Friday, January 29, 2016
Noam Chomsky Is A Voice Of Reason On How To Fight ISIS
The following is part of an interview with America's foremost leftist by Melissa Parker at Smashing Interviews Magazine. It's a great interview that covers several subjects, and I urge you to read the whole interview. What I am posting below is just the section of the interview concerning ISIS.
Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): ISIS attacked Paris last November and just recently claimed 10 lives in Istanbul, Turkey, in a major tourist area. What should be done to combat ISIS?
Noam Chomsky: The first thing we have to do is understand what it is and where it’s coming from. Scott Atran, for example, has done extensive work investigating the appeal of ISIS, studying ISIS members, former members and the communities in which they draw support. It’s a very important phenomenon. It’s a monstrosity. There’s no doubt about that. But where does that monstrosity come from? If you look back, it comes largely from the United States invasion of Iraq which destroyed the country, killed hundreds of thousands of people, created a couple of million refugees and incited a sectarian conflict. There was none before in Iraq. There were disagreements between two protestant sects or something, but the country was integrated. Shiites and Sunni families lived in the same neighborhoods.
One of the consequences of the invasion was to instigate a sectarian conflict which was tearing the country and region apart. And one of the out-groups of it was Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Out of that came ISIS. That was one factor. The other factor in the development of ISIS is Saudi Arabia which is an extremist, fundamentalist, Islamic state, the most extreme in the world and far more than Iran. Furthermore, it’s a missionary state. They have plenty of resources because of the oil, so they put huge resources into trying to expand their extremist Wahhabi and Salafi doctrine by direct funding of Jihadist groups not excluding ISIS, but also by funding koranic schools. Madrassa is an Islamic religious school and where the Taliban comes from.
Journalist Patrick Cockburn calls the rise of the Islamic state as one of the most dangerous developments of the modern era. That’s another factor. ISIS is an extremist offshoot of the Wahhabi version of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, our ally. The Sunni populations in Syria and Iraq where ISIS is based may hate ISIS, but they also see it as a protector. In these horrible sectarian conflicts that have been instigated, they see it as a kind of protector and a source of stability. That’s the same way lots of people in Afghanistan think that the Taliban were protecting themselves from the extremists Mujahideen, mujahid elements that the United States has been supporting.
If you look elsewhere, say in France or other countries where the Jihadists are coming from, they are coming from seriously oppressed neighborhoods where people are humiliated and degraded. There’s a racist contempt for them. They live without hope, without any chance of entering the society they come from in countries which have been devastated by French atrocities for well over a century, Algerians and other parts of West Africa.
They’re very bitter, young people who want something in life. They want something. They want some cause. They want something that will give them dignity. That’s where the Jihadists are coming from. Most of them come from backgrounds with very little Islamic background. They don’t know the Koran or anything at all. They’re just looking for something in their lives, and that’s drawing them to it.
Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): So in a sense, you’re saying that we need to really examine the psychology behind these terrorist groups?
Noam Chomsky: The first thing we have to do in combatting ISIS is understanding what all this is about. Not just screaming imprecations, but asking what it’s about. Undoubtedly they commit horrible atrocities, but we’re not exactly immune to that. Belgium is now one of the countries suffering from the offshoots of Islamic terrorism. What’s its record? The potentially richest colony in Africa which could have led Africa to enormous development is a Congo that was run by the Belgians. They were just slaughtering people, maybe 10 million people, because they weren’t bringing in enough rubber.
In 1960, Congo was liberated. It had a very promising young nationalist leader, probably the most promising one in Africa who campaigned for independence from Belgium, named Patrice Lumumba. He could have led Congo on with its enormous resources to help the development of Africa. So what happened? The Belgians murdered him. The CIA was under orders to murder him, but the Belgians got there first. They didn’t just murder him. After he was murdered, his body was hacked to pieces and dissolved in sulfuric acid. There’s plenty of stuff like that, so I could go on and on. But we have to understand those things. We do not like to look at them, but we need to understand them.
If we do understand them, we’ll begin to treat ISIS at its roots. We’ll ask where it’s coming from, and we will deal with those problems. It is a monstrosity. We should undoubtedly support anyone who’s defending themselves against ISIS crimes like the Kurds and Syria definitely. Take Turkey where the ISIS crimes take place today. It has been allowing jihadists to flow into ISIS territories right across its borders. It has been allowing funding for ISIS. It has been openly supporting Jihadi groups different from ISIS like the al-Nusra Front. Well, okay. That’s not part of ancient history. That’s today. We have to look at those things.
