{"id":195282,"date":"2021-09-20T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2021-09-20T11:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=195282"},"modified":"2021-09-19T06:30:48","modified_gmt":"2021-09-19T05:30:48","slug":"noam-chomsky-average-people-still-have-the-power-to-stop-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/09\/noam-chomsky-average-people-still-have-the-power-to-stop-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"Noam Chomsky: Average People Still Have the Power to Stop Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Noam Chomsky on<\/em> why the US withdrawal from Afghanistan won\u2019t change US imperialism, the many war crimes of George W. Bush, and why he still believes in average people\u2019s ability to push back against the war machine.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Noam Chomsky speaking at the University of Toronto in 2011.
Andrew Rusk \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

16 Sep 2021 – <\/em>Noam Chomsky needs no introduction \u2014 he is widely regarded as the world\u2019s foremost public intellectual. He\u2019s professor emeritus of linguistics at MIT and the author of many books on politics and US foreign policy. He also has a piece forthcoming in Jacobin<\/em>\u2019s sister publication Catalyst<\/em> on Israel and Palestine titled \u201cAn Era of Impunity is Over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chomsky recently joined Jen Pan and Ariella Thornhill on the Jacobin Show<\/a> to discuss American empire, 9\/11, Afghanistan, and the antiwar movement. You can watch the full interview on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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JP<\/abbr><\/strong><\/p>\n

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We just passed the twentieth anniversary of 9\/11. There are adults in the United States who were not yet born when 9\/11 happened. Joe Biden has now officially ended the War in Afghanistan by withdrawing all troops.<\/p>\n

Do you think we\u2019ve arrived at the end of an era? Are we witnessing the end of American empire, or at least the beginning of a new stage?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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NC<\/abbr><\/strong><\/p>\n

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I think the withdrawal will have practically no effect on US imperial policy. The current commentary on Afghanistan is almost entirely about what the war cost us. You find virtually nothing about what it cost Afghans.<\/p>\n

There are a few interesting articles showing that what the press understood very well twenty years ago, but were ridiculing, was in fact correct: there was no reasonable basis for the war in the first place. Osama bin Laden was only a suspect when the United States started bombing Afghanistan. If there\u2019s a suspect whom you want to apprehend, you carry out a small police operation. They could\u2019ve apprehended him, then worked to discover if he was actually responsible, which they didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

In fact, that was conceded eight months later. Robert Muller, head of the FBI, gave his first extensive press conference in which he said \u2014 after probably the most intensive investigation in the world \u2014 that we assume al-Qaeda and Bin Laden were responsible for 9\/11, but we haven\u2019t been able to establish it yet. First you bomb, then you check to see if there was any reason.<\/p>\n

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