in the
region. Well the Bush administration wisely backed off from that.
They were being told by every foreign leader, NATO, everyone else,
every specialist, I suppose, their own intelligence agencies that
that would be the stupidest thing they could possibly do. It would
simply be like opening recruiting offices for bin Laden all over
the region. That's exactly what he wants. And it would be extremely
harmful to their own interests. So they backed off that one. And
they are turning to what I described earlier which is a kind of
silent genocide. It's a. well, I already said what I think about
it. I don't think anything more has to be said. You can figure it
out if you do the arithmetic.
A sensible proposal which is kind of on the verge of being considered,
but it has been sensible all along, and it is being raised, called
for by expatriate Afghans and allegedly tribal leaders internally,
is for a UN initiative, which would keep the Russians and Americans
out of it, totally.
These are the 2 countries that have practically wiped the country
out in the last 20 years. They should be out of it. They should
provide massive reparations. But that's their only role. A UN
initiative to bring together elements within Afghanistan that would
try to construct something from the wreckage. It's conceivable that
that could work, with plenty of support and no interference. If
the US insists on running it, we might as well quit. We have a
historical record on that one.
You will notice that the name of this operation.remember that at
first it was going to be a Crusade but they backed off that because
PR (public relations) agents told them that that wouldn't work
[audience laughter]. And then it was going to be Infinite Justice,
but the PR agents said, wait a minute, you are sounding like you
are divinity. So that wouldn't work. And then it was changed to
enduring freedom. We know what that means. But nobody has yet
pointed out, fortunately, that there is an ambiguity there. To
endure means to suffer. [audience laughter]. And a there are plenty
of people around the world who have endured what we call freedom.
Again, fortunately we have a very well-behaved educated class so
nobody has yet pointed out this ambiguity. But if its done there
will be another problem to deal with. But if we can back off enough
so that some more or less independent agency, maybe the UN, maybe
credible NGO's (non governmental organizations) can take the lead
in trying to reconstruct something from the wreckage, with plenty
of assistance and we owe it to them. Them maybe something would
come out. Beyond that, there are other problems.
An Easy Way To Reduce The Level Of Terror
We certainly want to reduce the level of terror, certainly not
escalate it.
There is one easy way to do that and therefore it is never discussed.
Namely stop participating in it. That would automatically reduce
the level of terror enormously. But that you can't discuss. Well
we ought to make it possible to discuss it. So that's one easy way
to reduce the level of terror.
Beyond that, we should rethink the kinds of policies, and Afghanistan
is not the only one, in which we organize and train terrorist
armies. That has effects. We're seeing some of these effects now.
September 11th is one.
Rethink it.
Rethink the policies that are creating a reservoir of support.
Exactly what the bankers, lawyers and so on are saying in places
like Saudi Arabia. On the streets it's much more bitter, as you
can imagine. That's possible. You know, those policies aren't graven
in stone.
And further more there are opportunities. It's hard to find many
rays of light in the last couple of weeks but one of them is that
there is an increased openness. Lots of issues are open for
discussion, even in elite circles, certainly among the general
public, that were not a couple of weeks ago. That's dramatically
the case. I mean, if a newspaper like USA Today can run a very good
article, a serious article, on life in the Gaza Stripthere has been
a change. The things I mentioned in the Wall Street Journalthat's
change. And among the general public, I think there is much more
openness and willingness to think about things that were under the
rug and so on.
These are opportunities and they should be used, at least by people
who accept the goal of trying to reduce the level of violence and
terror, including potential threats that are extremely severe and
could make even September 11th pale into insignificance. Thanks.
Chomsky Transcript: The New War Against Terror (2/3)
US & UK Backed South African Attacks
It was happening elsewhere in the world too, take say Africa. During
the Reagan years alone, South African attacks, backed by the United
States and Britain, US/UK-backed South African attacks against the
neighboring countries killed about a million and a half people and
left 60 billion dollars in damage and countries destroyed. And if
we go around the world, we can add more examples.
Now that was the first war against terror of which I've given a
small sample. Are we supposed to pay attention to that? Or kind of
think that that might be relevant? After all it's not exactly
ancient history. Well, evidently not as you can tell by looking at
the current discussion of the war on terror which has been the
leading topic for the last month.
Haiti, Guatemala, and Nicaragua
I mentioned that Nicaragua has now become the 2nd poorest country
in the hemisphere. What's the poorest country? Well that's of course
Haiti which also happens to be the victim of most US intervention
in the 20th century by a long shot. We left it totally devastated.
It's the poorest country.
Nicaragua is second ranked in degree of US intervention in the 20th
century.
It is the 2nd poorest. Actually, it is vying with Guatemala. They
interchange every year or two as to who's the second poorest. And
they also vie as to who is the leading target of US military
intervention. We're supposed to think that all of this is some sort
of accident. That is has nothing to do with anything that happened
in history. Maybe.
Colombia and Turkey
The worst human rights violator in the 1990's is Colombia, by a
long shot.
It's also, by far, the leading recipient of US military aid in the
1990's maintaining the terror and human rights violations. In 1999,
Colombia replaced Turkey as the leading recipient of US arms
worldwide, that is excluding Israel and Egypt which are a separate
category. And that tells us a lot more about the war on terror
right now, in fact.
Why was Turkey getting such a huge flow of US arms? Well if you
take a look at the flow of US arms to Turkey, Turkey always got a
lot of US arms. It's strategically placed, a member of NATO, and
so on. But the arms flow to Turkey went up very sharply in 1984.
It didn't have anything to do with the cold war. I mean Russian
was collapsing. And it stayed high from 1984 to 1999 when it reduced
and it was replaced in the lead by Colombia. What happened from
1984 to 1999? Well, in 1984, [Turkey] launched a major terrorist
war against Kurds in southeastern Turkey. And that's when US aid
went up, military aid. And this was not pistols. This was jet
planes, tanks, military training, and so on. And it stayed high as
the atrocities escalated through the 1990's. Aid followed it. The
peak year was 1997. In 1997, US military aid to Turkey was more
than in the entire period 1950 to 1983, that is the cold war period,
which is an indication of how much the cold war has affected policy.
And the results were awesome. This led to 2-3 million refugees.
