“Impressions of Gaza”

Brief review of Failed States, by Derrick O'Keefe, Straight.com (April 27, 2006). An excerpt:

With Failed States, Chomsky (the world's most important public intellectual, according to Foreign Policy magazine) turns the rhetoric justifying military interventions in places like Afghanistan and Iraq upside down. He does so by amassing documentation contrasting the professed "noble intent" of U.S. foreign policy--human rights, democracy, apple pie--with its record of support for venal dictatorships and undermining of popular democracy and independence in the developing world.

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Another great Chomsky website: The Chomsky Viewer.

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Chomsky Challenge: Bird Said to Grasp Key Aspect of Human Language, by Sara Goudarzi, LiveScience (April 26, 2006). An excerpt:

Noam Chomsky has endured many attempts to disprove his widely respected theories of language, but never have any of them come from a 3-ounce bird. The European starling, a tiny virtuoso, has the ability to learn and recognize a feature of grammar that has long been thought to be unique to human languages, researchers report in a new study. Chomsky isn't buying it, however.

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2 profs spark political firestorm, by Ron Grossman, Chicago Tribune (April 6, 2006). An excerpt:

Writing for the Znet Web site, Chomsky applauded Mearsheimerand Walt for their courage in writing "The Israel Lobby," but he added: "We still have to ask how convincing their thesis is. Not very, in my opinion."

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On Hegemony and Disarmament, interview with Shelley Walia, The Hindu (April 9, 2006). An excerpt:

Recall that the major UN resolution on Iraq to which the U.S. and U.K. appeal, Resolution 687 of April 1991, calls for "establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery". The U.S. has repeatedly made similar commitments, but of course does not abide by them, and has now also violated them in the case of India. Furthermore, we should bear in mind that the Non-Proliferation Treaty commits all nuclear states to undertake "good faith" efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons. That was a core part of the initial bargain. That is a binding legal commitment, as the World Court ruled a decade ago. None of the nuclear states has abided by that commitment, but the U..S is far in the lead in rejecting it, and has even declared, under Bush, that it is not bound by it.

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On Iraq Troop Withdrawal, Haiti, Latin America and Israeli Elections, video interview with Amy Goodman & Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now (April 3, 2006).

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Failed States, interview transcript with Amy Goodman & Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now (March 31, 2006). An excerpt:

[T]here are two aspects of [the democracy deficit]. One is, the democracy deficit internal to the United States, that is, the enormous and growing gap between public opinion and public policy. Second is their so-called democracy-promotion mission elsewhere in the world. The latter is just pure fraud. The only evidence that they're interested in promoting democracy is that they say so. The evidence against it is just overwhelming, including the cases you mentioned and many others. I mean, the very fact that people are even willing to talk about this shows that we're kind of insisting on being North Koreans: if the Dear Leader has spoken, that establishes the truth; it doesn't matter what the facts are. I go into that in some detail in the book.

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