the responsibility of intellectuals, redux

8/4/2019 The Responsibility of Intellectuals, Redux

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A San Francisco mural depicting Archbishopscar Romero / Photograph: Franco Folini

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011

The Responsibility of Intellectuals, Redux

Using Privilege to Challenge the StateNoam Chomsky

Since we often cannot see what is happening beforeour eyes, it is perhaps not too surprising that what isat a slight distance removed is utterly invisible. Wehave just witnessed an instructive example: PresidentObamas dispatch of 79 commandos into Pakistan onMay 1 to carry out what was evidently a plannedassassination of the prime suspect in the terroristatrocities of 9/11, Osama bin Laden. Though thetarget of the operation, unarmed and with no

protection, could easily have been apprehended, hewas simply murdered, his body dumped at seawithout autopsy. The action was deemed just andnecessary in the liberal press. There will be no trial,as there was in the case of Nazi criminalsa fact notoverlooked by legal authorities abroad who approveof the operation but object to the procedure. As ElaineScarry reminds us, the prohibition of assassination ininternational law traces back to a forceful denunciation of the practice by Abraham Lincoln,

who condemned the call for assassination as international outlawry in 1863, an outrage,

which civilized nations view with horror and merits the sternest retaliation.In 1967, writing about the deceit and distortion surrounding the American invasion of

Vietnam, I discussed the responsibility of intellectuals, borrowing the phrase from animportant essay of Dwight Macdonalds after World War II. With the tenth anniversary of 9/11arriving, and widespread approval in the United States of the assassination of the chiefsuspect, it seems a fitting time to revisit that issue. But before thinking about the responsibilityof intellectuals, it is worth clarifying to whom we are referring.

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The concept of intellectuals in the modern sense gained prominence with the 1898 Manifesto


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of the Intellectuals produced by theDreyfusards who, inspired by Emile Zolas open letter ofprotest to Frances president, condemned both the framing of French artillery officer AlfredDreyfus on charges of treason and the subsequent military cover-up. The Dreyfusards stanceconveys the image of intellectuals as defenders of justice, confronting power with courage andintegrity. But they were hardly seen that way at the time. A minority of the educated classes,the Dreyfusards were bitterly condemned in the mainstream of intellectual life, in particular by

prominent figures among the immortals of the strongly anti-Dreyfusard Acadmie Franaise,Steven Lukes writes. To the novelist, politician, and anti-Dreyfusard leader Maurice Barrs,Dreyfusards were anarchists of the lecture-platform. To another of these immortals,Ferdinand Brunetire, the very word intellectual signified one of the most ridiculouseccentricities of our timeI mean the pretension of raising writers, scientists, professors andphilologists to the rank of supermen, who dare to treat our generals as idiots, our socialinstitutions as absurd and our traditions as unhealthy.

Who then were the intellectuals? The minority inspired by Zola (who was sentenced to jail forlibel, and fled the country)? Or the immortals of the academy? The question resonates through

the ages, in one or another form, and today offers a framework for determining theresponsibility of intellectuals. The phrase is ambiguous: does it refer to intellectuals moralresponsibility as decent human beings in a position to use their privilege and status to advancethe causes of freedom, justice, mercy, peace, and other such sentimental concerns? Or does itrefer to the role they are expected to play, serving, not derogating, leadership and establishedinstitutions?

One answer came during World War I, when prominent intellectuals on all sides lined upenthusiastically in support of their own states.

In their Manifesto of 93 German Intellectuals, leading figures in one of the worlds mostenlightened states called on the West to have faith in us! Believe, that we shall carry on this

war to the end as a civilized nation, to whom the legacy of a Goethe, a Beethoven, and a Kant,is just as sacred as its own hearths and homes. Their counterparts on the other side of the

intellectual trenches matched them in enthusiasm for the noble cause, but went beyond inself-adulation. In TheNew Republic they proclaimed, The effective and decisive work on behalfof the war has been accomplished by . . . a class which must be comprehensively but looselydescribed as the intellectuals. These progressives believed they were ensuring that theUnited States entered the war under the influence of a moral verdict reached, after theutmost deliberation by the more thoughtful members of the community. They were, in fact,the victims of concoctions of the British Ministry of Information, which secretly sought to


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direct the thought of most of the world, but particularly the thought of American progressiveintellectuals who might help to whip a pacifist country into war fever.

John Dewey was impressed by the great psychological and educational lesson of the war,which proved that human beingsmore precisely, the intelligent men of thecommunitycan take hold of human affairs and manage them . . . deliberately and

intelligently to achieve the ends sought, admirable by definition.Not everyone toed the line so obediently, of course. Notable figures such as Bertrand Russell,Eugene Debs, Rosa Luxemburg, and Karl Liebknecht were, like Zola, sentenced to prison. Debs

was punished with particular severitya ten-year prison term for raising questions aboutPresident Wilsons war for democracy and human rights. Wilson refused him amnesty afterthe war ended, though Harding finally relented. Some, such as Thorstein Veblen, werechastised but treated less harshly; Veblen was fired from his position in the Food

Administration after preparing a report showing that the shortage of farm labor could beovercome by ending Wilsons brutal persecution of labor, specifically the International Workersof the World. Randolph Bourne was dropped by the progressive journals after criticizing theleague of benevolently imperialistic nations and their exalted endeavors.

The pattern of praise and punishment is a familiar one throughout history: those who line upin the service of the state are typically praised by the general intellectual community, andthose who refuse to line up in service of the state are punished. Thus in retrospect Wilson andthe progressive intellectuals who offered him their services are greatly honored, but not Debs.Luxemburg and Liebknecht were murdered and have hardly been heroes of the intellectualmainstream. Russell continued to be bitterly condemned until after his deathand in currentbiographies still is.

Since power tends to prevail, intellectuals who serve their governments are considered theresponsible ones.

In the 1970s prominent scholars distinguished the two categories of intellectuals moreexplicitly. A 1975 study, The Crisis of Democracy, labeled Brunetires ridiculous eccentricsvalue-oriented intellectuals who pose a challenge to democratic government which is,potentially at least, as serious as those posed in the past by aristocratic cliques, fascistmovements, and communist parties. Among other misdeeds, these dangerous creaturesdevote themselves to the derogation of leadership, the challenging of authority, and theychallenge the institutions responsible for the indoctrination of the young. Some even sink tothe depths of questioning the nobility of war aims, as Bourne had. This castigation of themiscreants who question authority and the established order was delivered by the scholars ofthe liberal internationalist Trilateral Commission; the Carter administration was largely drawnfrom their ranks.

Like The New Republic progressives during World War I, the authors ofThe Crisis of Democracyextend the concept of the intellectual beyond Brunetires ridiculous eccentrics to include thebetter sort as well: the technocratic and policy-oriented intellectuals, responsible and serious


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thinkers who devote themselves to the constructive work of shaping policy within establishedinstitutions and to ensuring that indoctrination of the young proceeds on course.

It took Dewey only a few years to shift from the responsible technocratic and policy-orientedintellectual of World War I to an anarchist of the lecture-platform, as he denounced theun-free press and questioned how far genuine intellectual freedom and social responsibility

are possible on any large scale under the existing economic regime.What particularly troubled the Trilateral scholars was the excess of democracy during thetime of troubles, the 1960s, when normally passive and apathetic parts of the populationentered the political arena to advance their concerns: minorities, women, the young, the old,

working people . . . in short, the population, sometimes called the special interests. They areto be distinguished from those whom Adam Smith called the masters of mankind, who arethe principal architects of government policy and pursue their vile maxim: All forourselves and nothing for other people. The role of the masters in the political arena is notdeplored, or discussed, in the Trilateral volume, presumably because the masters representthe national interest, like those who applauded themselves for leading the country to warafter the utmost deliberation by the more thoughtful members of the community hadreached its moral verdict.

To overcome the excessive burden imposed on the state by the special interests, theTrilateralists called for more moderation in democracy, a return to passivity on the part ofthe less deserving, perhaps even a return to the happy days when Truman had been able togovern the country with the cooperation of a relatively small number of Wall Street lawyersand bankers, and democracy therefore flourished.

