Noam Chomsky on the 9/11 Decade and the Assassination of Osama Bin Laden: Was There an Alternative?

Ten years ago, at a time when lawmakers from both sides of the aisle joined together to authorize endless war, Noam Chomskys was the leading voice to call for the United States to rethink its actions in the Middle East and across the globe. His 2001 book, simply titled "9-11," became a surprise bestseller. The book collected a series of interviews Chomsky had given on the roots of the 9/11 attacks and his prescription for a just response. A decade later, Chomsky has just released an updated version titled "9-11: Was There an Alternative?" which refers to the U.S. assassination of Osama bin Laden and the continuity Chomsky sees between the Bush administrations foreign policy and President Obamas. "Right at this moment, Obama has succeeded in descending even below George W. Bush in approval in the Arab world," says Noam Chomsky. "The policies change, but theyre hostile. We should understand where atrocities come from. They dont come from nowhere. And if were serious, we should try to do something about what is the basis for them." AMY GOODMAN: As we continue to mark the decade since the September 11th attacks in the United States, today we spend the hour with MIT professor, world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author, Noam Chomsky. In the months after 9/11, as the Bush administration attacked Afghanistan and geared up for the invasion of Iraq, Noam Chomsky released a small book that provided the definitive counter-narrative to the jingoism of the time. The book was called simply 9-11, a collected series of interviews Chomsky had given on the roots of the 9/11 attacks and his prescription for a just response. At a time when lawmakers from both sides of the aisle

joined together to authorize endless war, Chomskys was the leading voice to call for a look in the mirror, for a rethinking of U.S. actions in the Middle East and across the globe. 9-11 went on to become a surprise bestseller. Ten years later, Professor Chomsky has just released an updated version. Its called 9-11: Was There an Alternative? "Was there an alternative?" refers to the U.S. assassination of Osama bin Laden and the continuity Chomsky sees between the Bush administrations foreign policy and President Obamas. Today, well speak with Noam Chomsky about the decade since 9/11, at a time when the U.S. is at war in several areas, at home in continued economic turmoil. Noam Chomsky has just returned from Iceland and Norway. Hes joining us from Boston, Massachussetts. And Im joined here in New York for this interview by Democracy Now! producer Aaron Mat, who covered the thwarted Gaza-bound aid flotilla in Greece. Welcome, Aaron, joining me in this interview. Its good to have you with us. AARON MAT: Thanks, Amy. AMY GOODMAN: And thanks so much, Noam Chomsky, for being with us so soon after youve come back from your trip. Noam, why dont we begin with this new book? You wrote 9-11 10 years ago, what become the definitive counter-narrative at the time. What did you feel was important to understand then, and now, with Was There an Alternative? NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, as you mentioned, it wasnt really a book, it was a collection of interviews, the ones that we were able to get transcripts for. Some of them we couldnt. There were a number of things that I thought had to be pointed out. By now, I think theyre hardly even controversial. But one was that the claim that the U.S. was being attacked because, as

the president put it, they hate our freedoms was completely untenable. They hated our policy. In fact, it would be more accurate to say we hate their freedoms. Theres plenty of documentation about that, going back to the 1950s. Shortly after the presidents speech, the Pentagon had a study of this, and they concluded, yes, its not that they hate our freedoms, its they hate our policies. And as I say, evidence about that is enormous, back to the '50s. So, for example, in 1958, President Eisenhower, in internal documents long since released, asked hisraised the question with his staff about why there's a campaign of hatred against us in the Arab world. He said, not from the governments, but from the people. And the National Security Council, major planning body, had just released a study on this in which they said that they concluded that theres a perception in the Arab world that the United States supports harsh, oppressive dictatorships and that the U.S. blocks democracy and development and that we do it because we want to keep control over their energy resources. And it went on to say that this is fairly accurate, and thats pretty much what we should be doing, as long as the populations are kept quiet. And so it goes on. I wont run through the details, but so it goes on until the present. In fact, right at this moment, Obama has succeeded in descending even below George W. Bush in approval in the Arab world. Its minuscule, few percent. And its the policies, samethe policies change, but theyre hostile. So, one thing is, we should understand where atrocities come from. They dont come from nowhere. And if were serious, we should try to do something about what is the basis for them. Thats beenthe other issue, which was important, or I think we have a lot more evidence about it now, is that there probably were much more constructive alternatives. The attack, the attack on thethe 9/11 attack was pretty harshly criticized in the

throughout the Muslim world, but particularly in the jihadi movementyou know, fatwas from leading clerics, harsh condemnation. It would have beenits very likely that it would have been possible, then, to split the jihadi movement, to isolate al-Qaeda, to move to apprehend the suspectsand, of course, in our system of justice, theoretically, people are suspects unless theyreuntil theyre sentencedso, to apprehend the suspects, treat it as a criminal action, try to make use of the fact that there werethat there was tremendous antagonism to this even among the jihadi movement, and move on to a much more constructive relationship with the general Muslim-Arab world. Well, that path wasnt taken. The path that was taken was to lash out of violently, first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq. That simply was kind of following Osama bin Ladens playbook. Actually, that was pointed out pretty quickly by people like Michael Scheuer, thehe didnt identify himself then, has sincethe CIAhead of the CIA task force that was tracking bin Laden. He ended up concluding the United States is bin Ladens best ally. Were helpinghis goal was to mobilize the Muslim world around the fear that the United States was attacking Islam, was carrying out a crusade, they have to defend themselves. And we helped. The invasion of Iraq, particularly, gave a big shot in the arm to the jihadi extremists. It was predicted by U.S. and British intelligence agenciesthats been released sincethat the attack on Iraq would increase terror, and it did, by a factor of seven the first year, according to RAND Corporation quasi-governmental statistics. Well, thats what happens when you lash out violently without seeking to understand the nature of whats happening and pursuing the options for diplomatic, peaceful, negotiated settlements, and treating crimes as crimes. When theres a crime, you try to identify the likely perpetrators, apprehend them, bring them tobring them to a fair trial. I mean, thatits very likely that that could have been done at the times. We dont know.

