Libya: Chomsky on the hypocrisy of western intervention

[liamev21]

i hate the euro star advert!

[Dtchmastrkilla7]

hey this video doesn't work

[AbuAmanah]

To all those so called "rebels" in Libya, I have a message for you! Remember Iraq? Afghanistan? Diego Garcia? Finally always remember that "if you go to bed with American you will get F****D".

Col Qaddafi gave u FREE education & health care, medicine including treatment abroad, FREE housing. FREE land & seeds to farmers, HIGHEST standard of living in Africa, $500 to every citizen last year, $50,000 to EVERY newly married couple!

Qaddafi paid your Nation, now you will pay Washington & London!

[FLARE95127]

@AbuAmanah You forgot Paris as well.

[loccoptic]

@AbuAmanah qaddafi had to go but the people that are replacing him are worse

[Sockfaces]

@loccoptic They haven't been in power for even a year. Give them some time (at least a year) before you make a judgement. They have a golden opportunity to change Libya for the better. I'm pretty pessimistic as well but lets just wait and see.

[loccoptic]

@Sockfaces i dunno dude i mean im thinking middle eastern and rab countries should have a strong democracy with strongly held principles and high levels of freedom of speech concience and press which can allowed them to stay on their own feet

[MillionthUsername]

@lewrites I didn't get it from there, but thanks for the link. I read the comment. The subsidy he receives is through Pentagram funding of his department. I learned the info from excerpts of that man's book, Do As I Say (Not As I Do).

The commenter said he is not anti-market, but he clearly is! For one, he claims that gov't run healthcare is MORE EFFICIENT than free market! That is the craziest thing I ever heard. He also makes it clear that he thinks real libertarians are fascists! He's a nut

[xMaXiMuSx]

Chomsky is foolish.. It's US intelligence who are organized it.. Saudi Arabia is hardly a US pupept anymore... They are moving closer and closer to China and Russia.. He is supper intelligent but he seems the miss the big geopolitical shift of Saudi Arabia.. He does NOT seem to understand the tactics the US of sponsoring and orchestrating these protests usnig social media facebooks and CIA fronts like NED and Freedom Hose.. he is not credible on this issue..

[MillionthUsername]

Chomsky should know about hypocrisy. He's been funded by the Pentagon for decades.

[truthslap]

@MillionthUsername how is he a hypocrite exactly? he's been forthright about his position at MIT being funded by the pentagon, funding that in no way disrupted his work or his anti-war efforts, including organizing mass draft resistance and tax resistance against the war, going to jail for it many times. also there's his incomparable body of work, which has earned the genuine respect and admiration of millions around the globe. your criticism is pretty childish.

[MillionthUsername]

@truthslap He's "anti-war" and has called the Pentagon "the most evil institution on earth," yet he has CHOSEN to work for them over DECADES and make MILLIONS off the backs of the workers who are forced to support it and him through coerced taxation. He is EXPLOITING taxpayers.

The man claims to be an anarchist and a socialist. He talks about people organizing AGAINST both the state and "capitalism." But he greedily participates in getting his disproportionate share of the loot. Hypocrite.

[truthslap]

@MillionthUsername If even a tiny fraction of that blood-money instead goes to our top academic institutions and finds its way to the important educators, dissidents and philosophers of our era, isn't that a thousand times preferable to it all going to the wealthy elite and the military-industrial complex? The Pentagon does exploit "taxpayers", welcome to corprotocratic plutocracy sir, that has NOTHING to do with Prof. Chomsky's modest salary at MIT. You are being a detriment to the cause.

[MillionthUsername]

@truthslap So everyone should get their piece of the "blood-money," right? If I'm "anti-war," I should become a defense contractor? If I'm an "anarchist," I should work for the state? If I'm for peace, I should work for the War Machine? If I'm a socialist, I should live like a capitalist? If I am in favor of social programs and say the rich should be taxed, I should set up trusts for the specific purpose of tax avoidance if I got rich telling everyone what a humble socialist I am? Get real.

[truthslap]

@MillionthUsername Chomsky doesn't work for the state, he works through the University System in the interest of funding his work, Chomsky works for the minds of the global population, he speaks for the indigenous, the poor, the working class, and he teaches at one of the most prestigious institutions of higher education in the world. you are the one who's not being "real", what would YOU do to better serve the anti-war movement?

[MillionthUsername]

@truthslap Denying the truth doesn't it make it go away. He is funded by the Pentagon. You know, the evil military industrial complex that he rails against? He has no problem feeding at the public trough from what he calls "the most evil institution," thus exploiting all the taxpayers who have to pay for his tax-funded cushy life as a social parasite.

The man claims to be a radical. His rhetoric is meaningless since he is clearly NOT a radical, but a rich privileged capitalist in real life.

[truthslap]

@MillionthUsername Nobody here is in denial but you. You are purposely ignoring Chomsky's entire life's work, his contributions, his constant giving of his time and devotion to the people's movement around the world. there is no better known dissident in our time, no greater hero of the poor and exploited, while you sit at home on your ass, bitterly trying to poke holes in this tireless scholar's career. again, what have you done for the anti-war movement? I'd wager a whole lot of nothing.

