BLATHER REVIEW

Who told Noam Chomsky that he should start a blog?

I just found out, via Rusty (and he was late to the party, too, apparently), that Noam Chomsky has a blog. Or, maybe, had a blog. He posts even less frequently than I do, and his last post is dated July 26th.
If that's all I have to work with then that's all I got...
I present a fisking of Chomsky's last post:

Turning The Tide: An Independent Iraq

For what it's worth, polls in Iraq reveal very
considerable and apparently growing support for withdrawal
of the US occupying army, apart from the Kurdish regions.

Will you source those poll numbers? No.
And I guess the long suffering Kurds have no voice in your world; a world where, hopefully, all people have a voice. So, we'll just dismiss the Kurds voices as so much unwanted static getting in the way of the unstoppable march of tyranny for the rest of this piece...

That doesn't mean withdrawal tomorrow. No one is talking about that, and it isn't even technically feasible.

By "technically" I presume you mean "logistically". "Technically" adresses a specialized reference. Logistics refers to the process of accomplishing a goal. BTW, aren't you some kind of a linguist specialist? I think I read that somewhere...

But expeditious withdrawal, with a clear deadline, and an authentic rather than merely nominal transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis.

Err... That's a sentence fragment. Are you drunk, Mr. Chomsky?

That isn't in the cards, but not because of concerns that the region will be left in chaos; rather, because it would mean abandoning the primary and quite crucial war aim of establishing the first stable military bases in a dependent client state at the heart of the energy-producing regions, a major lever of world control, as has long been understood. The US isn't about to do that.

Oh, it's about oil again!
Maybe even 3,000 dead friends can't shake your encrusted pathology loose from your self-aggrandized pillars of philosophical recitude. [WTFWT?!] The oil was flowing. Rich and thundering rivers of oil were barrelling through the pipelines on September 10th and the Americans were sitting prim and pretty, m'kay?
If you think that we're in Iraq and Afghanistan for oil then you need to sit yourself in a corner and ponder on just what pre-adolescent trauma you've suffered that's led you to believe that surrender is a virtue.
Your pathology is not mine, thank you very much.

There are other reasons. An independent Iraq would probably take steps to gain a leading position in the Arab world, which would mean confronting the main enemy, US- backed Israel. hat would mean rearming, probably with WMD, to counter Israel's.

Typos aside; what the fuck are you talking about? The Iraqis are looking for an end to their problem: religeous sovereignty.
Remember the seperation of church and State? They ought to be your heroes, you anti-religeous twink. The Iraqi people are the KEY to bringing the middle east, dragged kicking and screaming of need be, into the 18th century. I have nothing but respect for the Iraqi people, and nothing but contempt for the insurgents who aim to thwart their future just because it'd be a future of Freedom.

You are a tyrant. If not directly, then by proxy. You want to let oppression go on and on just because you wonder whether or not it's your place to stop it. It is your place to stop it. If you give up the will to stop it then you will eventually have to submit to it.

Get it yet?

It might also lead to improving relations with Iran. Not impossible is a Shi'ite alliance with Iran and a majority-run Iraq, which might further stimulate moves towards independence in the nearby Shi'te areas of Saudi Arabia, where the oil is. That would lead to domination of the world's energy resources by an independent Shi'ite alliance. Nothing inevitable about any of this of course, but hardly impossible. Can you imagine the US tolerating anything like this? These are among the reasons why permitting democracy in Iraq, even if the rhetoric were meant seriously by Washington and Western commentators, is hardly a likely prospect.

I'll refrain from snarky commentary from now on because this is just pathetic.
Our friend Noam has not even jumped the shark, he has fallen into the tank.

Noam, if yer listening, come back to us, man. You used to make so much sense. You can't let weed and/or drink and/or crack and/or lonliness dictate your thought processes.

Suppose that internal pressures in the US, and whatever pressures exist elsewhere, led to abandonment of the major war aims, so that there could be plans for expeditious withdrawal of the occupying army and transfer of authentic sovereignty. Would that lead to chaos in the region? Or would it reduce tensions and conflicts in the region? We cannot say much with confidence, of course, any more than we could have said anything with confidence about withdrawal of Japanese armies from much of Asia in the early 1940s, or of Russian forces from Afghanistan, and many other cases. But that lack of confidence is not much of an argument for military occupation.

Posted by Noam Chomsky at July 29, 2004 12:07 PM |

I don't even have the cajones to refute this anymore.

Bless you, ol' bean, but I am sorry for you, Noam. I really am.
Hope yer back soon.

Posted by Tuning Spork at August 21, 2004 09:13 PM