|
|
“Impressions of Gaza”By Noam Chomsky, written following his trip to the Gaza Strip on October 25-30, 2012. http://chomsky.info/articles/20121104.htm
(Ashraf Amra / APA Images)
Posted Thursday, December 28, 2006 Translator, Editors of Chomsky's Book Acquitted, Turkish Daily News (December 22, 2006). An excerpt: The Istanbul Second Criminal Court on Wednesday acquitted the publisher, translator and two editors of the Turkish edition of a book by prominent U.S. leftist Noam Chomsky, the Anatolia news agency reported. Historical Perspectives on Latin American and East Asian Regional Development, talk delivered to a Boston meeting of Mass Global Action (December 15, 2006). An excerpt: There was a meeting on the weekend of December 9-10 in Cochabamba in Bolivia of major South American leaders. It was a very important meeting. One index of its importance is that it was unreported, virtually unreported apart from the wire services. So every editor knew about it. Since I suspect you didn't read that wire service report, I'll read a few things from it to indicate why it was so important. Why we stand for immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq THE U.S. occupation of Iraq has not liberated the Iraqi people, but has made life worse for most Iraqis. Tens of thousands of U.S. service people have been killed or maimed, and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis have lost their lives as a result of the U.S. invasion in 2003, the ongoing occupation, and the violence unleashed by them. Iraq's infrastructure has been destroyed, and U.S. plans for reconstruction abandoned. There is less electricity, less clean drinking water, and more unemployment today than before the U.S. invasion. All of the justifications initially provided by the U.S. for waging war on Iraq have been exposed as lies; the real reasons for the invasion -- to control Iraq's oil reserves and to increase U.S. strategic influence in the region -- now stand revealed. The Bush administration has insisted again and again that stability, democracy, and prosperity are around the next bend in the road. But with each day that the U.S. stays, the violence and lack of security facing Iraqis worsen. The U.S. says that it cannot withdraw its military because Iraq will collapse into civil war if it does. But the U.S. has deliberately stoked sectarian divisions in its ongoing attempt to install a U.S.-friendly regime, thus driving Iraq towards civil war. The November elections in the United States sent a clear message that voters reject the Iraq war, and opinion polls show that seven in 10 Iraqis want the U.S. to leave sooner rather than later. Even most U.S. military and political leaders agree that staying the course in Iraq is a policy that is bound to fail. Yet all the various alternative plans for Iraq now being discussed in Washington, including those proposed by House and Senate Democrats, aren't about withdrawing the U.S. military from Iraq. Rather, these strategies are about continuing the pursuit of U.S. goals in Iraq and the larger Middle East using different means. Even the proposal to redeploy U.S. troops outside of Iraq, a plan favored by many Democratic Party leaders, envisions continued U.S. intervention inside Iraq. With former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger insisting that a military victory in Iraq is no longer possible and (Ret.) Lt. Gen. William Odom calling for "complete withdrawal" of all U.S. troops, the antiwar movement should demand no less than the immediate withdrawal of the U.S. military -- as well as reparations to the Iraqi people, so they can rebuild their own society and genuinely determine their own future. Ali Abunimah Gilbert Achcar Michael Albert Tariq Ali Anthony Arnove Noam Chomsky Kelly Dougherty Eve Ensler Eduardo Galeano Rashid Khalidi Camilo Mejía Arundhati Roy Howard Zinn |
|