Some of the worst ethnic cleansing of the late 1990's. Tens of
thousands of people killed, 3500 towns and villages destroyed, way
more than Kosovo, even under NATO bombs. And the United States was
providing 80% of the arms, increasing as the atrocities increased,
peaking in 1997. It declined in 1999 because, once again, terror
worked as it usually does when carried out by its major agents,
mainly the powerful. So by 1999, Turkish terror, called of course
counter-terror, but as I said, that's universal, it worked. Therefore
Turkey was replaced by Colombia which had not yet succeeded in its
terrorist war. And therefore had to move into first place as
recipient of US arms.
Self Congratulation on the Part of Western Intellectuals
Well, what makes this all particularly striking is that all of this
was taking place right in the midst of a huge flood of self-congratulation
on the part of Western intellectuals which probably has no counterpart
in history. I mean you all remember it. It was just a couple years
ago. Massive self-adulation about how for the first time in history
we are so magnificent; that we are standing up for principles and
values; dedicated to ending inhumanity everywhere in the new era
of this-and-that, and so-on-and-so-forth. And we certainly can't
tolerate atrocities right near the borders of NATO. That was repeated
over and over. Only within the borders of NATO where we can not
only can tolerate much worse atrocities but contribute to them.
Another insight into Western civilization and our own, is how often
was this brought up? Try to look. I won't repeat it. But it's
instructive. It's a pretty impressive feat for a propaganda system
to carry this off in a free society. It's pretty amazing. I don't
think you could do this in a totalitarian state.
Turkey is Very Grateful
And Turkey is very grateful. Just a few days ago, Prime Minister
Ecevit announced that Turkey would join the coalition against
terror, very enthusiastically, even more so than others. In fact,
he said they would contribute troops which others have not willing
to do. And he explained why.
He said, We owe a debt of gratitude to the United States because
the United States was the only country that was willing to contribute
so massively to our own, in his words "counter-terrorist" war, that
is to our own massive ethnic cleansing and atrocities and terror.
Other countries helped a little, but they stayed back. The United
States, on the other hand, contributed enthusiastically and decisively
and was able to do so because of the silence, servility might be
the right word, of the educated classes who could easily find out
about it. It's a free country after all. You can read human rights
reports. You can read all sorts of stuff. But we chose to contribute
to the atrocities and Turkey is very happy, they owe us a debt of
gratitude for that and therefore will contribute troops just as
during the war in Serbia. Turkey was very much praised for using
its F-16's which we supplied it to bomb Serbia exactly as it had
been doing with the same planes against its own population up until
the time when it finally succeeded in crushing internal terror as
they called it. And as usual, as always, resistance does include
terror. Its true of the American Revolution. That's true of every
case I know. Just as its true that those who have a monopoly of
violence talk about themselves as carrying out counter terror.
The Coalition - Including Algeria, Russia, China, Indonesia
Now that's pretty impressive and that has to do with the coalition
that is now being organized to fight the war against terror. And
it's very interesting to see how that coalition is being described.
So have a look at this morning's Christian Science Monitor. That's
a good newspaper. One of the best international newspapers, with
real coverage of the world. The lead story, the front-page story,
is about how the United States, you know people used to dislike
the United States but now they are beginning to respect it, and
they are very happy about the way that the US is leading the war
against terror. And the prime example, well in fact the only serious
example, the others are a joke, is Algeria. Turns out that Algeria
is very enthusiastic about the US war against terror. The person
who wrote the article is an expert on Africa. He must know that
Algeria is one of the most vicious terrorist states in the world
and has been carrying out horrendous terror against its own population
in the past couple of years, in fact. For a while, this was under
wraps. But it was finally exposed in France by defectors from the
Algerian army. It's all over the place there and in England and so
on. But here, we're very proud because one of the worst terrorist
states in the world is now enthusiastically welcoming the US war
on terror and in fact is cheering on the United States to lead the
war. That shows how popular we are getting.
And if you look at the coalition that is being formed against terror
it tells you a lot more. A leading member of the coalition is Russia
which is delighted to have the United States support its murderous
terrorist war in Chechnya instead of occasionally criticizing it
in the background. China is joining enthusiastically. It's delighted
to have support for the atrocities it's carrying out in western
China against, what it called, Muslim secessionists. Turkey, as I
mentioned, is very happy with the war against terror. They are
experts. Algeria, Indonesia delighted to have even more US support
for atrocities it is carrying out in Ache and elsewhere. Now we
can run through the list, the list of the states that have joined
the coalition against terror is quite impressive. They have a
characteristic in common.
They are certainly among the leading terrorist states in the world.
And they happen to be led by the world champion.
What is Terrorism?
Well that brings us back to the question, what is terrorism? I have
been assuming we understand it. Well, what is it? Well, there happen
to be some easy answers to this. There is an official definition.
You can find it in the US code or in US army manuals. A brief
statement of it taken from a US army manual, is fair enough, is
that terror is the calculated use of violence or the threat of
violence to attain political or religious ideological goals through
intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear. That's terrorism. That's
a fair enough definition. I think it is reasonable to accept that.
The problem is that it can't be accepted because if you accept
that, all the wrong consequences follow. For example, all the
consequences I have just been reviewing. Now there is a major effort
right now at the UN to try to develop a comprehensive treaty on
terrorism. When Kofi Annan got the Nobel prize the other day, you
will notice he was reported as saying that we should stop wasting
time on this and really get down to it.
But there's a problem. If you use the official definition of
terrorism in the comprehensive treaty you are going to get completely
the wrong results.
So that can't be done. In fact, it is even worse than that. If you
take a look at the definition of Low Intensity Warfare which is
official US policy you find that it is a very close paraphrase of
what I just read. In fact, Low Intensity Conflict is just another
name for terrorism. That's why all countries, as far as I know,
call whatever horrendous acts they are carrying out, counter
terrorism. We happen to call it Counter Insurgency or Low Intensity
Conflict. So that's a serious problem. You can't use the actual
definitions. You've got to carefully find a definition that doesn't
have all the wrong consequences.
Why did the United States and Israel Vote Against a Major Resolution
Condemning Terrorism?
