Thursday, January 27, 2011

Chomsky's Take on U.S. Troops in Afghanistan

Hello again everyone!

While browsing around for more news on Afghanistan today, I stumbled upon this video of Noam Chomsky. The video is about a year old, but it explores a topic that many of us in 2020 are still trying to completely understand, which is why American troops first invaded Afghanistan and why they still remain there. What I really like about this video is that Chomsky offers a different point of view from what I have found in most articles about the war in Afghanistan and he does so in a relatively objective manner.

What he says is that in the aftermath of September 11th, the United States had an opportunity to split the jihadi movement and isolate Osama Bin Laden because there was apparently much opposition to Osama Bin Laden within the jihadi movement. This was something I was never aware of, but now having heard of it, it does seem to have been prime opportunity to diffuse the conflict, since those jihad groups were so divided at the time. However, rather than follow that path, the United States reacted with belligerent action that unified rather than split the jihadi movement, therefore increasing the threat of terror.

Of course, at the time almost all of America was still reeling with fear and panic caused by September 11th and so brute force seemed more reasonable than strategy. And Chomsky offers an interesting perspective to the reasons behind those actions. In reaction to September 11th the United States felt the need to “show their muscle” to the world and display their power. The purpose of such an act is to intimidate any other potential threats. However, Chomsky goes on to describe the subsequent bombing of Afghanistan as a war crime that completely violated international law but also violated a moral code. As I’m sure we’re all aware, Afghanistan is a country that has very little and so the Afghanis (both then and now) were starving and just barely getting by. Obviously bombing only worsened this situation, killing and injuring many people.

And moreover, did the rest of the world even support this decision? Apparently not, according to Chomsky in only about two countries did the majority of the population support the U.S. decision to invade and bomb Afghanistan. Surprisingly, the countries that showed the biggest opposition to U.S. bombing in Afghanistan were the Latin American countries.

As for why the U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan, Chomsky believes that it is partly due to the fact that Afghanistan has such a strategic location. However he also believes that the U.S. remains because it does not want to appear weak. This is what Dan Ellsberg calls “the stalemate machine”, which is when the war is kept going until the next election is won so that the country and president do not appear weak, but instead appear heroic and strong. And through it all the Afghanis continue to suffer.

Those are altogether some pretty bold and interesting statements; what do you guys think?

1 comment:

  1. Fatima, glad you're looking in to Professor Chomsky's ideas. He is a must read if you are looking to get an idea of a part of the picture that is left out of the mainstream press. While election politics seems like a petty reason to prolong a war, or to shape war policy in a given way, Ellsberg, probably makes a good point. How do you see this affecting Obama and Afghanistan as we move towards 2012 elections? Will we get a withdrawal of combat troops akin to what we have seen on the ground? How does the Republican position on Afghanistan, which is becoming increasingly divided, affect this?

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