Chomsky Denounces War in Rare Westside Appearance

By Jorge Casuso

April 8 -- Hungry for a point of view that counters the pro-war sentiment aired by mainstream media, some 1,700 people, many of them from Santa Monica, flocked to Culver City Sunday to hear liberal icon Noam Chomsky’s take on the war in Iraq.

As is typical of an appearance by Chomsky -- called by the New York Times "arguably the most important intellectual alive" -- the event, which saw 500 people turned away at the door of the Agape Church, was ignored by LA media.

But the anti-war audience hung on to every word, which was video and audio taped for distribution, uttered by the author of “Manufacturing Consent,” a landmark study of how the media shapes public opinion.

In his trademark soft-spoken delivery, Chomsky quickly denounced the war. “At this moment,” he said, “bodies are being mutilated and torn to shreds by infernal weapons. They (the Iraqis) are at the edge of survival after a decade of criminal actions.”

Anti-war protestors, Chomsky said, should ask the following key questions: “How did we get here and what can we do about it?” His answer: “Not just a lot, but virtually everything.”

“We have enormous freedom… a legacy that was left to us by centuries of struggle,” said Chomsky, an MIT professor who revolutionized the field of linguistics. “There is a major effort to take them away right now.”

The world, Chomsky warned, is divided perhaps as never before.

“I cannot remember a moment like this in history, where the one great power was so hated and despised and feared. The only alliance is Bush and Blair literally against the world,” he said, referring to the President and to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

“The U.S. intends to rule the world by force, and to do it permanently,” Chomsky said. “There has never been anything like that in history. They may think it, but it’s never been a national policy. This is a doctrine that says we will attack anyone that poses a potential challenge.

“There is nothing preemptive about it,” Chomsky said of the U.S. invasion. “That is open license to go to war with anybody, to destroy anybody. This is the most feared and hated political leadership maybe in history.”

Iraq, Chomsky said, poses no threat to the world. “Iraq was heavily damaged by the first Gulf War that drove the society to the verge of starvation. Iraq is the weakest country in the region.”

If Iraq is in violation of United Nations resolutions, it is because, unlike the U.S., it lacks the veto power to set the ground rules. “If Iraq had the veto, how many UN resolutions would it be violating?” Chomsky asked.

He noted that the U.S. had vetoed resolutions calling for upholding international law, as well as for abiding by the rulings of international courts, but the mainstream media ignored the actions.

“Everybody ought to know this,” said Chomsky, who is the author of more than 70 books. “This should be on the front pages of independent media, if there were any.”

In addition, when the UN passed resolutions reaffirming a 1925 treaty banning biological weapons and another banning lethal weapons in outer space, the U.S. voted against them, he said.

If the war has turned the world against the U.S., it also has transformed Saddam Hussein into a hero in the Arab world, said Chomsky, who has called the Iraqi dictator "evil as they come."

“George Bush has performed a miracle,” he said. “He has turned Saddam Hussein into a person who has been revered in the region. At least he is standing up to the hated Americans, the savage power.”

Polls in the Arab world, Chomsky said, “show 95 percent of the population from Morocco to Lebanon find the U.S. doesn’t have any interest in the region except oil.” The U.S., he added, “can do anything it wants to, murder people from a distance. That doesn’t make friends.”

The backlash, Chomsky predicted, would be a wave of terrorism. “If someone were watching this from outer space,” Chomsky said, they would think that “embedded in the White House was an agent of Osama bin Laden.

“This is fulfilling his greatest dream -- a war between billions of people,” Chomsky said.

Then, addressing one of his favorite topics, the author of “Manufacturing Constent” outlined how the mainstream media has been used by the Bush administration to further its ends. This, he said, was clear last September, when Bush set the stage for a Republican victory in Congress that “would return the country back a century.

“You can’t win an election if the issues are those that concern people,” Chomsky said. “They stayed in office by frightening people into believing there is a threat to their security and (must) rally around their brave leader.

To frighten people, the Bush administration painted Saddam Hussein “as an imminent threat to our survival… that he organized the September 11 attacks and that he was planning new ones.

“That was an outstandingly successful propaganda campaign,” Chomsky said. “If I believed those things, I’d be in favor of the war too. This is unique to the U.S. Nobody else believes this, but here, it dominates.”

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