There are some other problems. Some of them came up in December
1987, at the peak of the first war on terrorism, that's when the
furor over the plague was peaking. The United Nations General
Assembly passed a very strong resolution against terrorism, condemning
the plague in the strongest terms, calling on every state to fight
against it in every possible way. It passed unanimously. One country,
Honduras abstained. Two votes against; the usual two, United States
and Israel. Why should the United States and Israel vote against
a major resolution condemning terrorism in the strongest terms, in
fact pretty much the terms that the Reagan administration was using?
Well, there is a reason. There is one paragraph in that long
resolution which says that nothing in this resolution infringes on
the rights of people struggling against racist and colonialist
regimes or foreign military occupation to continue with their
resistance with the assistance of others, other states, states
outside in their just cause. Well, the United States and Israel
can't accept that. The main reason that they couldn't at the time
was because of South Africa. South Africa was an ally, officially
called an ally. There was a terrorist force in South Africa. It
was called the African National Congress. They were a terrorist
force officially. South Africa in contrast was an ally and we
certainly couldn't support actions by a terrorist group struggling
against a racist regime. That would be impossible.
And of course there is another one. Namely the Israeli occupied
territories, now going into its 35th year. Supported primarily by
the United States in blocking a diplomatic settlement for 30 years
now, still is. And you can't have that. There is another one at
the time. Israel was occupying Southern Lebanon and was being
combated by what the US calls a terrorist force, Hizbullah, which
in fact succeeded in driving Israel out of Lebanon. And we can't
allow anyone to struggle against a military occupation when it is
one that we support so therefore the US and Israel had to vote
against the major UN resolution on terrorism. And I mentioned before
that a US vote againstis essentially a veto. Which is only half
the story. It also vetoes it from history. So none of this was ever
reported and none of it appeared in the annals of terrorism. If
you look at the scholarly work on terrorism and so on, nothing that
I just mentioned appears. The reason is that it has got the wrong
people holding the guns. You have to carefully hone the definitions
and the scholarship and so on so that you come out with the right
conclusions; otherwise it is not respectable scholarship and
honorable journalism. Well, these are some of problems that are
hampering the effort to develop a comprehensive treaty against
terrorism. Maybe we should have an academic conference or something
to try to see if we can figure out a way of defining terrorism so
that it comes out with just the right answers, not the wrong answers.
That won't be easy.
4. What are the Origins of the September 11 Crime?
Well, let's drop that and turn to the 4th question, What are the
origins of the September 11 crimes? Here we have to make a distinction
between 2 categories which shouldn't be run together. One is the
actual agents of the crime, the other is kind of a reservoir of at
least sympathy, sometimes support that they appeal to even among
people who very much oppose the criminals and the actions. And
those are 2 different things.
Category 1: The Likely Perpetrators
Well, with regard to the perpetrators, in a certain sense we are
not really clear. The United States either is unable or unwilling
to provide any evidence, any meaningful evidence. There was a sort
of a play a week or two ago when Tony Blair was set up to try to
present it. I don't exactly know what the purpose of this was.
Maybe so that the US could look as though it's holding back on some
secret evidence that it can't reveal or that Tony Blair could strike
proper Churchillian poses or something or other. Whatever the PR
[public relations] reasons were, he gave a presentation which was
in serious circles considered so absurd that it was barely even
mentioned. So the Wall Street Journal, for example, one of the more
serious papers had a small story on page 12, I think, in which they
pointed out that there was not much evidence and then they quoted
some high US official as saying that it didn't matter whether there
was any evidence because they were going to do it anyway. So why
bother with the evidence? The more ideological press, like the New
York Times and others, they had big front-page headlines. But the
Wall Street Journal reaction was reasonable and if you look at the
so-called evidence you can see why. But let's assume that it's
true. It is astonishing to me how weak the evidence was. I sort of
thought you could do better than that without any intelligence
service [audience laughter]. In fact, remember this was after weeks
of the most intensive investigation in history of all the intelligence
services of the western world working overtime trying to put
something together. And it was a prima facie, it was a very strong
case even before you had anything. And it ended up about where it
started, with a prima facie case. So let's assume that it is true.
So let's assume that, it looked obvious the first day, still does,
that the actual perpetrators come from the radical Islamic, here
called, fundamentalist networks of which the bin Laden network is
undoubtedly a significant part. Whether they were involved or not
nobody knows. It doesn't really matter much.
Where did they come from?
That's the background, those networks. Well, where do they come
from? We know all about that. Nobody knows about that better than
the CIA because it helped organize them and it nurtured them for
a long time. They were brought together in the 1980's actually by
the CIA and its associates elsewhere:
Pakistan, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China was involved,
they may have been involved a little bit earlier, maybe by 1978.
The idea was to try to harass the Russians, the common enemy.
According to President Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbigniew
Brzezinski, the US got involved in mid 1979. Do you remember, just
to put the dates right, that Russia invaded Afghanistan in December
1979. Ok. According to Brzezinski, the US support for the mujahedin
fighting against the government began 6 months earlier. He is very
proud of that. He says we drew the Russians into, in his words, an
Afghan trap, by supporting the mujahedin, getting them to invade,
getting them into the trap. Now then we could develop this terrific
mercenary army.
Not a small one, maybe 100,000 men or so bringing together the best
killers they could find, who were radical Islamist fanatics from
around North Africa, Saudi Arabia.anywhere they could find them.
They were often called the Afghanis but many of them, like bin
Laden, were not Afghans. They were brought by the CIA and its
friends from elsewhere. Whether Brzezinski is telling the truth or
not, I don't know. He may have been bragging, he is apparently very
proud of it, knowing the consequences incidentally. But maybe it's
true. We'll know someday if the documents are ever released.
Anyway, that's his perception. By January 1980 it is not even in
doubt that the US was organizing the Afghanis and this massive
military force to try to cause the Russians maximal trouble. It
was a legitimate thing for the Afghans to fight the Russian invasion.
But the US intervention was not helping the Afghans. In fact, it
helped destroy the country and much more.
The Afghanis, so called, had their own...it did force the Russians
to withdrew, finally. Although many analysts believe that it probably
delayed their withdrawal because they were trying to get out of
it. Anyway, whatever, they did withdraw.
Meanwhile, the terrorist forces that the CIA was organizing, arming,
and training were pursuing their own agenda, right away. It was no
secret. One of the first acts was in 1981 when they assassinated
the President of Egypt, who was one of the most enthusiastic of
their creators. In 1983, one suicide bomber, who may or may not
have been connected, it's pretty shadowy, nobody knows. But one
suicide bomber drove the US army-military out of Lebanon.