[MillionthUsername]

@truthslap Giving of his time? You mean the $12k he charges to speak? He even raised his rates from $9k to $12k after 9/11 when he was suddenly in demand. That is capitalism. What dissident? He works for the PENTAGON! He's no dissident when he speaks in Cuba, is he? What about Castro's political prisoners? Exploited? He exploits all of us, feeding off the public trough. He's a multimillionaire defense contractor. He shields he avoids taxation even as "capitalists" are called "greedy" for such.

[truthslap]

@MillionthUsername EVERY writer and lecturer charges to speak, that's how they partition their time and helps fund their work. One last time you confused, bitter soul, Chomsky works for the University System (not the Pentagon), he's not a "defense contractor" (you should have a job on FOX). Please don't mention Cuba, you don't know what you're talking about there. One last time, what have YOU done for the anti-war movement? Nothing? Then get the hell on with your bitter ignorance.

[MillionthUsername]

@truthslap "EVERY writer and lecturer charges to speak, that's how they partition their time and helps fund their work"

Of course! And every employer pays wages to workers. Chomsky is no different than anybody else. He's no radical socialist or anarchist. He makes millions off that pose. Give me a break.

Why should I not mention Cuba or China or Vietnam? Is it because Chomsky praises such places and is no longer "dissident" in the presence of tyrants?

[flybynight420]

@MillionthUsername In fairness I think Chomsky dontates his speaker fee.

[MillionthUsername]

@flybynight420 I don't know if he donates his fees. But the fact is that he does not socialize his wealth. He clings to it as all rational people do. He has not socialized his dept at MIT, has he? Does he share his salary with his secretary or staff? He's the one who preaches all the socialist nonsense, not me. I have no problem with him making money. It's just that he claims to believe one thing, but lives in the opposite way. But that kind of hypocrisy doesn't seem to register with many.

[nocturnezero]

@MillionthUsername I'm not going to spend much time defending Noam Chomsky because I don't think it's very important to protect an individual person, as much as I do appreciate his writing; I should point out, however, that he's not a property owner, who are the real people who we Socialists and Anarchists think should have their wealth expropriated. He publishes through collectivist printing presses and in cooperatively-run magazines.

[nocturnezero]

@MillionthUsername More importantly, demonizing him for his wealth and notably Capitalist methods of sale and distribution does not invalidate his points in any way, so it can serve only the misleading practice of ad hominem attack or some strange personal obsession with Chomsky's character rather than his content. And it's frequently understood that even Socialists must operate on Capitalist terms in a Capitalist world - Capitalism is too integrated in many aspects of society to do without.

[ahmed337799]

Would you be so kind to tell me where you got this from Sinbad?

[edeneye808]

Too lazy to post the post the source of this interview?

[jxhensley]

Pay no attention to the Gaza bombing behind the wall

[grungeface87]

Thanks for posting this 1001, I was waiting to see what Chomsky had to say about it all.

[skuflix]

To bomb Lybia or not to bomb? At SkuFlix, we're split. But trust ole Noam to come up with an answer. That's his job! We certainly didn't support bombing Serbia: the remoteness, the innocent victimes...

[skuflix]

To bomb Lybia or not to bomb? At SkuFlix, we're split. But trust ole Noam to come up with an answer. That's his job!

[punxsutawneybarney]

For some perspective, take note that Dr. Chomsky recently told Iranian TV that when the US attacked Afghanistan they had no evidence that al Qaeda was guilty of 9/11. See my video "Chomsky on Faith-Based Wars and 9/11"

[BedBugAcres]

Well, we'll see, won't we? Would Chomsky have predicted that US lapdog Mubarak would fall before US foe Ghadafi? Or that US would do nothing to prop Mubarak up? And since when is Yemen in the same class as Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia?

And who predicted this "Arab Spring" at all? I you didn't feel a little humbled about how history bedevils expectations after the fall of the Soviet bloc, there's no excuse now. But Chomsky knows no humility.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres You are forgetting that in Egypt the army is in control, and the Egyptian army is controlled by the US. Nobody can predict such events with any certainty, and Chomsky has never purported that he could.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano Why would you assume that I had forgotten that the military is in charge right now? Should I assume that YOU have forgotten that Egypt just had a successful constitutional plebiscite? And Chomsky is acting like his old smug self over Bahrain versus Libya as tough the whole thing isn't an amazing surprise.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano Let's see how things play out. There are protest movements in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, three very disparate places with very different histories with the west in recent decades. I personally would expect the Yemeni regime to be the most vulnerable, but also suspect that there will be major changes in Bahrain before there will be in Syria, for a mixture of reasons. I am prepared to be wrong.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano It would just be refreshing if guru Chomsky would simply admit that the very complexities that make these major upheavals harder to predict than earthquakes also preclude the possibility of pat, off the rack post hoc analysis of offering much real insight. Political analysts of all stripes remind me of sports analysts who spend all Monday explaining why the teams that won on Sunday won and then predict next week's winners at no better than chance rates. Noodleheads, all.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres So what exactly are you suggesting? It's impossible to understand anything that's going on in the world so we should just shoot up heroin and hope for the best?