The Trilateralists could well have claimed to be adhering to the original intent of the

Constitution, intrinsically an aristocratic document designed to check the democratictendencies of the period by delivering power to a better sort of people and barring thosewho were not rich, well born, or prominent from exercising political power, in the accuratewords of the historian Gordon Wood. In Madisons defense, however, we should recognize thathis mentality was pre-capitalist. In determining that power should be in the hands of the

wealth of the nation, a the more capable set of men, he envisioned those men on the modelof the enlightened Statesmen and benevolent philosopher of the imagined Roman world.They would be pure and noble, men of intelligence, patriotism, property, and independentcircumstances whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whosepatriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial

considerations. So endowed, these men would refine and enlarge the public views,guarding the public interest against the mischiefs of democratic majorities. In a similar vein,the progressive Wilsonian intellectuals might have taken comfort in the discoveries of thebehavioral sciences, explained in 1939 by the psychologist and education theorist EdwardThorndike:

It is the great good fortune of mankind that there is a substantial correlationbetween intelligence and morality including good will toward ones fellows . . . .


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Father Ignacio Ellacura

Consequently our superiors in ability are on the average our benefactors, and it isoften safer to trust our interests to them than to ourselves.

A comforting doctrine, though some might feel that Adam Smith had the sharper eye.

Since power tends to prevail, intellectuals who serve their governments are consideredresponsible, and value-oriented intellectuals are dismissed or denigrated. At home that is.

With regard to enemies, the distinction between the two categories of intellectuals is retained,but with values reversed. In the old Soviet Union, the value-oriented intellectuals were the

honored dissidents, while we had only contempt for the apparatchiks and commissars, thetechnocratic and policy-oriented intellectuals. Similarly in Iran we honor the courageousdissidents and condemn those who defend the clerical establishment. And elsewheregenerally.

The honorable term dissident is used selectively. It does not, of course, apply, with itsfavorable connotations, to value-oriented intellectuals at home or to those who combatU.S.-supported tyranny abroad. Take the interesting case of Nelson Mandela, who wasremoved from the official terrorist list in 2008, and can now travel to the United States

without special authorization.

Twenty years earlier, he was the criminal leader ofone of the worlds more notorious terrorist groups,according to a Pentagon report. That is why PresidentReagan had to support the apartheid regime,increasing trade with South Africa in violation ofcongressional sanctions and supporting South Africasdepredations in neighboring countries, which led,according to a UN study, to 1.5 million deaths. That

was only one episode in the war on terrorism thatReagan declared to combat the plague of the modern

age, or, as Secretary of State George Shultz had it, areturn to barbarism in the modern age. We may addhundreds of thousands of corpses in Central America and tens of thousands more in theMiddle East, among other achievements. Small wonder that the Great Communicator is

worshipped by Hoover Institution scholars as a colossus whose spirit seems to stride thecountry, watching us like a warm and friendly ghost, recently honored further by a statuethat defaces the American Embassy in London.


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What particularly troubled the Trilateral scholars was the excess of democracy in the 1960s.

The Latin American case is revealing. Those who called for freedom and justice in LatinAmerica are not admitted to the pantheon of honored dissidents. For example, a week afterthe fall of the Berlin Wall, six leading Latin American intellectuals, all Jesuit priests, had theirheads blown off on the direct orders of the Salvadoran high command. The perpetrators were

from an elite battalion armed and trained by Washington that had already left a gruesome trailof blood and terror, and had just returned from renewed training at the John F. KennedySpecial Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The murdered priests arenot commemorated as honored dissidents, nor are others like them throughout thehemisphere. Honored dissidents are those who called for freedom in enemy domains inEastern Europe, who certainly suffered, but not remotely like their counterparts in Latin

America.

The distinction is worth examination, and tells us a lot about the two senses of the phraseresponsibility of intellectuals, and about ourselves. It is not seriously in question, as JohnCoatsworth writes in the recently published Cambridge UniversityHistory of the Cold War, thatfrom 1960 to the Soviet collapse in 1990, the numbers of political prisoners, torture victims,and executions of nonviolent political dissenters in Latin America vastly exceeded those in theSoviet Union and its East European satellites. Among the executed were many religiousmartyrs, and there were mass slaughters as well, consistently supported or initiated byWashington.

Why then the distinction? It might be argued that what happened in Eastern Europe is farmore momentous than the fate of the South at our hands. It would be interesting to see theargument spelled out. And also to see the argument explaining why we should disregardelementary moral principles, among them that if we are serious about suffering and atrocities,

about justice and rights, we will focus our efforts on where we can do the most goodtypically,where we share responsibility for what is being done. We have no difficulty demanding thatour enemies follow such principles.

Few of us care, or should, what Andrei Sakharov or Shirin Ebadi say about U.S. or Israelicrimes; we admire them for what they say and do about those of their own states, and theconclusion holds far more strongly for those who live in more free and democratic societies,and therefore have far greater opportunities to act effectively. It is of some interest that in themost respected circles, practice is virtually the opposite of what elementary moral valuesdictate.

But let us conform and keep only to the matter of historical import.

The U.S. wars in Latin America from 1960 to 1990, quite apart from their horrors, havelong-term historical significance. To consider just one important aspect, in no small measurethey were wars against the Church, undertaken to crush a terrible heresy proclaimed at

Vatican II in 1962, which, under the leadership of Pope John XXIII, ushered in a new era inthe history of the Catholic Church, in the words of the distinguished theologian Hans Kng,


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restoring the teachings of the gospels that had been put to rest in the fourth century when theEmperor Constantine established Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire, institutinga revolution that converted the persecuted church to a persecuting church. The heresyof Vatican II was taken up by Latin American bishops who adopted the preferential option forthe poor. Priests, nuns, and laypersons then brought the radical pacifist message of thegospels to the poor, helping them organize to ameliorate their bitter fate in the domains of U.S.

power.

That same year, 1962, President Kennedy made several critical decisions. One was to shift themission of the militaries of Latin America from hemispheric defensean anachronism fromWorld War IIto internal security, in effect, war against the domestic population, if theyraise their heads. Charles Maechling, who led U.S. counterinsurgency and internal defenseplanning from 1961 to 1966, describes the unsurprising consequences of the 1962 decision asa shift from toleration of the rapacity and cruelty of the Latin American military to directcomplicity in their crimes to U.S. support for the methods of Heinrich Himmlersextermination squads. One major initiative was a military coup in Brazil, planned in

Washington and implemented shortly after Kennedys assassination, instituting a murderousand brutal national security state. The plague of repression then spread through thehemisphere, including the 1973 coup installing the Pinochet dictatorship, and later the most

vicious of all, the Argentine dictatorship, Reagans favorite. Central Americas turnnot for thefirst timecame in the 1980s under the leadership of the warm and friendly ghost who isnow revered for his achievements.

The murder of the Jesuit intellectuals as the Berlin wall fell was a final blow in defeating theheresy, culminating a decade of horror in El Salvador that opened with the assassination, bymuch the same hands, of Archbishop scar Romero, the voice for the voiceless. The victorsin the war against the Church declare their responsibility with pride. The School of the

Americas (since renamed), famous for its training of Latin American killers, announces as oneof its talking points that the liberation theology that was initiated at Vatican II was defeated

with the assistance of the US army.

Actually, the November 1989 assassinations were almost a final blow. More was needed.

A year later Haiti had its first free election, and to the surprise and shock of Washington,which like others had anticipated the easy victory of its own candidate from the privilegedelite, the organized public in the slums and hills elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a popularpriest committed to liberation theology. The United States at once moved to undermine the

elected government, and after the military coup that overthrew it a few months later, lentsubstantial support to the vicious military junta and its elite supporters. Trade was increasedin violation of international sanctions and increased further under Clinton, who alsoauthorized the Texaco oil company to supply the murderous rulers, in defiance of his owndirectives.

I will skip the disgraceful aftermath, amply reviewed elsewhere, except to point out that in2004, the two traditional torturers of Haiti, France and the United States, joined by Canada,


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forcefully intervened, kidnapped President Aristide (who had been elected again), andshipped him off to central Africa. He and his party were effectively barred from the farcical201011 elections, the most recent episode in a horrendous history that goes back hundredsof years and is barely known among the perpetrators of the crimes, who prefer tales ofdedicated efforts to save the suffering people from their grim fate.

If we are serious about justice, we will focus our efforts where we share responsibility for whatis being done.