And it continued. They have their own agenda. The US was happy to
mobilize them to fight its cause but meanwhile they are doing their
own thing. They were clear very about it. After 1989, when the
Russians had withdrawn, they simply turned elsewhere. Since then
they have been fighting in Chechnya, Western China, Bosnia, Kashmir,
South East Asia, North Africa, all over the place.
The Are Telling Us What They Think
They are telling us just what they think. The United States wants
to silence the one free television channel in the Arab world because
it's broadcasting a whole range of things from Powell over to Osama
bin Laden. So the US is now joining the repressive regimes of the
Arab world that try to shut it up.
But if you listen to it, if you listen to what bin Laden says, it's
worth it. There is plenty of interviews. And there are plenty of
interviews by leading Western reporters, if you don't want to listen
to his own voice, Robert Fisk and others. And what he has been
saying is pretty consistent for a long time. He's not the only one
but maybe he is the most eloquent. It's not only consistent over
a long time, it is consistent with their actions.
So there is every reason to take it seriously. Their prime enemy
is what they call the corrupt and oppressive authoritarian brutal
regimes of the Arab world and when the say that they get quite a
resonance in the region.
They also want to defend and they want to replace them by properly
Islamist governments. That's where they lose the people of the
region. But up till then, they are with them. From their point of
view, even Saudi Arabia, the most extreme fundamentalist state in
the world, I suppose, short of the Taliban, which is an offshoot,
even that's not Islamist enough for them. Ok, at that point, they
get very little support, but up until that point they get plenty
of support. Also they want to defend Muslims elsewhere. They hate
the Russians like poison, but as soon as the Russians pulled out
of Afghanistan, they stopped carrying out terrorist acts in Russia
as they had been doing with CIA backing before that within Russia,
not just in Afghanistan. They did move over to Chechnya. But there
they are defending Muslims against a Russian invasion. Same with
all the other places I mentioned. From their point of view, they
are defending the Muslims against the infidels. And they are very
clear about it and that is what they have been doing.
Why did they turn against the United States?
Now why did they turn against the United States? Well that had to
do with what they call the US invasion of Saudi Arabia. In 1990,
the US established permanent military bases in Saudi Arabia which
from their point of view is comparable to a Russian invasion of
Afghanistan except that Saudi Arabia is way more important. That's
the home of the holiest sites of Islam. And that is when their
activities turned against the Unites States. If you recall, in 1993
they tried to blow up the World Trade Center. Got part of the way,
but not the whole way and that was only part of it. The plans were
to blow up the UN building, the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, the
FBI building. I think there were others on the list. Well, they
sort of got part way, but not all the way. One person who is jailed
for that, finally, among the people who were jailed, was a Egyptian
cleric who had been brought into the United States over the objections
of the Immigration Service, thanks to the intervention of the CIA
which wanted to help out their friend. A couple years later he was
blowing up the World Trade Center. And this has been going on all
over. I'm not going to run through the list but it's, if you want
to understand it, it's consistent. It's a consistent picture. It's
described in words. It's revealed in practice for 20 years. There
is no reason not to take it seriously. That's the first category,
the likely perpetrators.
Category 2: What about the reservoir of support?
What about the reservoir of support? Well, it's not hard to find
out what that is. One of the good things that has happened since
September 11 is that some of the press and some of the discussion
has begun to open up to some of these things. The best one to my
knowledge is the Wall Street Journal which right away began to run,
within a couple of days, serious reports, searching serious reports,
on the reasons why the people of the region, even though they hate
bin Laden and despise everything he is doing, nevertheless support
him in many ways and even regard him as the conscience of Islam,
as one said. Now the Wall Street Journal and others, they are not
surveying public opinion. They are surveying the opinion of their
friends: bankers, professionals, international lawyers, businessmen
tied to the United States, people who they interview in McDonalds
restaurant, which is an elegant restaurant there, wearing fancy
American clothes. That's the people they are interviewing because
they want to find out what their attitudes are. And their attitudes
are very explicit and very clear and in many ways consonant with
the message of bin Laden and others. They are very angry at the
United States because of its support of authoritarian and brutal
regimes; its intervention to block any move towards democracy; its
intervention to stop economic development; its policies of devastating
the civilian societies of Iraq while strengthening Saddam Hussein;
and they remember, even if we prefer not to, that the United States
and Britain supported Saddam Hussein right through his worst
atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds, bin Laden brings
that up constantly, and they know it even if we don't want to.
And of course their support for the Israeli military occupation
which is harsh and brutal. It is now in its 35th year. The US has
been providing the overwhelming economic, military, and diplomatic
support for it, and still does. And they know that and they don't
like it. Especially when that is paired with US policy towards
Iraq, towards the Iraqi civilian society which is getting destroyed.
Ok, those are the reasons roughly. And when bin Laden gives those
reasons, people recognize it and support it.
Now that's not the way people here like to think about it, at least
educated liberal opinion. They like the following line which has
been all over the press, mostly from left liberals, incidentally.
I have not done a real study but I think right wing opinion has
generally been more honest. But if you look at say at the New York
Times at the first op-ed they ran by Ronald Steel, serious left
liberal intellectual. He asks Why do they hate us? This is the same
day, I think, that the Wall Street Journal was running the survey
on why they hate us. So he says "They hate us because we champion
a new world order of capitalism, individualism, secularism, and
democracy that should be the norm everywhere." That's why they hate
us. The same day the Wall Street Journal is surveying the opinions
of bankers, professionals, international lawyers and saying `look,
we hate you because you are blocking democracy, you are preventing
economic development, you are supporting brutal regimes, terrorist
regimes and you are doing these horrible things in the region.' A
couple days later, Anthony Lewis, way out on the left, explained
that the terrorist seek only "apocalyptic nihilism," nothing more
and nothing we do matters. The only consequence of our actions, he
says, that could be harmful is that it makes it harder for Arabs
to join in the coalition's anti-terrorism effort. But beyond that,
everything we do is irrelevant.
Well, you know, that's got the advantage of being sort of comforting.
It makes you feel good about yourself, and how wonderful you are.
