WaPo unrights itself, kind of
Coinciding with the embarassing blogging debacle with home-schooled wing-nut Ben Domenech (advice: the guy should sue his parents for not teaching him about the evils of plagiarism), the Washington Post hosted an on-line discussion with Noam Chomsky on Friday
First question out of the gate:
Arlington, Va.: Why do you think the US went to war against Iraq?My advice to WaPo: Give Noam the vacant blog spot.
Noam Chomsky: Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world, it is right in the midst of the major energy reserves in the world. Its been a primary goal of US policy since World War II (like Britain before it) to control what the State Department called "a stupendous source of strategic power" and one of the greatest material prizes in history. Establishing a client state in Iraq would significantly enhance that strategic power, a matter of great significance for the future. As Zbigniew Brzezinski observed, it would provide the US with "critical leverage" of its European and Asian rivals, a conception with roots in early post-war planning. These are substantial reasons for aggression -- not unlike those of the British when they invaded and occupied Iraq over 80 years earlier, at the dawn of the oil age.
3 Comments:
I'll second that recommendation.
But I'm not sure the CIA would approve of having a pinko "commie" like Chomsky on oard a major media institution.
http://www.pastpeak.com/archives/2006/03/writin_for_the.htm
That would be fine, though of course Chomsky hasn't got time to do it.
Just don't let Eric Alterman, Joe Conason, Richard Goldstein, or Katha Pollitt know you made the suggestion. (They've all published attacks on Chomsky -- the first three for allegedly hating America, and Pollitt for being an ivory tower intellectual out of touch with the real world). As Norman Finkelstein has pointed out, attacking Chomsky is a sort of rite-of-passage for liberals.
Chomsky has a wee bit of time, as he does have his own blog on Z-net that he sporadically posts to.
but yes I am well aware of this situation as I read Alterman every day.
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