Ask Chomsky:

[daveman]

And anyone should believe you why? since you brought it up.

Not saying anyone should. Unlike leftists, I don't believe my opinion is worth any more than anyone else's, except for areas I have direct knowledge, training, and experience. If you want to discuss the relative merits of the BAK-12 versus the BAK-13 aircraft arresting systems, I'd expect you to pay attention to what I had to say, because I have training and experience with both. If you don't have any experience, don't think your opinion is more valid than mine.

BTW was Falluja where we also used White Phosphorous?

Yes. So?

I thought willieP was banned in civilian areas?

You thought wrong.

White phosphorus is not banned by any treaty to which the United States is a signatory. Smokes and obscurants comprise a category of materials that are not used militarily as direct chemical agents. The United States retains its ability to employ incendiaries to hold high-priority military targets at risk in a manner consistent with the principle of proportionality that governs the use of all weapons under existing law. The use of white phosphorus or fuel air explosives are not prohibited or restricted by Protocol III of the Certain Conventional Weapons Convention (CCWC), the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects, which regulates the use of "any weapon or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury to persons . . ."​

Have you seen firsthand what white phoshphorous does?

Nope. Are you familiar with the concept of warfare? Kill people and break their stuff? Can't exactly do that with kittens, can you?

 

[daveman]

Another writer has something to say:

Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields.

-- Robert Heinlein

Chomsky's a linguist. That's all. If I want views on linguistics, I'll ask him. Geopolitics? His views aren't any more valuable than my own.

But the left loves him since he lends a veneer of legitimacy to their nonsense.

Chomsky's a linguist like Robert Anson Heinlein was an engineer.

Both are philosophers who might have found common ground discussing Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics.

How many publishers have asked you to write a book on Geopolitics?

How many best sellers on Geopolitics have you already authored?

Chomsky's legitimacy comes from his devotion to moral Universality: If you don't want anyone killing your children for money...don't kill other people's children for money.

That explains his opposition to Pol Pot, doesn't it?

Oh, wait...

 

[blu]

once again chomsky calls it perfect and I am still hoping the people involved the fallajuh dealings are one day charged with war crimes

alliebabe neg repped me for this post

 

[uscitizen]

Not saying anyone should. Unlike leftists, I don't believe my opinion is worth any more than anyone else's, except for areas I have direct knowledge, training, and experience. If you want to discuss the relative merits of the BAK-12 versus the BAK-13 aircraft arresting systems, I'd expect you to pay attention to what I had to say, because I have training and experience with both. If you don't have any experience, don't think your opinion is more valid than mine.

Yes. So?

I thought willieP was banned in civilian areas?

You thought wrong.

White phosphorus is not banned by any treaty to which the United States is a signatory. Smokes and obscurants comprise a category of materials that are not used militarily as direct chemical agents. The United States retains its ability to employ incendiaries to hold high-priority military targets at risk in a manner consistent with the principle of proportionality that governs the use of all weapons under existing law. The use of white phosphorus or fuel air explosives are not prohibited or restricted by Protocol III of the Certain Conventional Weapons Convention (CCWC), the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects, which regulates the use of "any weapon or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury to persons . . ."​

Have you seen firsthand what white phoshphorous does?

Nope. Are you familiar with the concept of warfare? Kill people and break their stuff? Can't exactly do that with kittens, can you?

Yeah I am familiar with warfare, I was in Nam.

Armchair warrior huh?
Figures.

 

[daveman]

Yeah I am familiar with warfare, I was in Nam.

Armchair warrior huh?
Figures.

Not really. I'll have 20 years next February.

Thank you for your service, by the way.

 

[candycorn]

I thought willieP was banned in civilian areas?

You thought wrong.

White phosphorus is not banned by any treaty to which the United States is a signatory. Smokes and obscurants comprise a category of materials that are not used militarily as direct chemical agents. The United States retains its ability to employ incendiaries to hold high-priority military targets at risk in a manner consistent with the principle of proportionality that governs the use of all weapons under existing law. The use of white phosphorus or fuel air explosives are not prohibited or restricted by Protocol III of the Certain Conventional Weapons Convention (CCWC), the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects, which regulates the use of "any weapon or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury to persons . . ."​

Have you seen firsthand what white phoshphorous does?

Nope. Are you familiar with the concept of warfare? Kill people and break their stuff? Can't exactly do that with kittens, can you?

Yeah I am familiar with warfare, I was in Nam.

Armchair warrior huh?
Figures.

Your MOS?

 

[uscitizen]

Yeah I am familiar with warfare, I was in Nam.

Armchair warrior huh?
Figures.

Not really. I'll have 20 years next February.

Thank you for your service, by the way.

Ok, Thanks for your service as well.
No combat though?
It really sucks.

I had a year of electronics tech school when drafted and they put me in infantry....

 

[georgephillip]

"On July 6th, exactly one month before the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH) released a study titled, “Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009.” The study’s authors Chris Busby, Malak Hamdan, Entesar Ariabi and their team of researchers gathered data from household surveys of 711 homes in January and February of this year that revealed a tremendous spike in cancer rates and birth defects in the city of Fallujah within the last five years. Using cancer rates among similar populations in the neighboring nations of Egypt, Jordan, and Kuwait as a standard for comparison the researchers’ made some disturbing discoveries in Fallujah including:

•38 times higher rates of Leukemia•10 times higher rates of breast cancer
•5 times higher infant mortality rates
•A wide range of birth defects
•unusual gender disparity in newborns of 860 boys per 1,000 girls
These results are shockingly similar, but even worse, than what researchers found among survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who were exposed to radioactive fallout from the blasts. The first scientific study of Fallujah supports the anecdotal evidence of increased cancer related deaths and other mutations in the city that have been surfacing since the United States’ invasion of Iraq, but it begs the question: what’s poisoning the people of Fallujah?"

Any bunkerbusters dropped on Fallujah?

Christianity...The Religion of Peace (and Profit).

Fallout from US siege on Fallujah

 

[lizzie]

Noam for president!

The guy has called the ME situation better than almost anyone else.
Also on the corporatization of journalism he is on top of it.

I first became suspicious of Obama's true commitment to "Change" when I noticed he wasn't consulting Chomsky. I think Noam would probably be more useful in a role like George Mitchell's, i.e., as an envoy to the Middle East and not as an elected politician, but if Noam ever ran for president he would certainly get my vote.

Chomsky is a man who has some ideas I can identify with, and even admire at times, but he doesn't have his mind in reality when it comes to how the world is at large. He's a dreamer and a philosopher, not grounded in anything that's truly workable.

 

[The Infidel]

Yeah I am familiar with warfare, I was in Nam.

Armchair warrior huh?
Figures.

Not really. I'll have 20 years next February.

Thank you for your service, by the way.

Thank you both!
​

 

[georgephillip]

Wall Street also thanks you.

War is a Racket.

 

[daveman]

Yeah I am familiar with warfare, I was in Nam.

Armchair warrior huh?
Figures.

Not really. I'll have 20 years next February.

Thank you for your service, by the way.

Ok, Thanks for your service as well.
No combat though?
It really sucks.

I had a year of electronics tech school when drafted and they put me in infantry....

No, no combat, though I have watched people die. I was in a C-130 crash in Kuwait in 1999.

 

[daveman]

"On July 6th, exactly one month before the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH) released a study titled, “Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009.” The study’s authors Chris Busby, Malak Hamdan, Entesar Ariabi and their team of researchers gathered data from household surveys of 711 homes in January and February of this year that revealed a tremendous spike in cancer rates and birth defects in the city of Fallujah within the last five years. Using cancer rates among similar populations in the neighboring nations of Egypt, Jordan, and Kuwait as a standard for comparison the researchers’ made some disturbing discoveries in Fallujah including:

•38 times higher rates of Leukemia•10 times higher rates of breast cancer
•5 times higher infant mortality rates
•A wide range of birth defects
•unusual gender disparity in newborns of 860 boys per 1,000 girls
These results are shockingly similar, but even worse, than what researchers found among survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who were exposed to radioactive fallout from the blasts. The first scientific study of Fallujah supports the anecdotal evidence of increased cancer related deaths and other mutations in the city that have been surfacing since the United States’ invasion of Iraq, but it begs the question: what’s poisoning the people of Fallujah?"