It enables us to evade the consequences of our actions. It has a
couple of defects. One is it is at total variance with everything
we know. And another defect is that it is a perfect way to ensure
that you escalate the cycle of violence. If you want to live with
your head buried in the sand and pretend they hate us because
they're opposed to globalization, that's why they killed Sadat 20
years ago, and fought the Russians, tried to blow up the World
Trade Center in 1993. And these are all people who are in the midst
of corporate globalization but if you want to believe that,
yehcomforting. And it is a great way to make sure that violence
escalates. That's tribal violence. You did something to me, I'll
do something worse to you. I don't care what the reasons are. We
just keep going that way. And that's a way to do it. Pretty much
straight, left-liberal opinion.
Chomsky Transcript: The New War Against Terror (1/3)
The New War Against Terror
Noam Chomsky October 18, 2001 - Transcribed from audio recorded at
The Technology & Culture Forum at MIT
Everyone knows it's the TV people who run the world [crowd laugher].
I just got orders that I'm supposed to be here, not there. Well
the last talk I gave at this forum was on a light pleasant topic.
It was about how humans are an endangered species and given the
nature of their institutions they are likely to destroy themselves
in a fairly short time. So this time there is a little relief and
we have a pleasant topic instead, the new war on terror. Unfortunately,
the world keeps coming up with things that make it more and more
horrible as we proceed.
Assume 2 Conditions for this Talk
I'm going to assume 2 conditions for this talk.
The first one is just what I assume to be recognition of fact. That
is that the events of September 11 were a horrendous atrocity
probably the most devastating instant human toll of any crime in
history, outside of war.
The second assumption has to do with the goals. I'm assuming that
our goal is that we are interested in reducing the likelihood of
such crimes whether they are against us or against someone else.
If you don't accept those two assumptions, then what I say will
not be addressed to you. If we do accept them, then a number of
questions arise, closely related ones, which merit a good deal of
thought.
The 5 Questions
One question, and by far the most important one is what is happening
right now? Implicit in that is what can we do about it? The 2nd
has to do with the very common assumption that what happened on
September 11 is a historic event, one which will change history.
I tend to agree with that. I think it's true. It was a historic
event and the question we should be asking is exactly why? The 3rd
question has to do with the title, The War Against Terrorism.
Exactly what is it? And there is a related question, namely what
is terrorism? The 4th question which is narrower but important has
to do with the origins of the crimes of September 11th. And the
5th question that I want to talk a little about is what policy
options there are in fighting this war against terrorism and dealing
with the situations that led to it.
I'll say a few things about each. Glad to go beyond in discussion
and don't hesitate to bring up other questions. These are ones that
come to my mind as prominent but you may easily and plausibly have
other choices.
1. What's Happening Right Now?
Starvation of 3 to 4 Million People
Well let's start with right now. I'll talk about the situation in
Afghanistan. I'll just keep to uncontroversial sources like the
New York Times [crowd laughter]. According to the New York Times
there are 7 to 8 million people in Afghanistan on the verge of
starvation. That was true actually before September 11th. They were
surviving on international aid. On September 16th, the Times
reported, I'm quoting it, that the United States demanded from
Pakistan the elimination of truck convoys that provide much of the
food and other supplies to Afghanistan's civilian population. As
far as I could determine there was no reaction in the United States
or for that matter in Europe. I was on national radio all over
Europe the next day.
There was no reaction in the United States or in Europe to my
knowledge to the demand to impose massive starvation on millions
of people. The threat of military strikes right after September..around
that time forced the removal of international aid workers that
crippled the assistance programs.
Actually, I am quoting again from the New York Times. Refugees
reaching Pakistan after arduous journeys from AF are describing
scenes of desperation and fear at home as the threat of American
led military attacks turns their long running misery into a potential
catastrophe. The country was on a lifeline and we just cut the
line. Quoting an evacuated aid worker, in the New York Times
Magazine.
The World Food Program, the UN program, which is the main one by
far, were able to resume after 3 weeks in early October, they began
to resume at a lower level, resume food shipments. They don't have
international aid workers within, so the distribution system is
hampered. That was suspended as soon as the bombing began. They
then resumed but at a lower pace while aid agencies leveled scathing
condemnations of US airdrops, condemning them as propaganda tools
which are probably doing more harm than good. That happens to be
quoting the London Financial Times but it is easy to continue.
After the first week of bombing, the New York Times reported on a
back page inside a column on something else, that by the arithmetic
of the United Nations there will soon be 7.5 million Afghans in
acute need of even a loaf of bread and there are only a few weeks
left before the harsh winter will make deliveries to many areas
totally impossible, continuing to quote, but with bombs falling
the delivery rate is down to = of what is needed. Casual comment.
Which tells us that Western civilization is anticipating the
slaughter of, well do the arithmetic, 3-4 million people or something
like that. On the same day, the leader of Western civilization
dismissed with contempt, once again, offers of negotiation for
delivery of the alleged target, Osama bin Laden, and a request for
some evidence to substantiate the demand for total capitulation.
It was dismissed. On the same day the Special Rapporteur of the UN
in charge of food pleaded with the United States to stop the bombing
to try to save millions of victims. As far as I'm aware that was
unreported. That was Monday. Yesterday the major aid agencies OXFAM
and Christian Aid and others joined in that plea. You can't find
a report in the New York Times. There was a line in the Boston
Globe, hidden in a story about another topic, Kashmir.
Silent Genocide
Well we could easily go on.but all of that.first of all indicates
to us what's happening. Looks like what's happening is some sort
of silent genocide. It also gives a good deal of insight into the
elite culture, the culture that we are part of. It indicates that
whatever, what will happen we don't know, but plans are being made
and programs implemented on the assumption that they may lead to
the death of several million people in the next couple of weeks.very
casually with no comment, no particular thought about it, that's
just kind of normal, here and in a good part of Europe. Not in the
rest of the world. In fact not even in much of Europe. So if you
read the Irish press or the press in Scotlandthat close, reactions
are very different. Well that's what's happening now. What's
happening now is very much under our control. We can do a lot to
affect what's happening. And that's roughly it.
2. Why was it a Historic Event?
National Territory Attacked
Alright let's turn to the slightly more abstract question, forgetting
for the moment that we are in the midst of apparently trying to
murder 3 or 4 million people, not Taliban of course, their victims.
