Chomsky. Trancript. RizKahn. AlJazeeraTV. FailedStates. 25jul07.

-->

1.     Hello and welcome. In a world full of commentator and thinkers, few people are respected as our guest today. Though he dismisses being voted the world's numberone intellectual and ["]playsdown["] having his book endorsed by UNGeneralAssembly by Venezuela's HugoChavez to great applause, NoamChomsky continues to be highquoted intellectual force. Professor of Linguistics atBoston's prestiguous MassachusettsInstituionalTechnology, MIT. Now approaching eighty, first made a name for himself with his remarkable work on theoryofgrammar [GenerativeGrammar] in the 1950s. Later, he became known for his politicalctivism,  particularly, his persistently antiwarstance. We take your calls bottom of your screen. TheNewYorkTimes described him as one of themostimportant intellectual alive. Honor to have with us, professorChomsky.

2.     Very glad to be with you.

3.     Sir, I know you have no problem telling it as it is and have no problem being direct. Tell us about your impresson on expression, WarOnTerror.

4.     Well, first of all, it's worth remembering that WarOnTerror, socalled, was redeclared in2001, not declared. It was declared twentyyearsearlier when PresidentReagan came into office and announcing, he and his associates, that prime focus ofUSForeignPolicy would be Statedirected internationalTerrorism, internationalTerrorism generally, which they described as plague of the modernage, return to barbarism in our times, and so on. In reaction to it, they  launched what turned out to be horrendous terroristwar, which destroyed much of centralAmerica, which spread to much, to the rest of the world. So, the war was redeclared in2001. And it's not a war on terror. In fact, it's, it's been plain from the actions that were taken that the goal of reducing terror is not a high priority. In fact, some of themostsignificant actions have, has anticipated, increased the threat of terror quite substantially, in fact.

5.     Sir, let me ask you.

6.     Sorry.

7.     Sorry.

8.     If you take a look at the leading internationaljournal in theUnitedStates, ForeignAffairs, main journal. One of the leadstory in the current issue is about how much invasion strengthenedAlQuaeda. Study that just came out by twoleadingTerrorismexpert, using mostly Governmentdata concluded what they calledIraqeffect. Iraqeffect on terror increased terror sevenfold. That's quite an increase. And there are other examples.

9.     Sir, what would you have said to be more appropriate response to attacks of NineEleven. You wrote about NineEleven [SeptemberElevenAttack.]. Your book, NineEleven. It's called NineEleven. I wonder what you think would be thebest- and themost-appropriate response of theUS following those attacks?

10. Those are criminalactions. Serious criminalactions. When criminalactions take place, what you do is to investigate to find out who is responsible. When you have goodevidence as to who is responsible, you apprehend them. If it's an internationalmatter, as this was, internationalsecurityforces, probably police would be best, could be used to apprehend them. Bring them to Justice and try them. That's one aspect. Another, if you're serious about it, is to try to ask what the goal and purpose of the terror was, and where it's coming from. And what you regularly discover, it's been discussed over and over again by the specialists on terror, what you find is terrorists see themselves as a kind of vanguard, who are trying to mobilise others on the basis of real grievances. They are trying to show that grievance. Greivances are felt and they're real. And they want to try to get people to join their cause by dramaticacts like terror. If you want to stop terror, what you do is to pay attention to the grievances. And see if they're legitimate. If they're legitimate, deal with them. That will reduce the likelihood of mobilise of, the terrorists can in fact mobilise. Forces, the groups they are aiming at. In case of SeptemberEleven[Attack], I think, by now, there are prettygood evidences that could have been done.

11. Right.

12. Major studies of jihadmovements, likeFawaZ[A]Gerges, excellent books, have shown that, others too, have shown that, NineElevenstyle terror, AlQuaedaterror was quiteunpopular. In fact, it illicited bitter critic right inside jihadmovement. Okay, that gave an oppurtunity to use both means of criminalinvestigation, yes, and apprehension, but also to address the grievances, exploit the differences that develop and separate theterroristgroups from the ["]reservoirsupport["] there from being mobilised.

