At a parallel moment, the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination in 1963, one of the few comments that actually referred to the world political context was that by el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz: "The chickens come home to roost." For that "picket line at a funeral" he was suspended by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. But we would have been far better off in the following years, had we paid attention to the "factual veracity" of the Kennedy administration's spreading murder across the globe.
But we should give "those in authority the benefit of the doubt ... [without] debate and analysis ... [or] politics"? Simply observe without comment this flourish of geriatric machismo from Washington? "Up to 60 countries face the full wrath of American military might!" exclaims the loony Defense Secretary. "Use tactical nuclear weapons on Afghanistan!" says the usual shadowy spokesman for the US "intelligence community." And the putative president of the US threatens to attack any country found "harboring" terrorists. Of course, if that were an excuse for killing a country's civilians, then many in the rest of the world would say that Bin Laden could claim it in regard to America, where Clinton and Kissinger are at large, and the government is purportedly put in place by the people. It probably would be better to ignore "factual veracity" in speaking to the rest of the world.
So let's all go read the "nearly perfect" column by Bob Novak, which calls for assassination and "the hiring of paid informers with unsavory reputations." (Plenty of precedents: it was the good liberal George Kennan who took over the Nazis' Gehlen operation in the USSR.) What we need is the proper "political context." --CGE
On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Max Sawicky wrote:
> The factual veracity of Chomsky's remarks is beside the point.
> Offering facts implies a political context. The argument is really
> about the implied political context. We could acknowledge that the
> U.S. created OBL, or that "worse" things (whatever that means) have
> happened to others with the complicity of the U.S., but in the
> immediate wake of *this* atrocity such observations are offensive.
> They are perceived as a deliberate distraction from the crime in
> question, and in this way an insult to those in grief or frightened.
> There is also an implied political agenda -- we should campaign
> against further U.S. depredations in the world, again a distraction
> from any sort of retaliation, just or unjust. This is insulting too,
> like setting up a picket line at a funeral. Worst of all is all talk
> of this as some kind of blow against imperialism that was misguided or
> ill-conceived. This ridiculous parody of 'left' analysis assigns a
> wholly-undeserved status to OBL and/or whomever is responsible for
> 9/11/02. If a tornado struck the WTC, would we call that a 'blow
> against imperlaism"?
>
> In a situation like this, it is inevitable that prudence is defined,
> at least for a while, as giving those in authority the benefit of the
> doubt. In this kind of breach, there appears to be no time for
> extended debate and analysis. Nor is there any real time for
> politics. That will change in a few weeks. Nothing the left does is
> going to stop what the U.S. Gov does this month. But what the left
> does now might have a bearing on how its message is received in coming
> months.
>
> There is already plenty of doubt surfacing about the value of assorted
> military options. Today there is a near-perfect column, for instance,
> by no less than Bob Novak, the prince of darkness. (The imperfection
> is blaming the CIA's failure on "years of liberal tinkering.") I also
> see repeated preachments against chauvinism within the U.S. towards
> Muslims or Arabs. A little hope lets you see more possibilities, not
> fewer.
>
> mbs