Another fateful Kennedy decision in 1962 was to send a special forces mission to Colombia, ledby General William Yarborough, who advised the Colombian security forces to undertakeparamilitary, sabotage and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents,activities that should be backed by the United States. The meaning of the phrase communistproponents was spelled out by the respected president of the Colombian PermanentCommittee for Human Rights, former Minister of Foreign Affairs Alfredo Vzquez Carrizosa,

who wrote that the Kennedy administration took great pains to transform our regular armiesinto counterinsurgency brigades, accepting the new strategy of the death squads, ushering in

what is known in Latin America as the National Security Doctrine. . . . [not] defenseagainst an external enemy, but a way to make the military establishment themasters of the game . . . [with] the right to combat the internal enemy, as set forthin the Brazilian doctrine, the Argentine doctrine, the Uruguayan doctrine, and theColombian doctrine: it is the right to fight and to exterminate social workers, tradeunionists, men and women who are not supportive of the establishment, and whoare assumed to be communist extremists. And this could mean anyone, includinghuman rights activists such as myself.

In a 1980 study, Lars Schoultz, the leading U.S. academic specialist on human rights in LatinAmerica, found that U.S. aid has tended to flow disproportionately to Latin Americangovernments which torture their citizens . . . to the hemispheres relatively egregious violatorsof fundamental human rights. That included military aid, was independent of need, andcontinued through the Carter years. Ever since the Reagan administration, it has beensuperfluous to carry out such a study. In the 1980s one of the most notorious violators was ElSalvador, which accordingly became the leading recipient of U.S. military aid, to be replaced byColombia when it took the lead as the worst violator of human rights in the hemisphere.

Vzquez Carrizosa himself was living under heavy guard in his Bogot residence when Ivisited him there in 2002 as part of a mission of Amnesty International, which was opening its

year-long campaign to protect human rights defenders in Colombia because of the countryshorrifying record of attacks against human rights and labor activists, and mostly the usualvictims of state terror: the poor and defenseless. Terror and torture in Colombia weresupplemented by chemical warfare (fumigation), under the pretext of the war on drugs,leading to huge flight to urban slums and misery for the survivors. Colombias attorneygenerals office now estimates that more than 140,000 people have been killed byparamilitaries, often acting in close collaboration with the U.S.-funded military.


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Signs of the slaughter are everywhere. On a nearly impassible dirt road to a remote village insouthern Colombia a year ago, my companions and I passed a small clearing with many simplecrosses marking the graves of victims of a paramilitary attack on a local bus. Reports of thekillings are graphic enough; spending a little time with the survivors, who are among thekindest and most compassionate people I have ever had the privilege of meeting, makes thepicture more vivid, and only more painful.

This is the briefest sketch of terrible crimes for which Americans bear substantial culpability,and that we could easily ameliorate, at the very least.

But it is more gratifying to bask in praise for courageously protesting the abuses of officialenemies, a fine activity, but not the priority of a value-oriented intellectual who takes theresponsibilities of that stance seriously.

The victims within our domains, unlike those in enemy states, are not merely ignored andquickly forgotten, but are also cynically insulted. One striking illustration came a few weeksafter the murder of the Latin American intellectuals in El Salvador. Vaclav Havel visited

Washington and addressed a joint session of Congress. Before his enraptured audience, Havellauded the defenders of freedom in Washington who understood the responsibility thatflowed from being the most powerful nation on earthcrucially, their responsibility for thebrutal assassination of his Salvadoran counterparts shortly before.

The liberal intellectual class was enthralled by his presentation. Havel reminds us that we livein a romantic age, Anthony Lewis gushed. Other prominent liberal commentators reveled inHavels idealism, his irony, his humanity, as he preached a difficult doctrine of individualresponsibility while Congress obviously ached with respect for his genius and integrity; andasked why America lacks intellectuals so profound, who elevate morality over self-interest in

this way, praising us for the tortured and mutilated corpses that litter the countries that wehave left in misery. We need not tarry on what the reaction would have been had FatherEllacura, the most prominent of the murdered Jesuit intellectuals, spoken such words at theDuma after elite forces armed and trained by the Soviet Union assassinated Havel and half adozen of his associatesa performance that is inconceivable.


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John Dewey / Photograph: New York PublicLibrary / Photoresearchers, Inc.

The assassination of bin Laden, too, directs ourattention to our insulted victims. There is much moreto say about the operationincluding Washingtons

willingness to face a serious risk of major war andeven leakage of fissile materials to jihadis, as I havediscussed elsewherebut let us keep to the choice of

name: Operation Geronimo. The name causedoutrage in Mexico and was protested by indigenousgroups in the United States, but there seems to havebeen no further notice of the fact that Obama wasidentifying bin Laden with the Apache Indian chief.Geronimo led the courageous resistance to invaders

who sought to consign his people to the fate of thathapless race of native Americans, which we areexterminating with such merciless and perfidiouscruelty, among the heinous sins of this nation, for

which I believe God will one day bring [it] to judgement, in the words of the grand strategistJohn Quincy Adams, the intellectual architect of manifest destiny, uttered long after his owncontributions to these sins. The casual choice of the name is reminiscent of the ease with which

we name our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Blackhawk, Cheyenne . . .We might react differently if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes Jew and Gypsy.

The first 9/11, unlike the second, did not change the world. It was nothing of very greatconsequence, Kissinger said.

Denial of these heinous sins is sometimes explicit. To mention a few recent cases, two yearsago in one of the worlds leading left-liberal intellectual journals, TheNew York Review of Books,

Russell Baker outlined what he learned from the work of the heroic historian EdmundMorgan: namely, that when Columbus and the early explorers arrived they found acontinental vastness sparsely populated by farming and hunting people . . . . In the limitlessand unspoiled world stretching from tropical jungle to the frozen north, there may have beenscarcely more than a million inhabitants. The calculation is off by many tens of millions, andthe vastness included advanced civilizations throughout the continent. No reactionsappeared, though four months later the editors issued a correction, noting that in North

America there may have been as many as 18 million peopleand, unmentioned, tens ofmillions more from tropical jungle to the frozen north. This was all well known decadesagoincluding the advanced civilizations and the merciless and perfidious cruelty of the

exterminationbut not important enough even for a casual phrase. InLondon Review ofBooks a year later, the noted historian Mark Mazower mentioned American mistreatment ofthe Native Americans, again eliciting no comment. Would we accept the word mistreatmentfor comparable crimes committed by enemies?


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If the responsibility of intellectuals refers to their moral responsibility as decent human beingsin a position to use their privilege and status to advance the cause of freedom, justice, mercy,

and peaceand to speak out not simply about the abuses of our enemies, but, far moresignificantly, about the crimes in which we are implicated and can ameliorate or terminate ifwe choosehow should we think of 9/11?

The notion that 9/11 changed the world is widely held, understandably. The events of thatday certainly had major consequences, domestic and international. One was to lead PresidentBush to re-declare Ronald Reagans war on terrorismthe first one has been effectivelydisappeared, to borrow the phrase of our favorite Latin American killers and torturers,presumably because the consequences do not fit well with preferred self images. Anotherconsequence was the invasion of Afghanistan, then Iraq, and more recently militaryinterventions in several other countries in the region and regular threats of an attack on Iran(all options are open, in the standard phrase). The costs, in every dimension, have beenenormous. That suggests a rather obvious question, not asked for the first time: was there analternative?

A number of analysts have observed that bin Laden won major successes in his war against theUnited States. He repeatedly asserted that the only way to drive the U.S. from the Muslim

world and defeat its satraps was by drawing Americans into a series of small but expensivewars that would ultimately bankrupt them, the journalist Eric Margolis writes.

The United States, first under George W. Bush and then Barack Obama, rushed

right into bin Ladens trap. . . . Grotesquely overblown military outlays and debtaddiction . . . . may be the most pernicious legacy of the man who thought he coulddefeat the United States.

A report from the Costs of War project at Brown Universitys Watson Institute for InternationalStudies estimates that the final bill will be $3.24 trillion. Quite an impressive achievement bybin Laden.

That Washington was intent on rushing into bin Ladens trap was evident at once. MichaelScheuer, the senior CIA analyst responsible for tracking bin Laden from 1996 to 1999, writes,Bin Laden has been precise in telling America the reasons he is waging war on us. The al

Qaeda leader, Scheuer continues, is out to drastically alter U.S. and Western policies towardthe Islamic world.

And, as Scheuer explains, bin Laden largely succeeded: U.S. forces and policies arecompleting the radicalization of the Islamic world, something Osama bin Laden has been tryingto do with substantial but incomplete success since the early 1990s. As a result, I think it is fairto conclude that the United States of America remains bin Ladens only indispensable ally.


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And arguably remains so, even after his death.