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano Well, you sure are the master of the utter non sequitur, aren't you?

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres I'm taking your point to the logical conclusion: events are too unpredictable, political analysis is as worthless as sports commentary, so it's pointless to try connect the dots and draw theoretical frameworks to understand the world. Since they are all "noodleheads" what would be a rational approach according to you? Btw middle eastern upheaval was hardly unpredictable, just like the recent economic crisis.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano Shooting heroin is the logical conclusion of being exasperated with cock sure "analysts" who keep prattling on as event after event unfolds that they and their supposed deep vision foresaw no better than the average joe at the bus stop???

If anything can be compared to sitting around a shooting gallery, it's this disembodied all theory, no action, and not very good theory at that that Chomsky and his sycophants practice.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres You still failed to show me how a rational and active person would respond to such unfolding events. I really don't see anything controversial about what Chomsky said here, western powers pick and choose where to intervene based on very venal agendas, what's so strange about that?

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano What, now you want me to respond with some alternative pat answers? It sucks that the world is so complex, but it is. For the record, I support this intervention, but not without significant anxiety. I'm glad to see that there was some movement today towards a power transfer in Yemen. In Bahrain, there are sectarian and related geopolitical fears in play that range from the not irrational to the utterly paranoid and creepy. But the status quo is untenable throughout the region.

[BedBugAcres]

@BedBugAcres ... and therefore wrong. Which means the only right action ever is non-intervention. OK, radical non-interventionism is nothing new and has been espoused by a motley crew of conservatives, libertarians and leftists. But if its going to be taken seriously in an increasingly small and interconnected world, you better have a better argument for it than "saving those people is hypocritical given other actions you've taken, so don't save them".

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Oh yeah, US intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan is manna from heaven. They are so free now, they just can't wait to join the Union and build statues of Liberty. If this were about helping the population then the Western forces would limit themselves to what they were ASKED, namely keeping Gaddafi planes (that we supplied) DOWN, not carpet bombing the country as they are doing.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano And if his ground forces continue to advance? Then what? Besides, what evidence do you have that the coalition is "carpet bombing" the country? As far as I can tell, the mission seems pretty limited. Some want to expand it. Others don't. And while there's been more than a bit of horror in Iraq and Pakistan post-invasion, the fall of the Taliban is on balance not a bad thing.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Do you hear yourself? Who gave nukes to Pakistan? Who armed funded and trained the Taliban AND Bin Laden? But then who paid the highest cost of such irresponsible criminal meddling? The fall of the Taliban IS comparably a bad thing since they were better than the Northern Alliance mobsters that are back into power flooding the world in heroin.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano No one per se "gave" nukes to Pakistan. The US trained and funded Bin Laden's resistance to the Soviets and the Soviet catastrophe in Afghanistan was the beginning of the end for the entire Soviet bloc, who were a much bigger threat to the world than Al Qaeda can even dream of being. The Taliban emerged from the post-Soviet scramble for power in Afghanistan and while many of them were no doubt part of the anti-Soviet resistance, so were the feuding warlords they displaced.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres This is a myth. The Soviets were toast by the mid 70s and they did it all by themselves. As you like to state yourself, oppressive and corrupt regimes tend to be untenable. The Brezsinsky bragging about his great job with the Mujahiddin is just delusional. Note that the US continued to support the Taliban economically even after the fall of the Soviets, all the way up to 9/11 when they took the pretext to blow the place a new asshole.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano Oh yeah, I remember all the intellectual left singing in chorus back in the 1970s that the Soviets were already toast. That's why everyone just giggled when they invaded Afghanistan. You bet, Yes, their system was ultimately untenable, but until the Afghanistan reversal, the only regime changes involving communists were previously non-communist nations going communist. Once that one precedent was set, the whole thing finally started to implode in earnest.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Taking for true, which it is clearly not, that it was Afghanistan that melted the soviets, would you still consider it moral to arm, pay and train Islamic fundamentalists to provoke a civil war and Soviet intervention? Would you consider it moral to then lash out and continue the destruction once the puppet terrorists you created turn against you? How do you defend this? Was it good to get rid of the soviets by torching a random country for decades?

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano You listen neither to what I am saying nor what you yourself have said and ask wannabe rhetorical questions chock full of presupposition failures. Afghanistan was unstable for decades before the Soviet intervention, and I know decent people who felt the Soviet intervention would improve conditions there. Well, it may have, but never had the chance. But Afghanistan didn't "melt" the Soviet Union, but it created huge discontent and also revealed a weakness in the Soviets never seen ...

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Incredible that you accuse me of not paying attention. Let me restate my previous question in case you missed it: let us assume that Afghanistan was even more crucial than what you state, let's assume, for argument's sake, that it was the one and only cause for the fall of the Soviet empire. Were, then, American actions in Afghanistan - before, during and after the Soviet occupation - morally acceptable and justified?

