[.ca] 9-11 (ISBN 1583224890)

From Amazon.co.uk:
It is always instructive to read American's premier dissident thinker if only simply to get an alternative take on what constitutes our present day "common sense"--an urgent project he undertakes in 9-11. Chomsky, whose recent hugely prolific political output has made him something of an icon of the American left, began his career as a ground-breaking theoretical linguist. And it is his attention to detail and language which continue to make him such a useful guide through the murky world of power politics and particularly to US Foreign Policy in the Middle East. In grappling with 9-11, a date which has become a noun whose very definition has been consciously moulded by the media and the American establishment, Chomsky is taking on one of the biggest challenges of our time. But this is a very slight book in which to do this. A collection of interviews conducted in the month following the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center Chomsky is here keen to stress the urgency of a response to 9-11 that is not simply reactionary warfaring. It behoves us to discover why 9-11 really happened. In the words of the title of another very useful book: Why Do People Hate America?. In such a small, and sometimes rather repetitive, volume Chomsky can only really encourage us to ask better questions and to seek more carefully and widely for better answers. But if questions are beginning to form then readers could do worse than look to this useful and provocative book. --Mark Thwaite

A Voice of Reason on An Emotional Subject:
For the most part Chomsky is closer to the truth than his detractors. Years ago I was a student at MIT and had a laboratory close to Chomsky's office in the old research MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics. At that time, and for many years later I thought Chomsky was a rabid liberal- socialist that was out somewhere in left field on many issues. Of course I had formed that opinion without reading his books! But I knew that he had written dozens of books, was made an Institute Professor (which is a big deal at MIT) had written hundreds of papers and had at least 20 honorary doctorates from universities all around the world. When I sat down and read his books page by page I was converted. He simply presents the facts in a cool and detached manner. The facts speak quite eloquently for themselves and they are damming of US foreign policy. On 9-11 and after like many others if I had been the President I would have ordered a military strike. It was and is a natural response as if your wife was raped or a child killed by a criminal. We wanted revenge for the 3,000 killed. Even Rudolph Giuliani told Bush he wanted to personally pull the trigger when Bin Laden was captured. It was a time of high emotion. Bush followed human instincts and his advisors, and indeed at lot of pressure from the American public and the congress to do something. Chomsky of course has taken a more rational approach and has tried to formulate a quick analysis of what happened and where we have gone wrong. This is a short book but otherwise excellent. It is a question and answer format. I cannot agree with everything in the book but it gives a fair portrayal of many aspects of the problem. In many respects the US has become a rogue nation, pumped up with layer of propaganda and patriot rhetoric that has permitted the government for over 45 years and often with congressional and public support to invade Afghanistan, Cambodia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Kosovo, Iraq, to send troops to Lebanon, to bomb Yemen, Libya, and the Sudan. No wonder the US has enemies. If we are upset about the 3,000 killed on 9-11 what do the Vietnamese think of the 2 million killed by the USA? It is time for a complete re-think of the US foreign policy and the role of the UN and other institutions such that groups and countries will act within a set of internationally accepted laws. Then variations from those laws will be addressed by all nations acting together, not just the US following its own self interests for better or for worse. That is the value of this thin book on 9-11. My humble opinion. Jack in Toronto

Morally bankrupt relativism:
Chomsky has made a career out of knee-jerk anti-Americanism by any and all means, and "9/-11" is no exception. In leu of a well-thought out exegesis, we find a jumbled collection of email interviews and remarks. For an issue as serious as this, one would think Chomsky could make an effort at scholarship. But Chomsky, so used to preaching to a loyal choir, has no had to make any scholastic effort for a long time. Moreover, this book is shallow in its understandings of the complex dynamics of the Middle East. Chomsky, having little experience or knowledge in this area, is notably useless as a Middle East commentator or in explaining what motivates jihadi terror. His area of expertise--uncritical blame and Leftist demonization of the US--is likewise not very enlightening. This book is proof that Chomsky can publish almost anything, even some emails, and his loyal fanbase will always buy it. (Although profiting from 9/11 while not contributing much to the discussion strikes me as unethical in and of itself). Overall, I found this book very disappointing.

Excellent, and inappropriately reviewed:
I really wonder if the Library Journal reviewer bothered to read the whole book, or just stopped when he found that Chomsky was departing from the post-9/11 unquestioning acceptance of the 'US vs. the evildoers' party line. "Chomsky condemns the attacks specifically and then suggests that the deaths are entirely the responsibility of capitalist globalization" - That is a complete misrepresentation; Chomsky repeats several times that Bin Laden and his ilk don't care about globalization. What has created anti-American sentiment around the world, in Chomsky's view, is a US foreign policy dictated by the interests of energy companies, and which supports brutal, anti-human rights dictatorships in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries because it guarantees access to cheap oil. This book was written before the recent US takeover of Iraq, but Chomsky's arguments are quite prescient...