13. Professor, one thing. You live in theUnitedStates. You call it your home. You call it a failedState. You believe it is a failedState. I wonder why.

14. Actually, that's not quite true. I said that it's beginning to take on [have] characteristics of failedStates. And it is. I've been going through the reasons, I can repeat them. That's all the more reason for me to be concerned about. The fact that I live here and it's my country, sure. You're particularly interested in places you care about. And you can't care anything more than your own country.

15. Now, interestingly enough, in your recent book, PerilousPowerTheMiddleEastAndUSForeignPolicy, which you coauthored withGilbertAchcar. You both support the idea that major deterrent toDemocracy, especially the place like theMiddleEast, is theUnitedStates is opposed to it, which sort of contradicts theUSstatements that come out of theGoverment that say, We're trying to promoteDemocracy around the world.

16. First of all, you should ["]time["] those statements about promotingDemocracy carefully. When. Of course, there's always talk about promotingDemocracy. Everybody always-talks about that. But, it's. Didn't mean anything. When the invasion of Iraq was being planned and sort of ["]sold["] to the country at theCongress, it was on the basis on what PresidentBush repeatedly called thesinglequestion, Will SadamHussein terminate his programs of weaponsofmass, developing weaponsofmassdestruction? That was the question. That was the basis on which theCongress approved the use of force. That was actually even the official internalmovitation, weaponsofmassdestruction, Saddamstyleterror. Well, a couple of months after the invasion, thesinglequestion was answered definitively. The wrong way. We know the answer. After that, months after that, thePresident announced what he called his freedomagenda. This was november2003. Great fanfare. Freedomagenda is, The real goals were to bringDemocracy toIraq, totheMiddleEast, totheworld. [It's fucking bullshit] Nobody can take [consider] it seriously, of course. Interstingly, inIraq, they didn't take [consider] it seriously. Shortly after thePresident's novemberdeclaration, big headlines, a lot of excitement, gallotpoll was released, that had been taken in Baghdad. Onepercent of the population felt that theUnitedStates invaded to bringDemocracy. Fivepercent felt that theUnitedStates invaded to help Iraqis. Most of the rest concluded the obvious, which we all know, we're not allowed to say. Furthermore.

17. Quick question, sir, based on what you just said. I wanted to get to you an email that came in fromMauritania. SafiaAmar in Nquakchot,Mauritania. SafiaAmar asks that, "Don't you think that theUS policy in Iraq and Afghanistan is only trigerring more hatred in theArabAndIslamic world? What would you suggest to limit those effects?"

18. It's not just, I think it's definite. Steady studies are coming out. Another one just came out a few days ago from a major pollinginstitution, which are showing exactly what the questioner points out. Yes, fear and hatred of [to] theUnitedStates is [are] growing. In fact, not just inIslamicworld, even inEurope, which is the region themostsympathetic to theUnitedSates. In fact, GeorgeBush's policy, particularly invasion ofIraq, has been to raise theUnitedStates to themostfeared country in the world. What should be done to alleviate this? First of all, to terminate the actions that are causing it, then to deal with the real issues. It would be a great thing if theUnitedStates were to supportDemocracy, but it doesn't, and we know that. It didn't do it before theNineEleven [SeptemberElevenAttack] and it doesn't do it now. If you want to, maybe themostdramatic example is Palestine. I mean, there were elections inPalestine in january2006. Freeelections, carefully monitoried, everybody agreed they were free. The population voted the wrong way, not the way theUS wanted. How did theUS react?

19. Right.

20. TheUS withEuropetraling behind immediately moved to punish the population severely for voting the wrong way. How can you look at that and say they are trying to promoteDemocracy?

21. We got a calling just now fromAnwar inLondon. He's on the line. Anwar, go ahead.

22. I would just like to ask, you know, why is it that democratic, they all have **.  Bush's and his hawk sending, you know, stuck to the same old policy that war continued, giving the continue. I think it's time that enough british and american and thousands of iraqis killed. I think the american people should come out and speak and leave the things to them, I think.

