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.
Who should be hanged for all this, Noam?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/irans-srebrenica-how-ayatollah-khomeini-sanctioned-the-deaths-of-20000-enemies-of-the-state-8485984.html
Posted by: sackcloth and ashes | February 08, 2013 at 11:31 AM
Thanks for the link - I hadn't seen that.
Posted by: Mick H | February 08, 2013 at 02:50 PM