Features > July 29, 2008 > Web Only
Gunning for the Prize
An interview with Noam Chomsky
By Roger Bybee

U.S leaders and media have failed to offer a "principled critique" of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Noam Chomsky says.
Why don’t we apply the Nuremberg principles to ourselves? The question is so deeply hidden that it would be incomprehensible to the educated classes [in America].
Noam Chomsky is one of the world’s most quoted people, but his forceful criticism of U.S. policy has often made him a pariah in U.S. media, which find his views far beyond the bounds of acceptable opinion. Even the liberal American Prospect, before opposition to the Iraq War became widespread, ran the headline, "Between Chomsky and Cheney" on its cover in March 2005.
As he does in this interview, Chomsky consistently steps outside the narrow confines of the conventional Democratic-Republican spectrum. He outlines how the Nuremburg Tribunals following World War II established principles under which U.S. officials — including Bush and Cheney — should be found guilty of war crimes for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and challenges Barack Obama on whether his plan for Iraq will mean a real withdrawal of U.S. forces. And he questions whether elite politicians and media pundits will ever see U.S. foreign policy as anything other than benevolent.
Chomsky’s writings, which include dozens of books on U.S. foreign policy, are notable for his scrutiny of original government source materials, which locates damning admissions about the true goals of U.S. policy, and his careful distinction between the opinions of elite policy-makers and media and those of the majority of Americans.
Although he has stirred up enormous controversies, Chomsky is a soft-spoken, grandfatherly 79-year-old who first rose to prominence as a professor of linguistics at MIT. But during the Vietnam War, he emerged as one of the most provocative voices calling into account the U.S. government and the multinational corporations with which it is so closely aligned.
The surge
The conventional wisdom among the policy-making elites and major media is that the U.S. surge in Iraq has been a great success. What do you think of U.S. media coverage of the surge, and what do you think has been missing?
There’s a technical question here: to what extent has the surge affected the situation? One of the central factors in the temporary decline in violence is that the whole ethnic cleansing has reached the point where there are fewer and fewer people to kill. Baghdad has now been divided, if it were rich, into what we would call gated communities. It has been broken down into fairly homogeneous areas, and people of one ethnic-religious background no longer go outside areas where they are safe. So there is less opportunity for the killing that went on before.
The second major factor is Muhktada al-Sadr had declared a freeze, and that his forces would not engage in military action. That’s the second thing.
The third factor is that the tribes, the Sunni tribes in Anbar province, had, before the surge, begun organizing to drive out Al Qaeda of Iraq militants, who were being a disruptive force in terms of tribal customs and controls. Of course, the US is paying for that, for groups like the Awakening. These are tribal groups that the US is now funding.
And that’s laying the basis for a future conflict of very serious magnitude. It’s paving the way for a system of warlords, a bit like Afghanistan. We’re funding an array of forces. They’re happy to be paid, but we’re just adding to the warlord culture. This is one of the consequences of the invasion.
As for the majority of Iraqis, the Pentagon released the results of some focus groups and portrayed them as good news. The Pentagon hailed the results of the focus groups as showing that Iraqis are coming together in reconciliation. They have "shared beliefs." The results show that what the Iraqis really agreed on is that the sectarian violence is the result of the US invasion. That’s what they agreed on. And they are right. The sectarian violence is the result of the invasion.
But overall, the effect of these factors is a decrease in casualties and probably a temporary decrease in violence.
But the more fundamental question is, why should we be asking these particular questions? Let’s take some enemy, say, Russia and Chechnya. Chechnya doesn’t involve the invasion of a separate country, but it’s horrible enough. The Russians devastated the country, with nobody knows how many casualties and atrocities. The capital Grozny was basically a pile of rubble. But over the last couple months (in early 2008), American reporters have gone there and say the city is booming, it has electricity, building is going on, businesses are opening, there’s little violence. Russians are in the background, but it’s basically a Russian client state nominally run by Chechnyans. Their surge was a success. But do we praise Putin for less violence?