Any bunkerbusters dropped on Fallujah?

Christianity...The Religion of Peace (and Profit).

Fallout from US siege on Fallujah

Still no proof of DU munitions being used, huh?

 

[daveman]

Wall Street also thanks you.

War is a Racket.

Someday, perhaps, you'll grow up and realize the world is more complex than the simplistic and small-minded bumper-sticker sloganeering you use instead of rational thought.

But it doesn't look very promising.

 

[georgephillip]

Explain the rational thought behind killing other people's children for money?

If you were capable of independent thought you wouldn't have spent the last 20 in the military.

Would you?

 

[daveman]

Explain the rational thought behind killing other people's children for money?

If you were capable of independent thought you wouldn't have spent the last 20 in the military.

Would you?

Remember what I said about simplistic and small-minded bumper-sticker sloganeering? Did you have to jump right back into it so soon?

 

[uscitizen]

I served in combat, I killed, and I was against the Iraq invasion before it even happened.

I only believe in killing those whose direct actions causes them to deserve it.
ie killing another, Rape, serious child abuse, working for Fox, or seriously pissing me off.

 

[AllieBaba]

It's nice that there's a place for the board commies to hang out.

 

[uscitizen]

It's nice that there's a place for the board commies to hang out.

You misspelled bored.

 

[georgephillip]

Chompsky; the hypocrite lying tax sheltering capiltalist.

Noam Chomsky, Closet Capitalist | Hoover Institution

One of the most persistent themes in Noam Chomsky’s work has been class warfare. He has frequently lashed out against the “massive use of tax havens to shift the burden to the general population and away from the rich” and criticized the concentration of wealth in “trusts” by the wealthiest 1 percent.*

But trusts can’t be all bad. After all, Chomsky, with a net worth north of $2,000,000, decided to create one for himself. A few years back he went to Boston’s venerable white-shoe law firm, Palmer and Dodge, and, with the help of a tax attorney specializing in “income-tax planning,” set up an irrevocable trust to protect his assets from Uncle Sam. He named his tax attorney (every socialist radical needs one!) and a daughter as trustees. To the Diane Chomsky Irrevocable Trust (named for another daughter) he has assigned the copyright of several of his books, including multiple international editions.

Chomsky favors the estate tax and massive income redistribution—just not the redistribution of his income. No reason to let radical politics get in the way of sound estate planning.

When I challenged Chomsky about his trust, he suddenly started to sound very bourgeois: “I don’t apologize for putting aside money for my children and grandchildren,” he wrote in one e-mail. Chomsky offered no explanation for why he condemns others who are equally proud of their provision for their children and who try to protect their assets from Uncle Sam. Although he did say that the tax shelter is okay because he and his family are “trying to help suffering people.”

Indeed, Chomsky is rich precisely because he has been such an enormously successful capitalist. Despite the anti-profit rhetoric, like any other corporate capitalist he has turned himself into a brand name. As John Lloyd puts it, writing critically in the lefty New Statesman, Chomsky is among those “open to being ‘commodified’—that is, to being simply one of the many wares of a capitalist media market place, in a way that the badly paid and overworked writers and journalists for the revolutionary parties could rarely be.”

Chomsky’s business works something like this. He gives speeches on college campuses around the country at $12,000 a pop, often dozens of times a year.*

But books are Chomsky’s mainstay, and on the international market he has become a publishing phenomenon. The Chomsky brand means instant sales. As publicist Dana O’Hare of Pluto Press explains: “All we have to do is put Chomsky’s name on a book and it sells out immediately!”

Putting his name on a book should not be confused with writing a book because his most recent volumes are mainly transcriptions of speeches, or interviews that he has conducted over the years, put between covers and sold to the general public. You might call it multi-level marketing for radicals. Chomsky has admitted as much: “If you look at the things I write—articles for Z Magazine, or books for South End Press, or whatever—they are mostly based on talks and meetings and that kind of thing. But I’m kind of a parasite. I mean, I’m living off the activism of others. I’m happy to do it.”

