Loud Thinking

Archive for the ‘International Affairs’ Category

The article by Noam Chomsky reproduced below was published in Guernica magazine on May 6, 2011(http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/) is a master piece analysis on not only the death of OBL but also sheds glaring light on the 9/11 terror acts in USA as well. It is being reproduced below particularly for the benefit of policy makers in Pakistan to charter the future course of nations policy on war on terror.  

                                                      Article

“It’s increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law. There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no opposition—except, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them. In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress “suspects.” In April 2002, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, informed the press that after the most intensive investigation in history, the FBI could say no more than that it “believed” that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, though implemented in the UAE and Germany. What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn’t know 8 months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence—which, as we soon learned, Washington didn’t have. Thus Obama was simply lying when he said, in his White House statement, that “we quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda.”

Nothing serious has been provided since. There is much talk of bin Laden’s “confession,” but that is rather like my confession that I won the Boston Marathon. He boasted of what he regarded as a great achievement.

There is also much media discussion of Washington’s anger that Pakistan didn’t turn over bin Laden, though surely elements of the military and security forces were aware of his presence in Abbottabad. Less is said about Pakistani anger that the U.S. invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination. Anti-American fervor is already very high in Pakistan, and these events are likely to exacerbate it. The decision to dump the body at sea is already, predictably, provoking both anger and skepticism in much of the Muslim world.

It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.

There’s more to say about [Cuban airline bomber Orlando] Bosch, who just died peacefully in Florida, including reference to the “Bush doctrine” that societies that harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves and should be treated accordingly. No one seemed to notice that Bush was calling for invasion and destruction of the U.S. and murder of its criminal president.

Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”

There is much more to say, but even the most obvious and elementary facts should provide us with a good deal to think about.” (By Noam Chomsky)

Copyright 2011 Noam Chomsky

A ferocious tsunami unleashed by Japan’s biggest recorded earthquake slammed into its eastern coast Friday, killing hundreds of people as it carried away ships, cars and homes, and triggered widespread fires that burned out of control.

An 8.9 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Northeast Japan spawned a ferocious tsunami that’s caused massive destruction; flattening whole cities, starting raging fires, and killing hundreds.

Nearly 88,000 people are reported missing, according to the official Kyodo news agency. Nuclear experts said the solutions being proposed to quell radiation leaks at the Daiichi nuclear plant in Fukushima were last-ditch efforts to stem what could well be remembered as one of the world’s worst industrial disasters.

Situation has turned so grave that workers were ordered to withdraw briefly from a stricken Japanese nuclear power plant on Wednesday after radiation levels surged, Kyodo news reported, a development that suggested the crisis was spiraling out of control.

Now it is high time that world must wake up for launching a campaign of getting rid of ALL nuclear reactors from the face of the Earth, before another major catastrophe hits in some other country after Japan.

Now this issue has become a matter of life and death for the humanity. UN Secretary General must immediately summon a meeting of the Security Council to chalk out a unified strategy to combat the menace of nuclear radiation from destroying the life from the face of the Earth.

In this regard, as a first step towards making planet earth safe and free from accidents at nuclear reactors, which produce electricity using uranium/plutonium as a fuel, the world leadership must also look into the possibility of using ONLY thorium, as a fuel for producing electricity from nuclear reactors.

Unlike current nuclear power stations, that use uranium, the thorium plant won’t use a material that can be weaponised. It would also mean there is much less danger from a meltdown. Thorium is also more abundant than uranium, so it will be cheaper and easier to supply.

The safer material means it can be supplied at a lower cost with far fewer security needs. Security measures are actually the most expensive part about building current nuclear power stations. Thorium reactors, on the other hand, don’t require special containment buildings and can even be set up in normal structures.

The proposed thorium reactor is made to run by itself without any need for intervention. It will only need to be checked by a person once every four months.

Since thorium reactors are far safer than current nuclear reactors there has been talk of miniaturising them so a $1000 unit could power a ten house street for a lifetime.