Der Terrorismus der westlichen Welt

by Noam Chomsky, André Vltchek

Nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, so Chomsky in dem 2012 geführten Gespräch mit Vltchek, sind Hunderte Millionen Menschen direkt oder indirekt als Folge westlicher Kriege und Interventionen ermordet worden. Hinter beinahe allen Konflikten, Kriegen und Auseinandersetzungen auf der Erde verbergen sich die meist unsichtbaren wirtschaftlichen oder geopolitischen Interessen des Westens. Unsere Medien schweigen still und berichten praktisch nichts darüber. So sind in der Demokratischen Republik Kongo in den letzten Jahren sechs bis zehn Millionen Menschen durch ugandische und ruandische Milizen niedergemetzelt worden; die Milizen handelten im Auftrag westlicher Regierungen und Großkonzerne, die an Rohstoffe wie Coltan, Uran und Diamanten gelangen wollen. Unter Obama stürzten die Vereinigten Staaten die Regierung von Honduras und machten das Land zu einem der schrecklichsten und ärmsten Orte der westlichen Welt, das aber weiterhin wichtige US-Luftwaffenstützpunkte beherbergt. Solche Untaten bilden eine Fortsetzung des europäischen Kolonialismus und Imperialismus früherer Zeit und richten sich vornehmlich gegen ›Unpersonen‹, wie Orwell all jene Menschen nannte, die wir nicht wahrnehmen. Die Politik des Westens stellt in Sachen Terrorismus alles andere weit in den Schatten. Unsere Medien praktizieren eine Zensur durch Auslassung von Informationen, durch Fehldarstellungen und Ablenkungen, größtenteils ohne sich selbst darüber bewusst zu sein. Das Buch ist eine perfekte Einleitung in Chomskys politisches Denken und eine erfrischende Lektüre für jeden, der die Rolle des Westens in der Welt verstehen möchte.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, War, Philosophy, Terrorism, Economics

176 pages, Paperback

First published September 5, 2013

About the author

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American left as a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, and corporate influence on political institutions and the media.
Born to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants (his father was William Chomsky) in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania. During his postgraduate work in the Harvard Society of Fellows, Chomsky developed the theory of transformational grammar for which he earned his doctorate in 1955. That year he began teaching at MIT, and in 1957 emerged as a significant figure in linguistics with his landmark work Syntactic Structures, which played a major role in remodeling the study of language. From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a National Science Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. He created or co-created the universal grammar theory, the generative grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy, and the minimalist program. Chomsky also played a pivotal role in the decline of linguistic behaviorism, and was particularly critical of the work of B.F. Skinner.
An outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which he saw as an act of American imperialism, in 1967 Chomsky rose to national attention for his anti-war essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals". Becoming associated with the New Left, he was arrested multiple times for his activism and placed on President Richard M. Nixon's list of political opponents. While expanding his work in linguistics over subsequent decades, he also became involved in the linguistics wars. In collaboration with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky later articulated the propaganda model of media criticism in Manufacturing Consent, and worked to expose the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. His defense of unconditional freedom of speech, including that of Holocaust denial, generated significant controversy in the Faurisson affair of the 1980s. Chomsky's commentary on the Cambodian genocide and the Bosnian genocide also generated controversy. Since retiring from active teaching at MIT, he has continued his vocal political activism, including opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and supporting the Occupy movement. An anti-Zionist, Chomsky considers Israel's treatment of Palestinians to be worse than South African–style apartheid, and criticizes U.S. support for Israel.
Chomsky is widely recognized as having helped to spark the cognitive revolution in the human sciences, contributing to the development of a new cognitivistic framework for the study of language and the mind. Chomsky remains a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, U.S. involvement and Israel's role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and mass media. Chomsky and his ideas are highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements. Since 2017, he has been Agnese Helms Haury Chair in the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona.

Reviews

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm becoming increasingly aware of my own ignorance and internalised prejudices. Lately, I've begun the long process of analysing these feelings and considering where they've come from so that I can gradually erase them. I'm learning that much of these biases (though obviously not all) can be attributed to an overexposure to Western propaganda and media.

Western and capitalist ideals pervade everything I think I know. I'm learning that cultures and events are relentlessly misrepresented in my supposedly objective news sources. My understanding of the world is tainted. After reading this conversation, I desperately want to more easily access a wider breadth of journalists and media outlets to broaden and strengthen my understanding of history and current affairs.

This little book has inspired me to be more critical of my thoughts, and educate myself beyond what is comfortable and easy to comprehend. I cannot live my life blind and passive while the mass exploitation of people and environments carries on, silently and methodically, beyond my bubble.

[Kiara Entelecheia · Rating 1 out of 5]

„Китайската телевизия и преса са много по-критични към своята икономическа и политическа система, отколкото нашите телевизионни канали и вестници са към нашата.“
АХАХАХХАХАХАХАХАХАХ. Айде не?

Нека заглавието не ви заблуждава: изчадието на Чомски и Влъчек предлага всичко друго, но не и обстойна критика на Запада. Пълна с полуистини, липса на каквато и да е научноисторическа обосновка (повечето „факти“ са просто „аз смятам.../аз мисля...“ или „мой запознат приятел ми каза, че...“) и като черешка на тортата: апология на комунизма. Да, на комунизма. Не просто като идеология – донякъде разбирам наивните западни ретарди, които се прехласват по идеята за вечно братство, без да са живяли и ден в комунистическа страна или пост-такава. Тук говорим за стопроцентово, нагло до безочливост прехласване по комунистическите диктатури – според авторите (най-вече Влъчек, но Чомски не изглежда несъгласен) те са „хуманистката съпротива“ срещу зверствата на Запада.
Следват цитати. Предупреждавам: сериозен тригър уорнинг към всеки с над кубичен сантиметър мозък.

1. По повод потушаването на Пражката пролет: „Съветите не извършиха никакви масови убийства. Няколко души попаднаха под танковете, повечето от случаите бяха злополука – някои от загиналите бяха пили.“
Чехословаците пийнали, моля ви се, повечко джибровка и не щеш ли, се подхлъзнали под съветските танкове...

2. „Съветите поставиха страната си начело в борбата срещу империализма, расизма и дискриминацията.“
АХАХХАХАХАХАХАХАХАХАХ. Айде не?

3. „Европа като цяло исторически е фашистка и е показала това, като е плячкосвала цялата планета векове наред, а на всичкото отгоре е мъртва в икономическо и културно отношение, един залязващ континент.“
Начи тука... citation needed, дето се вика. Впрочем ако въобще имах намерение да си оставя книгата на киндъла, така щях да прекръстя цялата тази абоминация. Citation needed: the book.
Първо, фашизмът като идеология възниква около Първата световна – по това време Европа (или по-скоро петте на кръст европейски страни, за които това се отнася) общо взето се е наплячкосвала (с изключение може би на Франция, която тенденциозно си е по-бавничка). Така че коментарът е, най-малкото, хронологически озадачаващ. Че Европа е мъртва в икономическо отношение... мкей, донякъде е вярно, макар че ситуацията варира от държава до държава. Кралството, Франция, Германия, скандинавските страни и Швейцария бих казала, че се оправят все някак. А коментарът, че „Европа е мъртва в културно отношение“... Не знам дали да предложа на господата номериран списък с всички показатели, според които това е чиста лъжа, или просто да им услужа с речник, за удобство отгърнат на дефиницията за „култура“.

4. „...до известна степен в България има голяма носталгия по комунизма.“
АХАХХАХАХАХАХХАХАХАХАХАХ. Айде не?

5. „Целите на СССР бяха възвишени и някои от тях много впечатляващи – свобода за всички бедни по света, антиколониализъм, антиимпериализъм, социална справедливост. Интересно е, че днес както старите, така и младите, непрекъснато слушат стари съветски шлагери.“
Интересното е, че тази внезапна transition е най-малко безумното нещо в това изказване. Алла Пугачова за интерсекционален феминизъм!

6. „Идеята тотално да се отхвърлят съветската или другите комунистически системи единствено въз основа на масовите убийства, извършени през това време, би означавало да заклеймим като нечовешки и провеждащи геноцид конституционните монархии и многопартийните западни демокрации.“
Не, никой не ги отхвърля единствено въз основа на това.
Не, не означава.
Сори, пич, пробвай пак.