But Iraq is much worse. What are we doing there? We just invaded. While the Chinese can claim Tibet is part of China and the Russians can claim Chechnya, we can’t say that Iraq is part of the US unless we actually claim that we own the world. We just invaded a completely foreign country.
When we look at what the U.S. has done to Iraq it’s an atrocity. What are we doing there? Iraq is much worse than Chechnya. We have gone halfway around the world and destroyed a nation.
If you want to know what is really going on with the surge, one place to look is at The Nation, where there are reports by two reporters who are unusual in that they actually report from Iraq. There are a handful of reporters in the world who actually report from Iraq itself. Patrick Cockburn has been reporting there for years, and Nir Rosen speaks fluent Arabic and can pass for Arab and has been there for five years. They both agree that the U.S. occupation is probably the end of Iraq. They really describe it as a monstrosity. Iraq may never recover. We’ve destroyed the country. It’s like the Mongol invasions in the 13th century.
Most of the educated class has either been killed or fled. The country is an array of militias, of warlords and gangs, of which the US is just the biggest and most powerful militia. They call the Iraqi Army its sub-militia. We’ve just destroyed the country, and it may never recover. So that’s the way that the surge has succeeded.
Lack of ‘principled analysis’
It seems that the Democrats in Congress are looking at this in very different terms, not considering what it has done to Iraq but whether the war is a success in strictly military terms, and that reinforces the Bush framework. By asking "Is the war a success or not," the Democrats set themselves up for the question, "Are you saying the U.S. is losing?" By not raising moral questions about the U.S. invasion and occupation, it appears that the Democrats are playing into the hands of Bush. What do you think?
I wouldn’t necessarily use the term "moral," because in the dominant intellectual culture, that can make it sound like some question from outer space. I think we should simply ask if you can find anywhere in the Democratic Party, the candidates, the commentary, or anywhere in the media a principled analysis of the war and occupation of Iraq.
By principled, I have very specific criteria in mind: the principles we would use automatically in the case of an enemy.
When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, we didn’t ask if it would work and if he would succeed in putting in a puppet government, as Washington feared he might do. No, we didn’t ask that. We took the position that aggression is wrong and that it is worse when it succeeds.
When the Russians invaded Afghanistan, we didn’t say, like Obama on Iraq, that this is a "strategic blunder." Or like Hillary Clinton, "they’re getting into a civil war they can’t win." We said it’s aggression, which is a principled position, and we’re capable of saying that when an enemy carries out a crime. It’s wrong even when it succeeds. The question is, are we capable of applying to ourselves the same criteria we apply to others. You can say that’s a moral principle if you like. But it’s so elementary that if we can’t accept it, we might as well admit we are Nazis.
If we apply the same principle to ourselves, if the surge succeeds, it’s just a worse crime. But you can hardly find a principled critique. Try and find one. Can you find anywhere among the candidates, the commentary, the Congress a principled criticism of the invasion? The Democrats have no principled critique. So therefore they are reduced to asking the same questions about Iraq that the Communist Party of the old Soviet Union would have had in 1985 about Afghanistan.
The Soviet hawks said that we can win if we put in more resources, and the doves said it wasn’t working too well, costing too much and we ought to get out of Afghanistan. We have total contempt for that kind of thinking, because we can view others in a principled way.
We can view the actions of others in terms of the principle we claim to uphold, but not our own actions.
If you look at the Democratic Party, they’re not talking about really ending the war but ‘re-missioning,’ as General Kevin Ryan put it.
The same is true of the Indochina Wars, and you’d think that would be far enough back in history to allow a principled critique. Try to find a principled critique of the U.S. invasion in South Vietnam. It’s not there in the mainstream.
Was it a lost cause from the beginning? Was it costing too much? That’s the doves. Then the hawks say that if we had kept at it, with a better strategy and a stronger South Vietnamese Army, we would have won. Or the critics were stabbing us in the back by saying it cost too much.
I’m sure you heard things like that in Nazi Germany in 1943. You know, "Did we undertake too much by fighting on two fronts?" or the critics are "stabbing us in the back."