There is good reason to believe that the jihadi movement could have been split andundermined after the 9/11 attack, which was criticized harshly within the movement.Furthermore, the crime against humanity, as it was rightly called, could have beenapproached as a crime, with an international operation to apprehend the likely suspects. That

was recognized in the immediate aftermath of the attack, but no such idea was evenconsidered by decision-makers in government. It seems no thought was given to the Talibanstentative offerhow serious an offer, we cannot knowto present the al Qaeda leaders for a

judicial proceeding.

At the time, I quoted Robert Fisks conclusion that the horrendous crime of 9/11 wascommitted with wickedness and awesome crueltyan accurate judgment. The crimes couldhave been even worse. Suppose that Flight 93, downed by courageous passengers inPennsylvania, had bombed the White House, killing the president. Suppose that theperpetrators of the crime planned to, and did, impose a military dictatorship that killedthousands and tortured tens of thousands. Suppose the new dictatorship established, with thesupport of the criminals, an international terror center that helped impose similar torture-and-terror states elsewhere, and, as icing on the cake, brought in a team of economistscallthem the Kandahar boyswho quickly drove the economy into one of the worst depressionsin its history. That, plainly, would have been a lot worse than 9/11.

As we all should know, this is not a thought experiment. It happened. I am, of course, referringto what in Latin America is often called the first 9/11: September 11, 1973, when theUnited States succeeded in its intensive efforts to overthrow the democratic government ofSalvador Allende in Chile with a military coup that placed General Pinochets ghastly regime inoffice. The dictatorship then installed the Chicago Boyseconomists trained at the University

of Chicagoto reshape Chiles economy. Consider the economic destruction, the torture andkidnappings, and multiply the numbers killed by 25 to yield per capita equivalents, and you

will see just how much more devastating the first 9/11 was.

Privilege yields opportunity, and opportunity confers responsibilities.

The goal of the overthrow, in the words of the Nixon administration, was to kill the virus thatmight encourage all those foreigners [who] are out to screw usscrew us by trying to takeover their own resources and more generally to pursue a policy of independent developmentalong lines disliked by Washington. In the background was the conclusion of Nixons NationalSecurity Council that if the United States could not control Latin America, it could not expectto achieve a successful order elsewhere in the world. Washingtons credibility would beundermined, as Henry Kissinger put it.

The first 9/11, unlike the second, did not change the world. It was nothing of very greatconsequence, Kissinger assured his boss a few days later. And judging by how it figures inconventional history, his words can hardly be faulted, though the survivors may see the matterdifferently.


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These events of little consequence were not limited to the military coup that destroyed Chileandemocracy and set in motion the horror story that followed. As already discussed, the first9/11 was just one act in the drama that began in 1962 when Kennedy shifted the mission ofthe Latin American militaries to internal security. The shattering aftermath is also of littleconsequence, the familiar pattern when history is guarded by responsible intellectuals.

It seems to be close to a historical universal that conformist intellectuals, the ones who supportofficial aims and ignore or rationalize official crimes, are honored and privileged in their ownsocieties, and the value-oriented punished in one or another way. The pattern goes back to theearliest records. It was the man accused of corrupting the youth of Athens who drank thehemlock, much as Dreyfusards were accused of corrupting souls, and, in due course, societyas a whole and the value-oriented intellectuals of the 1960s were charged with interference

with indoctrination of the young.

In the Hebrew scriptures there are figures who by contemporary standards are dissidentintellectuals, called prophets in the English translation. They bitterly angered theestablishment with their critical geopolitical analysis, their condemnation of the crimes of thepowerful, their calls for justice and concern for the poor and suffering. King Ahab, the mostevil of the kings, denounced the Prophet Elijah as a hater of Israel, the first self-hating Jewor anti-American in the modern counterparts. The prophets were treated harshly, unlike the

flatterers at the court, who were later condemned as false prophets. The pattern isunderstandable. It would be surprising if it were otherwise.

As for the responsibility of intellectuals, there does not seem to me to be much to say beyondsome simple truths. Intellectuals are typically privilegedmerely an observation about usageof the term. Privilege yields opportunity, and opportunity confers responsibilities. Anindividual then has choices.

For a response to this article, see The Constructive Responsibility of Intellectuals by Archon Fung.

Event: Noam Chomsky, The Responsibility of Intellectuals in the 21st Century

Thursday, September 22, 20114:306 p.m.MIT Wong Auditorium (in the Tang Center)


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In 1967, as the Vietnam War escalated, Noam Chomsky penned The Responsibility ofIntellectuals, a stunning rebuke to scientists and scholars for their subservience to politicalpower. Today we face a similar array of crises, from wars to escalating debt. What are theobligations of intellectuals in this day and age?

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Nazis v. Bin Laden

There's an important distinction to keep in mind when making comparisons of the Nazis, who were tried,

and Bin Laden, who was immediately killed. The Nazi war leaders tried at Nuremberg had given up:

Germany surrendered first, and then the allied powers put them on trial .

Bin Laden, however, was stil l waging war on the United States up to his death. He never gave up. He wasstill recruiting for his terrorist network.

Let's keep that in mind. If Germany leaders hadn't surrendered, the United States, Russia, and England

would still have kept on killing German soldiers. And if Bin Laden had surrendered, the US could have

dealt with him accordingly.

But he didn't. Bin Laden wasn't murdered, a word with the particular meaning of an unlawful death. He

was killed, justly, fortunately, and finally.

posted09/06/2011 at 02:45 byLuke Jenson

The Prophet Chomsky and his guilt.

Chomsky sees the word through guilt-ridden myopia, in which all the important sins in the world have

been perpetrated by the two parts of himself, Jewish and American.

He has no interest in the sins of other peoples, or the good done by the USA and Israel.

Before opening his mouth again, he should make a compilation of acts that other peoples should feel

guilty about, and also those things the USA and Israel should feel proud about.

posted09/06/2011 at 04:53 byEveryone Else

Socrates was first rebel stand against state

Intellectuals must always stand against government. They are watch dog of nation,they must create such a

awe in countries politicians must think twice before do any misdeed.Unfortunately in today's market

economy every thing is salable even Intellectuals are also easily purchasable.Socrates sacrificed his life

for truth. There is urgent need intellectuals just like Socrates who can fight with scoundrel politicians who

don't afraid to even to God to do misdeed


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posted09/06/2011 at 04:54 byRamesh Raghuvanshi

Excellent, systematic analysis. There are few who write with such clarity.

posted09/06/2011 at 06:35 byRichard Henton

Chomsky's Crimes

Hypocrisy is only one of the good professor's many vices, but I think that - aside from the ludicrous tangle

of lies, exaggerations, irrelevancies, and absurd attempts at guilt by association contained in this article -

it will suffice to point out that as a lifelong supporter of such causes as Maoist China, communist

Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge genocidists, Fidel Castro, Osama Bin Laden, and, of course, holocaust denial,

Noam has far more blood on his hands than any of those he slanders.

posted09/06/2011 at 07:36 byBenjamin

The Prophet Chomsky and Pol Pot

What magnanimity on the part of Noam Chomsky part to acknowledge September 11th as a "crime

against humanity". It must have been tough for someone like you. However, only when you finally showsome remorse for supporting the psychopath Pol Pot might we be able to take your mora l posturing a

little more seriously.

posted09/06/2011 at 07:48 byDaryl McCann

Ahab and Elijah

It should be noted as well that Chomsky's self-serving attempt to compare himself to the prophets (he

apparently thinks that he speaks the words of God) is entirely inaccurate. Ahab does not accuse Elijah of

"hating" Israel, but asks "why do you trouble Israel." The Hebrew "ocher" has the connotation of

muddying waters and creating confusion. Perhaps, in the future, Chomsky should actual ly read what he

intends to lie about.


none

It is interesting that the initial virulent comments attacking Chomsky personally have nothing to say

about the facts he clearly presents about USA support of persecution and brutality which, apparently, are

undeniable.

posted09/06/2011 at 08:19 bySand

Fellow, Overseas American Academy

@ Everyone Else: For the past ten years I have been seeking deeds of USA and Isra el abut which to beproud. I wonder if you could compile a list for our enlightenment.

Noam Chomsky may not be a prophet, but he is the conscience of the sins of American exceptionalism.

posted09/06/2011 at 09:29 byEUGENE SCHULMAN

Some things have changed


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A couple of things have changed..

All Chomsky's grammatic theories have gradually been shown to be incorrect - the poor man has been

forced to ungraciously admit his intellectual opponents were correct.

We now understand the academic regime he ran at his university was dictatorial in excluding other views.

