Noam Chomsky: Instead of “Illegal” Syria Threat, U.S. Should Back Chemical Weapons Ban Worldwide + Chomsky on 9/11

Image by asterix611 via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Noam Chomsky

democracynow on Sep 11, 2013

www.democracynow.org – In a national address from the White House Tuesday night, President Obama announced he is delaying a plan to strike Syria while pursuing a diplomatic effort from Russia for international monitors to take over and destroy Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons. However, Obama still threatened to use force against Syria if the plan fails. We get reaction to Obama’s speech from world-renowned political dissident and linguist, MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky.

“The Russian plan is a godsend for Obama,” Chomsky says. “It saves him from what would look like a very serious defeat. He has not been able to obtain virtually any international support, and it looked as though Congress wasn’t going to support it either, which would leave him completely out on a limb. This leaves him a way out: he can maintain the threat of force, which incidentally is a crime under international law. We should bear in mind that the core principle of the United Nations charter bars the threat or use of force. So all of this is criminal to begin with, but he’ll continue with that.”

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Chomsky on 9/11, Syria’s “Bloody Partition” and Why U.S. Role Ensures Failure of Mideast Talks

democracynow on Sep 11, 2013

www.democracynow.org – Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author, weighs in on today’s 12th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks and how the civil war in Syria appears destined to permanently break the country apart. “[9/11] was very significant, a major terrorist act, thousands of people killed,” Chomsky says. “It’s the first time since the war of 1812 that U.S. territory had been attacked. The United States has had remarkable security, and therefore was, aside from the horrible atrocity, a very significant, historical event. And it changed attitudes and policies in the United States quite considerably. And in reaction to this, the government was able to ram through laws that sharply constrained civil liberties. It was able to provide pretexts for the invasion of Afghanistan, invasion of Iraq — the destruction of Iraq, with consequences that spread through the region. And it’s the basis for Obama’s massive terrorist war, the drone war, the most extreme terrorist campaign that’s underway now, maybe most extreme in history, and the justification for it is the same, the second 9/11 — 9/11, 2001. So yes, it’s had enormous effects on society, on attitudes, on policies. Many victims throughout the world can testify to that.” On Syria, Chomsky says the country “is plunging into suicide. If negotiations [don’t] work, Syria is moving towards a kind of very bloody partition.”

see

September 11: Forty Years Later by Carlos Torres

Chris Hedges and Rania Masri on Obama’s Syria Address + Gareth Porter: White House Culled Points in Released Intelligence Report on Syria

Leader of Exceptional Nation: U.S. Military Doesn’t Do Pinpricks by Rick Rozoff + Obama’s Speech + Transcript

Gareth Porter: US Intelligence on Syria “cherry-picked” by proponents of proposed strike

Obama’s Case for Syria Didn’t Reflect Intel Consensus by Gareth Porter

Stopping Barry O’Bomber’s Rush to War by Ralph Nader

Two Births: A Gilded Arrival and a Poisoned Legacy by Felicity Arbuthnot