But we’ve got to remember the distinction between elite opinion, which is very narrow, and the public’s opinion. Whereas there was no principled opposition to the Vietnam War to speak of among American elites, the population was quite different from the elite. By the war’s end, 70 percent of the U.S. population described the war as fundamentally "wrong and immoral," not a "mistake." That figure remained roughly constant until the most recent polls a few years ago.
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Reader Comments
"We’ve just destroyed the country, and it may never recover. "
Well to be fair, one might wish to recall that the country was pretty dysfunctional before the invasion.
"If we apply the same principle to ourselves, if the surge succeeds, it’s just a worse crime."
Well now, if a cop breaks into a house and stops a rape, then is that a worse crime too? Iraqi’s were essentially being held hostage in their own country. Our failure was that we did not improve their situation. One can point at specific errors that were made, but success – via freedom – is still the metric of success.
"leading them to be independent of the U.S., so you’ve got to watch out."
The domino effect is better described as the enslavement of entire countries, as amply demonstrated via the defunct Soviet empire. This is what we opposed with freedom as the alternative.
The real taboo question is: how many excess deaths would occur if Iraq had obtained nukes and either used them directly or provided them to anti-west groups?
"the press is owned by wealthy men who have every reason not to want certain ideas to be expressed. "
Appropriate (if somewhat humorous) thoughts for a 79 year old, but naive in todays wired world.
Posted by wolf on Jul 29, 2008 at 2:34 PM
re: wolfy comments
Yes it was dysfunctional by a decade of illegal sanctions enforced by the US, one might wish to remember that as well. And your agrument for pre-emptive war falls to pieces.."if a cop breaks into a house and stops a rape….is that a worse crime?"
If you want to apply the Iraq war to this twisted logic it would be better to say "If a cop bombs a house where he thinks a rape might be happening…is that a worse crime ?"
How about that fact that the US sold Hussein his weapons arsenal in the 1980’s is a worse crime no ? the ones he used against Kurds and the Iranians ? "how many excess deaths would occur if Iraq had obtained nukes and either used them directly or provided them to anti-west groups?" Iraq never had nukes and this is a well documented fact, along with the threat to the US which was never there until the illegal invasion, although if you watch FOX news you wouldnt know that. I wouldnt call Chomskys comments humorous or naive unless you have the resume and the intelligence he has, which i doubt judging by your comments. You probably think Iraq was behind 911 right ? hahaPosted by deezy on Jul 30, 2008 at 1:01 PM
I take up wolf’s remarks one by one
hopefully wolf can read this and think about it
re: "we’ve just destroyed the country . . . " wolf blithely says the country was "pretty dysfunctional" already. Say that’s true. Out of about 28 million, as a result of the war about 1 million were killed, and 4 million were made refugees (half inside the country, half outside). By wolf logic, since it was "pretty dysfunctional" the extreme carnage caused by us is of little moment, couldn’t possibly constitute destroying the country.
"if we apply . . . worse crime." wolf likens the US invasion and occupation to "stop[ping] a rape." How is that? We invaded to improve their lot, create freedom, he says. Really? Bush said it was to stop Saddam from getting WMD (he said it over and over). UN inspectors were going anywhere, anytime and not finding anything; Bush basically forced the inspectors out by moving in and bombing/invading the place. By wolf logic, it’s true by DEFINITION that the US is trying to impose/instill "freedom." What’s the substance of the "freedom"? Is it Freedom to be divided and ruled?
"leading them … watch out." Wolf needs some background on the Cold War, the concept of the Domino Effect, and Chomsy’s take on the Domino Effect. You see, during the Cold War, the idea was that the Russians take Vietnam today, then Japan (say) tomorrow. Many liberals downplayed this as exaggeration. Chomsky said No, there IS a "domino effect," actually, and that’s the threat of "independent nationalism," meaning, the Vietnamese take charge of their own affairs, and the next thing you know it’s Guatemalan peasants and lord knows who else doing it, too. THAT’S what the US wanted to stomp out (it had nothing to do with stopping the Russians, that was the excuse). No one ever said that e.g. USSR control over e.g. Czechoslovakia was in itself a "domino" or "domino effect" (what could that mean, Wolf?).
