9-11

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, and inappropriately reviewed
Review: I really wonder if the Library Journal reviewer bothered to read the whole book, or just stopped when he found that Chomsky was departing from the post-9/11 unquestioning acceptance of the 'US vs. the evildoers' party line.
"Chomsky condemns the attacks specifically and then suggests that the deaths are entirely the responsibility of capitalist globalization" - That is a complete misrepresentation; Chomsky repeats several times that Bin Laden and his ilk don't care about globalization. What has created anti-American sentiment around the world, in Chomsky's view, is a US foreign policy dictated by the interests of energy companies, and which supports brutal, anti-human rights dictatorships in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries because it guarantees access to cheap oil. This book was written before the recent US takeover of Iraq, but Chomsky's arguments are quite prescient...

Rating:
Summary: Still more valuable than talking heads
Review: This book collects interview and discussions with Chomsky shortly after the September 11th attacks. For those who want something a bit more enlightening, Chomsky puts forth bold assertions that many people wouldn't be willing to even consider in the wake of the attacks. One of his main assertions throughout is that if the US wants to really fight terrorism, we should stop participating in it. He cites specific, uncontroversial examples such as Nicaragua and the Contras, or Turkey, where massive US aid (by Bubba) helped the government do to the Kurds what we bombed Milosevic for when he tried it with Albanians.

I don't agree that Chomsky is insensitive to the victims of 9/11 in this book. I believe that his attitude is similar to many others': that such an event, while shocking, is not entirely surprising, especially to anyone who's been paying attention to the world in the last decade. Of course, he condemns the actions. He does not rant that American lives are paramount in the face of other atrocities, which may not make his critics happy, but he also regularly acknowledges that, in our society, we simply do not ask certain questions.

Therefore, it's disconcerting to some that Chomsky is able to discuss the matters of 9/11, terrorism, and the USA's global presence with what sounds like an almost arrogant detachment. Unlike the countless pundits on TV though, Chomsky rarely generalizes and cites sources for his facts. He may skew them how he likes, but he rarely makes up whoppers to prove a point, a favorite element of television debate.

Chomsky has been vocal about America's foreign policy for decades, and it's entirely reasonable to suggest that his tone is now relentlessly radical left with an evil eye for capitalism. However, I still believe reading Chomsky is a heck of a lot more valuable for the average reader and more enlightening than hours of CNN, Fox, or the wrapped-in-the-flag latest book from a TV 'pundit'.

It's funny, whenever a corporate media pundit mentions Chomsky, it's usually to rip him as 'anti-American', yet the points he actually makes are rarely refuted. Just calling him an 'intellectual' (he does not consider himself such) or an 'academic' is enough to discredit him in the eyes of those who see intellectuals and anyone critical of America as evil incarnate and in league with terrorists. Since he often cites specific facts though at times selectively, and he jettisons bombast in favor of serious consideration, he is the complete antithesis of loudmouth talking heads. Chomsky's arguments are certainly not airtight, but his presentation of facts, his acknowledgement of the de facto state of opinion, debate, and education in America, and his straightforward tone (he is very lucid in his speech and writing) make this a very compelling and important read.

Rating:
Summary: A Voice of Reason on An Emotional Subject
Review: For the most part Chomsky is closer to the truth than his detractors.

Years ago I was a student at MIT and had a laboratory close to Chomsky's office in the old research MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics. At that time, and for many years later I thought Chomsky was a rabid liberal- socialist that was out somewhere in left field on many issues.

Of course I had formed that opinion without reading his books! But I knew that he had written dozens of books, was made an Institute Professor (which is a big deal at MIT) had written hundreds of papers and had at least 20 honorary doctorates from universities all around the world. When I sat down and read his books page by page I was converted. He simply presents the facts in a cool and detached manner. The facts speak quite eloquently for themselves and they are damming of US foreign policy.

On 9-11 and after like many others if I had been the President I would have ordered a military strike. It was and is a natural response as if your wife was raped or a child killed by a criminal. We wanted revenge for the 3,000 killed. Even Rudolph Giuliani told Bush he wanted to personally pull the trigger when Bin Laden was captured. It was a time of high emotion. Bush followed human instincts and his advisors, and indeed at lot of pressure from the American public and the congress to do something.

Chomsky of course has taken a more rational approach and has tried to formulate a quick analysis of what happened and where we have gone wrong. This is a short book but otherwise excellent. It is a question and answer format. I cannot agree with everything in the book but it gives a fair portrayal of many aspects of the problem. In many respects the US has become a rogue nation, pumped up with layer of propaganda and patriot rhetoric that has permitted the government for over 45 years and often with congressional and public support to invade Afghanistan, Cambodia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Kosovo, Iraq, to send troops to Lebanon, to bomb Yemen, Libya, and the Sudan. No wonder the US has enemies. If we are upset about the 3,000 killed on 9-11 what do the Vietnamese think of the 2 million killed by the USA?