Let's go backturn to the question of the historic event that took
place on September 11th. As I said, I think that's correct. It was
a historic event. Not unfortunately because of its scale, unpleasant
to think about, but in terms of the scale it's not that unusual.
I did say it's the worstprobably the worst instant human toll of
any crime. And that may be true. But there are terrorist crimes
with effects a bit more drawn out that are more extreme, unfortunately.
Nevertheless, it's a historic event because there was a change.
The change was the direction in which the guns were pointed. That's
new. Radically new. So, take US history.
The last time that the national territory of the United States was
under attack, or for that matter, even threatened was when the
British burned down Washington in 1814. There have been manyit was
common to bring up Pearl Harbor but that's not a good analogy. The
Japanese, what ever you think about it, the Japanese bombed military
bases in 2 US colonies not the national territory; colonies which
had been taken from their inhabitants in not a very pretty way.
This is the national territory that's been attacked on a large
scale, you can find a few fringe examples but this is unique.
During these close to 200 years, we, the United States expelled or
mostly exterminated the indigenous population, that's many millions
of people, conquered half of Mexico, carried out depredations all
over the region, Caribbean and Central America, sometimes beyond,
conquered Hawaii and the Philippines, killing several hundred
thousand Filipinos in the process.
Since the Second World War, it has extended its reach around the
world in ways I don't have to describe. But it was always killing
someone else, the fighting was somewhere else, it was others who
were getting slaughtered. Not here. Not the national territory.
Europe
In the case of Europe, the change is even more dramatic because
its history is even more horrendous than ours. We are an offshoot
of Europe, basically.
For hundreds of years, Europe has been casually slaughtering people
all over the world. That's how they conquered the world, not by
handing out candy to babies. During this period, Europe did suffer
murderous wars, but that was European killers murdering one another.
The main sport of Europe for hundreds of years was slaughtering
one another. The only reason that it came to an end in 1945, was.it
had nothing to do with Democracy or not making war with each other
and other fashionable notions. It had to do with the fact that
everyone understood that the next time they play the game it was
going to be the end for the world. Because the Europeans, including
us, had developed such massive weapons of destruction that that
game just had to be over. And it goes back hundreds of years. In
the 17th century, about probably 40% of the entire population of
Germany was wiped out in one war.
But during this whole bloody murderous period, it was Europeans
slaughtering each other, and Europeans slaughtering people elsewhere.
The Congo didn't attack Belgium, India didn't attack England,
Algeria didn't attack France.
It's uniform. There are again small exceptions, but pretty small
in scale, certainly invisible in the scale of what Europe and us
were doing to the rest of the world. This is the first change. The
first time that the guns have been pointed the other way. And in
my opinion that's probably why you see such different reactions on
the two sides of the Irish Sea which I have noticed, incidentally,
in many interviews on both sides, national radio on both sides.
The world looks very different depending on whether you are holding
the leash or whether you are being whipped by it for hundreds of
years, very different. So I think the shock and surprise in Europe
and its offshoots, like here, is very understandable. It is a
historic event but regrettably not in scale, in something else and
a reason why the rest of the worldmost of the rest of the world
looks at it quite differently. Not lacking sympathy for the victims
of the atrocity or being horrified by them, that's almost uniform,
but viewing it from a different perspective.
Something we might want to understand.
3. What is the War Against Terrorism?
Well, let's go to the third question, 'What is the war against
terrorism?' and a side question, 'What's terrorism?'. The war
against terrorism has been described in high places as a struggle
against a plague, a cancer which is spread by barbarians, by
"depraved opponents of civilization itself." That's a feeling that
I share. The words I'm quoting, however, happen to be from 20 years
ago. Those arethat's President Reagan and his Secretary of State.
The Reagan administration came into office 20 years ago declaring
that the war against international terrorism would be the core of
our foreign policy.describing it in terms of the kind I just
mentioned and others. And it was the core of our foreign policy.
The Reagan administration responded to this plague spread by depraved
opponents of civilization itself by creating an extraordinary
international terrorist network, totally unprecedented in scale,
which carried out massive atrocities all over the world, primarily.well,
partly nearby, but not only there. I won't run through the record,
you're all educated people, so I'm sure you learned about it in
High School. [crowd laughter]
Reagan-US War Against Nicaragua
But I'll just mention one case which is totally uncontroversial,
so we might as well not argue about it, by no means the most extreme
but uncontroversial. It's uncontroversial because of the judgments
of the highest international authorities the International Court
of Justice, the World Court, and the UN Security Council. So this
one is uncontroversial, at least among people who have some minimal
concern for international law, human rights, justice and other
things like that. And now I'll leave you an exercise. You can
estimate the size of that category by simply asking how often this
uncontroversial case has been mentioned in the commentary of the
last month. And it's a particularly relevant one, not only because
it is uncontroversial, but because it does offer a precedent as to
how a law abiding state would respond todid respond in fact to
international terrorism, which is uncontroversial. And was even
more extreme than the events of September 11th. I'm talking about
the Reagan-US war against Nicaragua which left tens of thousands
of people dead, the country ruined, perhaps beyond recovery.
Nicaragua's Response
Nicaragua did respond. They didn't respond by setting off bombs in
Washington. They responded by taking it to the World Court, presenting
a case, they had no problem putting together evidence. The World
Court accepted their case, ruled in their favor, condemned what
they called the "unlawful use of force," which is another word for
international terrorism, by the United States, ordered the United
States to terminate the crime and to pay massive reparations. The
United States, of course, dismissed the court judgment with total
contempt and announced that it would not accept the jurisdiction
of the court henceforth. Then Nicaragua went to the UN Security
Council which considered a resolution calling on all states to
observe international law. No one was mentioned but everyone
understood. The United States vetoed the resolution. It now stands
as the only state on record which has both been condemned by the
World Court for international terrorism and has vetoed a Security
Council resolution calling on states to observe international law.
Nicaragua then went to the General Assembly where there is technically
no veto but a negative US vote amounts to a veto. It passed a
similar resolution with only the United States, Israel, and El
Salvador opposed. The following year again, this time the United
States could only rally Israel to the cause, so 2 votes opposed to
observing international law. At that point, Nicaragua couldn't do
anything lawful. It tried all the measures. They don't work in a
world that is ruled by force.
