Just like the Nazis

Alongside the usual Islamist ranters and ravers who make up the bulk of the clips featured on MEMRI TV, with their steady and by-now familiar crackpot anti-Semitism, a new face has just appeared. It's "arguably the most important intellectual alive today", Noam Chomsky, being interviewed for Iran's Press TV. Here's his contribution:

Interviewer: How important was the principle of "starting a war of aggression," as we talked about earlier, or a "crime against peace," in the proceedings at Nuremberg that led to the hanging on many Nazis? Can the International Criminal Court prosecute these crimes?

Noam Chomsky: Yes, it was a major factor in the hanging of Nazi war criminals. In fact, if you look closely, it seems more pertinent to the present. So von Ribbentrop, the Foreign Minister – one of the charges against him was that he supported a preemptive war against Norway. The Nazis knew that the British were thinking of invading from Norway, so they preempted it and established a quisling government there. That was one of the crimes against von Ribbentrop.

How about Colin Powell? He justified a preemptive war against no threat. So if von Ribbentrop was hanged...You know...Okay, fill it out.   [...]

There was one interesting response [to the targeted killing of Osama Bin Laden] from a well-known, left liberal, young political analyst, Matthew Yglesias, who said this was extremely naïve, because the whole purpose of international law is to legitimize the use of force by the Western Powers – meaning the United States. Well, he is not wrong. It's nice to have somebody say the words. But what he is saying is: "Look, forget all the rhetoric. This is pure farce. We are just like the Nazis. We do what we like."

Is he senile? He certainly looks - and sounds - senile. But then this US = Nazi Germany line is the same stuff he's been pushing for years. And obviously he'll talk to anyone who'll listen. Even, here, telling a theocratic regime - a regime that tortures and murders dissenting voices, that kills homosexuals, that denies the Holocaust, that sponsors terrorists - just exactly what they want to hear. 

Anyway, nice to see that the old man's found a suitable home at last.

Comments

[Bob-B]

It may be possible to loath western democracy without giving aid and comfort to tyrants and terrorists, but it is difficult and Chomsky has certainly failed completely.

Here is some useful discussion of an earlier comparison of Chomsky's between the US and the Nazis:

http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2007/09/chomsky-recolle.html

[Dom]

Chomsky has a stock answer to this: He is American, and he criticizes America. He is not Iranian, so ...

It doesn't work for me, but it works for many of his acolytes.

[Bob-B]

If we are only allowed to criticize our own countries, Chomsky will presumably cease to criticize Israel any more and will presumably tell non-Americans who criticize America to mind their own business. He will do this, won't he?

[Dom]

You forgot the Chomsky two-step. Israel is an American dependency, so it is fair game. You don't become the world's greatest intellectual for nothing, you know.

[Bob-B]

But you think he will tell non-Americans who criticize America (and even in some cases chant 'death to America') to mind their own business?

[grassmarket]

I'm convinced that these Nazi analogies are mainly a function of the modern world's dumbing down. The Nazis are the only historical villains anyone can name. Back in the early Victorian era Macaulay could cite the name of the murderer of Atahualpa* as a fact every child was familiar with, but nowadays if you compared Israeli policy with Frederick the Great's invasion of Silesia in 1742 or Napoleon's assassination of the Duc d'Enghien you would get very blank looks indeed.

*Name intentionally left blank as an exercise for the reader

[Bob-B]

I'm sure very many people can name Stalin and Mao, but of course some don't see them as historical villains. Cf. Seumas Milne on Stalin and Tony Benn on Mao.

[TDK]

"But you think he will tell non-Americans who criticize America (and even in some cases chant 'death to America') to mind their own business?"

Doesn't work that way.

Only white people can be racist because prejudice+power=racism. Black people do not have power so cannot practice racism - their discrimination has no effect.

In the same way the US has power, the Iranians/Palestinians not, so they cannot be criticised. They react to power rather than instigate.

Setting aside the obvious problems with the above argument, it clearly only has purchase because of the relative strength of the US in the recent two or three decades. Before that time the USSR was a credible rival and so such arguments would have appeared foolish. In the same way the argument will grow weaker if China continues to rise.

[SnoopyTheGoon]

"Is he senile?"

If so, he was born this way, because he is pretty consistent in his senility through his whole life.

[sackcloth and ashes]

Really pleased to see that Noam didn't miss the opportunity to tell truth to power, and he gave his hosts what-for over the brutal suppression of the Green movement in 2009, the murder of political prisoners in Evin prison, the assassination of exiles, the execution of underage girls etc etc