Noam Chomsky: Unwanted Truth

"It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies" - Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky scares the shit out of conservatives and liberals alike because he's equally critical of power no matter who holds it. Chomsky is an intellectual, not a journalist or some political hack with an agenda. It's not surprising to see flaccid-minded scribes quaking in the wake of his pronouncements - Chomsky requires too much work, too much research and real thinking.

"The Gnome"

That's why it's disappointing to see writers I respect like Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens dismissing Chomsky's recent article about the death of Usama bin Laden as though it were written by some paranoid fanatic. They try hard to paint him as a conspiratorial wacko bent on following narratives down rabbit holes, but nothing could be further from the truth. Chomsky instills fear because he serves facts, not opinions. They can't argue that bin Laden was never subjected to due process - it's a fact - so they resort to ad-hominem attacks against Chomsky's intellectual integrity.


Here's the nugget that really irks them:

"We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the 'decider'..."

Chomsky has gone on record about the heinous acts of 9/11 and in no way suggests the U.S. deserved them, as Hitchens surreptitiously claims. He's also repeatedly rejected the loony conspiracies that some invisible force like the Grand Elders of Zion was behind the attacks.

His use of "uncontroversially" is in reference to the evidence at hand. Facts are, by definition, uncontroversial...or at least they were BFN (Before Fox News). It's an irrefutable fact that bin Laden was never convicted for 9/11. It's not inconsistent to state this and also believe he and al-Qaeda were responsible, as I personally do. But Chomsky's logic is as cold as it is unforgiving; if the U.S. is a nation of laws, there can't be any exceptions, as Glenn Greenwald explains. To kill bin Laden without due process is to logically accept the same for those on your own side. In other words, "Live by the sword, die by the sword." Below is Chomsky on the "validity" of the 9/11 "truthers":

The Worst Intensity: OPR Report On Torture

My biggest disappointment with Obama over the last thirteen months has been his failure to prosecute the war crimes that he seemed so determined to redress during his campaign. Dick Cheney now feels immune to brag about his support of torture during and after his tenure as VP and the lawyers that twisted the legal system to give cover to those crimes have now been tapped gently on the wrist for exercising nothing more than poor judgment. The precedent is set and there's nothing to stop a future administration from doing the same and even going further.

It's decisions like the OPR Report On Torture Memos that have fueled the backlash against Washington from both left and right and caused much of Obama's current strife. The lawyers and politicians get off, while grunts like Lynndie England get the blame. As Andrew Sullivan writes:

"That Lynndie England went to jail for doing things that John Yoo made legal, and Yoo does not even face disbarment, tells you all you need to know about the current state of justice in America. In the end, the current president and attorney-general have assented to this massive injustice. The responsibility is theirs'."

But even more appalling is the realization that the US suffered so much more under Bush than I previously thought. His administration's dark legacy continues to influence policy and the center has shifted so far to the right that injustices like those war crimes are now debated as legitimate tools to be employed. Failure to do so now brings hoots of "coward," while Obama appears to lack the courage of his convictions. It's that old Yeats poem, "The Second Coming" all over again:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Here is George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley discussing the loss of "one of the core principles of Nuremberg" with Keith Olbermann: