Noam Chomsky in Iceland: Compares Nixon and Kissinger to bin Laden

[bikerdruid]

http://www.icelandreview.com/icelan...and_Kissinger_to_bin_Laden_0_382043.news.aspx

from the piece:

Let’s imagine, that on the tenth anniversary of the first 9/11, a group of people would have been sent out to murder Nixon and Kissinger and throw them into the ocean. Would that have been applauded? That’s what they did to bin Laden after he was taken, unarmed and defenseless”, Chomsky said.

 

[Alt+F4]

Well last time I looked Nixon is dead.

 

[Toontown]

You gotta be tough if you want to be a big, bad, mass-murdering terrorist kingpin, sending thousands to their agonizing, fiery deaths, then giggling about it with your buddies like naughty school girls.

Itty bitty whiny babies need not apply. Itty bitty whiny baby might get hurt. Hurt bad.

 

[foxholeatheist]

I would hardly call OBL unarmed at the time of his death.

Chomsky may know far more than I but I think I am smarter.

 

[Criswell]

I know I haven't had five posts, so I'm fully prepared to be told this isn't my place to make a suggestion like this.

That being said, I've been on this site for a day and already there are two Chomsky threads. The first thread said there were many previous threads about Chomsky. Wouldn't it be better to combine them?

 

[Toontown]

I would hardly call OBL unarmed at the time of his death.

Chomsky may know far more than I but I think I am smarter.

And I would hardly call him alive at the time of his burial at sea. Just another case of the inveterate liar, Chomsky, just making stuff up.

 

[L.Y.S.]

I thought the guy was a linguist by trade? What credentials does he have on his behalf to begin to speak on public policy? I'm confused, last time I checked linguistics was the study of languages not tautology *(courtesy of Joe The Juggler) .

 

[Kopji]

Oh that's not the best part.

...in two days we would remember September 11, a terrible crime that had been committed with cruelty.

“But it could have been worse”, he said according to mbl.is. He added that terrorists could have succeeded in blowing up the White House, kill the president and put in place a terrible military junta, which would have killed thousands of people and get a group of economists, the boys from Kandahar, to ruin peoples lives.

Chomsky continued that this sequence of events was not imagination. In reality, he said, this was an account of Latin America and an event that was often called the first 9/11, when Americans deposed Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 and replaced him with General Augustos Pinochet. The ‘boys from Kandahar’ is a reference to the Chicago economists, including Milton Friedman, who gave advice to the military government of Pinochet.

With Iceland bankrupt this probably plays well to the college crowd looking for a scapegoat. Their failure is our fault. Somehow. Just, well, because it is always our fault.

Never mind that the USSR at the time was critical of Allende because he was not violent enough, and to have the kind of changes he wanted they needed to see more violence than he was willing to put out.

I note that Chomsky does not actually live in any of the places he idolizes.

 

[Humes fork]

I note that Chomsky does not actually live in any of the places he idolizes.

That's curious. He doesn't contemplate to move to the exemplary democracy of Bolivia. Instead, he chooses to remain in a third world country.

 

[bikerdruid]

That's curious. He doesn't contemplate to move to the exemplary democracy of Bolivia. Instead, he chooses to remain in a third world country.

bolivian democracy empowers the indigenous peoples of bolivia.
i'm not sure they would appreciate a lot of american immigration.

 

[Humes fork]

bolivian democracy empowers the indigenous peoples of bolivia.
i'm not sure they would appreciate a lot of american immigration.

So Chomsky's ideal democracy is an ethnic democracy?

 

[L.Y.S.]

So Chomsky's ideal democracy is an ethnic democracy?

Humes the situation is very different in Latin America than it is in Anglo-America. While there are very few indigenous in Anglo-America, Latin America has tens of millions of indigenous people.

 

[Peephole]

Unfair, Nixon and Kissinger killed a lot more people.

 

[bikerdruid]

Unfair, Nixon and Kissinger killed a lot more people.

yes. they kinda make OBL look like a boyscout.

 

[angrysoba]

bolivian democracy empowers the indigenous peoples of bolivia.
i'm not sure they would appreciate a lot of american immigration.

Racists! Are the Bolivians that bigotted towards foreigners coming to their land? Funny how reactionary conservativism can sometimes be right-on, isn't it?

 

[bikerdruid]

Funny how reactionary conservativism can sometimes be right-on, isn't it?

um....no.

 

[Ziggurat]

Chomsky may know far more than I but I think I am smarter.

Or just more honest. But I'll take that any day of the week.

 

[Ziggurat]

Unfair, Nixon and Kissinger killed a lot more people.

And Lincoln killed many more Americans than anyone else in history.

The evil bastard.

 

[epepke]

Well last time I looked Nixon is dead.

Yeah, well, Chomsky's rather silly coinage of "the first 9/11" is September 11, 1973. So Nixon was still alive but yet to make a comeback.

Anyway, like so many of Chomsky's sound bites, this one is pretty goofy. What would probably have happened if someone had killed Nixon and dumped his body in the ocean is half of an entire generation dancing in the streets. Lots of Americans hated Nixon with a passion and intensity that has never been repeated. Criticisms of Bush have been tepid by comparison. No dorm room at the time was complete without a Nixon dart board.

 

[Kopji]

Bolivia? Pretty sure Chomsky's references were to Chile under Allende and the US role in supporting some of the local military that hated him. I don't really think the actions that Nixon took would be very much different than a lot of other US presidents. Nixon actually seemed downright moderate compared to Reagan, who invaded Grenada to make a similar point, (and bombed a mental hospital killing everyone in it.)

The US policy in the Western Hemisphere falls under the 'Monroe Doctrine' which says the US doesn't necessarily want to mess with other countries in South America, but we'd go out of our way to prevent another hemisphere extending their power there.