7. „Афганистан по времето на Съветския съюз (...) бе единственият период, когато в страната имаше някаква надежда.“
Догади ми се.

8. „Куба изигра огромна роля в освобождението на Африка (...) Че Гевара доведе цял контингент чернокожи кубински войници да се сражават за освобождението на Конго.“
Че Гевара, човек... Окей, след всичко дотук предполагам е логично авторите да се прехласват по него, само че намирам за проява на интелектуална неискреност факта, че при всяко споменаване на Чърчил се говори какъв е расист (което е факт, който не бива да се премълчава, но не е в това въпросът), а в същото време удобно се забравя главозамайващият расизъм (че и хомофобия) на Че Гевара. Но съм шокирана, без да съм изненадана, както се казва.

9. Барак Обама се обвинява, че детските му спомени от Индонезия след преврата 1965-та година били щастливи. След справка, Обама е роден 1961-ва, тоест е бил на четири. Факт, който не трогва Влъчек: „...дори децата би трябвало да знаят. Хора изчезвали повсеместно. Не може да не се забележи.“
Доказателство за западен тероризъм на вашето внимание: някой си спомня с ностагия за детството си... На 11-ти септември 2001 бях супер щастлива, защото щях да влизам в първи клас (дори не помня дали съм знаела какво е САЩ). Чудя се дали веднага да се предавам в полицията за съучастник в терористичния акт, или просто да се напия, слушайки съветски шлагери, и да отида в някоя от свободните незападни страни, които авторите с такава любов наричат „хуманистична съпротива“ – то останалото ще дойде от само себе си.

В заключение имам да добавя няколко разпилени мисли.
Първо, забелязала съм, че много хора стават дефензивни, щом се споменат престъпленията на западния свят. Понеже Западът (Европа + САЩ) се води най-демократичната част от света, всяка критика срещу него се приема за вид интернализиран шовинизъм. На това мога да отговоря единствено с: ъ-ъ, пораснете. Ако се окаже, че синът ви тормози очилатото пухкаво хлапе в класа, да отвърнете на това с „да, ама поне е отличник“ не ви превръща в по-добър родител, ами в по-лош.
Западът трябва да се критикува, понеже: 1) има защо; 2) разполага с интелектуалните, икономически и морални ресурси да е по-добър; 3) можем (положение, което не се отнася за други краища на света – освен сигурно за Китай, АХАХХАХАХАХАХА).
Иначе авторите са толкова заети да хвалят комунизма на съпротивата, че забравят да:
опишат колонизаторските животинства (в Америките, в Африка и в Азия);
опишат апартейда в Южна Африка (споменат е на няколко пъти като факт – има го, ама какво от това);
придружат с научноисторически валидни данни американските ужаси в Близкия изток и Южна Америка през последните сто години (където те са споменати, ограничени са до „мой приятел/колега/студент ми каза, че“ или до директно хвърляне на обвинения, за които имат наглостта да кажат, че (перифраза, не ми се търси дословното) „събитията са твърде скорошни и все още няма исторически доказателства“... ъ-ъ-ъ-ъ....?!);
да споменат последиците от нацизма и фашизма... колкото и да е странно.
Виетнам и Япония са споменати, но някак повърхностно и пак с псевдофакти, които се очаква да бъдат приети на доверие.
Западът трябва да се критикува, но... това не е книга, която успява в начинанието.
Обръщам специално внимание на заглавието: „Западният тероризъм: от Хирошима до дроновете“. Манипулативно и подвеждащо. В разговора на Чомски и Влъчек темата за Хирошима не се засяга, а дроновете са споменати само веднъж: като „последните ужасни оръжия“. Самата дума Хирошима е използвана четири (!) пъти в целия текст: веднъж в заглавието, веднъж в увода като препратка към заглавието, веднъж за сравнение (че радиацията във Фалуджа била колкото там) и веднъж в хронологията накрая (която беше единственото стойностно нещо от цялата плява, може би защото нито един от двамата автори нямаше думата).

Ох, ядосах се само докато пишех ревюто и си припомнях. Отивам да гаврътна едно вино, че да се успокоя, дано не залитна под някой танк на Съпротивата...

[Kristine Gift · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was really expecting more from this book. The conversation-transcript style doesn't do much for the content; their spoken words were obviously edited, so why couldn't they also add in some footnotes? Some post-conversation citations? I felt like Chomsky and Vltchek were talking a lot but saying little. And the pretentious tone of "We're the only ones who know how shitty things are" really bothered me, especially considering that the target audience of this book are probably people who are aware of post-WWII/post-colonial problems across the globe. Additionally, though I agree that the West has done horrible things across the globe, I don't consider people in Indonesia or Chile or Somalia as "unpeople," and overall, I was offended by how stupid Chomsky and Vltchek assumed their readers would be.

I also couldn't follow their jumps across time and space; I felt that they were making connections without explaining the links. Rather than learning much of anything by their examples, I was just trying to follow their seemingly arbitrary jumps from one subject to another. I really wanted to like this book, but I was not impressed.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

André Vltchek opens his book with a very sad figure: more then 50 million people died around the world as a consequence of Western colonialism and neocolonialism. This terrible reality has been, somehow, "accepted" in the Western world; Noam Chomsky borrows the expression of “unpeople” by George Orwell : the world is divided by people like us and “unpeople”- everyone else who do not matter and we are not concerned to what happens to them.

Most of the book is developed over the issue of misinformation in the Western world. I found the arguments by the two authors extremely valuable. We should read and view non-Western sources to have a better understanding of history and the state of current global affairs, while our mainstream information is one-sided and, Chomsky and Vltcheck argue, serves as propaganda to our political establishment. There are plenty of very interesting examples over this topic. For instance, Western misinformation targets mainly countries that have refused to succumb to our dictate. That is why China keeps being vilified while India, one of the most terrible countries in the world, according to Vltcheck, is celebrated as the biggest democracy forgetting all the atrocities perpetrated there every day (see also the question of Tibet and Kashmir, how differently they are treated by Western media). And, of course, the whole narration on colonialism.

However, I found Vltcheck much more radical than Chomsky and while I cannot verify the parts over South East Asia or Latin America, I must say that when he praises China as a place where he can enjoy more freedom of expression than the UK (CCTV vs. BBC) I believe he goes too far. I live here and, Mr. Vltcheck, your website is censored! I cannot open it. Of course, along with so many other websites. The journalist illustrates how Western media serve the political establishment, but he pushes too far when he says that Iran, Turkey or China run more unedited or uncensored pieces than Western mainstream media outlets. Again, I do not know about Turkey or Iran, but from my experience living in China for several years I am not sure Chinese are really luckier in accessing more reliable pieces of information. My point is: stating that the West is also a victim of propaganda… I totally agree as there are solid arguments about that. But saying that censorship in China is milder than the Western media is showing, that is making misinformation. The whole description of China by Vltcheck is quite rosey and makes me taking with a pinch of salt what else he writes during the book.

I believe that a discussion on these topics (about how much misinformed we are, also in Europe even though we love to think the opposite!) is so much needed, but I did not always enjoy the absolute tones of Vltchek. While I found eye-opening, as always, the intervention of Chomsky.

[Keen Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m a fan of much of Chomsky’s work and there are many well developed insights here, Chomsky makes plenty of fine and salient points like, “The idea that the US is opposed to radical Islam is ludicrous. The most extreme fundamentalist Islamic state in the world is Saudi Arabia, which is the US’s favourite.” Saying how they also choose to turn a blind eye to all the terrorists groups they have been bankrolling for years like Wahhabism. Both of them speak well on Britain and the US's shameful history and meddling in the Middle East, in Iran, Iraq and Israel, including Churchill eagerness to use gas on innocent civilians and children. They also speak well on the German exploits and mass killings and camps in places like Namibia and Patagonia.

They bring the US government to task on their law making, like how in 2002 the US signed the Hague Invasion Act that safeguards it from being prosecuted in any international court of which the US is not a member, or “When the United States signed the Genocide Convention after 40 years it had a reservation saying it was ‘Inapplicable to the United States’” These are just some of the many rules and exemptions the US has made up for itself so it can act with impunity.

