Fwd: Noam Chomsky, interviewed extensively in Mexican newsdaily

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La Jornada
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/006n1mun.html

Saturday, 15 September

THE FOLLOWING IS MY BEST ATTEMPT AT TRANSLATING AN INTERVIEW WITH NOAM
CHOMSKY FROM THE ORIGINAL SPANISH.  THERE ARE LIKELY TO BE ERRORS,
PARTICULARLY OF SUBTLER EXPRESSIONS.  BRACKETED PHRASES INDICATE POSSIBLE
OTHER TRANSLATIONS.  FOR ANY DOCUMENTATION QUESTIONS CONSULT THE ORIGINAL
(OR A MORE FLUENT TRANSLATOR!).  THIS TRANSLATION WAS AUTHORIZED BY NO
ONE.

I'm particularly unsure of the best translation for "los hombres
duros."  I used "rough men," but also suggested 'hawks' or 'tough guys.'
I think you'll get the idea.

La Jornada is one of the leading Mexican daily newspapers available
nationwide, and with a liberal to leftish slant.  They often interview
Chomsky.

- jeff saviano <saviano@email.unc.edu>

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La Jornada
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/006n1mun.html

Saturday, 15 September

HEADLINE:  Noam Chomsky:  The initiation of "a new type of war"
SUBHEAD:  The Planned Response will be "A Gift to Bin Laden"
SUBHEAD:  For the first time, the victims of the Imperial Power
[Superpower?] launch themselves against it
SUBHEAD:  The reaction to the atrocity will strengthen repression, he says

Jim Cason and David Brooks, Correspondents

WASHINGTON AND NEW YORK, 14 SEPTEMBER.  Tuesday's "horrendous" attack
marks the beginning of a new type of war benefiting "the rough men" [tough
guys?  hawks?] of the United States and their terrorist counterparts
abroad, with poor people, and in particular the Palestinians, paying the
costs, said Noam Chomsky in an interview with La Jornada.

Tuesday's was, according to the analyst, the first attack against the
national territory in two centuries, and marks the first time that the
traditional "victims" of U.S. policy in the Third World have launched a
military action against the center of imperial power.

Three days after the attack, Chomsky spoke with La Jornada of his
perspectives, with regard to what President Bush has named the first war
of the 21st century.  The professor at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, father of modern linguistics, and ferocious critic of power,
commented on various aspects of this conjuncture, which he considers a
historical watershed.

"The terrorist attack (on the U.S.) was a major assault against the poor
and oppressed peoples of the entire world.  The Palestinians will be
crushed because of this.  It's a gift to the U.S. jingoist hard right, and
also to that of Israel.  And the planned response will be the same, it
will be a gift to bin Laden...  The type of reprisal that they are
planning is just the one that he and his friends are looking for.  Exactly
the things that will promote massive support and which will bring more,
and perhaps worse, terrorist attacks.  Which then will bring a growing
intensification of the war.

"Take as an example in microcosm:  Northern Ireland, where you have the
rough men [hawks?] of both sides, who simply kill without thinking of the
consequences, or if more people die on their side.  Well, this only offers
them more opportunities to kill.  Amplify this to the level of a
superpower and of suicide bombs that can't be stopped.  It's only the
rough men of both sides that benefit, and the rest suffer.

"The United States is now planning the type of war to which the West is
accustomed.  That is, to carry out a massive attack against others.  But
the problem this time is that it'll probably be different.  That is what
bin Laden and others like him want, massive attacks.  They will probably
respond with more terrorist attacks.  Things like what happened Tuesday
are in truth unstoppable.

"Although they had the entire U.S. Air Force flying that day, there wasn't
much that anyone could have done.  (The terrorists) were suicide bombers,
perfectly content to die.  In 1983, a suicide attempt with a truck-bomb
took out the largest military force of Lebanon.  This wasn't an
insignificant act, and no one can stop these kinds of actions.

"I don't want to even mention the type of things that, if one thinks about
it, easily present themselves.  How difficult do you think it would be,
for example, to carry a 15 pound bomb of plutonium across the Mexican or
Canadian border?  This would be beyond your abilities, or mine, or
sophisticated terrorists?  This is what we're inviting.

"What occurred Tuesday is a dreadful atrocity, without a doubt.  But this
is the type of terror to which much of the world is subjected;  like, for
example, the destruction of half of the pharmaceutical supplies of Sudan
(by the US attacks supposedly in reprisal against bin Laden).  This is a
poor African nation...  What happens when they destroy half the
pharmaceutical supply?  Well, nobody in the West cares.  But one or two
attempts to calculate the cost of this action results in tens of
thousands, at least, of deaths.  But nobody cares.  This is just simply
how people assume history happens."

