>The way I remember it was that Chomsky said a silent genocide
>was coming and that the US wanted it to happen.
Here's what Chomsky said <http://www.zmag.org/GlobalWatch/chomskymit.htm>:
>1. What's Happening Right Now?
>
>Starvation of 3 to 4 Million People
>
>Well let's start with right now. I'll talk about the situation in
>Afghanistan. I'll just keep to uncontroversial sources like the New
>York Times [crowd laughter]. According to the New York Times there
>are 7 to 8 million people in Afghanistan on the verge of starvation.
>That was true actually before September 11th. They were surviving on
>international aid. On September 16th, the Times reported, I'm
>quoting it, that the United States demanded from Pakistan the
>elimination of truck convoys that provide much of the food and other
>supplies to Afghanistan's civilian population. As far as I could
>determine there was no reaction in the United States or for that
>matter in Europe. I was on national radio all over Europe the next
>day. There was no reaction in the United States or in Europe to my
>knowledge to the demand to impose massive starvation on millions of
>people. The threat of military strikes right after
>September....around that time forced the removal of international
>aid workers that crippled the assistance programs. Actually, I am
>quoting again from the New York Times. Refugees reaching Pakistan
>after arduous journeys from AF are describing scenes of desperation
>and fear at home as the threat of American led military attacks
>turns their long running misery into a potential catastrophe. The
>country was on a lifeline and we just cut the line. Quoting an
>evacuated aid worker, in the New York Times Magazine.
[...]
>Silent Genocide
>
>Well we could easily go onŠ.but all of thatŠ.first of all indicates
>to us what's happening. Looks like what's happening is some sort of
>silent genocide. It also gives a good deal of insight into the elite
>culture, the culture that we are part of. It indicates that
>whatever, what will happen we don't know, but plans are being made
>and programs implemented on the assumption that they may lead to the
>death of several million people in the next few monthsŠ.very
>casually with no comment, no particular thought about it, that's
>just kind of normal, here and in a good part of Europe.
Here's the passage from the NYT article:
>September 16, 2001, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
>SECTION: Section 1; Page 5; Column 1; National Desk
>LENGTH: 1417 words
>HEADLINE: AFTER THE ATTACKS: IN ISLAMABAD;
>Pakistan Antiterror Support Avoids Vow of Military Aid
>BYLINE: By JOHN F. BURNS
>DATELINE: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 15
>BODY:
[...]
>Washington has also demanded a cutoff of fuel supplies, an end to
>the use of Pakistani banks as conduits for clandestine money
>movements by terrorists and the elimination of truck convoys that
>provide much of the food and other supplies to Afghanistan's
>civilian population.
And here's the NYT magazine citation:
>Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
>The New York Times
>
>September 30, 2001, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
>SECTION: Section 6; Page 48; Column 1; Magazine Desk
>LENGTH: 3572 words
>HEADLINE: Temporal Vertigo
>BYLINE: By John Sifton; John Sifton is a human rights attorney and
>humanitarian aid worker. The views expressed here are personal
>reflections and do not represent the organization for which he
>worked. For security reasons, it is not named here.
>BODY:
>I got my last haircut in Kabul, but Sept. 11 found me standing on
>John Street in lower Manhattan with about 20 volunteer rescue
>workers, amid masses of scorched paper and debris, watching fires
>burn near where the World Trade Center used to be. A recently
>returned humanitarian aid worker, I had rushed downtown when the
>towers collapsed. Brushing dust and ash out of my hair -- still
>short from my haircut -- I felt the low-level shock that came often
>in Afghanistan, the kind of shock I felt when I saw dead bodies,
>starving children, Taliban enemies hung from lampposts by cable. I
>marveled at the fact that I was feeling this familiar emotion in the
>financial district of Manhattan, an unusual place to be in shock.
>For a moment I felt that I had somehow not escaped Afghanistan, that
>I had brought its disaster home with me to New York.
> I have spent most of the past year working in Afghanistan and
>Pakistan for one of the international nongovernmental organizations
>that implement humanitarian aid programs for people suffering or
>fleeing from Afghanistan's multiple crises: civil war, persecution
>by the Taliban and by anti-Taliban military forces, economic
>stagnation, severe drought and food and water shortages. We were the
>welfare state for a failed state.
> Of course, everything has changed now. Relief workers from
>international groups and the United Nations have been evacuated from
>Afghanistan in response to an expected military strike by the United
>States. Humanitarian operations have been severely curtailed, and an
>increasing number of refugees are pouring out of Afghanistan into
>Iran and Pakistan. "The country was on a lifeline," one of my
>colleagues said, "and we just cut the line."