This case is uncontroversial but it's by no means the most extreme.
We gain a lot of insight into our own culture and society and what's
happening now by asking 'how much we know about all this? How much
we talk about it? How much you learn about it in school? How much
it's all over the front pages?' And this is only the beginning.
The United States responded to the World Court and the Security
Council by immediately escalating the war very quickly, that was
a bipartisan decision incidentally. The terms of the war were also
changed. For the first time there were official orders givenofficial
orders to the terrorist army to attack what are called "soft
targets," meaning undefended civilian targets, and to keep away
from the Nicaraguan army. They were able to do that because the
United States had total control of the air over Nicaragua and the
mercenary army was supplied with advanced communication equipment,
it wasn't a guerilla army in the normal sense and could get
instructions about the disposition of the Nicaraguan army forces
so they could attack agricultural collectives, health clinics, and
so onsoft targets with impunity. Those were the official orders.
What was the Reaction Here?
What was the reaction? It was known. There was a reaction to it.
The policy was regarded as sensible by left liberal opinion. So
Michael Kinsley who represents the left in mainstream discussion,
wrote an article in which he said that we shouldn't be too quick
to criticize this policy as Human Rights Watch had just done. He
said a "sensible policy" must "meet the test of cost benefit
analysis" -- that is, I'm quoting now, that is the analysis of "the
amount of blood and misery that will be poured in, and the likelihood
that democracy will emerge at the other end." Democracy as the US
understands the term, which is graphically illustrated in the
surrounding countries. Notice that it is axiomatic that the United
States, US elites, have the right to conduct the analysis and to
pursue the project if it passes their tests. And it did pass their
tests. It worked. When Nicaragua finally succumbed to superpower
assault, commentators openly and cheerfully lauded the success of
the methods that were adopted and described them accurately. So
I'll quote Time Magazine just to pick one. They lauded the success
of the methods adopted: "to wreck the economy and prosecute a long
and deadly proxy war until the exhausted natives overthrow the
unwanted government themselves,"
with a cost to us that is "minimal," and leaving the victims "with
wrecked bridges, sabotaged power stations, and ruined farms," and
thus providing the US candidate with a "winning issue": "ending
the impoverishment of the people of Nicaragua." The New York Times
had a headline saying "Americans United in Joy" at this outcome.
Terrorism Works - Terrorism is not the Weapon of the Weak
That is the culture in which we live and it reveals several facts.
One is the fact that terrorism works. It doesn't fail. It works.
Violence usually works. That's world history. Secondly, it's a very
serious analytic error to say, as is commonly done, that terrorism
is the weapon of the weak. Like other means of violence, it's
primarily a weapon of the strong, overwhelmingly, in fact. It is
held to be a weapon of the weak because the strong also control
the doctrinal systems and their terror doesn't count as terror.
Now that's close to universal. I can't think of a historical
exception, even the worst mass murderers view the world that way.
So pick the Nazis. They weren't carrying out terror in occupied
Europe. They were protecting the local population from the terrorisms
of the partisans. And like other resistance movements, there was
terrorism. The Nazis were carrying out counter terror. Furthermore,
the United States essentially agreed with that. After the war, the
US army did extensive studies of Nazi counter terror operations in
Europe. First I should say that the US picked them up and began
carrying them out itself, often against the same targets, the former
resistance. But the military also studied the Nazi methods published
interesting studies, sometimes critical of them because they were
inefficiently carried out, so a critical analysis, you didn't do
this right, you did that right, but those methods with the advice
of Wermacht officers who were brought over here became the manuals
of counter insurgency, of counter terror, of low intensity conflict,
as it is called, and are the manuals, and are the procedures that
are being used. So it's not just that the Nazis did it. It's that
it was regarded as the right thing to do by the leaders of western
civilization, that is us, who then proceeded to do it themselves.
Terrorism is not the weapon of the weak. It is the weapon of those
who are against 'us' whoever 'us' happens to be. And if you can
find a historical exception to that, I'd be interested in seeing
it.
Nature of our Culture - How We Regard Terrorism
Well, an interesting indication of the nature of our culture, our
high culture, is the way in which all of this is regarded. One way
it's regarded is just suppressing it. So almost nobody has ever
heard of it. And the power of American propaganda and doctrine is
so strong that even among the victims it's barely known. I mean,
when you talk about this to people in Argentina, you have to remind
them. Oh, yeah, that happened, we forgot about it. It's deeply
suppressed. The sheer consequences of the monopoly of violence can
be very powerful in ideological and other terms.
The Idea that Nicaragua Might Have The Right To Defend Itself
Well, one illuminating aspect of our own attitude toward terrorism
is the reaction to the idea that Nicaragua might have the right to
defend itself.
Actually I went through this in some detail with database searches
and that sort of thing. The idea that Nicaragua might have the
right to defend itself was considered outrageous. There is virtually
nothing in mainstream commentary indicating that Nicaragua might
have that right. And that fact was exploited by the Reagan
administration and its propaganda in an interesting way. Those of
you who were around in that time will remember that they periodically
floated rumors that the Nicaraguans were getting MIG jets, jets
from Russia. At that point the hawks and the doves split. The hawks
said, 'ok, let's bomb 'em.' The doves said, `wait a minute, let's
see if the rumors are true. And if the rumors are true, then let's
bomb them.
Because they are a threat to the United States.' Why, incidentally
were they getting MIGs? Well they tried to get jet planes from
European countries but the United States put pressure on its allies
so that it wouldn't send them means of defense because they wanted
them to turn to the Russians. That's good for propaganda purposes.
Then they become a threat to us. Remember, they were just 2 days
march from Harlingen, Texas. We actually declared a national
emergency in 1985 to protect the country from the threat of Nicaragua.
And it stayed in force. So it was much better for them to get arms
from the Russians. Why would they want jet planes? Well, for the
reasons I already mentioned. The United States had total control
over their airspace, and was using that to provide instructions to
the terrorist army to enable them to attack soft targets without
running into the army that might defend them. Everyone knew that
that was the reason.