It is time for a complete re-think of the US foreign policy and the role of the UN and other institutions such that groups and countries will act within a set of internationally accepted laws. Then variations from those laws will be addressed by all nations acting together, not just the US following its own self interests for better or for worse. That is the value of this thin book on 9-11.

My humble opinion.

Jack in Toronto

Rating:
Summary: Well worth reading despite flaws
Review: Few commenters on American political life are more astute than Noam Chomsky, famously referred to by the New York Times as "arguably the greatest living American intellectual." Since the attack on the WTC, he's also become (arguably) the most reviled American intellectual.

Chomsky-bashers would do well to read this instant book, rushed into print in the wake of the attacks in September 2001. Cobbled together from a string of interviews with the world press, 9-11 shows Chomsky at his best: a thoughtful, compassionate analyst of terrifying world events.

9-11 is flawed. The editors seem to think we have the IQs of porch light moths. In chapters taken from overseas interviews, references to events in those countries are followed by bracketed reminders that the interview took place in that country. Elsewhere, the editors place unnecessary notes saying they've excised material repeated elsewhere in the book, as if Chomsky's words were holy writ to be edited trepiditiously.

Still, 9-11 is invaluable. Chomsky abhors the loss of life committed by 9-11's perpetrators, and asks us to similarly abhor the murderous acts committed with our tax dollars in our names. Perhaps the single most valuable part of the book is Chomsky's analysis of Bin Laden's ideology. While some have imputed anti-globalization motives to Al Qaeda, Chomsky will hear none of it. Pointing out that bin Laden "has probably never even heard of globalization," Chomsky says that Al Qaeda "has as little concern for... cultural hegemony as they do for the poor ...of the Middle East who they have been severely harming for years." To read progressive intent in the atrocities of last fall, says Chomsky, is to "wallow in self-indulgent fantasies." 9-11 is a salutary antidote to some of the pronouncements of the American left in the last year, and well worth reading despite the obstacles the book's editors place in our way.

Rating:
Summary: Insightful
Review: This book couldn't come at a better time. I've read other works by Chomsky, but I appreciated the brevity and cutting edge analysis that is needed to help see through the fog of distortions, propaganda, and lack of historical analysis that is used to gain support for what Chomsky calls a terrorist attack on the innocent people of Afghanistan.

Though Chomsky repeaditaly states that the 9/11 attack is unjustfied, he rightly argues that if we fail to understand the context of such an attack, then we're doom, like the state of Isreal, to live without any hope of peace and justice. Throughout the various interviews reproduced in this book, he maintains that "we should recognize that in much of the world the U.S. is regarded as a leading terrorist state, and with good reason. We might bear in mind, for example, that in 1986 the U.S. was condemned by the World Court for 'unlawful use of force' (international terrorism) and then vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on all states (meaning the U.S.) to ahdhere to international law." What the U.S. has done or supported in Vietnam, Granada, Guatemala, Nicaragua, the Sudan, El Salvador, Chile, occupied Palestine, etc. constitute a recent history of political terrorist repression, whereby hundreds of thousands of innocent people, especially women and children, have been killed primarily to protect the political and economic (e.g. oil, coffee) interests of the United States.

Chomsky reminds us that the current war is nothing new or partisan. The attack on Afghanistan is/will be 10 times as devistating as Clinton's attack on the Sudan in which the "death toll from the bombing has continued, quietly, to rise...Thus, tens of thousands of people--many of them children--have suffered and died from malaria, tuberculosis, and other treatable diseases..." And this attack as we must remember was done based on the same current erroneous reasons given for the current attack on the people of Afghanistan and Irag--all three in persuit of a despotic leader.

Not a supporter of the Islamic fundementalist bin Landen, Chomsky does remind readers of the history of the U.S. in Afghanistan whereby in the 1980s, the U.S. trained and funded networks to committ a "holy war against the Russian occupiers....By 1989, they [the Mujahidin, in which bin Landen was a principle leader] succeeded in their Holy War in Afghanistan. As soon as the U.S. established a permanent military presence in Saudi Arabia, bin Landen and the rest announced that from their point of view, that was comparable to the Russian occupation of Afghanistan and they turned their guns on the Americans, as had already happened in 1983 when the U.S. had military forces in Lebanon. Saudi Arabia is a major enemy of the bin Laden network, just as Egypt is. That's what they want to overthrow, what they call the un-Islamic governements of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, other states of the Middles East, and North Africa. And it continued."

This type of history and analysis provides us with the context for 9/11--one that we simply will not get from watching or reading the dominant media. While many may argue with Chomsky's analysis, he nevertheless provides the necessary rebuttal to what, in my view, is the perfect war for someone like the unelected president of this country.

Finally, the only problem I have with this book is that Chomsky or the editor should have provided documentation for the many "reports" refered to in this work. Without identifying specific sources, Chomsky weakens many of his arguments, for we simply don't know where he's getting his information.