BTW if wa s so "easy" to arrest Bin Laden, why didn't the author volunteer for the job?

Very clever man, wildly arrogant, poor judgement, able to find the wrong end of every stick in a heap of

sticks

posted09/06/2011 at 09:48 byRichard Stevens

It's unfortunate that Chomsky is so polarizing a figure that it seems his opponents never read

his work. Neither, I expect, do many of his supporters. That's the problem with his prol ificacy:

we all (think we) know what he's going to say.

For instance, anyone who had read this article, unlike commenter #2, would understand why Chomskydoesn't bother himself with singing the praises of the USA or Israel before criticizing them.

posted09/06/2011 at 13:41 byStyopa

Attending a Chomsky lecture.

In 2009 I attended at Columbia University a lecture delivered by Chomsky. Here is what I wrote about it

at the time:

"The other day, giving in to a masochistic impulse, I attended a presentation by Noam Chomsky with the

fuzzy title "The Unipolar Moment and the Culture of Imperialism". The lecture, advertised as The Fifth

Annual Edward Said Memoria l Lecture, was held at the Columbia University. One hour before the

scheduled event the hall was full and a good number of people, mostly students, had to watch the speech

outside on closed circuit TV. While waiting on line, a middle aged women started to distribute post cards

with an appeal to break the siege of Gaza, and call ing for a December 31st world wide human chain;

arms l inked in solidari ty with Palestinians in Gaza.

A friend, with a sense of humor compatible with mine was a lready inside so I had a reserved seat.

After the traditional 15 minute delay, the academic quarter, the guest speaker made his entrance greeted

with prolonged applause segueing into a standing ovation, before he even reached the podium.

After an introduction by Mariam Said, Edward Saids widow, another professor spoke briefly about

Chomsky describing him as the lucid observer who had shown the world that the Emperor had no clothes.

The Emperor of course was the USA and its acolytes.

Finally the main event started and for the first time I heard the soft monotonous voice of the enlightened

one. It started with a generic statement about the evils of settlements as manifestations of imperialism,

followed by a historical expos of the New World settlement. For fi fteen maybe twenty minutes the speaker

laid bare the oppression of the indigenous peoples who, according to him and contrary to common belief,

had an advanced civilization at the time of Europeans arrival. To my surprise no logical thread was

discernable in his argumentation; instead he had a long list of quotes or fragments of quotes from

different personalities, politicians, writers, historians, poets and journalists, skipping back and forth

from century to century. Even Walt Whitman, Waldo Emerson and Darwin were quoted as promoters of

genocidal imperialism. During the first eighteen minutes or so, I counted twenty three names, mentioned

or quoted in a random order, spanning from George Washington to Andrea Merkel.


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Of course there is a lot to be said about the way Native Americans were treated, but the bland listing of

bumper-to-bumper quotes, without any context or background information, from a professor of

linguistics, was surprising even if said professor is 81.

As for the advanced local civilization in the fourteen hundreds, surprisingly he failed to mention the

practice of cannibalism or the absence of the wheel.

Without a change in tone, the speaker broached the next topic, the right-wing militias in Latin America.

To comment on the assassination of bishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador, he went back to Emperor

Constantine and the beginning of the spread of Christianity, followed by a small leap to present-dayLiberation Theology, followed in the same breath by the ugly USA financing oppressors in Latin America.

That segment took another fifteen minutes or so.

The audience was li stening in total si lence until, wi thout warning, the topic changed once more, and in the

same monotonous voice Mr. Chomsky attacked the colonia l occupation of the Palestinian territories and

the monstrous separation wall, which he called the wall of annexation since, as he stated, it has

nothing to do with security. And of course the January 2009 war against Gaza perpetrated by America

and Israel is proof of the Culture of Imperialism. He actually said, for the benefit of those ill informed,

that Gaza was attacked by USA and Israel.

Here the audience burst into enthusiastic a pplauses. The speaker went on to point out that the separation

wall i s more sinister-and longer-than the Berlin Wall ever was. That was a linkage to the twentieth

anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall which, according to him, dissimulates the fact that the big bad

USA has become the worlds only super-power; which final ly connected to the lectures title.There are two stages of restlessness. First you look at your watch every now and then. Second stage, after

looking at your watch, you put it to your ear to make sure its working. We went through both. It was just

about here that our patience ran out.

My friend and I got up and left. I have to confess that the exotic fascinates me but this was too much.

I do regret missing the Q&A session, although I can imagine how it went.

For some reason I remember a dial ogue at Harvard, a good few years back, between W.F. Buckley and Mc

Govern, a former libera l presidential candidate. When the students responded with enthusiasm to one of

his statements, Mc Govern smugly noted how popular he is, to which Mr. Buckley retorted: You were

always the choice of the partiall y educated.

My conclusion was that at "The Unipolar Moment and the Culture of Imperialism" I met The Unipolar

Culture of (certain) minds, and that

The Emperor has no clothes."

posted09/06/2011 at 15:54 byValery

The quality of the critcism of Chomsky

There is a persistent theme in all the negative comments on Chomsky's article which is amazingly

uniform. None of these pieces examine or even cite to any reasonable degree the factual material in which

Chomsky details the behavior of the imperialist policies of the USA in supporting the most deplorable

governments and the highly negative response that the world has to this behavior. That Chomsky's voice

may be monotonous seems to be totally devastating insofar a s the material he presents. Frankly, aside

from its comic irrelevance, that strikes me as rather weird.


The Responsibility of Intellectuals

It i s indeed the responsibili ty of intellectuals a nd others to challenge the state. This is more true than ever

in the current era.

posted09/06/2011 at 17:42 byAlexander Doty


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Why Chomsky's Stance Is a Lot Like that of the Famous Intellectual, George

W. Bush

Even if I were to assume that every word Chomsky has said is true, fair and balanced, I would still dispute

his thesis and conclusion, i.e., that intellectuals have moral responsibilities on account of what he refers to

as their position of privilege. Ironically, for all his vituperation against U.S. policy, Chomsky shares an

important aspect of George W. Bush's decidedly non-intellectual worldview: the black-and-white portrait

of the world, dividing it into those who are for us ("us," being, for Chomsky, those who uphold morality,

Marxism, the truth, right thinking or what you will) and those who are against us. Intellectuals worthy of

the name (rather than those who merely have the trappings), of course, do not fall into these crude polar

categories; they are, as Matthew Arnold expla ined, always, necessarily on the side of culture ("the best

which has been thought and said") and not on the side of any social class, politica l state or universalist

doctrine, whether that doctrine purports to be for the State or against it. They do not have "moral"

responsibilities and do not even acknowledge the "moral" (which presumes a single, absolute truth) as a

meaningful category. It is perfectly appropriate, in this light, that Chomsky ends his piece by citation to

the Hebrew Bible and its notion of prophets, for his stance has about it precisely that simplistic Biblical

literalism, that sense of good versus evil, of us versus them that is completely alien to intellectuals, who

are, after a ll , the alienated in our midst. That is the difference between prophets and intellectuals, and

Chomsky, it seems, would much rather be the former than the latter.

posted09/06/2011 at 17:44 byPseudo-Dionysius

sand is on to something...

I have also just read these comments and have to agree with sand. I find discerning similarity in a number

of the negative comments :/

posted09/06/2011 at 17:51 byliam24ldn

U. S. Propaganda - Then & Now

Noam Chomsky's 1966 "The Responsibility of Intellectuals" is a great essay, one that should be read

today. His present essay should assist us in seeing rather more clearly what has happened to us - how

liberal and illiberal propaganda machines have manufactured illusions of the United States' love of

Democracy - a laser-guided Democracy. The outrageousness of our government's pronouncements - its

dumb show - in support the war machine and deficit-reduction should be apparent to most of us. Alas,

not....

posted09/06/2011 at 18:01 byRaymond White

Regarding Pseudo-Dionysius: intellectuals need not, of course, fall into the crude categories of

"for" and "against." They should be willing to think, however, and to weather claims that they

may not be performing their duties; and if an accurate assessment of facts leads to unpalatable

conclusions, it is hardly an intellectual virtue to turn away and cling instead to comforting, pre-critical

assumptions. The careful scholarship a nd documentation that support Mr. Chomsky's analysis cannot beconjured away with ad hominem attacks or quotes from Victorian poets. (I find more relevant

contemporary political implications in Arnold's "Dover Beach," by the way, than in his criticism: "And we

are here as on a darkling plain / swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight / where ignorant

armies clash by night" indeed; but that is a nother matter.) Like most, I do not particularly enjoy the

business of self-criticism, as it often reveals unpleasant truths about my own chara cter; but is essential to

self-knowledge, to self-improvement, and to growth, as Socrates knew, and Montaigne, and Arnold, and

just about any educated mind worth mentioning. How much more important, then, that intellectuals--