23. Anwar, let's get professorChomsky to answer this. Perhaps I can ask in this way, sir. What is it that stopped theUSpeople having some kind of voice in these. If Anwar is correct, if people are against the killing that's going on? Why is it that views of the people are not being translated into actions in terms of policies?

24. Now, we're back to the matter of failedStates. Not just on this issue, but on whole range of crucial issues, publicopinion is prettystrongly opposed toGovernmentpolicy. In fact, on many issues, important ones, both politicalparties are ["]welt["] to the right of the generalpopulation. That's true of the domesticissues, too. It's been pretty well documented. I've written a lot about it. So have others. That's a failure of the functioning of theAmericandemocraticsystem. I mean, it's a veryfree country. Freest country in the world. It has formaldemocraticinstitutions, but, for variety of reasons, they are not functioning in the ways which they make them responsive to the public, and the public knows it. That's one of the reasons why there's so much disillusion with politicalsystem. Why doesn't public do something about it? That's function of atomisation of people, difficult economiccircumstance, not difficult by worldstandards, but difficult by the standards they rightly expect and see. And lack of, breakdown of majororganisations. Unions, for example, used to be a major force for democratisation, but they've been harshly repressed. By now, they barely exist. Illegal laborpractices are used to destroy them, and so on. And there's all these, societies which is opposed to policy on majorissues, like this one, but it hasn't found the organisationalforms to press for realvoice inForeignPolicy, or DomesticPolicy for that matter.

25. Right, professor, you mentionedIsraelPalestiniansituation. I want to give email to you from AndrewLeidner in theUnitedStates, he says, "Noam, you are jewish. If Israel is destroyed, what part will you have played in it and will you give yourself ["]a pat on the back["] when it is?"

26. Well, I've felt, for many years, and have written, incidentally, that people who call themselves the supporters ofIsrael are, inReality, supporters ofIsrael's Moraldegeneration and, and probable, probably, ultimate destruction. I mean, Israel can have security. In fact, that's been true for over thirtyyears. It has chosen instead expansion at the cost of security. This is, I can go through the reasons if you.

27. Noam, we're short on time. We have couple of calls waiting. So you'd better to.

28. Yeah. But that means, you know, I agree with my israeli friends who think that the policies they're taking are extremelyselfdestructive. First of all, Wrong, but also selfdestructive. And, if they do pursue securityandpeace, instead of expansion and oppression, their prospects are very much improved.

29. Naveed's on the line fromLondon. Naveed, what would you like to ask professorChomsky?

30. Hi, professorChomsky. I'm a great fan of yours. I have two questions to ask you. First one is, basically, theUKGovernment and USGovernment have this term, WarOnTerror. A lot people have equated the term, WarOnTerror, to war onIslam, but this has been denied byGeorgeBush, Mr.Blair. It wants to be a war Islam, what would it be like and what would one be? If someone were to implement war onIslam, what would that be and the difference between that and this? And my second question is, A lot of your articles, I said I'm a big fan. I would like to invite to Islam. Just to say. Free. As many book as possible.

31. Naveed, okay, we've got less than a minute now. Apart from the convertedIslamprofessor, you have the question about what would the war onIslam would be like if it was to take place. Very briefly, sir.

32. War on Islam would be ThirdWorldWar. Bring the species to the end. But theUnitedStates is not engaged in a war againstIslam. GeorgeBush is correct. For example, the oldest and most valued ally of theUnitedStates in the region is SaudiArabia, because that's where the most of the oil is. Happens to be extremeIslamic, fundamentalState. During the1980s, during the socalled war on terror, theUnitedStatesGovernment was fighting a war against, to a large extent, fighting against theCatholicChurch, responsoring liberationTheology.

33. Professor, forgive me for interrupting. and ask you to come back sometime soon. Thank you very much for being with us for now.

34. Thank you.