Chomsky and Vltchek touch on many interesting subjects from many varied places around the world, from the devastating legacy of Colon in Panama, after US forces intervention over 25 years ago to the ridiculous nature of the so called “war on drugs” that creates more misery than it stops. Or what about the story Chomsky tells of a call he got from a friend at the ABC TV network in 1986, telling him to watch the 7 o’ clock news that night. He did and discovered that the networks were showing the live bombing of Libya. The US forces had timed the bombing for prime time TV.

I have never read Vltchek before, for large parts here, he comes across like some overbearing, loudmouth backpacker from two tables down at a bar, who can’t shut up about all the countries he’s visited and how he now knows everything about everything. He says, “After living on all the continents of the world, I actually believe that the ‘Westerners’ are the most indoctrinated, the least informed and critical group of people anywhere on earth, with some exceptions, like Saudi Arabia.” I am a little confused, does this mean he believes Westerners to be the most indoctrinated or does he think the Saudis?...It cannot be both. It's this sort of scattergun approach that makes this come across like a badly photocopied, student pamphlet at times.

Aside from the smug arrogance that often fills the air, what is also apparent is the total absence of reason or balance, this is why so often people on the left get such bad press, when you get this strain of extreme ranting. There is no shortage of arrogant scoffing and ridiculing of western media about their mis-reporting, bias and inaccurate figures, which made me laugh when I saw both of them being repeatedly guilty of doing exactly the same thing.

At one point Vltchek says, “There is no doubt that more people were murdered during the US bombing campaigns of the Cambodian countryside than by Khmer Rouge actions.” Where did he get this idea from?...More importantly where is his evidence?...and where are the million plus bodies hiding?...It’s absolute rubbish. Chomsky claims the estimate between 25 to 30 million people were killed in Mao’s famine, when in actual fact according to Prof Frank Dikotter’s in “Mao’s Great Famine” (published two years before this interview took place) at least 45 million perished.

The way China is spoken of here, you would think that they were discussing some edifying utopia. Both of them mention a handful of instances where they happened to avoid censorship in the Iranian and Chinese media and this is somehow conflated into these places being more open than in the west?...Vltchek insists, “I felt much freer in Beijing than when the BBC interviews me, because the BBC doesn’t even let me speak, without demanding a full account of what exactly I am intending to say.” This turns out to be based on one, isolated incident, he later talks about which has clearly left him bitter and so because the BBC didn’t let him speak and China did we are supposed to equate that with China being more open and free.

He expands, “I find China an amazing place and I also find it a very interesting model that works very well, at least for them.” Who is them?... What about the likes of Harry Wu, Liu Xiaobo and Ai Weiwei, this is to name but a tiny example of China’s victims of appalling oppression and imprisonment. No mention of Falun Gong and the harvesting of organs, no hint of the appalling pollution that devastates the health of millions and kills at least hundreds of thousands a year. What about Tibet?...He doesn’t talk of the genocide going on in Uyghuristan, or China’s oppression and intimidation in the likes of Hong Kong and Taiwan. I also didn’t hear much being said about the millions of displaced people who made way for this “progress”. Or are all those deaths, imprisonments and forms of torture and repression just down to western propaganda?...

For someone so concerned and upset about various European colonies around the globe, he suddenly gets all forgiving and forgetful when it comes to China’s current expansionism and empire building. He lays almost all the blame of the Congo wars at the feet of European/American business interest, but he doesn’t acknowledge China’s bold and surreptitious influence on the region too, not just in that area, but throughout much of Africa and beyond in places like Myanmar and Papua New Guinea, where their greed for resources and wealth, polluting of the environment and appalling treatment of locals, has made lasting damage. He certainly makes no mention of the fact that China is also the world’s biggest importers of illegal timber either.

The love bombing for blatantly oppressed countries becomes nauseating, the pair turn the love beams onto Soviet era communism and they manage to discuss the Eastern bloc without once mentioning the elephant in the room, that is East Germany, which remains possibly the most heavily surveillanced and oppressive nation to have ever existed. Instead Chomsky insists, “In the post-Stalin era, East Europe’s repression was mild, In fact it’s kind of striking but the Soviet Union actually subsidized Eastern Europe so that it ended up richer than Russia.” Though later Chomsky contradicts himself, “Ceausescu who was the worst of the communist dictators but the darling of the West.” They draw a handful of first-hand accounts together from people in Afghanistan and try and equate Russia's invasion as being positive for the Afghans.

They have a lot of love for Cuba too, particularly the doctors and culture. Castro did a vast amount of good in certain areas, but he also lied repeatedly breaking his promises of bringing liberty and free elections to Cuba, and so effectively what they are doing is praising and fawning over an established 50 year dictatorship. At no point do they acknowledge this and I would like to know what the thousands of Cuban boat people/refugees who risked their lives to flee Cuba would think of their homeland’s health and culture.

On a lighter note, it did make me laugh when Chomsky admitted to having never heard of the word “concision” before. Yep, I thought, that would make sense. So overall, I would say I enjoyed large parts of this book and there is a lot of interesting stuff in here and much that I agree with and there were times when I got really engaged with the line of debate, learning along the way, but too often plain silliness and crass over simplification got in the way.

[Amr Mohamed · Rating 4 out of 5]

ومن أفضل من تشومسكي لفضح سياسة وإرهاب امريكا والغرب ، فمهما قراءت له دائما يوجد استفادة من حوارته وكتبه ، لم تعجبني فقط مقدمة المترجم

[Ahmed Atif Abrar · Rating 5 out of 5]

ভূরাজনীতি নিয়ে বেশ চমৎকার, সুপাঠ্য একটা হাতেখড়ি হয়ে গেল। বইটার অনেক কথাই, স্বাভাবিকভাবেই, আজকের বাংলাদেশে অনেকটা প্রাসঙ্গিক লাগবে, অনেক অংশই উদ্ধৃত করতে ইচ্ছা করছে। সব করলে মেধাস্বত্ব লঙ্ঘিত হতে পারে, পাঠ প্রতিক্রিয়াটাও দীর্ঘ হয়ে যাবে। চমস্কি আর ভিচেকের কথোপকথনের একটা অংশ তুলে ধরি, যেখানে ভিচেক বলছেন:

আমার মনে হয় দক্ষিণ আমেরিকার সাথে অন্যান্য মহাদেশ যেমন আফ্রিকা কিংবা দক্ষিণ এশিয়ার একটা উল্লেখযোগ্য তফাৎ রয়েছে। এমনকি আমি যদি সেই বিশ বছর আগের কথাও চিন্তা করি, লাতিন আমেরিকার সেই অন্ধকার যুগের কথা, তাহলেও দেখব ওখানে কিন্তু মানুষের একটা তীব্র চাওয়া ছিল প্রত্যাশা ছিল একটা বিকল্প সমাজের জন্য। আমি সেই বিষয়টা দক্ষিণ এশিয়া কিংবা আফ্রিকায় দেখিনি, এমনকি মধ্যপ্রাচ্যেও দেখিনি। এই অঞ্চলের বেশকিছু দেশে, উগান্ডা থেকে কেনিয়া কিংবা ইন্দোনেশিয়া থেকে ফিলিপাইন, প্রায় সব কয়টি দেশেই এমনকি বিরোধী দলগুলোও পশ্চিমের আশীর্বাদপুষ্ট। বেশিরভাগ ক্ষেত্রেই এই দেশগুলোতে মানুষ পরিবর্তন বলতে বোঝে কোনো একজন ব্যক্তি মানুষের অপসারন, যেমন ইন্দোনেশিয়াতে সুহারতো কিংবা মিশরে হোসনি মুবারক। কিন্তু সামাজিক, রাজনৈতিক ও অর্থনৈতিক পদ্ধতির কোনো পরিবর্তন হয় না।

তবে যা হয়, চিনে উইঘুরদের ও���র নির্যাতন নিয়ে তাঁদের তেমন কোনো উদবিগ্নতা দেখলাম না।

[Ishendra Kashyap · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I first started reading this book, I was shocked. The book claims that western terrorism has killed more than 50 million people and it quotes several historical examples which I was unaware of. I have always believed that the world is grey rather than black or white, but is the world , dominated by capitalism and liberalism ,so biased as to actually omit all these information. But when I reached pages describing India, I was relieved . The book describes India as a failed state, and as a sad place, dominated by religious and social hatred. I am an Indian, and I can state with conviction that nothing can be farther than truth. Yes, there is poverty, and vestiges of old social system, but it is on the path of development and recovery, and general mood is of optimism Thus, I think, most of other examples too, like Indian example, are plain hyperbole. They are informed by an ideology, which has warped the actual truth. Having said this, yes, it arouses curiosity to actually find the truth regarding western terrorism.