Wolf raises a hypothetical (viz., but what IF Iraq had obtained nukes?!). Pretty hard for it to do, actually, given that the US controlled the airspace, and given the intrusive inspections going on, etc. Colin Powell himself said, a few months before 9/11, that Saddam was "in his box," contained, not a threat to us. And it was pretty unlikely Saddam Hussein would try to acquire WMD, given that he’d ordered the stuff destroyed in 1994 or so. Saddam Hussein knew he’d be inviting a strike if he came close to developing major WMD. Also, he was trying to get out from under sanctions, precisely by allowing intrusive inspection to certify Iraq as WMD free (late ‘90s). (Finally, you think he’d "give" WMD to Al Qaeda?! Those guys hated him, and might have used it against him, for all he knew.)
Re: this hypothetical about nukes, you can always use it. E.g. What if Uzbekistan got a nuke? Scary! Let’s invade Uzbekistan!
re: the last comment on the "wired" world. What’s naive is to think that just because information can be "put out there" that that means much. What’s crucial is the DOMINANT frame of discourse. Example: politicians ("left" Democrats vs. "right" Republicans) debate on CNN or FOX about the meaning of the "success of the Surge." This presupposes that it’s a success, and furthermore, that if it really is a success, then that’s a GOOD thing. The presupposition is INSTILLED in the very discussion. Result? If Chomsky were to go on CNN and say "that the Surge ‘worked’ is all the more reason to oppose it," he (truly) would NOT BE UNDERSTOOD by his interviewers.
Finally, the "79 year-old" wisecrack is frankly AGEIST, just as saying "that comment might be ok for a woman" would be SEXIST.
Posted by mffanaddict on Jul 31, 2008 at 12:35 AM
Congratulations to ITT for running the Chomsky interview. Too many articles, in both the alternative and mainstream press, are based on a merely tactical critique of the war ("is it working?") instead of a fundamental critique: we have no right to invade and occupy Iraq.
Posted by Nevada_Ned on Aug 3, 2008 at 11:34 AM
Yeah, I think you’re right, Nevada. I’m over 40 now, and what "never ceases to amaze me" is how "polite" conversation (even among leftish/alternative "Nation"-reader type of folks) turns on just this point. Everyone has to sort of agree that the US is a "force for good in the world" (etc.). See Obama’s "Audacity," for example. He quickly states that he tuned in to the exact moment, in college dorm conversations, where things get "too" victim-ish and blame-America-first-ish. He’s not into that, he writes (signal to the establishment: I won’t engage Israel/Palestine or Venezuela, Cuba, or whatever country in a FUNDAMENTALLY different or critical way). I.e. if "we" could have (e.g.) "done" Iraq in a nicer, SMARTER way, THEN "we" would be so much better off (blah, blah, blah). Chomsky’s critique has truly been the most MORAL, based on commonly held assumptions. For example: you can’t just invade a country and say "well, ‘the world is better off w/o Saddam Hussein, so there’" and feel like that wins the argument. The "Nation" readership? They will say (in conversation with young vets, FOX newsfans, and whomever) "yeah, we/the world ARE ‘better off,’ BUT, it could have ‘been handled’ so much better." The RIGHT
TO AGGRESSION: as long as it’s "handled" well, as long as it WINS, as long as it can be SOLD as "moral"– very few question that.— This explains why so many who are progressives know about and mention and cite Chomsky, but precious few really read him, and so many get drawn into these morally repulsive presuppositions . . ."We’ve just destroyed the country, and it may never recover. "
Well to be fair, one might wish to recall that the country was pretty dysfunctional before the invasion.
"If we apply the same principle to ourselves, if the surge succeeds, it’s just a worse crime."