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arguably the conscience of a nation--engage in a ruthless examination of the national character to

determine whether it is deluding itself or not. I detect in much of the anti-Chomsky rhetoric a reflexive fear

of self-evaluation and cri ticism, especial ly since this rhetoric consistently avoids coming to terms with the

facts of Chomsky's argument. Failure to deal with evidence and substantiated claims is a far worse

intellectual shortcoming than anything Mr. Chomsky has to say. There may be no moral absolutes, as

Pseudo-Dionysius claims; Machiavelli was an intellectual, and de Sade was just as much an intellectual as

Rousseau, after all. If Chomsky's detractors wish to claim that the U.S. engages in state terror but that, in

fact, such actions should be condoned and continued due to politica l exigencies that take priority overmoral and ethical issues, then I would be the first to applaud their honesty. Please, do go ahead: make

your enlightened argument. I am all ears. If, however, ethical and moral considerations obtain--say what

you will, but Universality is a hard principle to denigrate--then perhaps we must consider Mr. Chomsky's

claims and take them seriously.

posted09/06/2011 at 18:27 byMad Rabbit

Re: Benjamin: I am a fa n of the Roman emperor Trajan; does that mean I have the blood of the

Dacians on my hands? As for Richard Stevens: Is the fact that Mr. Chomsky was wrong about

his linguistic theories a reason to dismiss his lucid, substantiated argument? I certainly hope that writers

are not obliged to be correct all the time. It is our duty to evaluate his arguments, and to challenge them if

they are incorrect, not simply to dismiss them as inconvenient. The intellectual laziness in evidence here is

astonishing.

posted09/06/2011 at 18:39 byMad Rabbit

Good grief, Valery. You attended a Chomsky lecture with an admitted bias against the man and

his message going in. No open mind. No willingness. Just a punch on the shoulder of your

like-minded friend: "This is going to be a hoot!"

You complain about Chomsky's presentation of native American civilization by pointing out cannibalism

and the lack of wheels. Actually, there were wheels in the "new world," but they weren't widely used for

transportation probably because there were not the kind of mammals needed to pull them. Chomsky'sunderstanding of "civil ization" is different from yours. He doesn't define civilization by level of technology.

After all , the delivery vehicle for a nuclear weapon is very sophisticated, but it is nonetheless an

indiscriminate killing machine, and the U.S. is still the only culture to use it to kill indiscriminately.

Your response suggests that you think the native Americans were incapable of becoming European. That's

either racist or severely uncritical (or both).

Many of the writers in this comment stream express rigid thinking. Is U.S. power founded on democracy,

justice, and the rule of law? Or is it founded on slavery, private property, and the rule of wealth? It's not

either-or. It's both. If you want to make a better world, confront the historical and material reality of the

world in which you live. Admit the mistakes, unless you live in a perfect world--a global economy that

privileges you (why?) so that you can look down your nose at those who bear your middle-class weight (aweight that paradox ical ly provides momentum but very little substance). It's fairly well-documented that

"Americans" have a blind spot for the "weight of history" and carry a heavy "it was never us; we were

always the heroes" mentality. Chomsky provides the antidote for this dominant mentali ty, and so he is, of

course, abused for opening his mouth.

By the way, those "signs of restlessness" you mention are also indicative of someone who is forced to face

evidence that doesn't fit their current understanding of the world. You should have stayed and asked

questions instead of avoiding a confrontation you so clearly would have won, based on the level of


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confidence you exhibit.

Luke @ 1: "But he didn't. Bin Laden wasn't murdered, a word wi th the particula r meaning of an unlawful

death. He was killed, justly, fortunately, and final ly."

That's easy to say. If you're a U.S. citizen, though, with an understanding of your democratic

responsibility, you're responsible for every unjustified killing your government performs. The democracy

is responsible for all collateral damage, all covert ops resulting in death, the Guatemalan "experiments,"slavery--the whole nine yards. Yet you claim the right to decide what is just and what is not, what is

murder and what is not. Osama bin Laden thought that the U.S. was demonstrably a deadly threat. The

U.S. thought that Osama bin Laden was demonstrably a deadly threat. The response of both has been the

same, and both claimed they had the right of it. Both appealed to history. Both avoided looking a t certain

historical and material realities. Both sought to establish or maintain power over energy sources. If bin

Laden deserved death, then the architects of "manifest destiny" deserved death. Those who order bombs to

be dropped on civilians in undemocratic (and arguably democratic) nations deserve death. An exceptional

culture--a civilized culture--is one that recognizes and takes responsibility for the totality of its historical

and materia l development.

Ugh, the inevitable Nazi reference. That wil l g ive someone license to point out the arguable but interesting

similari ties between the attitudes and beliefs that shape Zionist Israel and those that shaped NaziGermany. However, if you call yourself a critica l thinker, you step beyond nation, culture, religion, and

economic mode--step beyond ideology. If not, yap yap yap, blah blah blah.

And now, just to send the comment stream more quickly to its destiny: God hates globa l warming!

posted09/06/2011 at 19:36 byDSL

Why Do Intellectuals Have any OBLIGATION to Get Involved in

Politics?

In response to Mad Rabbit, I am in no way against self-criticism on the part of intellectuals; I welcome it,

but I simply do not believe that intellectuals have extra-lega l "duties" (and certainly not duties to be

politically engaged) any more than non-intellectuals have such duties. There is absolutely nothing wrong

with an intellectual who chooses to be completely divorced from politics, just as there is nothing wrong

with one who chooses to be very engaged in politics, as Noam Chomsky is. If one chooses the latter course,

however, one must be careful not to compromise oneself and lose one's claim to integri ty and intellectual

honesty. I think Noam Chomsky has crossed that line many times. I do not dispute many of the facts he

presents; but his worldview is utterly unbalanced and simplistic, just as simplistic as that of his professed

enemies. He sees good a nd evil everywhere. He thinks in broad brushstrokes, in big dualistic categor ies.

This entire article conceives of the world as being divided between the good intellectual martyrs and

prophets who fight the good fight and the bad, complicit intellectuals who cater to state power. It should

be obvious to anyone reading what Mr. Chomsky wrote here about world politics that there are many

countervail ing facts, many bits of background and context that would put Mr. Chomsky's assertions in a

very different light, even though, as I sa id, there is also a decent amount of truth in what he wrote. But

what I really take issue with -- aside from his overstated political analysis -- is real ly his position that

intellectuals need to (indeed, have the MORAL RESPONSIBILITY to) act to criticize their State or the

United States. This view is just a product of an inflated sense of self-worth that some intellectuals have. As

Auden said, "Poetry makes nothing happen," and this probably goes for intellectual endeavors of many

sorts. I love the life of the mind and greatly respect those people who devote themselves to it, but I don't

believe that they, as a result of what Mr. Chomsky absurdly call s their position of "privilege" (as though

not a single one of them actually earned what they have attained through hard work but were simply

handed years of learning and tenured professorships), have some sort of obligation to jump into the


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political fray on the side of what Mr. Chomsky deems the "good."

posted09/06/2011 at 20:21 byPseduo-Dionysius

Typical Chomskyite Dodge

It is unfortunately typical of Chomsky worshipers to cla im that "no facts have been refuted."

Unfortunately, Chomsky does not write scholarly works -- as his worshipers seem to imagine he does --

but political polemics, and it is entirely reasonable to engage with them as polemics. And yes, I am aware

that his books are littered with footnotes. This is also irrelevant. Anyone can load up an article with

footnotes. They do not, in and of themselves, make an article scholarly. I would also note that many of the

commentators here have refuted specific facts and, natural ly, they have had no effect on Chomsky's

worshipers whatsoever. This should not be surprising since, like their idol, they are incapable of making

an argument that is not in bad faith.


re: Trajan

If you wrote that the slaughter of the Dacians was invented by Edward Gibbon in order to serve the

interests of a crypto-Nazi media conspiracy, I would indeed start to wonder about you, yes. And if you werean influential contemporary of Trajan's and denied his slaughter of the Dacians in order to serve your

ideological worship of him and give him the political breathing room necessary to complete his

slaughtering, you would have their blood on your hands, yes.


