Friday, February 12, 2010
Noam Chomsky, meet Osama bin Laden
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Poor Noam Chomsky, libertarian socialist and self-declared anarcho-syndicalist, will find this accolade hard to live down. He has been praised by Osama bin Laden, in the terrorist chief's second speech in a week, first time that he does not vow to rain destruction on the US. On Friday Jan 29 (a week after Osama bragged that the Detroit underwear bomber is his emissary) as reported by Al Jazeera, bin Laden aired in public a statement about climate change, castigated the US and other Western industrial powers for failing to sign the Kyoto Protocol, and called for boycott of US goods and the dollar standard. Noam Chomsky was lauded for comparing US policies to those of Mafia. The professor appears to have earned bin Laden's praising by his November 2009 lectures at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, in which he described what he calls the US doctrine of global domination by control of Mideast oil as based on the "Mafia Principle," starting with the reinstatement if the Shah in Iran in 1953, and proceeding, incident by incident , to the present, including the claim that many Bush critics, including President Barack Obama, consider the 2003 US move on Iraq as merely a "blunder" or a "strategic mistake." The MIT foremost linguist and amateur historian also ridiculed the idea of a nuclear Iran attacking Israel ("another oppressor"), offering a reading of world events that fits in with that of the other amateur globalpoliticist, who happens to be the world's foremost killer of civilian populations. For a detailed recital, see the report of the lectures on PressTV, the Iranian website.
It is obvious that bin Laden intends to use our Washington civil liberties’ observers’ principle of putting the Guantanamo terrorists on trial as civilians rather than subjecting them to military courts, a good and honest effort to show the world the truth about American justice. To the terrorists it means that we are patsies, and not to expect death sentences. That covers also Umad Farouk Abdulmutallah,the underwear bomber sent by Yemeni Al Qaeda, who had already stopped talking until family pressure and US intel turned him around.
If Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks that the terrorist trials in New York City would endanger us, au contraire, note that Al Qaeda would probably be most glad to have this powerful international forum for broadcasting its lawyers' claims of torture and of breaches of civil liberties.
But maybe all this defense of civil liberties is part of President Barack Obama's plan; He appears to recognize that using drones for massive killing of Taliban terrorists who hide among innocent civilians has such heavy collateral damages that it destroys American reputation and severely hurts our future hopes of reconciliation. Buying, or winning enemies over was the Petraeus method in Iraq, the Three Cups of Tea man's approach in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and is basic in President Hamid Karzai's new attempts to talk to the Taliban. US has started in the same direction, by persuading a 400,000 member Shinawari Pathan tribe to turn against the Taliban and destroy their incursions into the tribe’s territory, for as bargain-basement $1M at the moment; also the UN and /or NATO have opened visas and unblocked bank accounts of five Taliban spokesmen, to bring them over to negotiate terms. Finally, the some factions of the rebellious are seeing the light of stopping the carnage of mutual bloodshed and provoking killings of civilians, trading peace for possibly gaining a share in governance. Saudi influence in blockage of conservative Islamist Gulf sheiks' fund donations appears to have worked, maybe the recession and drop in the values of sheiks' holdings, also the rebellion in Yemen that threatens Saudi influence there and their rule at home, all these factors may be playing their roles. Osama bin Laden, losing some Taliban friends and Saudi funds, may also be looking for an out this side of a hangman's noose. But the Sunni suicide bombers at Karbala persist, killing pilgrims, which show that al Qaeda has many factions, operating independently.
It has been absolutely essential for the Osama party, negotiators and generals, to assure Pakistanis, Afghans and Iraqis of a continued American presence for years to come. How is that possible, in view of the President's promise to bring all US troops back home by mid- 2011? Obviously, one expects that the present troops will return as promised, to be replaced by others, police trainers, army instructors, Special Services, all most assuredly capable of flying highly controlled drones using satellite and GPS technology to wherever local governments, see trouble. There is credibility to these surmises about the President's peace intents, and Noam Chomsky can help the peace cause by using his new standing with the big terrorist guy and pushing the right buttons. But that, to a professor of linguistics, might read as a service towards US global domination rather than towards world peace. Oh, well, I’m trying.
Wally Dobelis thanks the Paper of Record, the Iranian PressTV and various murky internet sources (you don’t want to go there)...
