Wednesday, 6 March 2019

Noam Chomsky and the Compatible Left (Mar. 5, 2019)

    Posted by Sidney on March 5, 2019, 9:22 pm

    Noam Chomsky recently took to the pages of The Intercept to give his blessing to the US military’s occupation of Syria, solidifying his support for the Pentagon after years of having done so in slightly more anguished terms. As far as the occupation, the only concession to what might once have been considered “Leftist” values is the MIT professor’s acknowledgement that the US is motivated by “power considerations” rather than “humanitarian objectives.” Today, the brief nod to realpolitik is what’s supposed to pass for a progressive anti-war stance.

    The Intercept is really a natural fit for Chomsky to deliver this message. The nonagenarian professor has limited years left on earth, and when he passes, Glenn Greenwald and Pierre Omidyar’s website will probably become the new face of the permissible Left. That Chomsky lends his radical imprimatur to a US military occupation in its pages is a testament to what kind of a “Left” Chomsky has helped to create and is bequeathing to Greenwald and Omidyar.

    Continue reading Part I here. For Part II, click here.


      So Chomsky, Scahill, and Greenwald are rightist sleeper agents. Got it.
      Posted by Morrissey on March 6, 2019, 7:50 am, in reply to "Noam Chomsky and the Compatible Left"

      Scahill's words are woefully taken out of context. He's a principled and trenchant critic of the U.S. government----nothing like the cynical Bob Woodward type he appears to be in this article.


        Lefter than thou = holier than thou.
        Posted by Sennacherib on March 6, 2019, 11:00 am, in reply to "Noam Chomsky and the Compatible Left"

        nm


          Re: Lefter than thou = holier than thou.
          Posted by turtleman on March 6, 2019, 2:12 pm, in reply to "Lefter than thou = holier than thou."


          Sloganeering is a cheap drug. Allow me to sober you up: It is possible to call out a gross error or action without being lefter than thou (or even left at all!), and without being holier than thou or even holy at all!).

          turtleman


          Going to the source re Chomsky and Syria ...
          Posted by Tomski on March 6, 2019, 12:34 pm, in reply to "Noam Chomsky and the Compatible Left"

          It's a long winded 2 part article. Meanwhile, let's see what was really said in this referenced interview with Scahill/Chomsky:

          https://theintercept.com/2018/09/26/trump-united-nations-noam-chomsky/

          An extract

          JS: You raise this issue of Russia in Syria. Of course, the United States, Iran, Turkey, Qatar, the list of countries involved actively in the just generically, let’s call it the Syrian War, right now. You do have a debate on the left in the United States about what a just position looks like toward the conflict in Syria. And, of course, you have isolationists, or Libertarians, or anti-imperialists who take the position of, “There should be total hands-off Syria that this is a civil war.” I think the honest among us would say that of course, Bashar al-Assad is a war criminal. He is a mass murderer, but he is in a conflict with a lot of mass murderers and a lot of war criminals.
          What Noam Chomsky do you believe is a just position to take on the war in Syria? Is it that people should defend Bashar al-Assad with the idea that it’s the least bad option, or that this is a matter that should be handled by the Syrians, or is there any international involvement that you think makes any sense, or could be justified under both moral principles and legal principles?

          NC: Well, the first point to bear in mind, which you already mentioned is that Assad is a horrible war criminal. The bulk of the atrocities, which are enormous, are his responsibility. There’s no justifying Assad. On the other hand, the fact of the matter is that he is essentially pretty much in control of Syria now, thanks largely to Russian partially Iranian support.
          The Russians actually entered Syria extensively after the CIA had provided the rebel forces, which are mostly run by jihadi elements, provided them with advanced antitank missiles which were stymieing the Syrian Army at which point the Russians came in with air power and overwhelmed the opposition. The current situation is that Assad has pretty much won the war. Like it or not. There was in the early stages a Democratic secular, quite respectable opposition, but they were very quickly overwhelmed by the jihadi elements, supported from the outside — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United States, and others. There’s a pending humanitarian catastrophe in Idlib, the province where the jihadis have been — the place to which they’ve been expelled or fled. If there’s a Syrian Russian attack on that it could be a total humanitarian catastrophe. There is some indication that the Russians and the Turks may have been provided a safe area to which maybe some civilians can flee but that looks like a monstrosity developing. If there’s a way of countering that attack, it should be pursued by diplomatic means.
          The other crucial question is the status of the Kurdish areas — Rojava. In my opinion, it makes sense for the United States to maintain a presence which would deter an attack on the Kurdish areas. They have the one part of Syria which is succeeded in sustaining a functioning society with many decent elements. And the idea that they should be subjected to an attack by their bitter enemies the Turks, or by the murderous Assad regime I think is anything should be done to try to prevent that.
          JS: Let me ask you about that point because you are one of the leading people in the world that is consistently reminding the world that the United States has always adopted a posture of certain Kurds are good Kurds certain Kurds are bad Kurds and the United States has poured money and weapons into the coffers of for instance the Turkish military explicitly to be used for an ongoing attempt at genocide against the Kurds. So, I’m curious how you reconcile that with a position that the United States would, in essence, be the protector of the Kurds in the context of the Syrian War.