They are not going to use their jet planes for anything else. But
the idea that Nicaragua should be permitted to defend its airspace
against a superpower attack that is directing terrorist forces to
attack undefended civilian targets, that was considered in the
United States as outrageous and uniformly so. Exceptions are so
slight, you know I can practically list them. I don't suggest that
you take my word for this. Have a look. That includes our own
senators, incidentally.
Honduras - The Appointment of John Negroponte as Ambassador to the
United Nations
Another illustration of how we regard terrorism is happening right
now. The US has just appointed an ambassador to the United Nations
to lead the war against terrorism a couple weeks ago. Who is he?
Well, his name is John Negroponte. He was the US ambassador in the
fiefdom, which is what it is, of Honduras in the early 1980's.
There was a little fuss made about the fact that he must have been
aware, as he certainly was, of the large-scale murders and other
atrocities that were being carried out by the security forces in
Honduras that we were supporting. But that's a small part of it.
As proconsul of Honduras, as he was called there, he was the local
supervisor for the terrorist war based in Honduras, for which his
government was condemned by the world court and then the Security
Council in a vetoed resolution. And he was just appointed as the
UN Ambassador to lead the war against terror. Another small experiment
you can do is check and see what the reaction was to this. Well,
I will tell you what you are going to find, but find it for yourself.
Now that tells us a lot about the war against terrorism and a lot
about ourselves.
After the United States took over the country again under the
conditions that were so graphically described by the press, the
country was pretty much destroyed in the 1980's, but it has totally
collapsed since in every respect just about. Economically it has
declined sharply since the US take over, democratically and in
every other respect. It's now the second poorest country in the
Hemisphere. I should say.I'm not going to talk about it, but I
mentioned that I picked up Nicaragua because it is an uncontroversial
case. If you look at the other states in the region, the state
terror was far more extreme and it again traces back to Washington
and that's by no means all.
Blowing on the connectors for a Nintendo game actually makes the problem worse in the long run because it speeds up the corrosion of the connectors, which is what is wrong in the first place.
The proper way to deal with the issue would be to clean the connectors on your games and your NES using an electrical contact cleaner/enhancer. Not expensive at all, and it is consider proper care for electrical connections.
Next thing you are going to tell me is that Honda Civics are crappy unreliable cars because they stop working, even after you blew really really hard into the oil tank as opposed to changing the oil like you are supposed to do. Please don't tell me that you use spit for heat sink grease on your computer's CPU. Oh wait, even better, do you kick your computer chasis whenever something doesn't work, in the belief that you are fixing things?
Yeah, my Playstation CD had some dust on it, so I used a piece of sandpaper to brush off the dust. Oh no, my games don't work anymore. Maybe if I spit on the Playstation, it will start working... no, maybe if I kick it really hard.
I have a few NES systems that I still play to this day, and as long as you take care of them, they work %100 of the time.
I thought that Lucas Arts wasn't a member of the MPAA. Lucas kind of does his own thing.
Might I suggest distinguishing between your needs, with desktop environment in one group and package management in another? I suggest choosing Gnome or KDE for the first group and Debian and apt-get for the second group. That way you won't be messing with figuring out dependencies and install/uninstall ordering on your own. *ouch* Not sure what that Red Carpet and Ximian crap is doing for you that Gnome ontop of Debian hasn't been doing for the couple of years.
Yeah, I am putting a Honda Civic backend into my F50. Oh wait, the backends for both cars are so different that trying to use the same backend for both cars is just silly. You ever wonder why the auto industry doesn't put the same backend into every car?
Yes it could be done, two wrappers around the same backend resulting in QT and GTK. However, such a task would require so much additional coding that it would negate any benefits that it was supposed to have.
I hate to say this, but what will happen, is one of the desktop environments will die out. Its the nature of Open Source Software. Things can't stay splintered forever. Eventually natural forces (user's needs, technical needs, development needs, market needs, etc) will cause the gap between both desktop environments to widen. However, the initial competition that exists when there is still more than one option helps the end user get a better desktop environment sooner.
Now this has nothing to do with other ultra-feather weight desktop environments, which will compete amongst eachother for the bare bones performance niche.
Back to the dying out of one of Gnome or KDE... well, you can give any prediction you want, but the productive thing would be to contribute to the development of the desktop you like the best. Contribute by using the desktop and reporting bugs. Contribute by writing code. Contribute by making art (icons, themes, sounds, wallpaper, etc). Contribute by educating others about the desktop of your choice.
Finally, my point is that the dream of unifying Gnome and KDE is silly. One of them will kill the other, and thats a good thing because it won't happen until one is orders of magnitude better than the other meaning that natural community and technical forces will choose the best desktop for us.
No, actually, the logical and hence mathematical way to go about such a thing would be to do just what Carmack said, "Do both".
;-) Maybe he will take the time and write a "Mythical Man Month" type of book, where he tells us how he does it.
It could be argued that what Carmack is preaching is a generalization of the elimination rule for the disjunctive logical connective ("or") in intuitionistic logic. You know "A or B" are options for constructing "C", and therefore you construct "C" assuming "A" as your choice AND you construct "C" assuming "B" as your choice. Either way, you are covered as far as constructing "C" is concerned.
I realize Carmack isn't going by formalized logic or anything, but he is a very logical guy... so you can extract such things from his decision making. After all, formalized intuitionistic logic is supposed to reflect the thinking of the "creative subject". Of course, in the USA, students are usually only exposed to classical logic, which isn't "constructive" in the mathematical sense... so I am probably just pissing in the wind here.
Also, who said that doing math excludes testing assumptions? When you are writing a computer program, it can be argued that you are writing a constructive proof (search for "constructive mathematics and computer science" on google). Several famous proofs have shown that constructive proof and program are the same thing (search for "curry howard isomorphism and computer science"). Surely you don't think that mathematicians sit in a meditation position, and then all of a sudden start writing a perfect proof proving what they were after. Just like writing programs, writing proofs requires many many many failed or partially successful attempts before a satisfactory proof is created.
I mean, I doubt Carmack sits in his office and "divines" perfect code the first time. Though, I could be wrong
Writing formal constructive proofs and writing computer programs are very much similar in how you go about doing the actual work. A computer scientist is another name for a mathematician. If you can't see the marriage between the two, then you have more learning to do.
At least someone has gotten my point. Stating something like the parent of my original post did without backing it up is just as silly as stating the opposite proposition without any proof.