Poor Noam Chomsky, libertarian socialist and self-declared anarcho-syndicalist, will find this accolade hard to live down. He has been praised by Osama bin Laden, in the terrorist chief's second speech in a week, first time that he does not vow to rain destruction on the US. On Friday Jan 29 (a week after Osama bragged that the Detroit underwear bomber is his emissary) as reported by Al Jazeera, bin Laden aired in public a statement about climate change, castigated the US and other Western industrial powers for failing to sign the Kyoto Protocol, and called for boycott of US goods and the dollar standard. Noam Chomsky was lauded for comparing US policies to those of Mafia. The professor appears to have earned bin Laden's praising by his November 2009 lectures at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, in which he described what he calls the US doctrine of global domination by control of Mideast oil as based on the "Mafia Principle," starting with the reinstatement if the Shah in Iran in 1953, and proceeding, incident by incident , to the present, including the claim that many Bush critics, including President Barack Obama, consider the 2003 US move on Iraq as merely a "blunder" or a "strategic mistake." The MIT foremost linguist and amateur historian also ridiculed the idea of a nuclear Iran attacking Israel ("another oppressor"), offering a reading of world events that fits in with that of the other amateur globalpoliticist, who happens to be the world's foremost killer of civilian populations. For a detailed recital, see the report of the lectures on PressTV, the Iranian website.
It is obvious that bin Laden intends to use our Washington civil liberties’ observers’ principle of putting the Guantanamo terrorists on trial as civilians rather than subjecting them to military courts, a good and honest effort to show the world the truth about American justice. To the terrorists it means that we are patsies, and not to expect death sentences. That covers also Umad Farouk Abdulmutallah,the underwear bomber sent by Yemeni Al Qaeda, who had already stopped talking until family pressure and US intel turned him around.
If Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks that the terrorist trials in New York City would endanger us, au contraire, note that Al Qaeda would probably be most glad to have this powerful international forum for broadcasting its lawyers' claims of torture and of breaches of civil liberties.
But maybe all this defense of civil liberties is part of President Barack Obama's plan; He appears to recognize that using drones for massive killing of Taliban terrorists who hide among innocent civilians has such heavy collateral damages that it destroys American reputation and severely hurts our future hopes of reconciliation. Buying, or winning enemies over was the Petraeus method in Iraq, the Three Cups of Tea man's approach in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and is basic in President Hamid Karzai's new attempts to talk to the Taliban. US has started in the same direction, by persuading a 400,000 member Shinawari Pathan tribe to turn against the Taliban and destroy their incursions into the tribe’s territory, for as bargain-basement $1M at the moment; also the UN and /or NATO have opened visas and unblocked bank accounts of five Taliban spokesmen, to bring them over to negotiate terms. Finally, the some factions of the rebellious are seeing the light of stopping the carnage of mutual bloodshed and provoking killings of civilians, trading peace for possibly gaining a share in governance. Saudi influence in blockage of conservative Islamist Gulf sheiks' fund donations appears to have worked, maybe the recession and drop in the values of sheiks' holdings, also the rebellion in Yemen that threatens Saudi influence there and their rule at home, all these factors may be playing their roles. Osama bin Laden, losing some Taliban friends and Saudi funds, may also be looking for an out this side of a hangman's noose. But the Sunni suicide bombers at Karbala persist, killing pilgrims, which show that al Qaeda has many factions, operating independently.
It has been absolutely essential for the Osama party, negotiators and generals, to assure Pakistanis, Afghans and Iraqis of a continued American presence for years to come. How is that possible, in view of the President's promise to bring all US troops back home by mid- 2011? Obviously, one expects that the present troops will return as promised, to be replaced by others, police trainers, army instructors, Special Services, all most assuredly capable of flying highly controlled drones using satellite and GPS technology to wherever local governments, see trouble. There is credibility to these surmises about the President's peace intents, and Noam Chomsky can help the peace cause by using his new standing with the big terrorist guy and pushing the right buttons. But that, to a professor of linguistics, might read as a service towards US global domination rather than towards world peace. Oh, well, I’m trying.
Wally Dobelis thanks the Paper of Record, the Iranian PressTV and various murky internet sources (you don’t want to go there)...
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 2:52 AM 
