Noam Chomsky-There is only one way in which violence works and that's through extermination

There's only one way in which violence works and that's through extermination(EXCLUSIVE)24 April 2004 Noam Chomsky is "arguably the most important intellectual alive," according to New York Times. The pioneering linguist, philosopher, political commentator and author has dominated the intellectual scene for the last many decades. Simon Mars of Dubai-based Channel 33 interviewed Prof Chomsky at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The interview will be telecast by Channel 33 today (Saturday) at 10.30pm. Excerpts from the interview: On Iraq WITHIN the US the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction has not had much of an effect, judging by the polls; part of the reason is that people are so sceptical of government and media that if it turns out somebody is lying they don't pay that much attention. The other is because the pretexts keep shifting and as the pretexts shift the propaganda shifts. There were, however, several important consequences to the failure to find weapons of mass destruction. The most important consequence, and the least noted, is that it lowered the bar for aggression. The original doctrine, propagated by Bush, Powell and the rest, was that the US has the right to resort to force in self defence against a country that it regards as threatening; that has, and is developing, weapons of mass destruction and has ties to terror. Well, the ties to terror were quietly dropped when it became clear that the invasion, as predicted, has turned Iraq into a centre of terror for the first time and has increased global terror exactly as was expected. So that's dropped, but what about the weapons of mass destruction? Well the doctrine's been changed, so the current doctrine, officially, is that it is enough for a country to have the intent and the ability to develop weapons of mass destruction. Intent is in the eye of the beholder. That's an important change. Another change is that the pretext shifted. It turns out that the concern wasn't weapons of mass destruction, it was the noble vision of bringing democracy to Iraq and the greater Middle East. On the other hand the failures of the military occupation are quite surprising and certainly are an impediment to further aggressive action, even though I think the main problem they're facing is not what is on the front pages, it's not humvees being blown up or shooting at people, it's simply the steadfast refusal of the population to accept the form of purely nominal sovereignty that is very specifically being planned for them. They have rejected it all the way. On democracy FIRST I should mention that there are a few elected governments in Middle East. In fact there's one leader who was elected in a reasonably fair election, Yasser Arafat, yet the US has decided they didn't want him, so it doesn't matter if he was elected or not. There's a more or less democratic government elected in Turkey. That government made a serious error in taking the same position as ninety five per cent of the population and was bitterly condemned. Paul Wolfowitz, the visionary, the man who is supposed to be leading the crusade for democracy in the Middle East went so far as to berate the Turkish military because they didn't intervene to prevent the government from following the will of ninety five per cent of the population. But what about the democratic deficit in the US? John Dewey is the major social philosopher in the county's history and is very mainstream. His main topic was democracy and what he said was correct, it's clearly the case and you can see it every day. Seventy per cent of the population wants the UN to take the lead in Iraq and the US to leave, but that's not even on the agenda, no matter that seventy per cent of the population wants it. Let's take the Israel - Palestine conflict. A large majority of the population is in favour of what's now called the Saudi Plan, which is just a version of the consensus that has been on the table for thirty years and which the US has been blocking every step of the way and still does. On Palestine SHARON wouldn't do go ahead with this so-called pullout plan unless he had tacit authorisation, along with diplomatic, economic and military support. Israel is a small country, by and large, so they can't act without the authorisation of the mafia don and they're getting it. Right now, the US is massively and consciously increasing threats and tension in the Middle East by sending Israel over a hundred of the advanced most jet bombers in the US arsenal. Israel already has by far the most powerful military force in the region, along with weapons of mass destruction and an air force which it claims to be larger and more advanced than any NATO power. But they're getting a hundred new advanced jet bombers, which have been very prominently advertised of being capable of flying to Iran and back. It is also advertised that they are advanced versions of the same US jets that the Israelis used to attack Iraq's Osirek reactor in 1981. As far as the Palestinians are concerned the US is not objecting to the wall. It's called a security barrier but it takes one minute to realise it's not for security. If Israel wanted a security wall then they would build it one mile inside the international border and then you can make it as high as you like. No one would object. The problem is if you build a security wall then you will not take Palestinian lands. What is being taken is some of the most fertile land along with the crucial water resources, the wall encloses a very valuable aquifer. The Palestinians will end up caged in enclaves along with Israeli settlements, funded by the US taxpayer, protected by US power and authorised by the US government. You will travel all over the West Bank without ever knowing there are Arabs living on these lands. Although you might see some of these exotic creatures on a hill somewhere. On US hegemony THE most visible and publicised implementation was the invasion of Iraq, but there was another one which was important and hasn't been much discussed. The Bush administration immediately moved to expand offensive military capacity and undermine international treaties. The air force space command announced plans to move from it called control of space to ownership of space, which is exactly consistent with the security strategy, that no one can challenge our total domination. What does ownership of space mean? It means putting space platforms in orbit from which you can launch offensive weapons, highly destructive weapons, without warning and instantaneously with first strike authority. It was also just reported that the Pentagon is developing hyper sonic planes which will orbit in space, enter the atmosphere at the last minute so they can't be detected and instantaneously drop highly destructive precision weaponry. The world is under very tight surveillance so you can detect if somebody is walking across the street in Ankara. Sooner or later terror and weapons of mass destruction are going to get together. This reflects an extremely broad consensus among analysts. There's also a consensus on how to deal with terror, a strong consensus and it has two elements: there are the terrorists themselves and there is the potential reservoir of support and sympathy which they're trying to mobilise. If you want to help the terrorist then just use violence because that will antagonise and infuriate the reservoir. It will increase recruitment to the terrorist groups, so we have a choice. Either we can reduce the threat of terror or we can increase it. This administration and Blair are consciously acting to increase it. There's only one way in which violence works and that's through extermination, then it works.