Noam Chomsky: Afghanistan invasion was ‘one of the most immoral acts in modern history’

05Nov09

Today Kim Howells, Labour MP and chairman of the British Intelligence and Security Committee, urged a withdrawal from Afghanistan – significant given that he was the former Labour foreign office minister and a strong supporter of the war. Support for the war is waning in both the US and Britain while, as Johann Hari points out (via), “[a]t the other end of the gun-barrel, 77 per cent of Afghans in the latest BBC poll say the on-going US air strikes are ‘unacceptable’, and the US troops should only remain if they are going to provide reconstruction assistance rather than bombs”.

Despite this, Obama is preparing to significantly expand US commitment in Afghanistan, while the air strikes – which according to counter-insurgency expert Lt. Col. David Kilcullen kill approximately 98 civilians for every two ‘insurgents’ – continue. October was the deadliest month thus far for US forces in Afghanistan, while, as lenin reports,

“The latest analysis [.pdf] from what used to be known as the Senlis Council says that 80% of the territory of Afghanistan currently experiences “heavy” insurgent activity. 17% experiences what they call “substantial” insurgent activity. And a mere 3% of the territory, in a region called Sari Pul where the dominant language is Dari Persian and the dominant ethnicity Uzbek, experiences only “light” insurgent activity. The number of insurgents, as estimated by the US, has risen from 7,000 in 2006 to about 25,000 today, which slightly more than the total number of insurgents reported killed.”

In this context, I thought it might be worth posting Noam Chomsky’s recent appearance on HARDtalk. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the program, it involves HARDman Stephen Sackur interrupting and talking over his guests or berating them with belligerent non-sequiturs in an effort to appear HARD. Nonetheless, Chomsky’s arguments – on Afghanistan and much else besides – are as important now as they ever were, so give these a watch.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part3:

You can watch/listen to his recent talks at SOAS (‘Crisis and the Unipolar Moment’) and the LSE (‘Human Rights in the 21st Century’), while you’re at it.

Further reading:

- Everything you have been told about Afghanistan is wrong, Johann Hari

- Afghanistan as a Bailout State, TomDispatch

- A ruined tea party, and a brewing inferno, Lenin’s Tomb

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)


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5 Responses to “Noam Chomsky: Afghanistan invasion was ‘one of the most immoral acts in modern history’”  

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  1. 1 JamieSW on November 5, 2009 said:

    Mamoon Alabassi has a summary of Chomsky’s SOAS lecture here. A sample:

    Chomsky stressed that public pressure in the West can make a positive difference for people suffering from the aggression of Western governments.

    “There is a lot of comparison between opposition to the Iraq war with opposition to the Vietnam war, but people tend to forget that at first there was almost no opposition to the Vietnam war,” said Chomsky.

    “In the Iraq war, there were massive international protests before it officially started … and it had an effect. The United Sates could not use the tactics used in Vietnam: there was no saturation bombing by B52s, so there was no chemical warfare – [the Iraq war was] horrible enough, but it could have been a lot worse,” he said.

    “And furthermore, the Bush administration had to back down on its war aims, step by step,” he added.

    “It had to allow elections, which it did not want to do: mainly a victory for non-Iraqi protests. They could kill insurgents; they couldn’t deal with hundreds of thousands of people in the streets. Their hands were tied by the domestic constraints. They finally had to abandon – officially at least – virtually all the war aims,” said Chomsky.

    “As late as November 2007, the US was still insisting that the ‘Status of Forces Agreement’ allow for an indefinite US military presence and privileged access to Iraq’s resources by US investors – well they didn’t get that on paper at least. They had to back down. OK, Iraq is a horror story but it could have been a lot worse,” he said

    “So ,yes, protests can do something. When there is no protest and no attention, a power just goes wild, just like in Cambodia…,” he added.

  2. 2 JamieSW on November 5, 2009 said:

    Chomsky wasn’t really able to set out his arguments about the invasion of Afghanistan due to Sackur’s constant interruptions and the structural limitations of the format. For those interested, he discusses the topic in more depth here.

  3. 3 g on November 5, 2009 said:

    “non-Iraqi protests”

    Surely he said/means “non violent Iraqi protests”?

  4. 4 JamieSW on November 5, 2009 said:

    Yes, it must have just been a typo or misspeak. He’s made the same argument elsewhere:

    “The victory of the non-violent resistance in Iraq, which compelled the occupying forces to allow elections, that’s a major victory. That’s one of the major triumphs of non-violent resistance that I know of.”


  1. 1 Pressure’s On » Blog Archive » Pressure’s On #72 December 2, 2009

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