Noam
Chomsky's Golden Rule
By Eric Bosse
AlterNet
24 April, 2003
The principle
is that if somebody carries out terror against us or against our allies,
it's terror, but if we carry out terror or our allies do, maybe much
worse terror, against someone else, it's not terror, it's counterterror
or it's a just war.
Noam Chomsky, "Power and Terror"
In his first
new book since the controversial bestseller "9/11," Noam Chomsky
concentrates his criticism of U.S. policy on a single principle which
is easily recognizable as the Golden Rule: that one should apply to
oneself the same standards one applies to others.
In "Power
and Terror: Post-9/11 Talks and Interviews" (Seven Stories Press),
Chomsky uses that rule to cut to the heart of the matters in American
foreign policy and domestic politics. This brief 150-page book collects
transcripts from interviews and public talks given by Chomsky during
the Spring of 2002. "There is one simple way for the United States
to decrease very significantly the amount of terror in the world,"
says the 75-year old political activist, writer and MIT linguistics
professor, "and that is to just stop supporting and participating
in it."
Although Chomsky's
work in linguistics has had a profound effect on the field, his notoriety
arises from his activism. He is among the foremost critics of the world's
sole remaining superpower, and arguably embodies the heart and soul
of the progressive movement.
Chomsky points
out that the distinction between terrorism and counterterrorism is often
a matter of perspective, though the counterterror tends to be far more
terrible. This hypocrisy, this inability to recognize one's own crimes
as crimes, Chomsky argues, is not a singularly American trait.
"As far
as I know," he explains, "it's universal. Anyplace I've looked
and I've looked at a lot of different countries that's
exactly what you find. During the whole history of European imperialism,
this is the standard line: We do it to them, it's counterterror or a
just war, bringing civilization to the barbarians, or something like
that. If we do that in their own countries because remember,
until September 11, the West was largely immune at a vastly worse
level, it's not terror. It's a civilizing mission, or something like
that."
Chomsky spoke
those words several months before the Bush administration defined its
invasion of Iraq as a mission of "liberation and democracy."
The book's topics
extend beyond Iraq into other instances of the powerful United States
and its allies inflicting terror on the weak of the world. Chomsky details
the little-known U.S.-backed oppression and state terror carried out
against Kurds by Turkey during the 1990s. He examines the roots of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and points out the extent to which Israel
has become, in effect, an American military outpost in the Middle East.
He touches briefly on other conflicts in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
In every case he points out that it is doubtful that the U.S. media
will offer a complete accounting of the deaths and sufferings of those
on the receiving end of U.S. terror, because those wrongs have few or
no consequences for the rich and powerful.
In the case
of Afghanistan, for instance, no one could have blamed the Afghan people
for the attacks of September 11, 2001; nevertheless, they paid the price.
Chomsky explains that the consensus among Afghan dissidents was against
the U.S. attack, but the U.S. media and military planners seemed to
ignore their advice. Have the media reported on civilian casualties
in Afghanistan? Not much. A year and a half later, has there been significant
discussion about the aftermath of the attack and the failure to bring
order to that country? No. Those are the issues that impact the real
people of Afghanistan, Chomsky argues, but the issues are overlooked
and forgotten in the U.S.
Chomsky doesn't
condemn everything about the United States. On the contrary, he says,
"One of the advantages of living here is that the United States
has become, over the years, a very free country. Not as a gift from
the gods, but as the result of plenty of popular struggle, it's become
an unusually free country, uniquely so in some respects."
He cites access
to declassified, high-level documents as one of the unusual freedoms
afforded to Americans a freedom very few of us ever exercise.
Fortunately for the rest of us, Chomsky has made a career sifting through
the public record in search of injustices and inequities, acting as
our conscience, holding the United States to the high standards we apply
to those countries and people who are not our allies.
(Eric Bosse is a writer and filmmaker in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
He edits a literary journal, The God Particle, and co-edits a new political
Web site, BushwhackedUSA.com)