Noam Chomsky and his views

http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20060124.htm

* Human beings are facing now some of the greatest threats in human history. There has been nothing like this. I mean, there have been two major crises which literally threaten survival. The most serious one is [1] nuclear war. That is a very serious problem. It is not discussed anywhere near seriously enough. But if you look at the literature of strategic analysts and others who pay attention to this, many of them regard the crisis as greater now than at any time during the Cold War.

The second is [2] environmental catastrophe. That is a longer term. Nuclear war could take place tomorrow by accident. Environmental catastrophe is longer term, but it is coming and it is serious. And no one knows exactly what the effects will be. But they could be very serious.

* The Bush administration is the most dangerous administration that has ever existed in the U.S. I mean, it is taking actions which significantly increase the threat of destruction of species in both of the domains that we are talking about. It is also taking actions which increase the threat of terror, which is quite serious. It is not nuclear war but it is very serious, and they are doing it quite consciously.

* The invasion of Iraq was an outright war crime. It is a clear, explicit war crime. It had no pretext, no justification and there was a reason for it: the reason was to take control of Iraq's enormous oil resources and to strengthen U.S. power in the region. I mean it is well understood by strategic analysts and international affairs specialists and has been for 50 years, that the reason the U.S. wants to control Middle East oil is not to gain access to the oil. They can do that through market processes - the oil is going to be sold, and anybody can buy it. The point is to have a strategic weapon against their rivals, meaning against Europe and Northeast Asia.

* There is also right now the insurgency which is violent and brutal, but it was elicited by the invasion. Iraq hadn't had any suicide bombers for probably a millennium, but now they have them all the time. The U.S. intelligence and the Israeli and Saudi intelligence have analyzed very closely the foreign fighters in Iraq. There are very few. It is maybe 10 percent of the insurgents. But almost none of them had any terrorist record. They are under extremely close surveillance. Their people were mobilized by the war. It was expected that the war would mobilize potential militants, ultimately terrorists, and they would spread around the world.

* If you're not interested in reducing terror such as the Bush administration which doesn't care about terror, then you do exactly what bin Laden wants. Take a look at these studies by U.S. government specialists on terror. What they point out is that the best ally that Osama bin Laden has is George Bush. He does exactly what bin Laden wants. He does react with violence and terror against the populations who Osama bin Laden is trying to appeal to. Sure, it's as if he is following a script written by Osama bin Laden. Terror is a serious problem. Terrorism is getting worse. But there are sensible ways to deal with it.

* The way to terminate the threat of nuclear weapons is to take two steps. One of them is to control, to have an international control over the development of any fissile materials and have a bank somewhere under international control with all fissile materials produced or stored. And if any country wants them for legitimate purposes - nuclear energy, then release them. That proposal has been at the U.N. for years, I think it was 1993, [that] it was proposed. But the U.S. has blocked it.

It finally came to a vote in November 2004. That's probably the most important vote that the U.N. ever took. The vote came out 174 to 1. The U.S. voted against it. Two countries abstained: Israel and Britain.

* The non-nuclear states agreed not to develop nuclear weapons and the nuclear states agreed that they would eliminate nuclear weapons. Have they done it? None of them have done it. And the U.S. isn't believed. The U.S. simply says -those under Bush for the first time - it says the provisions of the treaty don't apply to us. Well, O.K. if the nuclear states are not going to live up to their side of the bargain, then the non-nuclear states are not going to do it, either.

* The U.S. is for the moment dominating the world by force. I mean, in the dimension of violence the United States is unparalleled. I mean, it has about half of the total world military spending; it's far more advanced in things like space, which is the next dimension of military warfare. The U.S. has about 95% of the expenses and in fact, is the only country that is trying to keep space for military purposes