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano I already answered that. On balance, yes. "On balance justified" doesn't mean "100% justified with no qualms whatsoever". The world doesn't work that way, which is one of the things that make Uncle Noam's thinking kit so relentlessly unsatisfactory. And over and above what one might reasonably conclude are the negative costs of refusing to do nothing have been some quite gargantuan sins of commission as well. I don't have to condone everything just because I condone the main gist.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres The main gist is geopolitical power dynamics, which you condone as morally right. It's funny how much more shrewd we are when dealing with events further down history. We understand full well that the concern to spread roads and law was not what motivated Rome as it crushed and manipulated its allies and enemies, yet against all evidence we are still willing to believe the incoherent excuses of the US govt.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano ... before, which emboldened others down the road. And when the anti-Soviet uprising itself took place, Gorbachev had no stomach for using the tactics that had failed in Afghanistan on his own citizens or on those of allied Warsaw states. Had the Soviets cruised to the easy victory they (and more than a few other people) clearly anticipated in Afghanistan, do you really think the rest of late 20th century history would be the same?

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano And hold a plebiscite amongst Iraqi Kurds and see what they think of that intervention. Complex responses to complex problems inspire a complex web of reactions. Meanwhile, if the US-friendly Egyptian military had reacted even half as barbarically as dutiful anti-colonialist Gadhafi's, you guys would be screeching "See! See! The US is behind this atrocity!" But the fact that the US-friendly military in fact sealed Mubarak's fate by refusing to fire means ... nothing to you guys.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Haha, the Kurds? The same that were gassed and killed by US weapons both by Saddam when he was a US lapdog and the Turks that funneled the most US weapons throughout their genocide? Yes, let's ask the Kurds, please, I beg you. And Egypt? My hopes are with the people and my skepticism with the military remains, at least until real change has happened there. The simple fact that the military literally owns half the country is shady in it of itself.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano Ok, go ask the Kurds and be prepared to be surprised. And I too am wary of the position the military holds in Egypt at this time, but without their recent actions and INactions, freedom in Egypt wouldn't be even a theoretical possibility at this point.

If everyone who isn't an angel is a devil and all devils are created equal, then yeah, whatever happens in this world is all some huge ugly quasi-Satanic horror and no amount of facile verbiage from MIT will change that.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano I tend to be skeptical of all groups and movements, but have some residual faith that more complex the freely competing interests in society are, the healthier the whole society tends to be. And the same extends to global society. The world's main problem of high population is itself the effect of many, many smaller problems being dealt with better and better. And the problem in developed countries of aging populations due to lower birth rate suggests the main problem is at least...

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano ...somewhat self-limiting. Problems galore remain and there's more than enough things in the world to feel glum about. But Gaddafi on the run due to NATO intervention really, really isn't one of them.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Overpopulation is just the side-effect of a technological development that is neither sustainable nor accompanied with social and institutional development. We are chimps with nukes, and rule our societies as gorillas would - alpha on the top getting first pick on food and females, everyone else on the bottom, competing for that top spot or competing for the bread-crumbs that fall off the silverback's mouth... It's that winner-loser dichotomy that dominates all discourse in the US.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano "Just a side effect of technological development." Wow. Among those side effects are better shelter, less hunger, lower mortality in general, longer life expectancies. You know, just the flotsam and jetsam of technological development. Nothing that anyone ever worked assiduously to achieve or anything. And it's precisely because "losers" don't pay with their young lives like they used to that the population has grown by such leaps and bounds.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Yeye, This fairytale about technological progress is so full of shit it makes me feel like a rat in the sewers of Calcutta whenever I hear it. It's just the ultimate, most glaring proof of how little some people understand about human happiness and history.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano Um, you were the one who brought up technological development as an explanatory thesis. I don't disagree that technological development is a large part of why mortality rates are lower and life spans therefore higher, but think it's at least misleading to say that these effects are mere "side effects". But enjoy scrambling around those sewers! If you can change your species as quickly and easily as you seem able to change your opinion, you might just pull this trick off!

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres No I did not, you missed the point entirely. My explanatory thesis was that as long as the balance of POWER does not change, technology will not make matters better and might in fact make them worse. That is why I referred to overpopulation as a side-effect. Technology is value neutral, it just amplifies the social and moral tendencies of those who employ it.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano But lower mortality and longer life expectancy, not to mention broadly experienced and quite dramatic gains in standard of living have already HAPPENED - indeed, so much so that a major unintended negative consequence has become impossible to ignore. There are moral COMPLEXITIES in play here, but technological development has not been morally neutral ever, let alone of late. And these latest technologies have indeed disrupted power asymmetries. Do try to pay attention.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Morality is far less complex than pundits make it out to be. It's ideology's job to cloud our perception of the just. What is complex is the interplay of technology and power, because it is essentially another field in the eternal battle between power and ethics.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano And it means nothing because you guys, like almost all post hoc, hip sot analysts, reach conclusions largely by cherry picking the data you will consider.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Intervention is not off the table, it is simply THE LAST OPTION, requiring extensive justification. In countless examples US military adventures have been launched on justifications and excuses that were unquestionably proven to be manufactured ad-hoc and motivated solely by economic and geo-political aims.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano Was Gadhafi's slaughter of the protesters a manufactured pretext? Yes/no. No waffling. 

