I think yours would have been a better argument, but still Vietnam was further in the past and the World Court's judgement is in the records.
It seems to me the point Chomsky was trying to make was the entirely reasonable one that the US would be in a better position to condemn terrorism if it didn't practice it itself.
The hypocrisy is what seems to drive so many people here off the deep end. And probably many in the viewing audience knew from experience that moral crusaders like Bennett usually turn out to be hypocrites so I thought it was clever of Chomsky to attack on that point.
Having said that, I don't think Americans should be nuked by al Qaeda because of the crimes of Reagan, Kennedy, Johnson, Kissinger, etc., and all of their enablers (the people who voted for them, carried out their orders, etc.) A lot of Americans are trying to work to make the country less of a rogue state and many, many people are just living their lives and trying to get by best they can. This is where I disagree with Chomsky, b/c I think the war (or heavy duty police action) on al Qaeda is just. And failing to prosecute it vigorously would probably have horrible consequences.
But still, I think it's possible that some CNN viewers who agree with me on that, could have had their minds changed by Chomsky (and by Bennett's idiotic, hectoring behavior) and find that he has a point in saying that the US should practice what it preaches: a simple, reasonable point. Bennett argued it does, but of course the record shows otherwise. Bennett could have made Chomsky look silly by pointing out that there are two sides in this war and you have to be nuts to side with fundamentalists who purposefully murdered 3000 civilians in order to create Islamic states on the Taliban model and who will clearly kill again.
>I wouldn't stake everything on the fact that the World Court called us one
>sort-of 20 years ago when we were mining Nicaragua's harbors. That's
>legalism squared and then draped over an historical footnote. He shoulda
>said Terrorism is when you kill civilians on purpose to make a point or to
>break their will, and the US did exactly that on an epic scale in Vietnam.
>We killed millions, and for what? And the US has supported massacres and
>torture and repression on equally huge scales in lots of other countries
>-- all of which dwarfs the isolated attacks that non-state actors can
>muster. Then for follow ups give examples of one huge forgotten massacre
>after another that we propped up: Guatemala, Indonesia, East Timor, etc.
>
>I'm not sure I'm a fan of the terrorist state trope, but this seems like
>the obvious way to make the argument for someone who is. The way he chose
>seemed to me completely head up his ass. With a plan like that he
>deserved to lose what amounted to a three minute one round fight. With a
>better plan he could have won.
>
>Fwiw, which I agree, is not much in itself.
>
>Michael
>
>