Noam Chomsky: My Reaction to Osama bin Laden’s Death

[Brooklyn Red Leg]

May 6, 2011

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.

By Noam Chomsky

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 U.S. 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.

http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652...eaction_to_os/

Good to see another Progressive that hasn't sucked down the nauseating jingoistic Kool-Aid spewing from The Obomba Administration.

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

Chomsky has always been very good on Foreign relations and Policy. Besides, Chomsky isn't a Progressive as much as he is a Syndicalist (aka he knows nothing about Economics and he admitted as much).

[ctb619]

This stood out to me, and I remember similar thoughts when I heard that OBL's code name was Geronimo.

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.

[lester1/2jr]

People have been posting this around but I 'm not that impressed with it.

[CUnknown]

It's true that it does show a worrying lack of respect for the rule of law, to just carry out an assassination in a foreign country like that. But ... OTH ... if anyone deserves a bullet in the head, it's OBL, so it's hard to get too worked up over it.

Sticking to principle (as we always should), of course he should have been arrested (preferably with Pakistani permission) to face trial.

If this were one isolated incident, I wouldn't care. What I care about is the pattern of lack of respect for the law that our government shows.

[anaconda]

Chomsky is once again providing left cover for the CFR. The man is shameless and suffers from the common affliction that many smart people share, that they assume everyone else is stupid. He seems to criticize the government but has no intellectual or scientific skepticism that Bin Laden was even within 10,000 miles of Abbottabad.