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German people do not agree with this, according to a survey of the Forsa Institute. What are your thoughts on this?
For the moment, European powers are hesitant about joining Washington's crusade, fearing that by a massive assault against
innocent civilians the U.S. will provide bin Laden, or others like him, with a way to mobilize the desperate and angry people
to their cause, with consequences that could be even more horrifying.
What do you think about nations acting as a global community during a time of war? It is not the first time that
every country must ally with the U.S.A., or be considered an enemy, but now Afghanistan is declaring the same thing.
The Bush administration at once presented the nations of the world with a choice: join us, or face destruction. [Editor's Note:
Here Chomsky is referring to a quote published in the New York Times, September 14, 2001. See page 64.]
The "global community" strongly opposes terror, including the massive terror of the powerful states, and also the terrible
crimes of September 11. But the "global" community does not act. When Western states and intellectuals use the term
"international community," they are referring to themselves. For example, NATO bombing of Serbia was undertaken by the
"international community" according to consistent Western rhetoric, although those who did not have their heads buried in
the sand knew that it was opposed by most of the world, often quite vocally. Those who do not support the actions of wealth
and power are not part of "the global community," just as "terrorism" conventionally means "terrorism directed against us
and our friends."
It is hardly surprising that Afghanistan is attempted to mimic the U.S., calling on Muslims for support. The scale, of
course, is vastly smaller. Even as remote as they are from the world outside, Taliban leaders presumably know full well that
the Islamic states are not their friends. These states have, in fact, been subjected to terrorist attack by the radical Islamist
forces that were organized and trained to fight a Holy War against the U.S.S.R. 20 years ago, and began to pursue their own
terrorist agenda elsewhere immediately, with the assassination of Egyptian president Sadat.
According to you, an attack against Afghanistan is a "war against terrorism"?
An attack against Afghanistan will probably kill a great many innocent civilians, possibly enormous numbers in a country
where millions are already on the verge of death from starvation. Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war
against terrorism.
Could you imagine how the situation would be if the terrorist's attack in the U.S.A. had happened during the night,
when very few people would be in the WTC? In other words, if there were very few victims, would the American
government react in the same way? Up to what point is it influenced by the symbolism of this disaster, the fact that it
was the Pentagon and the Twin Towers that were hit?
I doubt that it would have made any difference. It would have been a terrible crime even if the toll had been much smaller.
The Pentagon is more than a "symbol," for reasons that need no comment. As for the World Trade Center, we scarcely know
what the terrorists had in mind when they bombed it in 1993 and destroyed it on September 11. But we can be quite
confident that it had little to do with such matters as "globalization," or "economic imperialism," or "cultural values," matters
that are utterly unfamiliar to bin Laden and his associates, or other radical Islamists like those convicted for the 1993
bombings, and of no concern that their atrocities over the years have caused great harm to poor and oppressed people in the
Muslim world and elsewhere, again on September 11.
Among the immediate victims are Palestinians under military occupation, as the perpetrators surely must have known.
Their concerns are different, and bin Laden, at least, has been eloquent enough in expressing them in many interviews: to
overthrow the corrupt and repressive regimes of the Arab world and replace them with properly "Islamic" regimes, to support
Muslims in their struggles against "infidels" in Saudi Arabia (which he regards as under U.S. occupation), Chechnya, Bosnia,
western China, North Africa, and Southeast Asia; maybe elsewhere.
It is convenient for Western intellectuals to speak of "deeper causes" such as hatred of Western values and progress. That is
a useful way to avoid questions about the origin of the bin Laden network itself, and about the practices that lead to anger,
fear, and desperation throughout the region, and provide a reservoir from which radical Islamic terrorist cells can sometimes
draw. Since the answers to these questions are rather clear, and are inconsistent with preferred doctrine, it is better to dismiss
the questions as "superficial" and "insignificant," and to turn to "deeper causes" that are in fact more superficial, even insofar
as they are relevant.
Should we call what is happening now a war?
There is no precise definition of "war." People speak of the "war on poverty," the "drug war," etc. What is taking shape is
not a conflict among states, though it could become one.
Can we talk of the clash between two civilizations?
This is fashionable talk, but it makes little sense. Suppose we briefly review some familiar history. The most populous
Islamic state is Indonesia, a favorite of the United States ever since Suharto took power in 1965, as army-led massacres
slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people, mostly landless peasants, with the assistance of the U.S. and with an outburst
of euphoria from the West that is so embarrassing in retrospect that it has been effectively wiped out of memory. Suharto
remained "our kind of guy," as the Clinton administration called him, as he compiled one of the most horrendous records of
slaughter, torture, and other abuses of the late 20th century. The most extreme Islamic fundamentalist state, apart from the
Taliban, is Saudi Arabia, A U.S. client since its founding. In the 1980s, the U.S. Along with Pakistani intelligence (helped
by Saudi Arabia, Britain, and others), recruited, armed, and trained the most extreme Islamic fundamentalists they could find
to cause maximal harm to the Soviets in Afghanistan. As Simon Jenkins observes in the London Times, those efforts
"destroyed a moderate regime and created a fanatical one, from groups recklessly financed by the Americans" (most of the
funding was probably Saudi). One of the indirect beneficiaries was Osama bin Laden.
Also in the 1980s, the U.S. and U.K. gave strong support to their friend and ally Saddam Hussein-more secular, to be sure,
but on the Islamic side of the "clash"-right through the period of his worst atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds, and
beyond.
Also in the 1980s the U.S. fought a major war in Central America, leaving some 200,000 tortured and mutilated corpses,
millions of orphans and refugees, and four countries devastated. A prime target of the U.S. attack was the Catholic Church,
which had committed the grievous sin of adopting "the preferential option for the poor."
In the early 90s, primarily for cynical power reasons, the U.S. selected Bosnian Muslims as their Balkan clients, hardly to
their benefit.
Without continuing, exactly where do we find the divide between "civilizations." Are we to conclude that there is a "clash
of civilizations" with the Latin American Catholic Church on one side, and the U.S. and the Muslim world, including its
most murderous and fanatic religious elements, on the other side? I do not of course suggest any such absurdity. But exactly
what are we to conclude, on rational grounds?
Do you think we are using the word "civilization" properly? Would a really civilized world lead us to a global war
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