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Are you aware that this untenable status quo serves precise US geopolitical objectives and that Western powers will do whatever they can to keep them as they are or worse? Or is the amply available historical record of such maneuvers not eloquent enough?

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano The world has changed a lot over the past decades and what people could realistically get away with as of not long ago at all - or at least THOUGHT they could - continues to evolve. Do try to keep up. Indeed, if there's one thing that the "Arab spring" has demonstrated is how hard it is for old power structures to withstand the new information age. Youtube, Facebook and Twitter plus new media like Al Jazeera have quickly done more for the world than decades of Chomskyan mumbling

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Oh my goodness, facebook and twitter caused the revolution, do you work in the US media perchance? How about decades of economic decay sponsored by the US coming to their logical conclusion at home and abroad?

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano I work in an animal shelter. Anyway, the new media with their relative lack of gatekeepers (or at least presence of new gatekeepers with alternate agendas) unquestionably facilitated the uprisings. If you resist this lesson as you uphold tired old revolutionary orthodoxies, you will REALLY be left behind. But you are setting up just about the most bogus dichotomy I've ever seen. Obviously, economic injustices and lack of opportunity were MOTIVATIONS. The new media were TOOLS.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Most people in those countries don't even have internet access, live on 2 dollars a day and have trouble buying bread - much less a PC. While the new media certainly had a role, it's been hugely overstated by our OLD media. To me it's just another example of masturbatory Western self-complacency. Just as we high-five each other when talking about our democracies while the US has a distribution of wealth comparable to China's...

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano What does this have to do with complacency. It is an observation that these tools aided the uprisings, an observation made by more than a few participants. Their word is rather more compelling than yours. And I didn't notice anyone in the west congratulating themselves. I've seen a lot of people express genuine awe at what these people have achieved and feel it myself.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Oh genuine awe? Sure, ignorance makes for easy awe. The US media fail consistently to mention that the people are rebelling against a US sponsored status-quo, but overplay the fact that they manage to rebel thanks to US technology. Doesn't this manipulated information just make it all the easier for the American public to believe that their country stands for freedom and democracy internationally?

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano How many people do you personally know who have stood up in the face of massive, unrestrained and extremely hostile gunfire? It's not ignorance but knowledge that inspires awe in me. Ignorance seems to be inspiring condescension in you.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Why must you resort to such corny rhetoric? It's painful to read. As I have stated before, my respect goes to the people of those countries and their struggle, but that is besides the point. My point was about misinformation and the illusion that the US is there to help, against all historical evidence.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano Corny rhetoric? Mocking the awe I feel for people who have faced something neither you nor I have ever had to then counts as what? It is for sure "painful to read", truly cringe-worthy. Anyway, the closest I've come to something similar is keeping my cool once when someone threatened to get a gun and shoot and once when a street criminal put a gun in my face, and on a purely selfish basis, I'd rather relive those than dodge Qaddafi's planes.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Again, refrain from such comments, whatever feeling you might have for the rebels' struggles I'm quite sure we share at least in part. My point, stated twice already, was about the minimization of the deleterious role played by the US in the region and the magnification of the role of US tech in the people's struggle in order to present the usual "Us=FREEDOOOOM" propaganda line so clearly disproved by the facts.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano The refutation of the US = Freedom For All line was old news decades ago. The US has clearly been on the wrong side of many global issues and even when on the right side, US citizens collectively and individually have often behaved appallingly. While I support both arming the rebels against the Soviets and the later overthrow of the Taliban in in Afghanistan, the recent trial of soldiers who killed civilians for sport demonstrate just how monstrous US citizens and military can be.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres You support the arming and later overthrow of the Taliban? So you are ok with deliberately fomenting Islamic fundamentalism and sparking 2 bloody wars and terrorism against US civilians for purely geopolitical reasons, but somehow you are shocked by rogue US soldiers? How do you compartmentalize these things in your brain in order to miss the connections?