[Omar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even if you don't take action, even if you're a non-believer, it is absolutely for one's best interest to be informed and to be educated.

[Randall Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We are moving toward what may be the ultimate genocide – the destruction of the environment …But nothing (is discussed in Mainstream Media) about the question of what the world is going to look like in a hundred years if we proceed with this. That is not discussed.”

Fun Facts: “Until 1975 women didn’t have a guaranteed legal right to serve in juries in federal trials.” “The main achievement of hierarchy and oppression is to get un-people to accept that it is natural.” “In some places the French managed to massacre the entire native population, such as on the island of Grenada.” In Cape Verde, a column is preserved in the center of town where “the Portuguese used to hang African slaves.” The first US book showing the extermination of our native people (“The Invasion of America” by Francis Jennings) only came out in 1975. The Cold War in the end proved to be not a war on Communism or Russia, but a war on radical nationalism. Any country trying to help its own people first, gets invaded after saying they are run by commie sympathizers. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, US planners worked off the assumption that Britain would be wiped out, but the US wouldn’t because “Russian (nuclear) missiles couldn’t reach there.” That’s how we treat our allies when no one is looking. “Multinational gold mining is the most destructive mining there is.” “The idea that the US is opposed to radical Islam is ludicrous. The most extreme fundamentalist state in the world is Saudi Arabia, which is the US’s favorite.” The US far prefers radical Islam to secular nationalists who support their own population instead of catering to US business elites. “Secular nationalists threatened them (US biz elites)– they threaten to take over the resources and use them for domestic development and that’s the worst sin; so, we support radical Islamists.” We “tolerate the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood because they are basically neoliberal.”

In its Indochina wars, the US used B52s “to bomb the Laotian and Cambodian countryside to prevent Laos and Cambodia from joining Vietnam in its liberation struggle.” “There is no doubt that more people were murdered during the US bombing campaigns of the Cambodian countryside than by Khmer Rouge actions.”

Americans sometimes talk about the 800,000 dead in Rwandan 1994 genocide, but much rarer is talk about the six to eight million murdered in the Congo. In fact, before than under Leopold II, ten million were murdered in the Congo which was where Belgians killed more people in Africa than existed in Belgium at that time. The sold-out Encyclopedia Britannica dismissed Leopold’s genocide entirely as “he sometimes treated his people harshly.”

The Double Tap: “The US (and Israeli) practice of striking one area multiple times, and evidence that it has killed rescuers, makes both community and humanitarian workers afraid or unwilling to assist injured victims.”

The Black Book of Communism came out in 1997 saying there were 100 million victims of Communism and how could people be so evil. Not mentioned was the work of economist and Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen clearly showing that 100 million also died in capitalist India during the same period equaling China’s Great Famine, and no one asked how our Allies could be so evil. And good luck finding mention in the US that “China has raised hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.”

Land of Hypocrisy: The US joined the International Court of Justice “but with the reservation that the US cannot be tried on any international treaty – meaning the UN Charter, the charter of the American States, the Geneva Conventions. The US is self-immunized from and any on those issues.” When the US signed the Genocide Convention after 40 years, it had a reservation saying that it was “inapplicable to the United States.” Congress passed legislation “which the Bush administration happily signed, which granted the White House authority to invade the Hague by force in case any American was brought there.” Republicans and even Democrats worry about immigration, but you’ll never hear asked, why are people leaving those countries and what responsibility does the US have for that. Shh…. One of the first things the US did in Fallujah was to “take over the general hospital” “and they threw all the patients on the floor and tied them up.” Winning hearts and minds. The US defense was that because the hospital was releasing casualty figures, it was a “propaganda agency”. India hypocritically bragged about being the first country to impose sanctions on South Africa while it kept hundreds of millions at the bottom of an “appalling caste system.” We fought the Iraq War because the Iraqis killed a few hundred people, but note that just in our invasion of Panama, the US killed “a couple of thousand”. Hypocrisy. We brought criminal charges against Noriega knowing that his crimes “were primarily from the period he was a CIA asset.” “They (the US) turned against him because he wasn’t cooperating with their support for the Contras in Nicaragua, so he became an enemy.”

BBC demands a full accounting of what Andre Vltchek is going to say before he goes on there, while Andre says in China “I am not censored.” Noam and Andre agree as a progressive you are censored far less in China, Turkey, and Iran and that “Chinese television and newspapers are much more critical of their own economic and political system than our television stations and newspapers are of ours.” I agree that China is much different than what the US press says: I visited there pre-normalization in 1979. We even scored pot there which came from Manchuria. Yum… Andre notes that the Soviet Union was less narcissist than the US by not holding over the world’s head that it won WWII (27.5 million of theirs dead and 80% of German casualties were from the Eastern Front) or that (unlike the US) they had a long history of supporting resistance to imperialism and colonialism and liberating dozens of countries.

Advertising: Noam wishes that Americans were told that the function of advertising is “to undermine the market” Advertising doesn’t want informed consumers, it wants “irrational choices.” Buy this sugary drink if you want to look cool. Goebbels wrote that “he modeled the German Nazi propaganda on American commercial advertising.” For example, the NYT praised the 1953 Iran coup and spun the story. Instead of telling us Mosaddegh was democratically elected and trying to help his people, it painted him as a “crazy man” and a “lunatic Arab” walking around in pajamas. Never mind that Iranians are Arabs, they are Persians. The US routinely spins its news, PR, and advertising in a way that would make the ghost of Edward Bernays proud.

US Crimes: Chinese coolies were kidnapped and brought to the US to build the railroads yet US patriots then blathered on about “they are going to take over, they have insidious plans”, etc… Authors like Kundera, Havel and Kohout became intellectual stars by ragging only on non-allies while never criticizing the crimes of the US and Europe. Had the Soviets been as economically nasty as the US it would have robbed Czechoslovakia blind which clearly did not happen. After looking at Soviet crimes, compare the death toll to British, Belgian, Dutch, German, French crimes in just Africa before reflexively pointing moral fingers in only one direction. “Many countries worldwide would still be colonies if not for the help their liberation movements received from the Soviet Union.” And don’t forget “Cuba had played a huge role in liberating Africa.” Che Guevara fought for the liberation of the Congo with an entire black Cuban contingent and look at what Cuba did Angola and Namibia – basically driving out the South Africans. Did they say, “look at me, look what I did” like Donald Trump? No, “they wanted the African leaders to be able to take credit for it.”

When the US illegally bombed Libya, only three countries supported it: Britian, France, and the US – all other countries demanded diplomacy and negotiations. Noam says Zionist logic is: “If you can get away with it, then why stop?” The warped logic of the playground bully, Mafia, Hitler, Genghis Khan, Charles Manson, and many others. For a long time, the US let Europe exploit Africa but now it is into exploiting Africa too. USAFRICOM, cobalt, oil, uranium and minerals anyone? The US “reconstituted the Mafia in Sicily and southern France” – “the payoff (for helping the US) was to give them control over the heroin industry (French Connection).” Before “Just Say No” was “Just Say Yes”. NYT correspondent James Reston praised the ’65-’66 Massacre in Indonesia (murdering 500,000 to 1,500,000 civilians) as “a gleam of light in Asia.” Australia and Britian as well were euphoric. Three Christianity-based countries delighting in clearly the opposite of the teachings of Christ.

The US share of the world’s wealth was 50% in 1945 and by 1970, it only had 25%. That’s a stunning loss. Hello Hubris! Who knew other sovereign nations wouldn’t want to be bullied annually by the US? If you publicly root for the underdog (like Palestinians, Kashmiris, West Saharans, or what the Beatitudes/Sermon on the Mount tells you to do) in real life, US liberals and conservatives will turn on you because only progressives do what their conscience says instead of first caving to “What would neoliberal Hillary, Rachel Maddow, or Trump do?”

Great book, but every book by Noam is great. Kudos to him yet again and I wish him and Valeria the best in Brazil.

[Nicholas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a conversation between Chomsky and Vitchek. For me, the style of the book is primarily a con, though it does make for easy reading (as far as the language goes. The content is not easy/pleasant to digest.)

Because this book is a conversation between two people with a lot of shared knowledge, it is not particularly useful for those who have absolutely knowledge of the issues and conflicts that they are discussing. Statements are made and facts understood between Chomsky and Vitchek, and, sadly, one will not come away from this book with a list for further reading, because sources are not discussed. Throughout the book there are also mentions of "a certain U.S. Company" and "a particular company," which left me wondering "which?" so that I could do further research. A few names of useful scholars as mentioned throughout, but not as many as one would hope for. I had some familiarity with these topics, so I did find the book engaging and useful, however if I had had any less familiarity, I think I would have just been annoyed.

That being said, the book does raise from very important points and considerations that we should be aware of in the modern world, and it was a good read. It is not a good first book on the topic, but it is worth reading.

[Matt Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chomsky's latest book is certainly one of his most critical of US imperialism. A must-read, "On Western Terrorism" is short, matter-of-fact, and crucial. Fans of Chomsky will not be disappointed.

[Shadin Pranto · Rating 5 out of 5]

এই শতাব্দীর সেরা বুদ্ধিজীবী নোয়াম চমস্কি দীর্ঘ আলাপচারিতার মুখোমুখি হলেন সাংবাদিক আন্দ্রে ভিজেকের। প্রচলিত কাঠামোর প্রশ্ন-উত্তর নয়। দুজন সুহৃদ, সমমতাদর্শের মানুষ যখন একসাথে বসলে পারস্পরিক মতবিনিময়ের মাধ্যমে এগিয়ে যায় কথার স্রোত।

যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের আধিপত্যে কাঠামোর সুলুকসন্ধানের পাশাপাশি চীন,ভারতের দ্বৈরথ। সৌদির মদদপুষ্ট ইসলামি জঙ্গীবাদ, ওয়াহাবিজম, সালাফিজমের প্রতি তার প্রভু যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের আশীর্বাদের ইতবৃত্ত সম্পর্কে দুজন কথা বলেছেন। প্যালেস্টাইন সমস্যার সমাধান কিংবা গণতন্ত্রের ফেরিওয়ালা যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের আধিপত্য হ্রাস পাওয়ার ইঙ্গিত দিয়েছেন এই দুই চিন্তক।

অত্যন্ত সুখপাঠ্য বই। ইংরেজি মূল বইটা সহজবোধ্য। বাংলায় চমৎকার একটি অনুবাদ করেছেন মুহাম্মদ গোলাম সারওয়ার। পড়তে পারেন। জ্ঞানচক্ষু বিকশিত হওয়ার পথ উন্মোচিত হবে।

[Martin Balaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zajímavý pohled na kontroverzní politiku tzv. "západu" očima dvou brilantních levicově smýšlících lingvistů. Neříkám, že si hned budu v pokoji vyvěšovat plakáty s Mao Ce-tungem a před spaním odříkavat Marxův manifest, ale nad událostmi světové politiky jsem si nyní vytvořil snad o něco větší nadhled.
Některé zločiny (především) Spojených států mají totiž často děsivější dopad, než hrůznosti socialističtějších států, které nám jsou předkládány jako neprominutelné.

Noam Chomsky je fakt legenda.

[Md Shariful Islam · Rating 4 out of 5]

বর্তমান সময়ের অন্যতম সেরা একজন বুদ্ধিজীবী ও দার্শনিক হলেন নোয়াম চমস্কি। আধুনিক ইতিহাস, ভূগোল, রাজনীতি, দর্শন প্রভৃতি নিয়ে তাঁর কাজ অসংখ্য। অপরদিকে আন্দ্রে ভ্লেৎজেক হলেন একজন চিত্রনির্মাতা ও সাংবাদিক যিনি মূলত যুদ্ধের ময়দান থেকে সেসব খবর ও ছবি পৃথিবীর সামনে আনেন যেগুলো সচরাচর মূলধারার গণমাধ্যমে আসে না। চমস্কির গুণমুগ্ধ এই সাংবাদিক একসময় মুখোমুখি হন চমস্কির যখন দুজন আলাপ করেন পশ্চিমা বিশ্বের সন্ত্রাসবাদ নিয়ে। সেই আলাপচারিতার মলাটবদ্ধ রূপ-ই হলো এই বইটি।

বইটার নামেই বইটার বিষয়বস্তু সম্পর্কে বলা হয়েছে। বইটিতে এসেছে পশ্চিম বিশ্বের সেসব অজানা অপরাধগুলোর কথা যেসব শুনে অবাক হতে হয় আর ভাবতে হয় ‘ আরেহ! এসব তো কখনও শুনি নি!’। সহজ ভাষায় বললে বইটাতে দুই লেখকের আলাপচারিতার মাধ্যমে উঠে এসেছে বিশ্বের আনাচে-কানাচে আমেরিকা ও তার ইউরোপীয় মিত্রদের অপরাধের কথা। আর এসব অপরাধকে কিভাবে তারা সাজিয়ে গুছিয়ে বিভিন্ন স্বাধীনতা ও উন্নয়নের নামে ভুক্তভোগী ও বাকি বিশ্বকে তাদের মিডিয়া ও প্রোপাগাণ্ডা সেলের মাধ্যমে হজম করিয়েছে তার ইতিবৃত্ত।

বইটা মূলত পশ্চিমা দুনিয়ার অপরাধের ফিরিস্তি। দুইজন লেখক খুব সহজভাবে পশ্চিমা দুনিয়ার মূল আদর্শকে তুলে ধরেছেন। তাঁরা বিভিন্ন যুদ্ধ, সামরিক অভ্যুত্থানের ইতিহাস ও ঘটনাপ্রবাহ আলোচনার মাধ্যমে দেখিয়েছেন পশ্চিমা দুনিয়া কিভাবে পুরো বিশ্বকে বোকা বানিয়ে হাজারো অপরাধ করেও সাধু হিসেবে নিজেদের উপস্থাপন করে যাচ্ছে। ইরান, গুয়েতেমালা, কঙ্গো, ব্রাজিল, ইন্দোনেশিয়া, চিলি, ভেনেজুয়েলা, হাইতি বা হন্ডুরাসের সামরিক অভ্যুত্থানে ইন্ধন বা সরাসরি সাহায্য; ইন্দো চীন, লিবিয়া, পানামা, আফগানিস্তান, ইরাক বা সিরিয়ায় সরাসরি যুদ্ধ এবং অ্যাঙ্গোলা, পূর্ব তিমুর, গুয়েতেমালার আদিবাসী, সালভাদরের বামপন্থী বা রুয়ান্ডার ন্যায়যুদ্ধে সরাসরি বিরোধিতা করেও পশ্চিমা বিশ্ব প্রতিনিয়ত সাম্য, স্বাধীনতা, গণতন্ত্র, মুক্ত বাজার বা মানবাধিকারের বুলি আওড়িয়ে যাচ্ছে। বইটাতে উঠে এসেছে কিভাবে পশ্চিমা বিশ্ব তাদের বিরোধীর বৈধ-অবৈধ সবভাবে দমন করে যাচ্ছে আর নিজেরা থেকে যাচ্ছে সকল আইনের ঊর্ধ্বে।

লেখকদ্বয় দেখিয়েছেন যতক্ষণ পর্যন্ত কোনো দেশ পশ্চিমাদের দেওয়া প্রেসক্রিপশন অনুযায়ী চলে, তাদের বাজার পশ্চিমা কোম্পানিদের জন্য উন্মুক্ত রাখে ততক্ষণ পর্যন্ত সেই দেশ পশ্চিমার বন্ধুতালিকায় থাকে তা সে দেশ গনতান্ত্রিক, স্বৈরতান্ত্রিক বা যাই হোক না কেন। কিন্তু যেই মাত্র কোনো দেশ বেঁকে বসে, তারা সমাজতন্ত্রে দীক্ষিত হয় বা জাতীয়তাবাদী চেতনা গড়ে তোলে যা পশ্চিমাদের কোনো না কোনো ব্যবসায় আঘাত হানে তৎক্ষনাৎ সে দেশ পশ্চিমা বিশ্বের কালো তালিকায় চলে যায়। আর তখনই পশ্চিমারা নিজেদের দাবিকে বিশ্বমত হিসেবে উপস্থাপন করে সেই দেশকে ‘ মুক্ত করতে বা গনতন্ত্র উপহার দিতে' আক্রমণ চালায় ততক্ষণ পর্যন্ত যতক্ষণ না সেই দেশ নতি স্বীকার করে। আবার যতক্ষণ স্বার্থ আছে ততক্ষণ তারা যেকোনো দেশকেই সাহায্য করে হোক তা আরব বিশ্বকে হাতে রাখতে ইসরায়েল বা চীনকে মোকাবেলায় ভারত, ফিলিপাইন। নিজেদের অস্ত্র ব্যবসা, তেল ব্যবসা আর প্রাধান্য বজায় রাখতে পশ্চিমারা যে কোনো কিছু করতেই পিছপা হয় না তা উঠে এসেছে লেখকদ্বয়ের দেওয়া প্রতিটা উদাহরণে।

মিডিয়া ও প্রোপাগাণ্ডার ব্যবহার নিয়ে বিস্তারিত আলোচনা করেছেন লেখকদ্বয়। তাঁরা দেখিয়েছেন কিভাবে পশ্চিমারা নিজেদের নাগরিকদের অন্ধকারে রেখে পুরো বিশ্বকে শোষণ করে চলেছে। তাঁরা দেখিয়েছেন নিজেদের অপরাধকে ভালো ভালো নাম দিয়ে সিদ্ধ করতে পশ্চিমারা পটু, আবার বিরোধীপক্ষের সামান্যতম অপরাধকেও তাল বানিয়ে উপস্থাপনের ক্ষেত্রেও তাদের জুড়ি মেলা ভার।

এ ধরনের বই এই প্রথম পড়া হলো আমার। ইংরেজি বই যে স্বল্প কয়েকটা পড়া হয়েছে তাদের সবগুলোই ফিকশন। তবু এই বইটা পড়তে কোনো সমস্যা হয় নি আমার। খুবই সহজ ভাষায় লেখা বইটা। আবার বৈঠকি ঢঙয়ে লেখা বলে পড়তেও আরাম। বিশ্ব ইতিহাস নিয়ে ততটা ধারণা না থাকায় তাঁদের আলোচনার অনেক রেফারেন্স-ই ধরতে পারি নি কিন্তু তা মূল বিষয় অর্থাৎ পশ্চিমাদের অপরাধ ধরতে কোনো সমস্যার সৃষ্টি করে নি। পুরো বইতে একমাত্র যে সমস্যাটা আমার নজরে পড়েছে তা হলো দুজন লেখক-ই তীব্র পশ্চিমা আদর্শ বিরোধী এবং সমাজতন্ত্র-পছন্দ হওয়ায় তাঁদের আলোচনা অনেক জায়গায়-ই আমার পক্ষপাতদুষ্ট মনে হয়েছে। মানে পশ্চিমা গণমাধ্যম যেভাবে সব দোষ রাশিয়া, ইরান, উত্তর কোরিয়াকে দেয়, এখানে লেখকদ্বয় তেমনি সব দোষ আমেরিকা ও তার মিত্রদের দিয়েছেন। আর এটা করতে গিয়ে চীন, রাশিয়ার অনেক অপরাধকেই লঘু করার একটা প্রবণতা তাঁদের মধ্যে দেখতে পেয়েছি। সবচেয়ে মজা পেয়েছি সেই জায়গায় যখন চমস্কি উল্লেখ করেন যে আয়ারল্যান্ড অনেক তথ্য যাজকদের কাছ থেকে পাচ্ছে আর আন্দ্রে বলে বসেন তাদের বেশিরভাগই প্রগতিশীল কিন্তু চমস্কি তা নাকচ করেন! আরেকটা গুরুত্বপূর্ণ বিষয় জানা হয়েছে বইটা থেকে আর তা হলো আমেরিকাকে কোনো আন্তর্জাতিক আদালতে অভিযুক্ত করা যায় না! আরব বসন্ত সম্পর্কে লেখকদ্বয়ের পর্যবেক্ষণ দারুণ লেগেছে। তাঁরা দেখিয়েছেন পশ্চিমারা কিভাবে স্বৈরশাসকদের শেষের আগ মুহূর্ত পর্যন্ত সাহায্য করে শেষ মুহূর্তে জনগণের সাথে একতাবদ্ধ হয়েছে এবং বিপ্লবের পরে আরব বিশ্বে গণতন্ত্রের গতিকে বাধাগ্রস্ত করছে নিজেদের স্বার্থে।

মোটের উপর, দারুণ একটা বই। বই যে বিশ্ব রাজনীতিকে দেখার নতুন একটা আয়না খুলে দেবে পাঠকের সামনে তা বলাই বাহুল্য।

[counter-hegemonicon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know I give every Chomsky book 5 stars but I really loved the dialogic format and what Vltchek was able to bring to the conversation as a war correspondent

[Ahmad M Bohindi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative, but confused and all over the place due to the dialogue, interview style. Full of "I think"s and "if my memory serves me right" and so on. This could have been corrected in the margins, as other reviewers suggested. For example, in P.74 they mention a UN women's rights representative in Afghanistan, but don't mention her name, a margin note would've been great help.

The title misleadingly says Western Terrorism, while Western media bias, and propaganda are the main themes. This book is more of a critique of media and public awareness than anything else. Also, the book is largely a comparison between Soviet and Chinese Communism and Western-style multi-party democracy and Capitalism. It's like two like-minded friends having a conversation about the world, shifting between subjects, some of which have nothing to do with the rest, such as Chomsky's sudden piece of travel journalism through India in Chapter 5. Not a properly organized book, yet their great knowledge and personal experiences in war-torn nations and with the deception of mainstream media makes it a great read.

[مالك · Rating 3 out of 5]

هذه أولى تجاربي مع تشومسكي

الكتاب يتحدث عن التاريخ الإرهابي للغرب بقيادة أمريكا وفرنسا وبريطانيا حسب قول الكاتب، لكن المشكلة أن الكاتب يعارض هؤلاء بينما ينطلق من مسلمة أن الدول الشيوعية أفضل منهم بل ويمجد بعض الدول ذات المذابح العالمية ويصورهم بصورة الحمل الوديع بينما ينتقد الدول الغربية لنفس الأسباب
للأسف الكتاب خالٍ من أي موضوعية، بل وأقتبس واحدة من أغرب الجمل التي كتبها الكاتب والتي تدل على انتقائيته تلك وتحيزه الواضح جدا للفكر الشيوعي ختى ولو قام بنفس الأخطاء: "لكن الحقيقة هي أن السوفييت لم يقترفوا مجزرة. صحيح أن الدبابات السوفياتية قد سحقت عددا من الأشخاص الذين وقفوا في طريقها، لكن أغلب الوفيات كانت حادث في طبيعتها، وفقد البعض حياته لأنهم كانوا سكارى يتبخترون في الشوارع" أي تحيّز وأي عمى أكثر من هذا؟ فقط القليل ماتوا تحت جنازير الدبابات؟!!! وكأن الإجرام يحدده العدد
أما عن الترجمة فهي بشكل عام جيدة، لولا أن الدكتور الجامعي الحاقد على الخليج، لا يعرف التفريق بين الضاد والظاء، هؤلاء هم مثقفوا هذه الطبقة :)

[Deb W · Rating 1 out of 5]

I put this down unfinished. I don't dissuade you from reading it, but my lack of knowledge about the history of world politics kept me from being able to follow the conversation. (The book format follows a conversation between Chomsky and Vlatchek.)

It did seem to me that most of Chomsky's information was dated -- not that that makes the murder of millions of people (80 - 100 million estimated) referred to as "un-people" because they are not Westerners, but according to Vltchek there are atrocities happening today in Asia, Africa, and South America.

I didn't see any references to specifics (reasons for conflict, aggressors/victims, etc). Instead the two float from one historic event to another with vague references. There isn't anything to use to substantiate their assertions.

[Joan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't care for the way the book was written. A conversation between two people with the same ideas, gave no reason to see their conversation from a different perspective. Who's to say they are correct? I don't like to think that the United States is guilty of so much "takeover" in the world, however history shows us that the major world powers were always in the business of taking over more and more - power. I don't recommend it.

[Pierre · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are depressed by the inhumanity and cruelty perpetrated by governments don't read this book it will not cheer you up. But if you want to know how things work in the real world then you have to read this book. Forget the conspiracy theorists read Chomsky he doesn't make unsubstantiated claims he has done the research and he has proofs. I'm amazed that he is still alive not because of his age but because he's been such a thorn for so long for so many governments.

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like a lot of Chomsky books, this one is a transcription of a conversation. It's a little bit of a cop-out to have so many of his books written this way, but it's still interesting. As usual, Chomsky challenges the neoliberal conventional wisdom and helps me to think of things differently. I would like a more thorough full book reading of the ideas though.

[Haithem · Rating 3 out of 5]

تحذير قبل تقرأ المراجعة:
انا جاهل سياسيا وما عندي اي معرفة وهذي مجرد افكار جت ببالي وانا اقرا الكتاب، وثانياً ما اعرف اركب جملتين على بعض المعذرة :)



🟥🟥
من فترة وانا احاول ابعد نفسي من غسيل المخ الغربي، ولكن اللي ما لاحظته اني ما زلت احتفظ بارأهم عن اعداؤهم بدون ما افكر فيها

لكن كنت شاك ان نظرة تشومسكي وفيلتشك لدول كثيره يغلب عليها تطبيل لأنهم اعداء للغرب اكثر من انهم صدق معجبين بهذي الدول او حتى يعرفون شي عنها.
ويوم شفت كلامهم عن الشرق الاوسط تأكدت من هالشي، كلامهم سطحي جدا وواضح انهم ما يعرفون الا رؤوس اقلام عن قضايا نعرفها حنا وعشناها، والغريب كلامهم patronizing رغم انهم كانوا يتشكون من ان الغرب يسوي هالشي

وهذا الصراحه يقنعني ان
White people will always be white people no matter how
progressive they might try to be

يعاملون قضايا العالم وكأنهم عايشينها وعارفين صغائرها وكبائرها.
وعايشين على مبدأ عدو عدوي صديقي.
يعني ما اعرف كثير عن الصين فما كنت ادري عن تطبيلهم لها اذا هو صدقي او بس عشانها ضد امريكا، لكن يوم شفت تطبيلهم لأيران عرفت الموضوع رايح فيها


They wouldn't even mention the massacres happening in iran or all the militias it's funding in the region just because they aren't doing it on behalf of the US or multinationals?

ما ادري اذا قاعد ابربر من راسي او لا بس محزن انك تشوف نظرة ابيض واسود للعالم من ناس المفروض انها من افضل المفكرين بالعالم....


باختصار من بداية هالكتاب كنت عارف اني مارح اتفق مع اغلب اللي يقوله تشومسكي لكن حبيت اعرض نفسي لبعض الاراء اليسارية عشان توازن البروباغندا اللي نتعرض لها كل يوم شوي.

والصراحة خاب املي شوي من نظرتهم السطحية لأشياء كثير.

[S · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is misleading. I was expecting a discussion on the West's terrorist tactics (a la Howard Zinn's Terrorism and War), but most of the book discusses the propaganda and reality of Western imperialist maneuvering. The book could best be described as an introduction to Chomsky's political thought. Through a transcribed conversation, Chomsky and Vitchek discuss the ways through which the West — largely the United States — have managed to oppress and exploit less powerful nations, and the ways in which propaganda covers up such abuses of power by throwing the spotlight in the traditional enemies of Russia, China, etc. Whether through media bombardment or the support of coups, Chomsky and Vitchek delineate the many instances of modern imperialism and the ways in which Western propaganda has managed to give itself the moral mandate.

The book covers events from every corner of the world, serving as a great summary of the past ~50 years of American imperialism, but in doing so sacrifices a lot of the complexity that characterizes superlative intellectual thought. This is certainly no Manufacturing Consent. My issue is the way, or perhaps speed, in which certain discussion topics were brought up and subsequently dropped. Issues are broached too quickly for a neophyte to draw any meaning from them, yet the book fails to draw any new conclusions that might entertain one with a more veteran understanding of international affairs. I suppose the book is most impactful in its scope: it forces the reader to consider the extent to which the West has abused the globe for personal gain. A rather strange book, maybe not best served by its format of a transcribed discussion, but fairly edifying if nothing else.

[Gavin · Rating 2 out of 5]

(c) James Bridle (2013), "A Quiet Disposition"

Rally round and settle in, once again, to hear the West’s most popular critic on his specialist subject: the barely recognised crimes of rich democracies. (Note, however, that this isn't really a book: it's a transcript of Chomsky in discussion with someone with even less ideological care than he. Also, the title is cool but misleading, since they don't actually go in to the plausible claim that the West's foreign policy has been terroristic, and since I don't think drones come up at all.) It is selective as history and nearly worthless as economics, but I do not begrudge Chomsky continuing his fifty-year marathon of talking about covert realpolitik: these sorts of manipulations are almost unreported at the time, go wholly unpunished, and are rapidly forgotten.

Like what? Well, begin with Leopold II, skip to the Enola Gay, or Britain's Palestine, Operation Boot, Operation PBFORTUNE, Lumumba, the Plain of Jars, and the long systematic atrocity "Operation Condor" (involving us and Pinochet, Noriega and Just Cause, Suharto, El Salvador), or that Iraq matter.


But even though it handles these real crimes, On Western Terrorism turns out to be an echo-chamber - a mix of apparently detailed research (e.g. they appeal to some 'declassified embassy reports' to back up some claims) and pervasive confirmation bias.

The main problem's exaggeration. In one breath they move from a righteous skit on the original colonial genocides to a view of world politics in which everything that happens now is the outcome of decisions in Brussels and Washington. From “The West has, historically and recently, been hypocritically violent and anti-democratic” to “Everything bad in the world is due to the West”. That sounds like a sure straw man, but here’s the man himself:

The great majority of events that were causing the suffering of countless human beings all over the world were related to greed, to the desire to rule and to control coming almost exclusively from the ‘old continent’ and its powerful but ruthless offspring on the other shore.

(Oh? malaria? dysentery? precarious subsistence farming? Hutu-on-Tutsi genocide?) He’s at it again here:

although it is mostly Rwanda, Uganda who are murdering millions of innocent [Congolese] people, behind this are always Western geopolitical and economic interests.

Well. It's true that, as well as the flat-out murders in the links above, our governments bear shame for ignoring unbelievably destructive ongoing wars in e.g. the Congo. But failing to prevent murder is not murder, nor necessarily accessory to - especially if we remember that C&V’s judicious attitude to military intervention would have precluded direct action anyway. There is a logical chasm between what one could only perhaps prevent - given enough luck and blood - and what one is the cause of. (I agree that the two situations place similar responsibilities on us, by the way - but in the absence of simple solutions, that hypothetical responsibility does not make them the same.) Similarly: capitalism produces enormous inequality but mostly inadvertently relieves poverty: poverty is our default from before there was a world-system. But C&V and others of the demagogic school persist in blaming all the world's ills on rich bores whose uncaring exploitation often works better for the poor than altruistic direct action. (This is very counterintuitive; so much for intuition.)

Why do I disagree? They say it’s cos I’m a dupe:

There have been very sophisticated propaganda systems developed in the last hundred years and they colonized minds including the minds of the perpetrators. That’s why the intellectual classes in the West generally can’t see it.