There were tentative offers from the Taliban to allow a trial of bin Laden. It was not pursued. It wasthe U.S. just dismissed it: "We dont talk to you." Well, could that have succeeded? We can only speculate. It truly could have been done on May 2nd, when U.S. commandos, Navy SEALs, apprehended bin Ladendefenseless, was with his wife, no armsapprehended him and assassinated him, then dumped his body at sea. Thats kind of an action which is just bound to increase speculation, cynicism, doubtquite different from what in fact should have been done. Actually, one of the leading British legal specialists, civil libertarian, who incidentally approved of the action, nevertheless pointed out that the way it was carried out was criminal and dangerous in its implications. He compared it to the treatment of the far more horrendous war criminals after the Second World War. He pointed out that the British government wanted to just kill the Nazi leaders, but the U.S. government, or Truman, insisted that they be tried. They followed. And, in fact, then came the Nuremberg trials, which, you know, had their flaws, but at least did bring out in public the nature of the crimes. They also led to a quite an important conclusion by the chief prosecutor, U.S. chief prosecutor, Justice Robert Jackson. He informed the tribunal, in rather eloquent words, that, as he put it, we were handing these defendants a "poisoned chalice," and if we ever sip from it, if we ever commit such crimes as aggression, one of the major crimes, then we must suffer the same punishment, or else, essentially, the trial is a farce. And thats a choice weve had to make since. Not the right answer, in my opinion. AMY GOODMAN: Were talking to Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus at MIT. He has a new book out, 10 years after his book 9-11. It is called 9-11: Was There an Alternative?, with a new essay written after the assassination of Osama bin Laden. Well come back to this discussion in a minute.

[break] AMY GOODMAN: Our guest for the hour is MIT professor Noam Chomsky. His latest book is called 9-11: Was There an Alternative? That last question, "Was there an alternative?," referring to the assassination of Osama bin Laden. Aaron? AARON MAT: Well, Noam, you mentioned the changes in discourse between 10 years ago and today. And actually, this issue of the reasons behind 9/11 came up last night at the Republican presidential debate. Congress Member Ron Paul of Texas drew boos from the crowd and a rebuke from other candidates on the podium when he criticized U.S. foreign policy in discussing the roots of 9/11. REP. RON PAUL: Were under great threat because we occupy so many countries. Were in 130 countries. We have 900 bases around the world. Were going broke. The purpose of al-Qaeda was to attack us, invite us over there, where they can target us. And they have been doing it. They have more attacks against us and the American interests per month than occurred in all the years before 9/11. But were there, occupying their land. And if we think that we can do that and not have retaliation, were kidding ourselves. We have to be honest with ourselves. What would we do if another country, say China, did to us what we do to all those countries over there? So, this whole idea that the whole Muslim world is responsible for this and theyre attacking us because were free and prosperous, that is just not true. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda have been explicit. They have been explicit, and they wrote and said that we attackedwe attacked America because you had bases on our holy land in Saudi Arabia, you do not give Palestinians a fair treatment, and you have been bombingI didnt say that, Im trying to get you to understand what the motive was behind the bombing. At the same time, we had been bombing and killing

hundreds of thousands of Iraqis for 10 years. Would you be annoyed? If youre not annoyed, then theres some problem. AARON MAT: That was Republican Congress Member Ron Paul of Texas speaking last night at the Republican presidential debate. Noam Chomsky, your response? NOAM CHOMSKY: I think what he said is completely uncontroversial. You can read it in government documents. You can find it in polls. Maybe people dont like to hear it, but, as I mentioned before, it goes back to the 1950s. Actually, right after 9/11, the Wall Street Journal, to its credit, did a study of privileged Muslims, sometimes called "monied Muslims," people in the Muslim world who are deeply embedded in the U.S. global project lawyers, directors of multinational corporations and so on, not the general population. And it was very much like what Eisenhower hadwas concerned about, and the National Security Council, in the 1950s. There was a lot of antagonism toa lot of antagonism to U.S. policy in the region, partly support of dictators blocking democracy and development, just as the National Security Council concluded in 1958. Also, by then, by 2001, there were much more specific things: very much a lot of anger about the U.S. backing for the way Israeli occupation of the Occupied Territories, settlements, the bitter oppression of the Palestinians, and also, something that isnt discussed much here but meant a lot thereand remember, these are privileged Muslims, leaders ofthose who kind of carry out, implement the general U.S. economic and social policies in the region. The other thing, besides the Israelisupport of Israeli crimes, was the sanctions against Iraq. This was 2001, remember. The sanctions against Iraq were brutal and destructive. They killed hundreds of thousands of people. Both of the international diplomats who administered the Oil-for-Food program, distinguished international diplomatsDenis Halliday, Hans von Sponeck, in sequenceboth of them resigned in protest because

they regarded the sanctions as genocidal. They were carrying out a kind of a mass slaughter of Iraqis. They were strengthening Saddam Hussein. They were compelling the population to rely on him just for survival. And these were major crimes of the 1990s. And privileged Muslims, monied Muslims, in the Saudi Arabia, elsewhere, were bitterly opposed to this, not because they hate our freedoms, because they dont like murderous and brutal policies.
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