Interview with the Master

[Michael Tee]

Noam Chomsky interview at http://www.counterpunch.com/shank02222007.html covers a lot of bases.

If anyone wants to pick away at anything Chomsky said, have a go at it.  Personally, I couldn't take issue with one single word the Master uttered.

The guy is so dead-on in every one of his judgments, and it all seems so obvious.  That's the most frustrating thing in dealing with conservatives.  They spout the most unbelievable, God-awful nonsense (the U.S. acts from the purest of motives, the train of mangled corpses they leave in their wake all over the globe are either the fault of others or "collateral damage" regrettably sustained in the pursuit of some higher goal, as just one example) and then engage you for hours in debates that are essentially like debating whether water runs uphill.

Chomsky is a real breath of fresh air.

[Plane]

To say that the United States has pursued diplomacy with North Korea is a little bit misleading. It did under the Clinton administration, though neither side completely lived up to their obligations. Clinton didn't do what was promised, nor did North Korea, but they were making progress. So when Bush came into the presidency, North Korea had enough uranium or plutonium for maybe one or two bombs, but then very limited missile capacity. During the Bush years it's exploded. The reason is, he immediately canceled the diplomacy and he's pretty much blocked it ever since.

They made a very substantial agreement in September 2005 in which North Korea agreed to eliminate its enrichment programs and nuclear development completely. In return the United States agreed to terminate the threats of attack.....

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What threats of attack?

North Korea double crossed Carter and Clinton , ate the food given and burned the oil given , then proceeded on its exploration of WMD technology .

It may seem to Mr Chomsky that they "exploded " their research effort because it was Bush that bothered to look , for Clinton it was out of sight , out of mind just like Enron , but how does a research and development program "explode"?

Mr. Chomsky lives in a dream world , its relation to reality is tenuous

[Plane]

"....if the United States controls Middle East resources it'll have veto power over its industrial rivals. He was speaking particularly of Japan but the point generalizes. "

This is not true...but ....

"It is not a matter of access as people often say. Once the oil is on the seas it goes anywhere. "

This is true .


I love a guy that can refute his own points.
Saves a lot of work for me.

[Plane]

"A very large majority of the U.S. population is in favor of establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba and has been for a long time with some fluctuations. And even part of the business world is in favor of it too. But the government won't allow it. It's attributed to the Florida vote but I don't think that's much of an explanation. "

This author slept through the 2000 election.

[Plane]

The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn't pay his protection money. You have to have obedience otherwise the idea can spread that you don't have to listen to the orders and it can spread to important places.
 

This explains our treatment of France, Turkey , India ....


Wait ,...... no it doesn't.

[Plane]

And again, the will of the U.S. population and even US business is considered mostly irrelevant. Seventy five percent of the population here favors improving relations with Iran, instead of threats. But this is disregarded. We don't have polls from the business world, but it's pretty clear that the energy corporations would be quite happy to be given authorization to go back into Iran instead of leaving all that to their rivals. But the state won't allow it. And it is setting up confrontations right now, very explicitly. Part of the reason is strategic, geo-political, economic, but part of the reason is the mafia complex. They have to be punished for disobeying us.

 

Haliburton makes no diffrnce , and neither do the voters of Florida.

Has Noam Chomsky ever been near the United States?

[Plane]

"Latin America is all moving to the left, from Venezuela to Argentina with rare exceptions, but there's a good left and a bad left. The good left is Garcia and Lula, and then there's the bad left which is Chavez, Morales, maybe Correa. And that's the split. "

Great ,....Latin American Countrys commit economic suicide , and it is our fault somehow.

[Plane]

I suppose was that Hezbollah is considered a deterrent to a potential U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran. It had a deterrent capacity, i.e. rockets.

Hahahhahaha


Not a military deterrant , more like a threat to civilians , the rockets they have are not accurate enough to dependably hit military targets , thus they represent a good reason to invade more than a good reason not to.

[Plane]

That's one possibility. There was a release of a Pentagon war-gaming report, in December 2004, with Gardiner leading it. It was released and published in the Atlantic Monthly. They couldn't come up with a proposal that didn't lead to disaster, but one of the things they considered was maintaining troop presence in Iraq beyond what's to be used in Iraq for troop replacement and so on, and use them for a potential land move in Iran -- presumably Khuzestan where the oil is. If you could carry that off, you could just bomb the rest of the country to dust.

