'Let's Not Be Innocent'

Tony Jones of the AustralianBroadcasting Corporation talks to one of the most vociferous critics of President Bush, Professor NoamChomsky, speaking from his office at MIT in Boston. Professor Chomsky has for many years been considered thevoice of the American "left".

Tony Jones: Noam Chomsky, President Bush's position on the Middle East crisis is evolving fast now, butuntil recently there have been confusing and contradictory signals coming from his administration. What do youthink has been happening?

Professor Noam Chomsky The confusion inside the Administration I think, is a confusion aboutgoals.

I mean, the right wing, the hardline right wing, is in favour of escalating violence against thePalestinians until they're crushed. Others are concerned with the impact in the Arab world, which iscomplicated and within that framework, they're trying to find a policy.

The whole thing is so badly skewed it's hard to even discuss it. There's no symmetry in this situation.There's plenty of violence and terror on both sides, which is awful, and no way to justify it. But the fact isthe Palestinians have been under military occupation for 35 years. It has been harsh and brutal and violentthroughout - racist, humiliating, destructive. It has been backed entirely by the United States unilaterally.It includes expansion of settlement into the occupied territories. It was actually Barak in his last year,broke all records since Oslo, always supported by the United States. There's just no symmetry.

In the diplomatic scene, there is plenty of criticism you can make about the Arab states. In fact, it'shard to think of anything nice to say about them. But the fact of the matter is that what has been blockingwhat is now the Saudi Arabian plan, is unilateral US-Israeli opposition.

Tony Jones: Given what you're saying about the brutality of the occupation, do you think the Palestiniansuicide bombers are freedom fighters or terrorists?

Professor Noam Chomsky Terrorists - they're both, actually. They're trying to fight for freedom, but doingit in a totally unacceptable immoral way.

Of course they're terrorists and there's been Palestinian terrorism all the way through. I have alwaysopposed it. I oppose it now. But it's very small as compared with the US-backed Israeli terrorism.

Quite typically, violence reflects the means of violence. It's not unusual. State terror is almost alwaysmuch more extreme than retail terror and this is no exception.

Tony Jones: If you accept that the bombers are not justified, the argument then shifts to whether or notthe victims of those terrorist bombings have the right to take whatever action they deem necessary to put anend to this, which has been Ariel Sharon's justification of his assault from the beginning.

Professor Noam Chomsky They are certainly justified in defending themselves, but they are not justified inoccupying another people in gross violation of international law with brutality and terror of their own.That's not justified and that's been going on for 35 years.

So if a political settlement, if there are moves towards a real political settlement, if the US and Israelwill accept that, then they will be entirely justified in defending themselves. But you can't call itself-defense when you're carrying out a military occupation. That doesn't justify the terrorist acts but theconcept of self-defense doesn't arise.

Tony Jones: Is there any comparison between the suicide bombers and the September 11 suicide bombers?

Professor Noam Chomsky None whatsoever. Al Qaeda was not under US military occupation. They claim theywere, like their justification is that the US was occupying Saudi Arabia. You can argue about their claim. Itcertainly doesn't justify their act.

What the right response was to the terrorist bombings on September 11 is another question. If we want totalk about that, we should be willing to establish some principles. So for example, one elementary principleis that if something is right for us, then it's right for others. If it's wrong for others, it's wrong for us.If we can't accept that principle, we can't even talk about right and wrong.

So if those who believe that the right way to respond to September 11 was by bombing Afghans, should alsobelieve that the right way to respond to US terror is by bombing Washington. I don't know anybody who believesthat. I certainly don't.

So therefore, almost the entire discussion of this topic that has taken place since September 11 can simplybe excluded on the grounds that it does not even rise to the minimal moral level.

That does leave open the question of what the right response was to Al Qaeda terrorism, and I believe thatthere was a right response, not the one that was taken, but that has nothing to do with what's going on inIsrael and Palestine.

Tony Jones: Israel's case is that precisely there are comparisons to be made and that therefore they'rejustified in applying the US remedies to terrorism, up to and including regime change?

Professor Noam Chomsky The parallel is ridiculous. Israel has been carrying out, has carried out a 35-yearoccupation which has been brutal, violent, harsh, destructive from the start. There is just no comparison. Itdoes not justify Palestinian terrorist acts or the more extreme Israeli terrorist acts which continue, butthere's just no way to make, to compare it in any sensible fashion.

Tony Jones: Can we shift now to a broader focus and President Bush's plans to attack Iraq, which arecritically affected obviously by what's happening in the Middle East? Now would the credible threat of aterrorist attack using weapons of mass destruction justify a pre-emptive strike against Iraq?