Rating:
Summary: Tired Leftist Ideology!
Review: Chomsky's world-view is skewed by his dogmatic commitment to the radical left and the unshakable belief that capitalism and the U.S., in particular, are the root causes of evil.

The Chomskyites have been playing this intellectual game since the Vietnam war which, in their view, was a peasant revolt against Western imperialists that went sour when the U.S. invaded South Vietnam. After the Vietnamese expelled the foreign invader, they went about the task of installing their agrarian utopia with the help of Marx and Lenin. He characterizes America's effort to defeat communism in Indochina as an invasion because, according to him, the Cold War was invented by the power elite in Washington as a ploy to justify the expansion of capitalism and militarism. Stalin, you see, never entertained ambitions of totalitarian hegemony in Eurasia and Communism was never a threat to democracy. Unfortunately for Chomsky and his acolytes, the fate of post-war Saigon and Pol Pot's "killing fields" in Cambodia refuted the leftist interpretation of the Vietnam War. But the amazing thing about Chomskyites is their ability to ignore history when it conflicts with the a priori truth that only socialism can save the planet. Although I do not recommend Anne Coulter's book, Treason, her basic thesis is sound, viz., that in the 20th century the Left consistently defended murderous and repressive regimes, while denigrating the U.S., because the murderous regimes ostensibly embodied socialism.

Employing the same logic of denial to the rise of fundamentalist Islam and 9/11, Chomsky et. al, now assert that the war on terror was fabricated by the power elite in Washington in order to capture Middle Eastern oil reserves. I agree that the Iraqi war is in large part about oil and the perceived need to control the Middle East. What the Chomskyites will not admit, however, is that the continued geopolitical dominance of the U.S. is critical to the future of Western democracy. The Left refuses to accept the implications of the fact that countries such as the former Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are dangerous and unreliable, yet control a significant portion of the energy reserves on which the global economy depends. In light of the inevitable rise of China as a contender in the East, the uncertainty of Russia's future, and the continued threat of terrorism, the U.S. policy of intervention in the hopes of creating more stable structures in the Middle East is a necessary evil and not the product of corporate bandits.

Furthermore, anti-American terrorism is real and autonomous. It is not the effect of U.S. foreign policy (i.e. support for Israel). Fundamentalist Islam is predicated on a totalitarian system of cultural and religious absolutism. Its hatred for the West is central to its ideology and its followers espouse an apocalyptic fantasy of tearing down "secular" America. The fact that Bush Sr. helped to create the Taliban after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, or that the U.S. supported Saddam during the Iran/Iraq war are nice rhetorical points to score in a debate, but do not change the fact that we are facing significant challenges to our security and our future which must be dealt with in terms of realpolitik, not discredited ideologies.

Rating:
Summary: OPEN YOUR EYES
Review: The important thing here is not whether or not Chomsky is sweet to the victims, is an anti-american, or trashes foreign US foreign policy. The important thing is that there's factual evidence to prove the links between White House, CIA, FBI, DoD and the attacks. As you know NORAD's F-16 never take off before noon. That explains the events of 9/11. And 98% americans would believe this statement if coming form Cheney....too many brainwashed fellas all over. You hard-core republicans or patriots, read this book, or better give the Senate Intelligence Committee transcripts a shot, and OPEN YOUR EYES.
We are being kidnapped.

Rating:
Summary: [...]
Review: Here is a book that never would have been published if Noam Chomsky's name didn't appear on the cover. It is basically a collection of interviews and essay concerning the events of 9/11. But the subject matter goes way beyond this, as the author catalogues the US government's so called "terrorist" actions around the world.

Inconsistencies abound: Chomsky maintains that it is the poor and oppressed Muslim minority that wish to destroy us, since America and Israel are responsible for their plight. Bin Laden, however, and a good number of his cronies are not Palestianian ghetto dwellers. Bin Laden is a wealthy Arab who had many political connections. The reasons behind the terrorism may very well be more religious than political.

Chomsky has moved beyond criticism and analysis of American foreign policy to outright condemnation of the US, its government, its people, and Democracy itself. This book is a vicious attack launched from the ivory tower, paranoid and unreasonable.

There may have been celebration in the Chomsky household when the twin towers fell, but for most of us, sympathy and understanding for terrorist groups is out of the question. This book is especially insensitive to those who have lost loved ones in the catastrophe.

Rating:
Summary: ANTI-AMERICAN ...
Review: In this book, rushed out after 9-11, Chomsky starts the process of blaming America for al-Qaeda's terrorism. This is not the work of an investigator analyzing facts, but rather a propagandist making a case and making up "facts" to fit.

Rating:
Summary: Careful
Review: People need answers for problems they don't understand. They need comfort. Much of his factual information is incorrect, or at least estrimated wrong, but that's not the point. Why did he write it? Let's just put this succinctly.

Chicken Soup For the American Soul this is NOT.