Well now, if a cop breaks into a house and stops a rape, then is that a worse crime too? Iraqi’s were essentially being held hostage in their own country. Our failure was that we did not improve their situation. One can point at specific errors that were made, but success – via freedom – is still the metric of success.
"leading them to be independent of the U.S., so you’ve got to watch out."
The domino effect is better described as the enslavement of entire countries, as amply demonstrated via the defunct Soviet empire. This is what we opposed with freedom as the alternative.
The real taboo question is: how many excess deaths would occur if Iraq had obtained nukes and either used them directly or provided them to anti-west groups?
"the press is owned by wealthy men who have every reason not to want certain ideas to be expressed. "
Appropriate (if somewhat humorous) thoughts for a 79 year old, but naive in todays wired world.
Posted by wolf on Jul 29, 2008 at 2:34 PM
re: wolfy comments
Yes it was dysfunctional by a decade of illegal sanctions enforced by the US, one might wish to remember that as well. And your agrument for pre-emptive war falls to pieces.."if a cop breaks into a house and stops a rape….is that a worse crime?"
If you want to apply the Iraq war to this twisted logic it would be better to say "If a cop bombs a house where he thinks a rape might be happening…is that a worse crime ?"
How about that fact that the US sold Hussein his weapons arsenal in the 1980’s is a worse crime no ? the ones he used against Kurds and the Iranians ? "how many excess deaths would occur if Iraq had obtained nukes and either used them directly or provided them to anti-west groups?" Iraq never had nukes and this is a well documented fact, along with the threat to the US which was never there until the illegal invasion, although if you watch FOX news you wouldnt know that. I wouldnt call Chomskys comments humorous or naive unless you have the resume and the intelligence he has, which i doubt judging by your comments. You probably think Iraq was behind 911 right ? hahaPosted by deezy on Jul 30, 2008 at 1:01 PM
I take up wolf’s remarks one by one
hopefully wolf can read this and think about it
re: "we’ve just destroyed the country . . . " wolf blithely says the country was "pretty dysfunctional" already. Say that’s true. Out of about 28 million, as a result of the war about 1 million were killed, and 4 million were made refugees (half inside the country, half outside). By wolf logic, since it was "pretty dysfunctional" the extreme carnage caused by us is of little moment, couldn’t possibly constitute destroying the country.
"if we apply . . . worse crime." wolf likens the US invasion and occupation to "stop[ping] a rape." How is that? We invaded to improve their lot, create freedom, he says. Really? Bush said it was to stop Saddam from getting WMD (he said it over and over). UN inspectors were going anywhere, anytime and not finding anything; Bush basically forced the inspectors out by moving in and bombing/invading the place. By wolf logic, it’s true by DEFINITION that the US is trying to impose/instill "freedom." What’s the substance of the "freedom"? Is it Freedom to be divided and ruled?
"leading them … watch out." Wolf needs some background on the Cold War, the concept of the Domino Effect, and Chomsy’s take on the Domino Effect. You see, during the Cold War, the idea was that the Russians take Vietnam today, then Japan (say) tomorrow. Many liberals downplayed this as exaggeration. Chomsky said No, there IS a "domino effect," actually, and that’s the threat of "independent nationalism," meaning, the Vietnamese take charge of their own affairs, and the next thing you know it’s Guatemalan peasants and lord knows who else doing it, too. THAT’S what the US wanted to stomp out (it had nothing to do with stopping the Russians, that was the excuse). No one ever said that e.g. USSR control over e.g. Czechoslovakia was in itself a "domino" or "domino effect" (what could that mean, Wolf?).
Wolf raises a hypothetical (viz., but what IF Iraq had obtained nukes?!). Pretty hard for it to do, actually, given that the US controlled the airspace, and given the intrusive inspections going on, etc. Colin Powell himself said, a few months before 9/11, that Saddam was "in his box," contained, not a threat to us. And it was pretty unlikely Saddam Hussein would try to acquire WMD, given that he’d ordered the stuff destroyed in 1994 or so. Saddam Hussein knew he’d be inviting a strike if he came close to developing major WMD. Also, he was trying to get out from under sanctions, precisely by allowing intrusive inspection to certify Iraq as WMD free (late ‘90s). (Finally, you think he’d "give" WMD to Al Qaeda?! Those guys hated him, and might have used it against him, for all he knew.)
