Chomsky on the Ploughshares 5 Action

national | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis

Thursday October 27, 2005 19:49

by Michael Friesen

michael_friesen at hotmail dot com

A private e-mail

A message from Noam Chomsky in support of the Ploughshares 5.

It is a privilege to be able to join you, at least in words from a distance, as you come to trial for the crime of living up to the Nuremberg principles that were constructed by the US and Britain to convict Nazi war criminals for such crimes as participating in the "preemptive war" against Norway (Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop). The most extreme of these crimes, in the eyes of the prosecutors, was "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole": the crime of aggression.

That crime was clearly defined by US Chief of Counsel Robert Jackson as the act of some state of "Invasion of its armed forces, with or without a declaration of war, of the territory of another State." As Justice Jackson memorably continued, "If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.... We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well."

And the fundamental legacy of Nuremberg for all people is that they must act to prevent the supreme crime and all of the accumulated evil that follows, which it is unnecessary to enumerate in the present case.

The St. Patrick Four were tried in the US for a crime similar to yours, and the jury, to its credit, accepted their Nuremberg defense and acquitted them of felony conspiracy charges. I trust that you too will be honored for your courageous and principled stand.

Noam Chomsky

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Comments (12 of 12)

Rubbish

by Righteous pragmatist

Fri Oct 28, 2005 13:28

It was NOT a crime to go to war against fascist dictator Saddam Hussein and bring constitutional democracy to the people of Iraq.
Noam Chomasky has a long record of supporting Soviet Communist imperialist aggression around the world especially in Vietnam and Cambodia where they established and supported diabolical genocide yet when democratic Western countries led by the US and UK free a country from thirty years of unimaginable brutality he screams bloody murder.
Chomsky is a hack, a charlatan and a bore.
He makes his living through the lecture circuit and his tiresome screeds usually listened to or read by naive students who have never advanced in their political thinking since writing an essay "How I think the world should work" for a creative writing project in their high school English class.
The rest of the adult world who have jobs, marriages, children and who actually vote and make responsible decisions don't read Chomsky for the same reason we don't read comic books.

Cead aighnis?

by Duine

Fri Oct 28, 2005 13:48

A "Righteous pragmatist ",

Tá cead aighnis ag Naom mar chách.
Tuige nach dtéann tú i ngleic lena smaointe seachas a charachtaer a cháineadh?

lies

by sean

Fri Oct 28, 2005 14:27

"Chomsky has a long record of supporting Soviet Communist imperialist aggression"

chomsky-
"if the left is understood to include 'Bolshevism,' then I would flatly dissociate myself from the left. Lenin was one of the greatest enemies of socialism"

On cambodia

he has never denied that atrocities took place but rather the scale and how it happened. He blames the Vietnamese invasion and the american bombing along with the well known killing fields
His description of Khmer rouge as
"rabidly racist" says alot about your point for support for the Khmer Rouge

The Adult World

by Lara Hill

Fri Oct 28, 2005 14:37

What about the adults who have jobs, marriages, children, vote faithfully and make responsible decisions, but haven't sold out and still read Chomsky and comic books ( my faves are Polyp, Doonesbury, Harvey Pekar) - that's the adult world I belong to.

And Intellectuals

by Mark C - Teacher

Fri Oct 28, 2005 16:34

I think many "intellectuals" also read Chomsky, such as John Pilger, Edward Said (now deceased), Tariq Ali, Robert Fisk, Christopher Hitchens (before he went mad), Edward Herman, Howard Zinn, and many others. I think some of these people may also be married (not that it should matter) and I even think some of them have children (not that it should matter).

Some school teachers read Chomsky too, and their students, and their friends, and many others.

Oh I could go on ...

Re Righteous Pragmatist

by Northern Light

Sat Oct 29, 2005 18:48

I wonder if someone is employed to put comments up like the above especially to reply to posts from someone as emminent as Chomsky.

An important point against righteous pragmatists rubbish is that bewtween 1980 and 1992 Chomsky was the most cited scholar on the planet and to date is the 8th most cited scholar ever[1]. Perhaps no "ordinary people" read Chomsky but if that many academics do then I would think that his opinions are extreamly well thought of - far far more than those our Righteous "Reactionery" Pragmatist or anyone he/she champions for that matter.

So what do ordinary people with jobs and kids read - P.S. I love You, the Da Vinci Code, the Bourne Identity? Or is it Ulysses, Amongst Women or Angela's Ashes? Or perhaps no books at all but the Star, the Sun and the Indo... Let us know what "ordinary" people are reading R.P. because one way or the other your argument makes no sence at all.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky

Good reminder

by Andreas Hedfors

Mon Oct 31, 2005 09:22

In these days when ordinary people are talking in the streets and shops about whether or not it is OK to strike at an attacker before he has time to strike at you, it is helpful to be reminded that there once existed such a thing as international law and that once -- and actually not at all long ago -- people actually cared about it.

Because if one reads it, it will be talking about exactly these situations and set up crystal clear rules for what is sensible and thus allowed and what is not. Not the least US lawmakers and law interpreters were eloquent and considerate in promoting international law.

It is helpful that Noam Chomsky et al retains this perspective and keeps reminding us who are younger.

Chomsky letter

by Sam Bernstein

Sat Nov 05, 2005 07:59

It is easy to see that the war in Iraq is immoral and wrong. Just put yourself in the position of an Iraqi person. It can not be right to kill so many innoncent people. We would certainly protest if another country would invade the US or Great Britain.

By the way George Bush and Tony Blair never were invited by anybody in Iraq or elsewhere to wage this war of aggression. That they are going to bring democracy is just hogwash. Democracy will never flourish with so much violence and destruction.

Sam

righteous pragmatist rubbish

by simian

Sun Nov 06, 2005 05:01

RIGHTeous pragmatist wrote:

"He makes his living through the lecture circuit and his tiresome screeds usually listened to or read by naive students who have never advanced in their political thinking since writing an essay "How I think the world should work" for a creative writing project in their high school English class.

The rest of the adult world who have jobs, marriages, children and who actually vote and make responsible decisions don't read Chomsky for the same reason we don't read comic books."

So job-having parent of 2.5 born in wedlock children, how do you know what Chomsky says if you don't read it?

Chomsky Letter

Mon Nov 07, 2005 04:18

Professor Chomsky is kind enough to back up every statement or argument with ample documentation from very good sources.

But the elite ascribe to the view that might is right every time, as long as they are not getting hurt themselves. The majority of the US military deployed in Iraq are from low-income families.

Sam

Correction for Sam

by Graham Fraser

Sat Nov 12, 2005 14:40

Sam Bernstein, that's just rubbish. The majority of volunteers in Iraq are white and middle class.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20051107-113124-8563r.htm

Graham - not very accurate.

by Chekov

Sat Nov 12, 2005 15:08

The article that you pointed to says nothing about the race or ethnic make up of recruits. It's claim that the bulk of recruits are middle class is based on the following factoid:

"The poorest neighborhoods provided 18 percent of recruits in prewar 1999 and 14.6 percent in 2003. By contrast, areas where household incomes ranged from $30,000 to $200,000 provided more than 85 percent. "

Which apparently defines all households with an income of $30,000 (less than 25,000 euros a year) as 'middle class'. A family with a combined income of $30,000 a year would struggle not to starve - an interesting concept of middle class and one which gives one the strong impression that this study was explicitly designed to arrive at its conclusion, thus rendering it worthless.

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Chomsky on the Ploughshares 5 Action

Comments (12 of 12)