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano Get your history straight. The Taliban were relative late comers. The Afghans themselves at first welcomed them because of the chaos of the feuding warlords. But things went horrible in short order. Afghanistan has been a cauldron of unrest for centuries. Even the Soviet invasion followed an internal coup. There were wars and invasions and ethnic hatreds and class conflicts looong before there even was a US.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Are you then saying that there is no relation between US-sponsored Mujahideen and the Taliban? Both the Northern Alliance and the Taliban power is the direct effect of US policy in the region: the Northern Alliance warlords are sponsored up to this day and are notoriously WORSE than the Taliban (who, brutal, insane and fundamentalist as they are AT LEAST cleaned up the drug trafficking), while the Taliban themselves were sponsored all the way up to the invasion.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano No, I never said there was no connection. I can count three connections: (1) Some early Taliban were no doubt part of the resistance that the US helped train and arm; (2) Although the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan was a causal factor in the dissolution of the Soviet block (good thing), it left a state of chaos in Afghanistan (bad thing) into which the Taliban were able to insert themselves as welcome bringers of order (worse thing); (3) The US allies itself with Saudi Arabia (yuck),

[BedBugAcres]

... and the Saudis and the Wahhabist madrases they fund spawned the Taliban quite directly. But these connections don't add up to the Taliban being akin to US clients doing US bidding. Far from it. It's in the very nature of alliances that you can create critically important alliances to make common cause against a common foe with all sorts of people you otherwise don't like and who don't like you. The US was, after all, allied with the Soviets themselves in WW2, and that too was a net positive

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano Meanwhile, a good example of a morally justified incursion that did not involve the US directly was the Vietnamese overthrow of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. It was hardly a clean operation, triggering as it did a very long civil war. But the status quo was outrageous even by 20th century standards. Were the Vietnamese motives purely noble? Of course not. No one's ever is. But the effect was a net positive. (Btw, has Chomsky ever admitted how wrong he was about the Khmer Rouge?)

[burningcitreon]

@BedBugAcres ; Yes, Chomsky has since said he was wrong, it is one of his many, many papers.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres You have a suspicious tendency to focus your historical lens rather narrowly. The US contributed vitally both in setting the stage for Khmer Rouge takeover AND to making the Vietcong a brutally efficient fighting force.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano Oh, absolutely! If there ever was a worst case scenario of US interventionism, Cambodia was it, even more so than Vietnam itself in many ways. All I'm saying is that once what happened happened, it was better for the Vietnamese to intervene than not intervene.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres And what I am saying is that bad policy breeds bad policy with consequences that spin totally out of control. Likewise it was probably good and just to intervene to stop the Nazis, but the Nazis themselves were mainly the children of bankrupt British Imperial policy. Once you make a mess, you must clean it up as best you can, but you certainly can't boast about it. Much justifiable interventionism by an historical actor was the consequence of his own unjustified interventionism.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano No argument there! I'm just emphasizing that just as "some interventions are justified" obviously does not entail "all interventions are justified", "some interventions are unjustified" equally fails to entail "all interventions are not justified" and this not just in theory, but practice. IOW, conceding the point in principle butin fact opposing every intervention because so-and-so did such-and-such elsewhere before (or failed to do such-and-such, for that matter) isn't good enough.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano And you seemed to be suggesting in an earlier post that Qaddafi was/is a client of the west in general and the US in particular, You cheapen the case against these arrangements in the many unsavory cases in which such relations do hold when you cast the allegation about with such reckless disregard for the truth.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres What I think about Gaddafi is stated quite clearly in an earlier post ending with a bit of Virgilian thought.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano Quick question: Would you switch places with a citizen of China who inhabits the same percentile of relative wealth over there as you do over here?

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Yes, be content with struggling to catch the breadcrumbs that fall off your lord's table. Of course the Chinese have a low living standard, but US citizens could enjoythe standard of living of Luxembourg or Norway. Instead I walk through Harlem, in one of the richest metropolis on earth and I see a kind of misery that you can see in Albania, so widespread and vast it causes a deep sense of revulsion. And then you read that 11% of US homes are vacant...

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano Once again you make an assumption about me. Why do you assume I'm content about anything? As for places like Harlem, any analysis that doesn't take into account how and why small businesses have kept being driven out of the inner city is, to say the least, incomplete. But that's nowhere near as gratifying as cursing the "lords", eh? Same old prattle from the left for decades on end and they wonder why they get ignored.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Haha at least I answered your cheap rhetorical question, you seem to dodge my questions like bullets in the Matrix... So, the US, the foremost economy in the world, has the distribution of wealth of a 3rd world country and standards of living comparable or worse than MUCH poorer European countries because of small business being driven out of inner cities?

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano The US economy ranks 4th re standard of living. The economies ahead of it are "poorer" in the sense that they are smaller. But the countries are also vastly less populous. As for distribution, no, discrepencies aren't anywhere near totally explained by the scarcity of small business in the inner city, but quite a bit about locally severe, entrenched poverty is indeed so explained. Only those who care more about ideology than helping people catch uo would be so dismissive.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano So what I would LIKE to see is some realism over the fact that these untenable regimes are going to fall one way or another. Best to ally oneself sooner than later with the agents of change. How best to effect that? I wish I had better answers, but mumbling back and forth with a bunch of self-impressed intellectual halfwits isn't gonna do it.