Chomsky’s marketing efforts shortly after September 11 give new meaning to the term war profiteer. In the days after the tragedy, he raised his speaking fee from $9,000 to $12,000 because he was suddenly in greater demand

Radicals used to think of their ideas as weapons; Chomsky sees them as a licensing opportunity.

Chomsky has even gone the extra mile to protect the copyright to some of his material by transferring ownership to his children. Profits from those works will thus be taxed at his children’s lower rate. He also extends the length of time that the family is able to hold onto the copyright and protect his intellectual assets.

Corporate America is one of Chomsky’s demons. It’s hard to find anything positive he might say about American business. He paints an ominous vision of America suffering under the “unaccountable and deadly rule of corporations.” He has called corporations “private tyrannies” and declared that they are “just as totalitarian as Bolshevism and fascism.” Capitalism, in his words, is a “grotesque catastrophe.”

But a funny thing happened on the way to the retirement portfolio.

Chomsky, for all of his moral dudgeon against American corporations, finds that they make a pretty good investment. When he made investment decisions for his retirement plan at MIT, he chose not to go with a money market fund or even a government bond fund. Instead, he threw the money into blue chips and invested in the TIAA-CREF stock fund. A look at the stock fund portfolio quickly reveals that it invests in all sorts of businesses that Chomsky says he finds abhorrent: oil companies, military contractors, pharmaceuticals, you name it.

When I asked Chomsky about his investment portfolio he reverted to a “what else can I do?” defense: “Should I live in a cabin in Montana?” he asked. It was a clever rhetorical dodge. Chomsky was declaring that there is simply no way to avoid getting involved in the stock market short of complete withdrawal from the capitalist system. He certainly knows better. There are many alternative funds these days that allow you to invest your money in “green” or “socially responsible” enterprises. They just don’t yield the maximum available return."

Noam Chomsky, Closet Capitalist | Hoover Institution

Peter Schweizer's article "Noam Chomsky, Closet Capitalist" finds chinks in Chomsky's armor I can't fill. If it's accurate to say in the weeks after 9/11/2001 Noam raised his speaker's fee from $9,000 to $12,000 "because he was suddenly in greater demand", I would have suggested he cut his fee to $6000/speech and leveraged the increase in demand until his name was a familiar to Americans as Oprah's or Dick Cheney's.

Similarly if Chomsky's retirement portfolio contains blue-chips from defense contractors to pharmaceuticals to oil companies that also provides fertile ground for charges of hypocrisy, at least.

I think some perspective is in order when it comes to his Noam's net worth. Schweizer, a Hoover Institute research fellow, claims that number is $2,000,000. That's a very large number for most of us; however, it's about two weeks work for the richest 10,000 Americans.

That is the level of income I suspect Chomsky would have earned had he gone to work for Kissinger Associates(or vice versa) The possibility that Noam's lifetime earnings are a fraction of what they would have been had he chosen to serve power rather than question it should also factor in to all discussion of hypocrisy.

Finally, while Chomsky skewers all politicians the one he holds special contempt for is Ronald Wilson Reagan:

" The reasons why Reagan's war on terror has been dispatched to the repository of unwelcome facts are understandable and informative -- about ourselves. Instantly, Reagan's war on terror became a savage terrorist war, leaving hundreds of thousands of tortured and mutilated corpses in the wreckage of Central America, tens of thousands more in the Middle East, and an estimated 1.5 million killed by South African terror that was strongly supported by the Reagan administration in violation of congressional sanctions. All of these murderous exercises of course had pretexts. The resort to violence always does. In the Middle East, Reagan's decisive support for Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which killed some 15-20,000 people and destroyed much of southern Lebanon and Beirut, was based on the pretense that it was in selfdefense against PLO rocketing of the Galilee, a brazen fabrication: Israel recognized at once that the threat was PLO diplomacy, which might have undermined Israel's illegal takeover of the occupied territories. In Africa, support for the marauding of the apartheid state was officially justified within the framework of the war on terror: it was necessary to protect white South Africa from one of the world's "more notorious terrorist groups," Nelson Mandela's African National Congress, so Washington determined in 1988. The pretexts in the other cases were no more impressive."

The evil scourge of terrorism

Stanford's Hoover Institute has much fonder memories of the Gipper's War on Terror and will use any opportunity to smear his critics.