Professor Noam Chomsky Pre-emptive strikes need extremely strong evidence and there's a heavy burden ofjustification. There's nothing remotely like that.

It's extremely hard to take Bush and his advisers seriously when they talk about their reasons for wantingto depose Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein is a monster, there's no doubt about that. Getting rid of him wouldbe a boon to the people of Iraq and the world. But Bush's advisers are not opposed to him because of hiscrimes or because of his efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction and we all know that.

When he committed his worst crimes, that was with the support of this President's father. The supportcontinued, Britain as well, well after the worst crimes were committed. He was a loyal friend and ally.

Furthermore, both Britain and the United States continued to provide him with the means to develop weaponsof mass destruction. He was much more dangerous then than he is now.

Furthermore, if you're looking at the people the United States is trying to gather to replace him, like thegeneral who can't come to the meeting because he's under investigation in Denmark for participation in amassacre - does that indicate any effort to bring some decent outcome for the Iraqi people?

The question of what should be done about Saddam Hussein is a very serious question, but you cannot takethese people seriously.

Tony Jones: What sort of proofs though would they have to supply, because those proofs appear to be beyondthe scope of international agencies to provide? In the end won't they end up relying on their own intelligenceagencies?

Professor Noam Chomsky It's not trusting its own intelligence. It's trusting its own intentions, which issomething quite different.

We do not have any reason to believe any state, certainly not one with the record of the United States,should be given any authorisation to act independently, violently, on the basis of its own leadership groups.That's ridiculous. We don't allow it to anyone else, why to the United States?

Tony Jones: What about a pre-emptive strike, that was suggested recently by a former CIA director,specifically aimed at facilities that create chemical, nuclear or biological weapons?

Professor Noam Chomsky First of all, they certainly have made available no evidence about such facilitiesor any indication that they pose a threat or even that they're aware of attacking them.

That's not what they're aiming at.

What they're aiming at, as we all know, let's not be innocent, Iraq has the second largest oil reserves inthe world. One way or another, the US is going to attempt to regain control of them and deny them to itsadversaries who have an inside track, primarily France and Russia, and they may think this is a good pretextfor it.

Saddam Hussein remains the same monster he was when the US and Britain actively and happily supported himright through his worst crimes, right through the period when he was dangerous and developing weapons of massdestruction. That remains true. But let's not delude ourselves about the reasons that might be used as apretext, the actual reasons for what will be described under other pretexts.

Tony Jones: But there is a growing momentum in statements by American political leaders and in the pressand in statements leaked by intelligence agencies, to provide proofs to at least convince the US public thatan attack on Iraq is necessary?

NOAM CHOMSKY: There's no doubt that, I would drop the word proofs, but there's no doubt that seriousefforts are being made to construct pretexts which will justify an attack against Iraq in an effort to regaincontrol over the world's second largest oil reserves.

An attack I mean, to get rid of Saddam Hussein, that would be a boon, as I said, but that's not the goal.

The goal, as was described pretty accurately - remember that right after the Gulf War, when the US hadtotal control over the region, there was an uprising in the south, a Shi'ite uprising, which might very wellhave toppled Saddam Hussein except that George Bush effectively authorised Saddam Hussein to crush it by usingmilitary helicopters and other means. That was explained publicly.

Thomas Friedman, who was then the diplomatic correspondent of the New York Times, wrote that thiswas necessary because as he put it, the best of all worlds for the United States would be an iron-fistedmilitary junta which would rule Iraq the same way Saddam Hussein did, much to the pleasure of US allies Turkeyand Saudi Arabia and of course, though he didn't mention it, the boss in Washington.

That was the attitude then when Bush permitted Saddam Hussein to crush a Shi'ite rebellion. There's been nochange. If the US does do something to try to regain control of Iraq by force, it has to maintain thatcondition.

It cannot allow a democratic regime to emerge, even limited democracy, because the majority of thepopulation is Shi'ite and if there is any democratic participation, chances are quite strong that it will movetowards an alliance with Iran or at least towards connections with Iran, which the US will certainly block,which is exactly why the US is now trying to organise Iraqi generals who were involved in some of the worstatrocities, to be the iron-fisted military junta, which will be a Sunni military junta, to rule Iraq the waySaddam Hussein did, just as Thomas Friedman described and indeed advocated.

Tony Jones: We'll have to leave it there, Noam Chomsky. Thanks for taking the time to join us tonight.

NOAM CHOMSKY: OK. Glad to be with you.

(Australian BroadcastingCorporation , April 8, 2002)