Hundreds turn out for Chomsky lecture

RENOWNED author and professor Noam Chomsky last night warned that nuclear war could be just around the corner but said it could be avoided if the West stopped threatening Iran.

Chomsky gave a lecture to a packed house at the University of Cyprus last night on ‘Imminent Crises’, which was attended by at least 500people inside and outside, where a projector had been set up, you could have heard a pin drop as the audience clung to his every word.

To a standing ovation when he stepped on the podium, Chomsky said the world was not only threatened by the possibility of nuclear war but also by environmental catastrophe. In both cases human survival was now at stake only no one seemed to care.

He blamed this on what he called a prevailing moral and intellectual crisis, which was at the root of all the others “and is scarcely discussed at all”.

“Prominent strategic analysts warn that Washington’s transformation of the military, expanding offensive capacity and militarising space carries an appreciable risk of ultimate doom and call for a coalition of peace-loving states to counter Washington’s aggressive militarism led by China. We’ve come to a pretty pass when such thoughts are expressed at the heart of the establishment,” he said.

Turing to Iraq and Iran, Chomsky said the situation in both countries could easily escalate.

“There are opportunities to mitigate them if they are openly and frankly discussed. But they are not,” he said.

Chomsky said the two countries were at the heart of the world’s major energy reserves and were recognised by Washington 60 years ago “to be a stupendous source of strategic power, the strategically most important area of the world and one of the greatest material prizes in world history and constitute critical leverage against industrial rivals Europe and Asia.”

“For years the pretext was that the threat was Russia but that was a routine reflex all over the world and rarely stands up to scrutiny,” he said. “The huge military system is no longer meant to contain Russia but it has to be expanded because of the technological sophistication of third-world powers.”

He said there were ways to end the Iran crisis. “The first is to call off the threats that are virtually urging Iran and North Korea to develop nuclear weapons,” he said. Quoting one historian on the issue, Chomsky added: “If Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, then they are crazy. Washington will attack anyone it likes as long as they are known to be defenceless.”

Chomsky also said the US was eerily able to intimidate Europe when it “shakes its fist” but he said China refuses to be intimidated. “They have a 4,000 year history of contempt for the barbarians,” he said, adding that Washington’s biggest fear is that at current growth rates China will match the US economy in a decade.

“The US and Britain have been torturing Iraq for a long time. Recent history includes their support for Saddam Hussein during his worst crimes. An unthinkable option then and now is that Iraqis should rule Iraq independently of the United States. Stability is just a code word for following orders,” he said.

“When the US and Britain invade a country, its goal’s are noble, if misguided, and the term aggression is unspeakable. That’s common practice.”

Chomsky said that until 1979 Washington strongly supported Iran’s nuclear programme.

“During those years of course Iran was ruled by the tyrant installed by the US-Britain military coup. The biggest supporters of this were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld,” he said.
He also said that in 2004, the EU and Iran had reached an agreement to temporarily suspend its nuclear programme in return for a firm commitment on security issues in response to a credible US and Israeli threat to attack Iran.

“This was not reported,” said Chomsky. “Iran lived up to its side of the bargain but the EU, under US pressure abandoned its commitment. The preferred version in the West was that Iran broke the agreement.”

He said the Eastern Mediterranean had evolved in much the same framework. “Turkey is serving that plan right now. Cyprus of course was of course a major British military base and was used for the overthrow of the regime in Iran in 1953, for the Suez invasion in 1956, and for the US-British military actions in response to the coup in Iraq in 1958,” said Chomsky. “As British Prime Minster Anthony Eden put it: ‘Without Cyprus Britain would have no certain facilities to protect our oil’. Of course ‘our oil’ just happens to be somewhere else by accident.”
Asked specifically about Cyprus, Chomsky said: “The strong do as they can and the weak suffer as they must and the rest of the theory of international relations is either footnote or disguises.”

He said for Cyprus many of the problems were internal. “It’s convenient to blame outsiders for the problems. It’s not for me to recommend solutions but it’s usually a good idea everywhere to look in the mirror and ask what we can do right where we are to mitigate and limit problems that are very serious and have to be overcome,” he said.

Chomsky said the current moral and intellectual crisis in the West was nothing more than subservience to power.

“In the United States and Europe respected voices revelled in what they called the revolution underway where US foreign policy had entered into a noble phase with a saintly glow. For the first time in history a state was dedicated to principles and values, acting from altruism alone and at last the enlightened states would undertake their responsibility to protect the suffering everywhere led by the idealistic new world bent on ending inhumanity,” he said to loud cheers.
“The illustrations offered collapsed under the slightest examination and during those years the idealistic new world and its European ally were conducting the most horrendous atrocities of those ugly years and were all suppressed with impressive efficiency.”