Response to Bin Laden’s Killing

“It’s increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law.  There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no opposition – except, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them.  In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial.  I stress “suspects.” In April 2002, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, informed the press that after the most intensive investigation in history, the FBI could say no more than that it “believed” that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, though implemented in the UAE and Germany.  What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn’t know 8 months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence — which, as we soon learned, Washington didn’t have.  Thus Obama was simply lying when he said, in his White House statement, that “We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda.”

Nothing serious has been provided since.  There is much talk of bin Laden’s “confession,” but that is rather like my confession that I won the Boston marathon.  He boasted of what he regarded as a great achievement.

There is also much media discussion of Washington’s anger that Pakistan didn’t turn over bin Laden, though surely elements of the military and security forces were aware of his presence in Abbottabad.  Less is said about Pakistani anger that the US invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination.  Anti-American fervor is already very high in Pakistan, and these events are likely to exacerbate it.  The decision to dump the body at sea is already, predictably, provoking both anger and skepticism in much of the Muslim world.

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.  Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.

There’s more to say about [Cuban airline bomber Orlando] Bosch, who just died peacefully in Florida, including reference to the “Bush doctrine” that societies that harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves and should be treated accordingly.  No one seemed to notice that Bush was calling for invasion and destruction of the US and murder of its criminal president.

Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”

There is much more to say, but even the most obvious and elementary facts should provide us with a good deal to think about.”

Copyright 2011 Noam Chomsky

@NoamTweets 2/10/2010

Charngchi Way: The Egyptian uprising has been going on for two weeks, and the situation is fluid. Can you give us your assessment of the latest developments?

Noam Chomsky: Well, it’s a spectacular event. In fact, I can hardly think of anything like it. On the other hand, the Egyptian elite and the military, who are pretty closely linked, seem pretty confident. The Obama administration is pretty much backing them up. And it looks as if they think they have a game plan that ought to work. Its the usual one, when you can’t support your favorite dictator, the natural fall back position is, ok, we’ll put him out to pasture somewhere, and try to restore pretty much the same situation. That’s the natural response. And that appears to be what they are doing.

I mean, it’s unlikely that they can keep Mubarak for the long term. He might want to stay, but its probably not gonna work. So what they are putting in is his clone, Omar Suleiman, who’s a torturer, the guy who ran the rendition program, very close to the CIA, he’s the interlocutor with Israel, you know, basically the same, maybe worse. And they are sticking to him. He is probably about as much disliked by the protestors as Mubarak is, and it looks as if they are just…. last thursday (Feb. 3, 2011) there was an organized attack on the crowds. They sent in gangs of organized thugs, the military stood aside and didn’t do anything. There was a pitched battle in the square. I was afraid that the next day there would be a bloodbath, but instead they withdrew the attackers and left them alone. And it looks like that was a warning, saying you know, be careful, we’ve got plenty of force if you get out of line. And they are now probably just turning to a strategy of waiting them out. Sooner or later the protesters won’t be able to continue. I think they are counting on the fact that the poor population, which is the overwhelming majority in Egypt, won’t be able to survive. No bread, you know, no milk, no money, nothing. There is a limit to how long they can tolerate it. And they’ll probably… there’ll be some…. not an uprising, but enough discontent, and maybe even anger at the protesters so that the army can then move in. And they are taking positions, you can see that they are just taking positions around the square, trying to get traffic moving again and so on, and they’ll take over and say, well, we have to, for the sake of stability and the future of our wonderful country, we’ve accepted the protester’s demands, you can go home. In fact they are already saying that, and now its over.

In fact, I hate to be cynical, but this morning in the New York Times, there was a report by Thomas Friedman, saying he was in Tahrir Square and it’s absolutely marvelous, you know, he is exulting, he loves it; I think that probably means he figures it’s over.

@NoamTweets 2/4/2011

Obama very carefully didn’t say anything. Mubarak would agree that there should be an orderly transition, but to what? A new cabinet, some minor rearrangement of the constitutional order—it’s empty. So he’s doing what U.S. leaders regularly do. As I said, there is a playbook: whenever a favored dictator is in trouble, try to sustain him, hold on; if at some point it becomes impossible, switch sides.

The U.S. has an overwhelmingly powerful role there. Egypt is the second-largest recipient over a long period of U.S. military and economic aid. Israel is first. Obama himself has been highly supportive of Mubarak. It’s worth remembering that on his way to that famous speech in Cairo, which was supposed to be a conciliatory speech towards the Arab world, he was asked by the press—I think it was the BBC—whether he was going to say anything about what they called Mubarak’s authoritarian government. And Obama said, no, he wouldn’t. He said, “I don’t like to use labels for folks. Mubarak is a good man. He has done good things. He has maintained stability. We will continue to support him. He is a friend.” And so on. This is one of the most brutal dictators of the region, and how anyone could have taken Obama’s comments about human rights seriously after that is a bit of a mystery. But the support has been very powerful in diplomatic dimensions. Military—the planes flying over Tahrir Square are, of course, U.S. planes. The U.S. is the—has been the strongest, most solid, most important supporter of the regime. It’s not like Tunisia, where the main supporter was France. They’re the primary guilty party there. But in Egypt, it’s clearly the United States, and of course Israel. Israel is—of all the countries in the region, Israel, and I suppose Saudi Arabia, have been the most outspoken and supportive of the Mubarak regime. In fact, Israeli leaders were angry, at least expressed anger, that Obama hadn’t taken a stronger stand in support of their friend Mubarak.

Excerpt from Democracy Now! from 2/2/2011. Here

@NoamTweets 2/4/2011

Whatever happens, these are moments that won’t be forgotten and are sure to have long-term consequences, as the fact that they overwhelmed the police, took Tahrir Square, are staying there in the face of organized pro-Mubarak mobs, organized by the government to try to either drive them out or to set up a situation in which the army will claim to have to move in to restore order and then to maybe install some kind of military rule. It’s very hard to predict what’s going to happen. But the events have been truly spectacular. And, of course, it’s all over the Middle East. In Yemen, in Jordan, just about everywhere, there are the major consequences.

The United States, so far, is essentially following the usual playbook. I mean, there have been many times when some favored dictator has lost control or is in danger of losing control. There’s a kind of a standard routine—Marcos, Duvalier, Ceausescu, strongly supported by the United States and Britain, Suharto: keep supporting them as long as possible; then, when it becomes unsustainable—typically, say, if the army shifts sides—switch 180 degrees, claim to have been on the side of the people all along, erase the past, and then make whatever moves are possible to restore the old system under new names. That succeeds or fails depending on the circumstances.

And I presume that’s what’s happening now. They’re waiting to see whether Mubarak can hang on, as it appears he’s intending to do, and as long as he can, say, “Well, we have to support law and order, regular constitutional change,” and so on. If he cannot hang on, if the army, say, turns against him, then we’ll see the usual routine played out.

Excerpt from Democracy Now! Here