Still more valuable than talking heads:
This book collects interview and discussions with Chomsky shortly after the September 11th attacks. For those who want something a bit more enlightening, Chomsky puts forth bold assertions that many people wouldn't be willing to even consider in the wake of the attacks. One of his main assertions throughout is that if the US wants to really fight terrorism, we should stop participating in it. He cites specific, uncontroversial examples such as Nicaragua and the Contras, or Turkey, where massive US aid (by Bubba) helped the government do to the Kurds what we bombed Milosevic for when he tried it with Albanians. I don't agree that Chomsky is insensitive to the victims of 9/11 in this book. I believe that his attitude is similar to many others': that such an event, while shocking, is not entirely surprising, especially to anyone who's been paying attention to the world in the last decade. Of course, he condemns the actions. He does not rant that American lives are paramount in the face of other atrocities, which may not make his critics happy, but he also regularly acknowledges that, in our society, we simply do not ask certain questions. Therefore, it's disconcerting to some that Chomsky is able to discuss the matters of 9/11, terrorism, and the USA's global presence with what sounds like an almost arrogant detachment. Unlike the countless pundits on TV though, Chomsky rarely generalizes and cites sources for his facts. He may skew them how he likes, but he rarely makes up whoppers to prove a point, a favorite element of television debate. Chomsky has been vocal about America's foreign policy for decades, and it's entirely reasonable to suggest that his tone is now relentlessly radical left with an evil eye for capitalism. However, I still believe reading Chomsky is a heck of a lot more valuable for the average reader and more enlightening than hours of CNN, Fox, or the wrapped-in-the-flag latest book from a TV 'pundit'. It's funny, whenever a corporate media pundit mentions Chomsky, it's usually to rip him as 'anti-American', yet the points he actually makes are rarely refuted. Just calling him an 'intellectual' (he does not consider himself such) or an 'academic' is enough to discredit him in the eyes of those who see intellectuals and anyone critical of America as evil incarnate and in league with terrorists. Since he often cites specific facts though at times selectively, and he jettisons bombast in favor of serious consideration, he is the complete antithesis of loudmouth talking heads. Chomsky's arguments are certainly not airtight, but his presentation of facts, his acknowledgement of the de facto state of opinion, debate, and education in America, and his straightforward tone (he is very lucid in his speech and writing) make this a very compelling and important read.

Expected more from M.I.T., like maybe engineering forensics.:
The public may as well not back away from the fact that 9/11 was a crime scene never investigated. The 'media filter' Chomsky introduced us to strains to make up for the glaring absence of forensic science, by having tv networks churn out CSI dramas in one form or another. We can have science, so long as it is either 'intelligent design' or fictionalized exercise of detective work. I wrote to Dr. Chomsky about the pyrotechnic building demolitions evidence, and his reply was that he wasn't familiar with that sort of estimation, not being an engineer. I recommend www.911review.com and www.geocities.com/writingindependence for people still infected by the media virus delusion the twin towers could just plop right down catastrophically (with no gradualism) in just seconds a piece, each within a window of 45 minutes from their impacts and coordinated proxy guise attribution. The government's official 9/11 report, while in one draft did have many details blacked out of it, none the less still holds the eyewitness testimony of emergency rescue professionals who described the first tower's collapse happening after something like a 'bomb' had gone off and literally 'knocked everyone to their feet' in the upper floors of the other tower--a reflected shockwave. www.911review.com has the photographs the press and news media were never allowed to show, pictures of 'squibs' indicating massive explosions in advance of the decending fragmentation line of a tower's collapse. And finally the evidence at the bottom of it all, melting steel, indicating the presence of enormous quantities of chemically oxidizing thermite reactions that were used to weaken the 28 massive column supports per building, roughly 4' x 6' in cross section welded out of 6'' plate high strength steel. Most of both building's steel was invested in the enormous fortress of the outter cage walls (Read 'The life of the Twin Towers' by Angus Kress Gillespie). Mr. Chomsky might consider directing his very appreciated and special relativism to the plight of the world and America left with these syzygies of public accounting and conscietious dissent from then on, indefinitely. How is the public supposed to look on all government, the representatives, the mighty trusts of criminal and scientific institutions both here and abroad? This kind of question is perfect for the style and subject of Chomsky's reflections; a new brand of deceit, double think and a meaningless media maelstrom.