Intellectuals and basic motivations

It is naturally highly difficult to discern a uniformity of obligation to morality from such a widely diverse

group as intellectuals who are merely people who develop their various points of view out of a particular

developed philosophy which can come from and lead to almost anything. They are traditional ly respected

for their acuity of perception and solidity of the basis for their proposals and therefore would seem to

represent something of a high point of human intellectual accomplishment. But history has presented

many examples of how grossly they can be mistaken. Mentioning the Nazis seems to strike many

commentators as bad behavior like flatulence in an elevator but they do make obvious examples for many

human faults. The principles behind the horrendous Nazi extermination of those they valued as defective

humans were derived from the philosophical principles proposed by many respected intellectual thinkers

in the Western community which lead to frightful governmental behavior towards native peoples in

Canada, the USA, and Austral ia. The excuses in current national brutal misbehavior in the name of

"democracy" and "freedom" and "women's rights" disintegrate when examined more cogently in the light

of economic advantage and corporate aggressive greed and raw exertion of power. Intellectuals are

professional ly very clever in masking the true motives behind past and current aberrations in humane

national behavior and perhaps, in the misapprehension of true underlying motivations they should hold

some responsibili ty. The current actions in Libya are a noteworthy example. See

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/06/natos-war-on-libya-is-an-attack-on-african-development/

for a rather different view of the situation.


Mr?

Chomsky is really too kind: the crimes of the United States government, even within the last sixty years,


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involve more deliberate killing and more co-lateral deaths and more torture and injustice, over a wider

swathe of the planet, than can be attributed to any other regime in history.

But more astonishing is the self congratulatory, stupid, insouciance with which the liberal intelligentsia

has passed off i ts thorough complicity in these crimes; something the more notable because its preferred

hobby during this time has been the spotting- and sometimes punishment- of "human rights violations"

elsewhere.

On the 11th day of September in 2001, 2800 plus died after an attack, planned and carried out, it would

seem, by free lance terrorists in revenge for US policies in the middle east.

On the 11th day of September 1973, the President of Chile and thousands of others died as the direct result

of a coup conceived and carried out by agents of the US government. They justified their crime as a defence

of US investments from nationalists.

In the years that fol lowed the number killed, tortured, imprisoned and otherwise victimised rose steadily

until the greater part of the continent was ruled by vicious military gangs owing allegiance to and

patronised by Washington.

When wil l the tria ls begin?

posted09/07/2011 at 01:50 byChris2

I wish, oh how I wish, that these sentiments had been more visible then, and more visible now.

The worst of these blithely committed crimes shames me to confess my status as a n American

with the stain of flawed "representative" government on my hands. How can "good people of conscience"

accept more of it??

I add my thunderous applause to the too few who will do likewise.

posted09/07/2011 at 06:59 byDrObserver

Why Contempt?

Why do so many commentators feel the need to express contempt for Chomsky's perspective? If they don't

like what he has to say, why don't they ignore it, l ike they must do the hundreds of other commentary that

finds its way to the web everyday? Or, if they believe what Chomsky has said is in correct, why don't they

give us the correct answer and the sources to back i t up? Or, if they think Chomsky perspective is myopic,

why don't they enlighten us and engage us with their insight? Why can't they come up with something

constructive on the subject? Is it just easier to show contempt?

posted09/07/2011 at 16:02 byJohn Vincent

Because contempt breeds contempt

Why contempt? Because Chomsky's stock in trade is precisely that -- contempt. Regardless how many

words he throws at any particular piece, it boils down to some combination like this:

[Words] assassination/terror/state sponsored murder [words] Obama/Bush [words] Nazi [words]

irrefutable [words] military dictatorship [words] simply [words] U.S. supported murder/terror

/assassination [words] blood soaked [words] Kissinger [words] Allende/Chile/CIA covert war [words]

terror U.S. repression U.S. oppression U.S. [words].

Somehow, every wrong of this world points back to the U.S. government, specifical ly to covert CIA


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operations in South and Central America, to Kissinger, and quite possibly to what was done to Native

Americans.

Chomsky has discovered that courageous intellectuals who speak truth to power often get to suffer from

their courage? That intellectuals often ally themselves with the wrong side of a moral equation and reap

rewards from it? Oh, come on -- these are new insights now, are they? We're only just discovering that?

Of course we're not. There's nothing new here. What it i s, is another self-righteous diatribe designed togather more adoration from his fans and more attention from everyone else. Notice the opening line:

"Since we often cannot see what is happening before our eyes ..." The gist of the article, as is the gist of all

Chomsky's writing, is that everybody else (conformists) can't see the obvious which he (the courageous

intellectual) shall now proceed to illuminate for us.

Yet, somehow, the evidence always leads to the same vill ain, all problems to the same course: The United

States. Which, paradoxical ly, makes his target uniquely important and powerful. Having thus built up the

stature and villainy of his target to comic-book proportions, he's also set himself up as, by proxy, uniquely

courageous and important for having the courage to speak against that target. Never mind, of course, that

he reduces the entire rest of the planet to the status of reacting to the United States' acting. And never mind,

of course, that rather than be punished or repressed or shot or jailed for his "courage" he's instead

rewarded with endless attention, adoration from fans, attention candy from detractors, and a lucrativecareer as a professional accuser. But, you know what? That's not discourse. That's just garden-variety

narcissism.

posted09/07/2011 at 20:00 byTorgest

Chomsky's deep justice, compassion and intellectual rigor never fa il to give me hope... until I

read internet comments on what he writes!

@1Everyone Else

"Before opening his mouth aga in, he should make a compilation of acts that other peoples should feel

guil ty about..."

While he certainly does criticize atrocities outside the US's control, the major point of this article (which

you didn't read) was why we should focus on the crimes of our own societies and institutions first, since a

failure to do so signifies both cowardice and complicity, characteristics you're only too familiar with.

@2Luke Jenson

"Bin Laden wasn't murdered, a word with the particular meaning of an unlawful death."

The fact that he was an evil ma n who, like other evil people and their supporters, didn't deserve life, does

not make his kil ling "lawful." His lawful a rrest, interrogation and trial would not only have put many of

the mysteries surrounding 9/11 to rest but, much more importantly, could've ended the counter-productive

"WAR" on terror and replaced it with a much more sensible international law enforcement cooperation

paradigm to deal ing with the threat, such as it is. Hence his murder.

Everyone who claims Chomsky ever "SUPPORTED" Pol Pot let alone Bin Laden or holocaust denial

should be prosecuted for libel. The historical record shows that our US government DID however support

(and catalyze the rise of) Pol Pot and Bin Laden, and included many Nazi sympathizers who also refused to

let the US receive Jewish refugees before the war. None of that matters to his legions of viscous and

voluntarily retarded critics, who have enough free time to deface his articles but not enough to read what

he has written in his straight-forward and to the point way.


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@10Somethings...

"All Chomsky's grammatic (sic) theories have gradually been shown to be incorrect."

Not true. While the field has naturally evolved, he is still recognized and respected as a founding father of

both cognitive science and modern linguistics. Whether or not his theories have been modified also has no

bearing whatsoever on his social critiques.

"We now understand the academic regime he ran at his university was dictatorial in excluding other

views."

Absolutely contrary to every statement of every ex-student of his I've ever come across, as well as to the

experience of MYSELF and dozens of people I 've talked to who were lucky enough to hear him speak and

graciously and patiently answer every audience members questions for hours afterwards.

In conclusion, Noam is simply unwilling to forget the suffering of the many victims that power structures

carry out "in our name," and I wil l a lways respect him for it.

posted09/07/2011 at 22:08 byantigalt

Embarrassment

Noam Chomsky is an embarrassment. It is a problem when one is overly patriotic and views his country

through rose colored glasses. Chomsky is the opposite, and just as wrong. His view is anything related to

America is evil and is so extreme and misguided, and frankly, incorrect, he is now embarrassing to read.

He should stick to linguistics and give up political or history writing. He fundamentally does not know

what he is talking about.

posted09/07/2011 at 23:56 byPaul C

Response to Torgest

So you have contempt for Chomsky because in your opinion he focuses too much on US terror andrepression perpetrated on others. Beside that being the theme of the article, his reason for this focus is

contained within it. Did you read it, and if so, why is it invalid?

You seem troubled that Chomsky frequently discuss the same subject. What's your point? What do you

think he should be discussing? Should America's leading dissident spend more time talking about

basebal l?