{LA JORNADA:  Is it a new type of war?}

"It's more than a new war.  It's a new class of war for many reasons.  One
one side, the way in which they're describing it:  "Either you're with us
or you face the sure prospect of death and destruction."  Can you think of
a historical parallel to this?  Not even the Nazis went to that extreme.

"It's a new type of war also, if we look historically.  Some are
considering it a watershed, and they're right.  It's the first time in US
history, since the War of 1812, that the territory has been
attacked.  Now, people are using an analogy with Pearl Harbor, but that's
a mistake.  In Pearl Harbor the Japanese attacked two US colonies--the
Philippines and Hawaii--on the 7th of December.  Attacks on a colony are
not attacks against the US.

"The US has attacked the territory of others;  after all, it's seated in
half the territory of Mexico and it's attacked Canada a couple of times,
but nobody attacks the US.  What's more, that's even true of European
history.  To be clear, Europe has had plenty of horrendously bloody
internal wars.  However it isn't attacked by what's called the Third
World, the ex-colonies, rather Europe attacks them.

"This is certainly a watershed, the first time in history that the victims
are striking a blow at the home country.  When have Europe and the US ever
been attacked by the people of their colonies, or the areas they
dominate?  Historically, this is extremely unusual.

"When Great Britain conquered much of the world, it wasn't pretty, but
they didn't attack England.  Perhaps Mexico bombed the US when half of its
territory was conquered?  I imagine they could have done it.  Say,
Nicaragua could have put bombs in Washington (DC), but this didn't
happen.  They're on the wrong side of the barrel and people think that
that's where they'll have to stay.

"It's because of this that there's such horror (in the US and Europe) when
the Palestinians respond within Israel.  It is horrible.  But people
suppose that they have to keep everything within the territories under
military occupation.  It's the way history works for Europe and the US."

{LA JORNADA:  Then are there any alternatives to this conflict?}

"Yes, clearly.  The alternative is to pay attention to what led up to
it.  This isn't what you read in the Op-Ed articles of the New York
Times:  [in their view] the lunatics are attacking us because we're so
magnificent.  This isn't what's happening.

"They (the attackers) are carrying out enormous atrocities in response to
real atrocities for which we are responsible, and that have continued.  If
you think of any Middle Eastern group, which probably is [the group
responsible for these attacks??], you could start to count (the attacks
committed against that part of the world).  It might not matter much here,
and almost nobody in the West cares, but this doesn't mean that the
victims don't care.

"For example, Iraq, during the last 10 years.  It was the most developed
nation in the Arab world, led by a monster, but this didn't bother the
West.  The US and Great Britain supported him when he was committing his
worst atrocities.  But in the last ten years that country has been
devastated, and now it's one of the poorest in the world.

"That wasn't against Saddam Hussein, who has been strengthened...  It was
done against the population.  How many have died?  We don't even
know.  Two years ago, Madeleine Albright was prepared to accept the figure
of a half-million children dead as a result of the US sanctions, and she
said:  'It's a high price, but we're prepared to pay it.'  But this
doesn't mean that the Iraqis are prepared to pay it, or that the people of
the region are.  There's a tremendous rage throughout [the region] because
of this.

"In Lebanon, Israeli attacks supported by the United States probably have
killed 40 or 50,000 people over the last 20 years.  We say, 'who cares?'
But the people of the region really care!

"Or look at what's occurring in the occupied territories.  Here you hear
that Israeli helicopters and jets attack civilian centers, and they know
perfectly well that these [helicopters and planes] are of US origin given
precisely for this purpose.

"And it continues.  Over there they know that the United States has been
backed efforts to prevent any diplomatic agreement responding to the
international consensus [on Israeli-Palestinian issues]:  the United
States simply will not permit Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory.

"The people of the region understand all this, and they know that we are
able to follow with examples from around the world.  Right now there are
approximately a million people starving in the north of Nicaragua and the
south of Honduras, those regions remember that not too long ago the United
States was doing a few things there."

{LA JORNADA:  What are the implications of all this in the US?}

"I think that just as the next actions of the US will be a gift for Osama
bin Laden and people like him, what happened Tuesday is a gift to their
counterparts here, the rough men [hawks?].  This will be a marvelous
opportunity to impose more regimentation, more discipline, to promote the
programs they want here, the militarization of space and other similar
things.  And as Paul Krugman signaled this morning, maybe a reduction in
corporate taxes.  Perfect!

"And they will hope--perhaps they'll fail--to be able to crush internal
dissidence here.  That type of thing.  In general, the atrocities and the
reaction to them reinforce the most brutal and repressive elements
everywhere.  This is how things work.  The dynamic is well known."

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