Melissa Parker (Smashing Interviews Magazine): But the answer is not US military intervention?
Noam Chomsky: There are plenty of ways to combat ISIS seriously, but not by Ted Cruz’s carpet bombing. In fact, hit any of these things with a sledgehammer and you’ll make it worse. There’s a long record that shows that when you attack radical insurgencies or even individual terrorists with violence, you usually end up with something much worse. That’s the Ted Cruz reaction.
If you want to be serious about it, you’ll follow the proposals of people like Scott Atran and William Polk who understand the actual circumstances and who pay attention to the nature of their roots and who come up with pretty sound proposals. Polk worked many years at the highest level of US government planning as well as being a very good Middle East specialist. The proposals are sensible. They’re not dramatic. They’re not like carpet bombing which kind of sounds good until you think about what the consequences would be.
Just take a look at the records of the last 15 years. The last 15 years is what’s called the “Global War on Terror.” The method that has been used in the “Global War On Terror” is violence. That’s what we’re good at. Violence. So we invade. We kill people with drones. We have all kinds of ways of killing people. What has been the effect? Take a look. Fifteen years ago terrorist groups were concentrated in a small tribal area in Afghanistan. That was it. Where are the now? All over the world.
The worst terrorist crimes are going on in West Africa with Boko Haram, a lot of which is an offshoot of the bombing in Syria. They’re in West Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia. They carry out attacks in Turkey, in Paris and so on. We’ve succeeded in spreading it from a little corner of tribal Afghanistan to most of the world. It’s a great achievement for the use of violence. Can we draw some lessons from that? Yeah. We can.
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Is The Clinton Campaign Really In Trouble ?
The media, especially cable news networks, have a vested interest in giving the illusion that the Democratic race is really tight. And that is exactly what they have been doing for the last couple of weeks. They know that more people will tune in and watch their broadcasts if they think the race is close.
They have even gone so far as to claim that Hillary Clinton's campaign is now in trouble -- thanks to the closeness of polls in Iowa and New Hampshire. But this assessment flies in the face of all the national polls, which show that Clinton still maintains a significant lead over Bernie Sanders. Are the American people (specifically Democrats) buying into the media claims? Do they think the Clinton campaign is in trouble?
The Rasmussen Poll decided to find out. They questioned a random national sample of 1,000 likely Democratic voters on January 24th and 25th (and their survey had a 3 point margin of error). What they found was that by an overwhelming margin (69% to 19%), Democrats do NOT believe the Clinton campaign is in trouble. They still believe she is, by far, the most likely candidate to win the Democratic nomination.
Looks like Democrats are smarter than the media gave them credit for.
Iowa And National Races Look Very Different For Democrats
It's near the end of January, so it's time to look at the polls for the month. There were six polls done on both the Iowa and national races for the Democratic presidential nomination -- and they show radically different things.
As usual, I think the most important figure to look at is the RealClearPolitics average of all the polls -- since I believe that is likely to be more accurate than any single poll. Those averages are on the right-hand of the charts.
In Iowa, it looks like it's shaping up to be a very close race. The RCP average shows Sanders with a 0.2 point lead (which is no lead at all). As I've said before, this is going to come down to whoever is best at getting their supporters to the caucuses.
The national race shows Clinton with a significant 15.3 point lead on the RCP average (see bottom chart). Sanders still has a lot of ground to make up when the campaigns get past Iowa and New Hampshire.
Both Trump And Sanders Opt Not To Debate Opponents
This campaign is starting to get more than a little crazy -- for both parties.On the Republican side, Donald Trump has said he would not participate in the next Republican presidential debate. His supposed reason for that is his "belief" that he is being treated unfairly by Fox News (and particularly Fox News talking head, Megan Kelly). And the media seems to be treating that as a valid reason.
I'm not buying it. I don't think there's any way that Trump would skip this debate, regardless of who is moderating it or what Fox News had tweeted about him, if he thought he was in danger of losing in Iowa. But he has looked at all of the most recent polls and decided that he's in good shape to win that state -- and that participating in the debate would just give his closest opponent (Ted Cruz) an opportunity to cut into his apparent lead. Megan Kelly is just his excuse, while winning Iowa is his real reason.