Re: this hypothetical about nukes, you can always use it. E.g. What if Uzbekistan got a nuke? Scary! Let’s invade Uzbekistan!
re: the last comment on the "wired" world. What’s naive is to think that just because information can be "put out there" that that means much. What’s crucial is the DOMINANT frame of discourse. Example: politicians ("left" Democrats vs. "right" Republicans) debate on CNN or FOX about the meaning of the "success of the Surge." This presupposes that it’s a success, and furthermore, that if it really is a success, then that’s a GOOD thing. The presupposition is INSTILLED in the very discussion. Result? If Chomsky were to go on CNN and say "that the Surge ‘worked’ is all the more reason to oppose it," he (truly) would NOT BE UNDERSTOOD by his interviewers.
Finally, the "79 year-old" wisecrack is frankly AGEIST, just as saying "that comment might be ok for a woman" would be SEXIST.
Posted by mffanaddict on Jul 31, 2008 at 12:35 AM
Congratulations to ITT for running the Chomsky interview. Too many articles, in both the alternative and mainstream press, are based on a merely tactical critique of the war ("is it working?") instead of a fundamental critique: we have no right to invade and occupy Iraq.
Posted by Nevada_Ned on Aug 3, 2008 at 11:34 AM
Yeah, I think you’re right, Nevada. I’m over 40 now, and what "never ceases to amaze me" is how "polite" conversation (even among leftish/alternative "Nation"-reader type of folks) turns on just this point. Everyone has to sort of agree that the US is a "force for good in the world" (etc.). See Obama’s "Audacity," for example. He quickly states that he tuned in to the exact moment, in college dorm conversations, where things get "too" victim-ish and blame-America-first-ish. He’s not into that, he writes (signal to the establishment: I won’t engage Israel/Palestine or Venezuela, Cuba, or whatever country in a FUNDAMENTALLY different or critical way). I.e. if "we" could have (e.g.) "done" Iraq in a nicer, SMARTER way, THEN "we" would be so much better off (blah, blah, blah). Chomsky’s critique has truly been the most MORAL, based on commonly held assumptions. For example: you can’t just invade a country and say "well, ‘the world is better off w/o Saddam Hussein, so there’" and feel like that wins the argument. The "Nation" readership? They will say (in conversation with young vets, FOX newsfans, and whomever) "yeah, we/the world ARE ‘better off,’ BUT, it could have ‘been handled’ so much better." The RIGHT
TO AGGRESSION: as long as it’s "handled" well, as long as it WINS, as long as it can be SOLD as "moral"– very few question that.— This explains why so many who are progressives know about and mention and cite Chomsky, but precious few really read him, and so many get drawn into these morally repulsive presuppositions . . .Posted by mffanaddict on Aug 3, 2008 at 10:30 PM
"Well to be fair, one might wish to recall that the country was pretty dysfunctional before the invasion."
etcetera etcetera
Oh Wolf. It’s sad to see you are still flogging the same old points about the illegal attack, invasion and occupation of Iraq. Pretty soon I expect you will be calling it the other good war.
Getting back to your assertion that Iraq was dysfunctional … surely you are aware that before 1991 US led hostilities against Iraq it was one of the most modernized countries in the region? It was only after the ‘91 war and subsequent sanctions (which likey killed many more innocent civilians than the war itself) coupled with the so called no fly zones and the accompanying low level bombing campaigns that the country of Iraq was rendered dysfunctional .
"Well now, if a cop breaks into a house and stops a rape, then is that a worse crime too?"
Puhhhhlease spare me this drivel! If we want to talk about crimes lets talk about the war crime committed every time an American or British soldier uses a depleted uranium bullet/bomb.
Posted by Jiminy Cricket on Aug 7, 2008 at 11:31 PM
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