THE MONTHLY REVIEW, March 25 (IslamOnline & News Agencies)- In an interview to The Monthly Review, published Monday, Noam Chomsky, the longtime political activist, writer and professor of linguistics at MIT, asserted that the U.S. is a leading terrorist state.
Chomsky referred to how the western media has been lacking in providing a context and a background for the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington, blaming the incident on the entire Muslim Arab population without differentiating between the prime suspect group of Al-Qaeda and the population of the region.
He pointed out to how the U.S. has constantly supported the development of terrorist groups such as when the CIA helped bring about the Osama bin Laden network in 1979, under U.S. President Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzenzki.
“In mid-1979, he [President Carter] had instigated secret support for Mujahideen fighting against the government of Afghanistan in an effort to draw the Russians into what he called an “Afghan trap,” Chomsky said.
Chomsky, who is the author of numerous books and articles on U.S. foreign policy, international affairs and human rights, stated that the Al-Qaeda was trained, armed and organized by the CIA, Pakistan, Egypt, and others to fight a holy war against the Russians, before turning against those same supporters.
He pointed out to a couple of articles on attitudes of wealthy Middle Eastern Muslims run by The Wall Street Journal, in which “they were very angry about U.S. support for undemocratic, repressive regimes in the region and U.S. insistence on blocking any efforts towards democratic openings”, referring to countries like Algeria.
According to him, the prime concern stressed by the “moneyed Muslims” interviewed by the Journal, is the dual U.S. policies in the region, which contrast very sharply towards Iraq and Israel.“In the case of Iraq, for the last ten years the U.S. and Britain have been devastating the civilian society…And meanwhile, they’re strenghthening Saddam Hussein. The other aspect is that the U.S. is the prime supporter of the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territory, now in its thirty-fifth year,” he added.
He criticized the U.S. for not reporting even the simple facts about how the American administration has been supplying Israel with helicopters and weaponry to eradicate the unarmed Palestinians, who have been only using stones to legitimately resist the occupiers.
Even the Israeli settlement policies, “which have taken over substantial parts of the territories and are designed to make it virtually impossible for a viable independent (Palestinian) state to develop, are supported by the U.S., which provides the funding and diplomatic support,” Chomsky added.
He said that the U.S. is itself leading a terrorist state through supporting Israeli atrocities, Turkey’s crushing of its own Kurdish population, the killings of “maybe a million civilians in Iraq and a half million children, which is the price the former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright says America is willing to pay”.
The 22nd March international edition of the Middle East Times, also addressed the the issue of Western media bias, especially in the United States, where the media there spares the aggressor.
According to the article, the subject of media bias came up and was thoroughly discussed in a recent conference of Arab and Muslim journalists in Chicago, where prominent American and Arab-American writers attended and took part in the heated discussion.
American journalists, at least those who attended, insisted that there is no such bias, and that both parties, pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel, can make the same claim of not liking the wording of a certain article or protesting the use of an image or a tasteless comic.
However, those who have been following coverage of the conflict know that such a justification is misleading, and that every mainstream newspaper, TV network or radio station is often colored with certain political leanings that influence coverage
In a news report by the Voice of America news web site dealing with the Middle East reading "Bush Scolds Israel for Offensive Against Palestinians" - provided an excellent example of bias, although it sounded balanced.
The reporter's conclusion read: "This month, more than 160 Palestinians and nearly 60 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, suicide bombings and Israeli reprisals."
This statement not only justified Israel's killing of 160 Palestinians (although according to international rights organizations these victims were mostly unarmed civilians, children, medical workers and journalists), but also shifted the entire flow of events.
Those, who followed the news, must remember that the surge of violence was initiated by Israel's continued assassination policy, which provoked Palestinian retaliation, and that the so-called Israeli 'reprisals' were systematic and intense bombings (criticized by numerous Western officials for being grave violations of international law), which reached almost every Palestinian town and refugee camp.
However, the above quote truly depicts the current state of American media, which manages to place the blame on the victim and spare the aggressor.
Let statistics speak for themselves. According to a recent survey, only 3 percent of the American public knows that the West Bank and Gaza are occupied territories. Only 7-11 percent, according to recent CNN polls, sympathize with the plight of the Palestinian people.
Do you see the problem? How can Americans come to grips with the reality of the Middle East situation if they don't know the most basic reasons for the conflict of the past 35 years?
It's mind-boggling that although the Middle East conflict remains a main focus for the American media, the American public still knows very little, except that Palestinians are terrorists, Israel is defending itself, and that Palestinians teach their children hate, and want to throw all Israelis into the sea.
Where is journalistic integrity? How can a reporter go to sleep comfortably, knowing that he/she propagated falsehoods at the expense of a traumatized and oppressed nation?
How often do we see references in U.S. news reports to U.N. resolutions 242 and 338, which deal with the illegality of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories? No wonder few Americans know that Palestinian territories are occupied by Israel.
How often do we see reports dealing with the right of return for Palestinian refugees?
