Power and Terror: Post-9/11 Talks and Interviews [Paperback]

This is a small book, and it is not really a book so I am giving it 3 stars - and that is not a reflection of his arguments or the merits of the contents - but rather it is more or less just transcripts of his talks and the contents reflect his other longer books. Still it is a good read and I would recommend buying and reading. One always learns something new in each of his books.

It is a collection of three talks, i.e.: an interview by a Japan based film maker, a talk at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, a talk in Palo Alto at a hotel, plus questions and answers from the talk plus a talk in Berkeley all over a short time in the spring of 2002.

Chomsky repeats and expands on his themes that the US has adopted a policy of force to solve problems in a way that simply is in the short term interest of solely the US and at the expense of other peoples and countries. The UN is used as a tool as needed and other peoples are expendable and of little consequence (such as the millions of Vietnamese killed or many in central America) unless they hold power or resources. The US has supported dictators and suppressive regimes that in the longer term breed hostilities against the US by their citizens - including Saudi Arabia - hence breeding the current stock of Jihad fighters against the US.

People that help the US are given the most support. For example Israel holds power, it has abundant trained human resources, and can act as an extension of US military power in the Middle East. So it and Turkey are important while other groups such as the Palestinians are of little consequence. The "Peace Process" is to maintain a status quo in the region. The "goals" of the US advanced peace process are in fact is not nearly as equitable or humane as say South Africa during the worst years of apartheid, and in fact fall short of what South Africa was advocating prior to the Mandela democratic revolution. Mandela incidentally advocated a democratic South Africa and was branded as a dangerous terrorist by the USA.

He repeats his arguments and draws parallels between Japan and Germany in the 1930's and the US now in that all three used propaganda themes that they were "liberating" or being benevolent or bringing civilization to the people that they conquered by military force - as internal justifications for military actions.

The arguments are excellent and for the most part he is 100% right but remains a small voice in a sea of mindless patriotic fervor and support of military power as opposed to international law and the concept of all peoples being subjected to equal justice, a democratic ideal of the "founding fathers" that has long since been abandoned.

Jack in Toronto