Things are even weirder on the Democratic side, where Bernie Sanders is refusing to participate in a February 4th debate in New Hampshire. That debate was just organized by NBC News and the New Hampshire Union-Leader. It is not one of the original six debates sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) -- and that is Sanders supposed excuse for dodging the debate.
I find that a bit disingenuous, especially for a candidate that has been demanding more debates for months now -- and still wants more debates. He just wants those extra debates to be held after the New Hampshire primary (and not before it). That makes me think he has made the same crass political decision in New Hampshire that Trump made in Iowa. He knows he has a significant lead in New Hampshire, and doesn't want to give Hillary Clinton any opportunity to cut into that lead.
The debate being not sanctioned by the DNC is a rather feeble excuse. Both Clinton and Martin O'Malley have said they would be happy to participate in the February 4th New Hampshire debate -- and if Sanders also committed to the debate, the DNC would be forced to sanction it. There is no way the DNC could (or would even want to) punish all three of their candidates for participating (by excluding them from any future debate). The very idea of that is a silly one.
(NOTE -- The caricatures above of Trump and Sanders are by DonkeyHotey.)
Right-Wingers Still Trying To Dumb-Down U.S. Education
Here in Texas, they are doing that by slipping this propaganda into textbooks, refusing to adopt common core education standards, and cutting the funding for schools. Other states are going even further -- and the newest effort toward this dumbing-down of education is to attack Advanced Placement classes in schools (especially those in history).
Advanced Placement classes are only open to the brightest students -- those capable of independent study and independent thinking. But those things are anathema to the right-wingers. They don't want students to seek the truth, but to accept without question the right-wing agenda. In Oklahoma and some other red states, there is now a movement to do away with Advanced Placement classes altogether. Here is an excellent Think Progress article on this very troubling movement:
An Oklahoma legislative committee overwhelmingly voted to ban Advanced Placement U.S. History class, persuaded by the argument that it only teaches students “what is bad about America.” Other lawmakers are seeking a court ruling that would effectively prohibit the teaching of all AP courses in public schools.
Oklahoma Rep. Dan Fisher (R) has introduced “emergency” legislation “prohibiting the expenditure of funds on the Advanced Placement United States History course.” Fisher is part of a group called the “Black Robe Regiment” which argues “the church and God himself has been under assault, marginalized, and diminished by the progressives and secularists.” The group attacks the “false wall of separation of church and state.” The Black Robe Regiment claims that a “growing tide of special interest groups indoctrinating our youth at the exclusion of the Christian perspective.”
Fisher said the Advanced Placement history class fails to teach “American exceptionalism.” The bill passed the Oklahoma House Education committee on Monday on a vote of 11-4. You can read the actual course description for the course here.
For other lawmakers, however, Fisher is thinking too small. Oklahoma Rep. Sally Kern (R) claims that all “AP courses violate the legislation approved last year that repealed Common Core.” She has asked the Oklahoma Attorney General to issue a ruling. Kern argues that “AP courses are similar to Common Core, in that they could be construed as an attempt to impose a national curriculum on American schools.”
Advanced Placement courses are actually developed by a private group, the College Board, and are not required of any student or high school. They are the primary way that student can earn college credit in high school. Taking advanced placement course can save students money and are generally seen as a prerequisite to admission to elite colleges. A representative from the College Board called the claims by Fisher and others “mythology and not true.”
In August last year, the Republican National Committee blasted the Advanced Placement U.S. History test, claiming it “deliberately distorts and/or edits out important historical events.” The RNC said a new framework for the exam “reflects a radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our nation’s history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects.” The College Board countered that the framework had not been changed since 2012.
Efforts by conservative school board members in Colorado to make the Advanced Placement U.S. History course “more patriotic,” prompted a walk-out by students. Under the changes proposed in Colorado “students would only be taught lessons depicting American heritage in a positive light, and effectively ban any material that could lead to dissent.” In South Carolina conservatives asked the College Board to exclude any material with an “ideological bias,” including evolution. Similar efforts are underway in Georgia and North Carolina.
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