I say it’s because while their description of our foreign policy is (depressingly) fair, on the foreign policy of rival governments they are uncritical, whitewashing, and on historical alternatives to our type of society they are naive and cherry-picking, where they give evidence at all. What might a real radical say in response to my aspersions? "Fuck balance! Balance is what lets them get away with it! Fuck evidence! Evidence is what makes people think I’m wrong!"

Vltchek is much more skewed than Chomsky. He’s earnest, and clearly devoted to first-hand reporting of the abuse of powerless people. But, oddly, depressingly, this immersion in the frontline has robbed him of perspective (and in fact it doesn't get more front-line: he was tortured in East Timor in 1996). He suffers the defining mistake of recent leftism: the enemy of my enemy error, where you'll approve of anyone who resists the West. In fact, his comments, taken over the whole book, amount to a flirting defence of totalitarianism - he romanticises the Soviets, Assad's Syria, and Ecuador. Both of them exchange the Eurocentric rose-tint of our mainstream for lenses warped in the reverse direction. And it all rests, ultimately, on tacit belief in the 'superior virtue of the oppressed' - the strange belief that being bombed makes the bomb recipient better than you. (Sure, they’re probably more virtuous than the bombers, but that’s not saying much.) Our governments being awful does not mean that others are not. Quite the reverse.

Also: Chomsky bashes the 'Black Book' of Communism not by challenging its accounting, but by saying that Western capitalism's toll was worse (no footnote, but see the lone India example below); and the Prague Spring is utterly minimised with the same ugly break-a-few-eggs fallacy. Vltchek:

Moscow’s invasion of 1968 to put down the Prague Spring was not necessarily something that should have happened... but there was no massacre performed by the Soviets; few people fell under the tanks. Most of what happened was accidents; some people who died were drunk.

(The direct death toll was 72 plus suicides, if that's what he means.)

That’s the first big problem. The other huge one is the complete lack of footnotes, even as they make the boldest possible claims. As a result, even I identified some errors in the course of my single superficial reading. (Ok, so some failings are just the vagaries of live dialogue as compared to writing; but Vltchek (or Pluto Press at least) would be forgiven for editing the damn thing for basic evidence.)

The only research cited in support of the claim that capitalism causes more excess death from starvation is Dreze and Sen's reputable 1981 study 'Hunger and Public Action (p.214 here). C&V use this to compare excess deaths in India (as an instance of a market democracy) in 1947-1979 with that of Communist China, pointing out that Dreze and Sen place the toll in India at some 100 million, next to China’s '25-30' million. (First cockup: citing thirty-year-old research underestimates the toll of Mao’s famine by perhaps 20m people.) But the comparison doesn't do the work they put it to (that is, condemning capitalism): India was almost an autarkic command economy (in which perhaps two-thirds of all formal, non-subsistence employment was public-sector) in that period; it does not serve them as an exemplar of neoliberal starvation.

Even if it did, we would again come up against their curious equation of failure to prevent an intractable thing with causing the thing in the first place. As far as I can tell, their reasoning really is: “Capitalism exists, and poverty exists, so, capitalism causes poverty.” But it would take one of two things for capitalism to be responsible for poverty: causation, as evidenced by e.g. a gross increase in the number of poor people under its penumbra; or its impeding a more effective solution to poverty. But the proportion of (utterly) poor people, in this supremely Late-capitalist world is the lowest it has ever been; and the remaining poverty is not at all simple to fix; and capitalist countries really did try, throwing enormous amounts of money and thought at the problem for going-on 70 years.

To be responsible for poverty in the way C&V say, either capitalism or old socialism would have to be omnipotent, and - among other fairly strong disconfirmations for that idea - the 20th century shows both of those to be untrue. (The commercial success of Chomsky in his enormously capitalist society, is an extra data point toward rubbishing any strong statement about capitalism's mind-control powers.)

(Vltchek talks about global warming briefly, and I was about to reach for the recent debunking of claims of Polynesian evacuation – but in fact it turns out his sources were better; the president of Kiribati has since publicly floated a national evac plan.)

A less straightforward quibble: they think this book is about the West, I think it’s about humans with power.

I had believed Chomsky more humane than this talk makes him seem (see for example his sombre 90s piece on the Black Book) - that is, I want to pin the blame for this biased and maudlin tract on Vltchek. But his long-standing dismissal of some non-Western massacres at last makes me wonder.

On a less uninspired and dispiriting note: if there is a system less bad than Swedish capitalism, it does not exist in the past. So it must be invented, negotiated, and tested. Chomsky and the other socially enraged ostalgiacs in his ambit are not mostly doing that; Erik Olin Wright and David Graber and Nancy Fraser and others are at least trying.

*

Finally, what’s so bad about being excessive and dogmatic in your criticism of awful things? (Why should anti-oppression efforts need to justify themselves? They're anti-oppression!) Well, apart from it being dangerous and ignoble to be so firmly wrong, taking this tack means that your true conclusions will be dismissed as just more of your typical excesses.

But even given their slips, hyperbole, and complacency, there’s no way around some of C&V's key claims: Our governments have not in general been a positive force in the rest of the world; this is not well-known within our societies; as long as the US is legally immune from prosecution, international justice is a joke; we have often given money and guns to the worst people in the world; we did this for little more than control and for stuff.

[Anton Alexandrov]

This book mentions a huge number of war crimes and genocides done by the West (mostly the US) but doesn't go into much detail about any one in particular. A good way to add a hundred books into the 'to-read' list.

[Rashed]

এ তোমার পাপ,এ আমার পাপ,এ বিধাতার অভিশাপ...

[Bicho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buenísimo broli sobre terrorismo, libertad de derechos y de expresión. Entre otras cosas. Chomsky y Vltchek no sólo analizan diferentes temas a través de un diálogo en donde no siempre coinciden, sino que también relatan muchas de sus experiencias, en primera persona, en lo que es para mi lo más valioso, destacado y singular del libro. Sobre todo para quién está acostumbrado a leer a Chomsky.

[Jumana | جمانة · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've always admired authors who make readers aware of what's going on around them in real life. I dare say that this book not only emphasized & put what I already know in order but also introduced me to facts I haven't payed attention to whatsoever. Every youth in every part of the world should read it, you know why? 'Cause they will eventually find that a piece of them was once terrorized in someway or the other—or even it is continued to be terrorized. We should be aware of this, not to spread meaningless hatred, but to BE AWARE when the subject is put on the table for discussion. To be angry, so that change may happen. To have an answer when, for instance, someone attacks you saying that "your country is a terrorist!" To know who really made you homeless, who colonized you, & made you migrate, for you don't want to end up ignorantly honoring those who made you go through the struggle of it all.

The authors also talked about media propaganda. This part was my favorite, because it finally gave me answers to things I've experienced first hand, such as meeting some Westerners that go under this category "Their world is mono-polar. They don't compare different ideas, ideals, & ideologies. They only have one ideology; which can be called 'market-fundamentalism,'..." Also, "After living in all the continents in the world, I actually believe that the "Westerners" are the most indoctrinated, the least informed..... But they believe the opposite: that they are the best informed & the 'freest' people."

I highlighted most of this book & I plan to re-read some of its chapters, for I need to be more knowledgable in some so that I could thoroughly grasp what the authors have discussed.

[Zain Mirza · Rating 3 out of 5]

An eye-opening transcript of a conversation exposing the extent of past and ongoing Western imperialism.

While I appreciate Andre Vltchek's attempt in divulging the role of Western powers in destabilizing countries that dare to adopt democracy (as this goes against Western interests), I wish more facts had been presented; some of Vltchek's comments seem based on pure conjecture. It was a bit difficult to follow some of the conversation as the two kept flitting from one conflict or dictator to the next, taking it for granted the reader would be acquainted with the subject matter. Footnotes would have sufficed. The timeline however, was very valuable.

Democracy, overall, seems like the world's biggest farce. Towards the end, I was left in despair at the seemingly hopeless scenario presented of the world today. But as Chomsky concludes, '...we have only two choices: one is to say "it's hopeless, let's give up" and help make sure the worst will happen. And the other is to say, "well, we could try to make things better, so we will try." If it works, it works, if it doesn't, we go back to the worst choice. Those are the options for us.'

The question remains, which option will you choose?