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9-11

• Title - 9-11
  • Author - Noam Chomsky
  • Category - nonfiction
  • 
  • Queue status - completed

• Noam Chomsky

Synopsis

This small book is a selection from interviews conducted with Chomsky in the month following the September 11 attacks, mostly by European journalists. Chomsky takes pains in all cases to not answer general questions with generalities, but always to focus on specifics. He was also very careful from the beginning to distance himself from conspiracy theorists who were already claiming that it was an inside job.

His consistent thesis is that the U.S. has been the major terrorist threat in the world since WWII. He gives good reasons for this view and always professes surprise when his audience doesn't immediately understand. The sustained unprovoked attack on Nicaragua, the proxy wars in Guatemala, Colombia, and El Salvador (all funded and directed by the U.S.), the sanctions against Iraq in the 90s (resulting in the death of at least a half million people), the use of Agent Orange, napalm, and carpet bombing in Vietnam, the use of cluster bombs and 'anti-personnel' mines, the bombing of Serbia, the attack on Grenada; these and many others can be cited as instances of the U.S. using terror and aggression against people and countries that posed no danger to the U.S. So the claim that the U.S. has been the principal and most dangerous terrorist state is well founded.

Chomsky's claim, then, is that 9/11 was different only in that the guns were turned towards the U.S. mainland.

He dismisses the claim that this is somehow a 'clash of cultures', pointing out that U.S. allies include Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, that a primary target in El Salvador was the Catholic church, and that targets of U.S. aggression cross all religious and ethnic lines.

To understand 9/11 it is essential to listen to what the Islamic terrorists themselves say: it is most definitely not about 'hating our freedoms' or about globalization. The terrorists believe (with some reason, perhaps) that the U.S. has been conducting a crusade against Islam. The military presence in Saudi Arabia, the sustained sanctions against Iraq, the earlier funding of both sides during the Iran/Iraq war (resulting in millions of casualties), the constant provocative presence of the CIA in the middle east, the unwavering support for Israel as Israel violates international agreements and pushes forward with its program of stealing Palestinian land; these and many other examples provide the Islamists with ready recruits and with motivation to strike back at the U.S.

To think clearly about 9/11 it is essential to come away from abstract questions ('why do they hate us') and shallow formulaic answers ('they hate us for our freedoms'); if we are to understand the problem and resolve it we have to leave behind shallow emotional responses and think clearly about causes and effects. Not only to understand what has happened and why, but also to understand what our course should be.

Chomsky provides a reminder, and a good example, of thinking in terms of specifics.

The books is now a bit outdated, of course, but still worth reading.