You suggest that Chomsky's point is "that intellectuals often ally themselves with the wrong side of a

moral equation and reap rewards from it?" So you are suggesting that those Chomsky admires, in your

opinion, take the wrong side of a moral issue in order to reap the benefits? Was Debs' imprisonment his

reward? Was his mora l compass incorrect, in what way?

You write: "And never mind, of course, that rather than be (sic) punished or repressed or shot or jai led for

his "coura ge" he's instead rewarded with endless attention..." Isn't one of the advantages of living in a

country that al lows freedom of speech that individuals l ike Chomsky can express their opinion without

reprisal? Are your suggesting it should be otherwise? And what is wrong with Chomsky being "rewarded

with endless attention"? Who should we be paying attention to, or do you think no one deserves our

attention?


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You conclude by suggesting Chomsky is narcissistic and a professional accuser. That's it? That's your

insight into Chomsky and all his writings? Should we pay attention to this, or would that be too much of a

reward?

posted09/08/2011 at 00:0 3 byJohn Vincent

Wilkinson

This seems to be a case of heartily selective writing. Chomsky condemns the USA for the coup in Chile, but

never mentions Chile's return to democracy. He attributes the overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, newly-

elected president to Haiti, but never mentions US intervention in the restoration of the president in 1994,

apparently he thinks this is part of the "disgraceful aftermath" (presumably because he can't figure out a

way that it was actually a crime of the USA).

He doesn't mention the presence of Communists in South America , nor that it i s reasonable to suspect

those left-wing insurgents of being willing to commit terrible crimes in their rise to power, or once they

were in power. For example, the Shining Path in Peru openly state they plan to overthrow democracy and

install a dictatorship of the proletariat. They've committed numerous crimes against peasants, trade

unionists, elected official s, etc, any wonder that the US was training military officers against *them*?

He says Bertrand Russel was bitterly condemend until after his death, and never mentions that Bertrand

Russell won a Nobel Prize in li terature, and lectured in the 1940s and 1950s on BBC, so while some people

may have been bitterly condemning him, other people were warmly celebrating him, or at least inviting

him to give his opinion again and again.

Chomsky talks a lot about the responsibility of intellectuals, but isn't one of the foremost responsibilities

of intellectuals to tell both sides of the case, as best they can, and not to just ignore any evidence that

disagrees with your hypothesis?

posted09/08/2011 at 10:43 byTracy W

Confusion

There seems to be a bit of confusion here in the proposal that some time after criminal brutality is exerted

the situation turns brighter. Why does an eventual turn for the better excuse the original inexcusable

action?


Wilkinson

Sand - you appear to be begging the question. Of course, if you define something as inexcusable, it can't be

excused, as a matter of definition. If you think all brutality is criminal and inexcusable, then pacifism is

the only justified response.

But, pacifism is a minority ethic. In every country I can think of, violence is legally permitted in

self-defence (though the details of this right might vary), and it is general ly accepted that the police have

the right to commit violence under some circumstances, and that countries have a right to wage war in

response to criminal acts, under some circumstances. There is no law of logic obliging you to agree with

this, but then there's no law of log ic obliging anyone else to agree with you.



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Wilkinson

Sand - you appear to be begging the question. Of course, if you define something as inexcusable, it can't be

excused, as a matter of definition. If you think all brutality is criminal and inexcusable, then pacifism is

the only justified response.

But, pacifism is a minority ethic. In every country I can think of, violence is legally permitted in

self-defence (though the details of this right might vary), and it is general ly accepted that the police have

the right to commit violence under some circumstances, and that countries have a right to wage war in

response to criminal acts, under some circumstances. There is no law of logic obliging you to agree with

this, but then there's no law of log ic obliging anyone else to agree with you.


Misunderstanding

Aaah. I get it now. You find the CIA overthrow of the democratically elected government of Chile and the

the subsequent Pinochet total itarian government a wonder to behold. Sorry. I assumed you possessed a

basic sense of human decency. The same, of course, can be said of the installa tion of the Shah in Iran

through CIA intervention. So it goes.


Confusion Seconded

Indeed there is confusion. The overthrow of Allende by the US and the eventual deposing of Pinochet by the

people of Chile are two separate "cases", not a single event. The fact that a wrong was eventually made

right doesn't absolve the crime or the criminal , just like the recovery of an innocent gunshot victim doesn't

excuse the shooter.

posted09/08/2011 at 14:35 byJohn Vincent

Judgement should take into account all factors

But when it comes to judging the whole of an individual, or a country, it's important to look at all of what

they did. Someone who does some bad things and some good things is a different person to someone who

always takes the bad option.

If Chomsky only looks at the crimes, he's never going to understand why other intellectuals sometimes

defend the USA, and he's not doing the basic job of an intellectual.

posted09/08/2011 at 15:0 3 byTracy W

The Good Side.

Fair enough, Tracy. Now is the time for you to remedy Chomsky and expla in the good side of setting up

Pinochet and the Shah of Iran and how that immensely benefited their nations.


It's NOT about balance

You people who keep going on about "the good side" simply do not get the most basic point of this article

or indeed Chomsky's whole critical effort.


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If he doesn't praise the United States it's because there are plenty of people already doing that. His goal is

to expose this country's fai lings so that the people demand that the government make restitution and

change its ways. That the Untied States has accomplished good things does not absolve it of guilt for its

crimes.

Nor is it necessary to cheer in order to criticize. It's not about balancing the good with the badthough if

you're deeply invested in that concept then consider how many more people, at much greater volume, notonly praise the United States but regard it as sacred and infallible. Chomsky does not attempt here, or

anywhere else, a holistic appraisal of the United States as a force for either good or evil in the world and

therefore does not need to weigh the good agai nst the bad. What he cares about is justice for specific

criminal acts. That's why he talks about specific instances and criminals.

If you want a purely academic exercise in determining whether the U.S. does more harm than good, then

find another writer and appraise the balance in their work. But don't apply that criterion to Chomsky. He's

out for justice, not armchair debates.

posted09/08/2011 at 15:43 byDana

Sand, you have followed up "begging the question" with a non-sequitor. What I am criticising

Chomsky for is his one-sided view of intellectuals a nd the USA, and his fai lure to mention any

counter-evidence. No matter what the rights or wrongs of any individual a ction, my argument remains the

same, Chomsky is failing in his job as an intellectual, right at the same time as he criticises others.

On the basis of "third time lucky", I live in hope that your next comment will not consist of a logical

fallacy.


Response to John's response to my response

John Vincent wrote in #41: "So you have contempt for Chomsky [...]"

No. Contempt was your word. My use of it was a response to yours, in comment #27, which should have

been clear from context.

Chomsky irri tates me. I am of course perfectly free to ignore him, as someone pointed out earlier.

However, it does annoy me greatly that editors are still so ready to publish him, because his pieces arent

that good. By posting my comments here I hope to influence their future decisions.

John Vincent wrote: "Did you read it [...]"

That "you didn't read it" tactic is a debate kill switch. I could just as easily ask whether you read my

response before you replied to it. Moving on.

John Vincent wrote: "[...] because in your opinion he focuses too much on US terror and repression

perpetrated on others"

You attribute opinions to me that I didn't express. My problem is he approaches every event -- e.g., 9/11 --

with an a prior i conclusion and a pre-packaged villa in. As someone else already pointed out, that's

perfectly normal and valid in political polemics, but with Chomsky it comes with a veneer of academic

rigor, viz. the wealth of footnotes and his fans' insistence on referring to him as a professor when he's


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involved in debates far from his field of expertise.

That's dishonest, an intellectual bullying tactic and a form of argument from authority, because what he's

really doing is arguing from a dogmatic and moral absolutist point of view. It's taking the simplistic and

black-and-white mode of a Pat Robertson or Glenn Beck and dressing it up as intellectualism, but it's not.

It's hectoring, not examination. His methods are polar opposites to those of the Socrates he claims

kinship with when he drops this reference: "It was the man accused of corrupting the youth of Athens who

drank the hemlock [...]".

John Vincent wrote: "Beside that being the theme of the article, his reason for this focus is contained

within it."

Yes, specifical ly this: "If we are serious about justice, we wil l focus our efforts where we share

responsibility for what is being done." That is a good point. It is a valid point. You are morally

responsible for crimes committed in your name. However, it's also an obvious point. Only a jingoist or an

imbecile would disagree with it. It's the arguments and conclusions that follow I have a problem with.

For example, consider that I'm not American. I'm Norwegian. Does that mean I ha

the responsibility of intellectuals, redux

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