          NC: The United States, like other great powers, does not pursue humanitarian objectives. It pursues objectives determined by power considerations, and they lead to different positions with regard to the Kurds or others at different times.
          So, for example, in the 1970s there was a time when the United States supported Kurds against Saddam Hussein. Shortly after a deal was made in which they sacrificed the Kurds to Saddam Hussein. That led to Henry Kissinger’s famous comment that we shouldn’t confuse foreign policy with missionary activity.
          It’s entirely true that especially in the 1990s Clinton was pouring arms into Turkey for the purpose of carrying out massive, murderous, destructive attacks against the Kurdish population of Turkey in the Southeast — enormously destructive. That does not change the fact that now the United States could, with a relatively small presence, deter attacks against the Kurds in Syria, which could destroy the one part of Syria that is actually functioning at a decent fashion. We don’t expect consistency in humanitarian terms from a great power because those are not the guiding principles.

          The first point to note is that Chomsky and Scahill agree that Assad is evil. No references. Fait accompli. Excuse me?!

          The second point is that NC thinks that the US military should stay in the vicinity of Rojava to defend the Kurds. To my mind this is hopelessly misguided as the subsequent events have proved (and since the article was written in Sept 2018).

          It's easy to see that whatever the original article claims may be neither here nor there.

          I respect NC for his enormous body of excellent work over decades but I feel this must be called out.

          Cheers

          http://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/thread/1551820923.html
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      Greenwald takes on the Rep Omar anti-semitism gaslighting (Mar. 6, 2019)

        Posted by Raskolnikov on March 6, 2019, 7:00 am

        Good article from GG about the house Democrat's craven knee-bending to AIPAC in their denouncing Ilhan Omar's "comments" (almost all of which she hasn't actually made; very Orwellian) about AIPAC and their absolutely non-existent, honest guv, it's not what we do, influence on American politics.

        https://theintercept.com/2019/03/05/the-house-democrats-rebuke-of-rep-ilhan-omar-is-a-fraud-for-many-reasons-including-its-wild-distortion-of-her-comments/

        Being able to say up is down and believe it seems to be the key skill for these pathetic bastards (as well as furiously grabbing money under the desk and dancing to the tune the donor tells you to).


          She's brave and eloquent---however, she makes a horrendous error when she...
          Posted by Morrissey on March 6, 2019, 7:46 am, in reply to "Greenwald takes on the Rep Omar anti-semitism gaslighting"

          ...allows herself to be intimidated into this craven climbdown....

          Omar then issued a statement of her own in which she “unequivocally apologized” for unintentionally invoking “anti-Semitic tropes,”....

          One wonders how many Democratic Party "strategists" were browbeating her into that "unequivocal apology" for committing no crime whatsoever.


            Re: She's brave and eloquent---however, she makes a horrendous error when she...
            Posted by Sinister Burt on March 6, 2019, 7:54 am, in reply to "She's brave and eloquent---however, she makes a horrendous error when she..."

            Yes, although she restated her point in the same tweet, albeit widened to all lobbying, so not that unequivocal.

            https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1095046561254567937

            It's funny - looking for that quote just now, the few mainstream sources i looked in seemed to have mislaid her second paragraph.


              It's depressing wading into some of those twitter accounts
              Posted by Raskolnikov on March 6, 2019, 9:01 am, in reply to "Re: She's brave and eloquent---however, she makes a horrendous error when she..."

              like this ####ing lunatic

              https://twitter.com/dorothyofisrael/status/1103008353809297408

              She's a one-woman anti-semitism social media machine. Literally EVERYTHING is anti-semitic.

              Also the first few "exchanges" on the linked twitter thread make me think the whole thing is just people banging their heads against each other's walls:


              Caleb Hull
              Feb 11
              Replying to @IlhanMN

              continuing to smear AIPAC.... nice one

              raaadaniel
              ‏ @raaadaniel
              Feb 11

              It's accurate, and not a smear.

              Rodrigo
              @carlmarxholiday
              Feb 11

              It's inaccurate and DEFINITELY a smear.

              Gordon
              ‏@gfreemanbitmex
              Feb 11

              Hey, you know what is REALLY accurate? Israel slaughtering literally hundreds of unarmed Palestinian protestors, wounding thousands more, while the entire world literally sits and watches and does nothing. People are waking up to the truth. Israel will pay for their slaughter.

              MLH
              @just_mindy
              Feb 11

              That’s literally inaccurate

              @Africns
              Feb 11

              “Between March 30 and November 19, security forces killed 189 Palestinian demonstrators, including 31 children and 3 medical workers, and wounded more than 5,800 with live fire.”

              There's no better description than brainwashed for some of the people I see on those twitter threads. Anything that doesn't fit with their view is never considered on its merits and is just instantly shouted down and decried.

              Ilhan Omar has definitely put herself at the top of the "must attack" list of a lot of powerful enemies.

              The idea that the Israel "lobby" does not have extraordinary influence on U.S. politics is so indefensible it's ridiculous. It's this acceptance of the absurd that drives me crazy. Well , that and the obvious dishonesty combined with the fake piety.


              Typical liberal cant
              Posted by Keith-264 on March 6, 2019, 8:57 am, in reply to "She's brave and eloquent---however, she makes a horrendous error when she..."

              This sort of thing is worse than silence.
              Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016
              Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018

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        Reminder of Hodge's beef with Corbyn from 1995 (Mar. 6, 2019)

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        Saturday, 23 February 2019

        Chris Williamson MP responds to Ian Austin's resignation (Feb. 22, 2019)

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        Friday, 22 February 2019

        American Idiots No. 2: BROCK LONG (Feb. 16, 2019)

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