It would be much easyer to bomb Nuclear facilitys and dumps .

Then the dust would be toxic enough to require evacuation of all military facilitys .

Why peserve an oil feild?

Oil Scarcity produces bettr Exxon profits , oops I forgot he is mainaining that it is the State of the US government that decides everything ....so why preserve an oil feild?

[Plane]

Again, I would be amazed if there aren't efforts to sponsor secessionist movements elsewhere,....

This sounds like a good suggestion, I hope this was read in some office responsible for such efforts

[Plane]

"Europe is kind of dragging its feet but they usually go along with the United States. "

Hahahahahahahahahhaha


I think Mr Chomsky lives in a nicer world than the real one.

[Michael Tee]

<<What threats of attack? >>
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from the actual text of the agreement:

http://www.isis-online.org/publications/dprk/book/af.html

III   Both sides will work together for peace and security on a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.
1.   The U.S. will provide formal assurances to the DPRK, against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the U.S.
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<<North Korea double crossed Carter and Clinton , ate the food given and burned the oil given , then proceeded on its exploration of WMD technology.>>

I thought Chomsky said BOTH sides cheated.  You've only got one side cheating.

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<<It may seem to Mr Chomsky that they "exploded " their research effort because it was Bush that bothered to look , for Clinton it was out of sight , out of mind just like Enron , but how does a research and development program "explode"?>>

I think it was obvious that Chomsky meant their program went into overdrive after Bush cut off the main items promised to them.  From Chomsky's article:

<<Clinton didn't do what was promised, nor did North Korea, but they were making progress. So when Bush came into the presidency, North Korea had enough uranium or plutonium for maybe one or two bombs, but then very limited missile capacity. During the Bush years it's exploded. [My interpretation is, the missile capacity exploded, not the R&D program.] The reason is, he immediately canceled the diplomacy and he's pretty much blocked it ever since.

<<In return the United States agreed to terminate the threats of attack and to begin moving towards the planning for the provision of a light water reactor, which had been promised under the framework agreement. But the Bush administration instantly undermined it. Right away, they canceled the international consortium that was planning for the light water reactor, which was a way of saying we're not going to agree to this agreement. A couple of days later they started attacking the financial transactions of various banks. It was timed in such a way to make it clear that the United States was not going to move towards its commitment to improve relations. >>

<<Mr. Chomsky lives in a dream world , its relation to reality is tenuous.>>

Apparently, it is not Mr. Chomsky who lives in a dream world.  When his factual account is put right in front of you and clashes with your own dream world, you just snip out the parts of the story that don't fit your dream world and undertake a vigorous debate against the stump.

[Plane]

Allowing an independent and sovereign Iraq could be a nightmare for the United States.

Worse than France?


This is exactly our stated goal , and a lot has one into bringing it about , it is our opposition that wants a crippled Iraq and they are killing a lot of Iriquis to make it so.

[Michael Tee]

plane, I wanted to thank you for the detailed responses to Chomsky's interview.  You're putting me to shame, because, first of all I have to take off for lunch now, which is long overdue and secondly I won't be able to get back to this anytime soon, maybe not till the week-end.   But I will be coming back to this and I'm not just wandering off somewhere.

[Plane]

III   Both sides will work together for peace and security on a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.
1.   The U.S. will provide formal assurances to the DPRK, against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the U.S.
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But there was no actual threat ever made was there?

This is a North Korean fiction . So it hurts nothing to promise to not do what we are already not doing.

Now that the agreement is broken by the Northcan we threaten them? Got a text of that threat?

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I thought Chomsky said BOTH sides cheated.  You've only got one side cheating.
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Chomsky seems to be saying that no one ever kept this agreement , North Korea got some Money some food and some cash , we got nothing at all.
We held up our end too long. It would be better for us to allow communism to kill enough people in North Korea that they weaken.


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I think it was obvious that Chomsky meant their program went into overdrive after Bush cut off the main items promised to them.
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With no evidence at all that the program ever slowed an iota at all.