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres So you see no hypocrisy in supporting totalitarian regimes when they are profitable and toppling them by drowning countries in blood when they are no longer useful? You don't have better answers than Chomsky, like all of us powerless peons. We have no answers because as long as we are divided and call each other halfwits we are utterly powerless.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano Do you ever think even a little bit before posting? What on earth would make you think that I don't see hypocrisy in supporting one totalitarian regime while toppling another? There's more than hypocrisy involved. The decision not to engage North Korea while going into Iraq may have included hypocrisy, but it also included strategic decision making re which situation was more likely to result in a catastrophic misadventure, which country is all but beyond economic hope, etc, etc

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Oh so we don't engage the evil N Koreans because of shrewed military-tactical considerations, then what is stopping us from intervening in the Congo? And what "economic hope" did we leave in South America, South East Asia and the middle east? The remains of Anglo-American imperialism are the most wretched countries in the world, and whatever wealth they have, it is strangely funneled back to New York. Do you fail to see the connection there?

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano You don't think fears over the North Korean nuclear program and their leadership's likely willingness to unleash that fury has something to do with the reluctance to engage? But it's not JUST that. The indeed purely cynical calculation is what do you have once you liberate North Korea? The ONLY way in which North Korea matters right now is as a threat to South Korea and then Japan. At this point, a military engagement is likely to make that worse not better. Hey, this ain't noble ...

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres N Korea will stand so long as it is held up by China, and that's that. I'm sure that US planners have though long and hard about possible toppling of NK, it's simply impossible as things are now because it would surely mean the destruction of Seoul and likely some form of Chinese intervention. But their concern is as usual purely geopolitical, I'm sure half the planners in their cozy offices couldn't care less if them gooks burned all to hell.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano I suspect you are more or less right here. But I also suspect that China itself will likely intervene in the not too distant future.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano ... but it IS realistic. And consider your own role in the non-interventionism in other ares. It's a slam dunk certainty that certain elements on the right, the left and amongst libertarians will be hard core opposed to ANY intervention. Others will wonder, not unreasonably, what the "pay off" will be. There just isn't the political will in many, many cases. But at the end of the day, there are sins of omission just as surely as there are sins of commission. And the international

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres No brother, I'm sure there are sins of omission and commission, what you are not getting is that humanitarian concerns rank lower than Paris Hilton's menstrual cycle. IF and only IF there is something to gain in terms of hegemony will intervention happen, and ONLY in the shape and form that guarantees the most money to the military industrial complex - the only real industrial infrastructure the US can still boast about. History is just crystal clear on this.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano That's simply too pat. The French may well have been eager for this Libyan thing - and by that I mean those currently in power in France. And Maybe Hillary Clinton was, too. But what I get from Obama is that he set up some conditions that he was surprised were met. And of course there are those horrible war mongering Republicans who are all but universally opposed. No, I think it's much more realistic to say that the events in Tunisia and Egypt and the early success of the rebels in

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano ... in Libya plus a long term anger and disgust with Gaddafi (his rhetoric, his role in Lougherbie, etc) plus intense media coverage made his actions a lot harder to blandly accept than grinding oppression as usual tends to be. There was and is a sense that the world was suddenly looking a lot brighter when Gaddafi threatened to turn out the lights with a vengeance. And there was and is a feeling that he can be beat at his own game. So intervention happened, as it sometimes does ...

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres Let me make my position clear: Gaddafi is an insane maniac that needs to be got rid of. Because we supplied him with the weapons with which he was repressing his people, we also have a moral obligation to help the Libyans militarily. But to paraphrase Virgil's Aeneid, I'm afraid of the Western powers even as they bear gifts. History has shown MANY times that Western help can be worse than a Nationalist dictator's harm.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano ... indifference to situations like the Rwandan civil war represent the triumph of nothing but complacency.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano And as for my lack of solutions, hey, I admit to being befuddled as to what is best to do in many, many situations. It's called humility. Humility is widely practiced among those who turn themselves into publishing machines of anti-imperial platitudes and then try to pass it all off as deep and incisive wisdom and insight

[DonVoghano]

@BedBugAcres You wanna call that humility, go ahead, I call it sticking your head under the sand.

[BedBugAcres]

@DonVoghano My head isn't "under the sand" (the expression is "in the sand", and is based on a misunderstanding of ostrich behavior, btw). But it also isn't up the posterior of some dreary, bleary egomaniac "social critic" playing his one note tune of constant calls for inaction.

[BedBugAcres]

@BedBugAcres But let's for the moment stipulate that the Libyan intervention is in some sense and to some extent hypocritical. Fine. Does that and that alone mean it would have been better to sit on the sidelines and let Ghadafi annihilate the protesters, setting a precedent that more than undoes the precedents set in Tunisia and Egypt? That's what bothers me most about Chomsky. He has NO answers. He just bleats that since the US is not pure as the driven snow, everything it does is hypocritical

[thankqwerty]

Can a world without hypocrisy exist?

If you analyse this on a game theory level then there're really nothing controversial to talk about. I guess what I mean is that it's pointless to talk about the players, because they are within the game and have to follow the principles of game theory. What's worth talking is the game itself. If the rules of the game don't change, the players will never change.

