[Chris Alger]

This post is another example of how difficult it is to lay a glove on Chomsky. Just once I'd like to see someone criticize the guy by pointing out something he's said that's untrue or illogical, and offer facts instead of an adjective-ridden rant in rebuttal. Your suggestion that Chomsky proposes particular solutions "for everything" is particularly thick.

Here's an example from (I believe) the same speech. As most people know, the leaders of Germany and particularly France have been receiving a hard time in the mainstream media due to their failure to support the Iraq war effort. The Bush administration and the media supporters of the war, notably the Wall Street Journal, have been at pains to marginalize and ridicule their opposition.[1]

Here's how Chomsky deals with the issue. Notice how he assembles facts to arrive at a well-grounded but characterisitically provocative conclusion that one rarely encounters in the mainstream.

"Opposition to the war is completely without historical precedent. In Europe it is so high that Secretary of “Defense” Donald Rumsfeld dismissed Germany and France as just the “old Europe,” plainly of no concern because of their disobedience. The “vast numbers of other countries in Europe [are] with the United States,” he assured foreign journalists. These vast numbers are the “new Europe,” symbolized by Italy’s Berlusconi, soon to visit the White House, praying that he will be invited to be the third of the “three B’s”: Bush-Blair-Berlusconi – assuming that he can stay out of jail. Italy is on board, the White House tells us. It is apparently not a problem that over 80% of the public is opposed to the war, according to recent polls. That just shows that the people of Italy also belong to the “old Europe,” and can be sent to the ashcan of history along with France and Germany, and others who do not know their place.

Spain is hailed as another prominent member of the new Europe -- with 75% totally opposed to the war, according to an international Gallup poll. According to the leading foreign policy analyst of Newsweek, pretty much the same is true of the most hopeful part of the new Europe, the former Communist countries that are counted on (quite openly) to serve US interests and undermine Europe’s despised social market and welfare states. He reports that in Czechoslovakia, 2/3 of the population oppose participation in a war, while in Poland only ¼ would support a war even if the UN inspectors “prove that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.” The Polish press reports 37% approval in this case, still extremely low, at the heart of the “new Europe.”

New Europe soon identified itself in an open letter in the Wall Street Journal: along with Italy, Spain, Poland and Czechoslovakia – the leaders, that is, not the people – it includes Denmark (with popular opinion on the war about the same as Germany, therefore “old Europe”), Portugal (53% opposed to war under any circumstances, 96% opposed to war by the US and its allies unilaterally), Britain (40% opposed to war under any circumstances, 90% opposed to war by the US and its allies unilaterally), and Hungary (no figures available).

In brief, the exciting “new Europe” consists of some leaders who are willing to defy their populations."


[1] Not that they spend much time addressing the issues European leaders raise. The WSJ, for example, published an editorial called "the Rabid Weasels," subtitled "The sickness of "old Europe" is a danger to the world." Although the editorial lambasted European opposition to the war, there was no mention of the reasons why Europeans say they oppose the war. Instead, it was taken as a given that their opposition reflects some dangerous sickness, and then seeks to explain how this sickness arose. Germany's problem is that it is a "defeated nation ... perpetually holding its head in shame for its past atrocities." With France, the cause is more specific: "France doesn't take crime seriously. Prisoners, even felons serving long sentences, are allowed to wear street clothes inside prison." This is what passes for editorial argument at one of the premier organs of the mainstream press.