[Diderooot]

The question of whether the West, despite all the blood on our hands, should have agreed to rebel demands of setting up a UN-approved no-fly zone is kind of irrelevant at the moment, since the UN-SC resolution that DID pass went far beyond that call. The resolution essentially approves anything from a no-fly zone to a ground invasion. The language about not allowing a foreign occupation is very weak, as Phyllis Bennis points out on Znet. The UN resolution should be strongly opposed.

[kurtilein3]

the audio is very bad, because it is present only on the left ear, that is really bad for people using headphones.

it would be great if you could fix this and re-upload. and never upload videos with audio only on one ear, in such a case at least make it so that both ears get the same audio.

[theH0UNDSofD00M]

Everyone will support assisting the Libyan "rebels", the reason is why do we take this stand in relation to Libya but not Bahrain, Yemen or Saudi Arabia.

[niriop]

We probably won't know for years whether or not establishing a no-fly zone over Libya was the lesser of two evils

[DeePhlat]

He's right, though I think chomsky still supports assisting the libyan rebels.

[bobomber]

Some call him a prophet, but really all he does is tell the truth.

[erdal0]

The subtitles are in dutch, What is the program/docu called?

[majorkron]

chomsky is right again

[albrecht1472]

Chomsky is a liberal nut

[acmilan93333]

@albrecht1472 lol he's not a liberal...

[thepigofhappiness]

This is being talked about everywhere and it doesn't take away from the fact that intervention in Libya was right.

It's just bitching about what else should be done, and I agree, but could he not have at least agreed that what has been done was right.

Complaints if we don’t intervene, complaints when we do because it's not in x, y, and z as well.

[majorkron]

@thepigofhappiness

the point he is making is its only right when it benefits us.

our allies can do all the wrong they want.

its a double standard.

[alger100]

@thepigofhappiness it's not "you" who is intervening , poor ass .

it's the oil lobbies for whom the Nato and US armies work .

[jeb31415]

This gives me a sick feeling in my gut. If someone was going to intervene, then it should not have been the US.

Would there be carnage if there was not an intervention? Yes, it overwhelmingly appears so, but we have no credibility left to participate in these things.

[worldlystone]

Cry cry cry.Nothing we ever do is good.

[alger100]

@worldlystone it's not "you" who is intervening .

[YuriKenobi]

Is there more of this interview?

[ZEITGEISTism]

LOL all of a sudden AND after 35yrs in power Gadaffi is now "da bad dictator "??? In a pigs eye he is !! LOL Here we go again same ol game plan by the usa and britian talk about exposing themselves AGAIN with their SAME ol formula ( eg covert ops to discredit a countries leader so they can get their filthy hands on that countries resources But good ol Gadaffi is fighting back And he and his country will win and overcome those yanky and British govt ..fuckers

[Badwolf182]

@ZEITGEISTism they say that WW3 would start in Mid East. Looks that way to me.

[AmericanNohbuddy]

@Badwolf182

It was either going to be the middle east or north korea anyway.

[ZEITGEISTism]

@Badwolf182

WHOA .....Dont look now my freind but ww3s has been going on for the last 40yrs! ! FACT ...! but shhh dont tell anyone will ya ? ! ( "covert operations " dats da name of the GAME LOL and its working well ! Hmm , but how come ??? Answer ? by dumbing da people down, thats how ! EG : buy buy bye "gadgets " (ipod , etc ) distraction is the name of the game same ol formula divide & destroy "by any means possible " what a load of CRAP fuck the "powers that BE " & all there sick kind !!

[Badwolf182]

@ZEITGEISTism I actually thought the start of the WW3 was the invasion of both Iraq/Afghanistan 10 yrs ago. Ppl dont relaise that it starts slowly and picks up momentum.

[Badwolf182]

@ZEITGEISTism I meant to ask why the last 40 yrs ?? 

[gratex]

attacking libya = smokescreen for doing nothing about bahrain/yemen/saud

[malayneum]

its Libya not Libia.

[Ti1nah]

I suspect that the main reason for this intervention as far as US, France and UK is concerned , is not empathy for Libya's civilian population. They all have a long history of killing Arabs in far greater numbers than Ghaddafi. Maybe they just couldn't let this chance of inflicting some more carnage pass them by. I wonder how many civilians their bombardment have killed in Libya so far.

[Badwolf182]

@Ti1nah 45 so far and its only early hours yet!

[NeonGlide]

Always hypocrisy in any Western intervention. I'm feeling for this set of folks on the ground, though. Must say, not too concerned with kaddaffi. Bahrain really needs attention and they are so up Uncle Sam's ass.

[NeonGlide]

@NeonGlide *Gadhafi (I really should learn that).

[highway234]

@NeonGlide i don't think there's actually a set spelling for it. so go nuts.

[MrSunlander]

@NeonGlide back in the 80s everyone in press agreed on Quadaffi, but now it is open season on the spelling.....

[Badwolf182]

@NeonGlide hahaha lol I have heard toooo many American Politicians say Kadhafi so its their fault. lol

[MENJAGVETJUINTE]

There's no real way of spelling Khadafi since his name is written in arabic letters and how you spell it out like this is mostly a question of dialect.

[BobSlydell100]

So true.