9-11WAS THERE AN ALTERNATIVE?

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9-11WAS THERE AN ALTERNATIVE?

NOAM CHOMSKY

AN OPEN MEDIA BOOK

SEVEN STORIES PRESSNEW YORK

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Copyright © , , by Noam Chomsky

“Was There an Alternative?” © by Noam Chomsky

“Reflections on -” © by Noam Chomsky. Firstpublished by Aftonbladetin Sweden, August , and in September—ett år efteråt (September —OneYear After) (Stockholm: Aftonbladet, ).

The Open Media Series is edited by Greg Ruggiero and archived by the Tami-ment Collection at New York University.

Front cover photo by Greg Ruggiero: September , , view from CanalStreet and Hudson.

Back cover photo, Official White House photograph by Pete Souza: PresidentBarack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with members of the nationalsecurity team, monitor the mission against Osama bin Laden in the SituationRoom of theWhite House, May , . Seated, from left, are: Brigadier GeneralMarshall B. “Brad”Webb, Assistant Commanding General, Joint Special Opera-tions Command;Deputy National Security Advisor DenisMcDonough; Secretaryof State Hillary Rodham Clinton; and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Stand-ing, from left, are: Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff;National Security Advisor Tom Donilon; Chief of Staff Bill Daley; Tony Binken,National Security Advisor to the Vice President; Audrey Tomason Director forCounterterrorism; John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Secu-rity and Counterterrorism; and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.Please note: a classified document seen in this photograph has been obscured.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrievalsystem, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electric,photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission ofthe publisher.

Book design by Jon Gilbert

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chomsky, Noam.- : updated and expanded after the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, witha new introduction,Was there an alternative? / Noam Chomskyp. cm. -- (An open media book)

---- (pbk.). September Terrorist Attacks, . . Terrorism--Prevention. I. Title. II.Title: Nine-eleven... .--dc

Printed in the USA.

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I would like to thank David Peterson andShifra Stern for invaluable assistance withcurrent media research particularly.

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Contents

Editor’s Note ................................................................

Was There an Alternative? ................................

9-11. Not Since the War of ......................................... Is the War on TerrorismWinnable?.......................... The Ideological Campaign ....................................... Crimes of State......................................................... Choice of Action....................................................... Civilizations East and West.................................... Considerable Restraint?..........................................

Reflections on 9-11 ..............................................

Appendix ADepartment of State Report on ForeignTerrorist Organizations (October , )..................

Department of State Country Reportson Terrorism (August , ) ...........................

Appendix BRecommended Reading ............................................

About the Author ......................................................

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Cover of first edition of -.

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EDITOR’S NOTE

Thebook you are holding was conceived, produced,and published as an act of protest. From theweeks immediately following the attacks in

Washington and New York in , to those immediatelyfollowing the US assassination of Osama bin Laden inPakistan in , Noam Chomsky has highlighted the les-sons of history and advocated adhering to the basic tenetsof human rights as the best ways to break step from thedrum beats for war. In opposing violence as a politicalsolution, Chomsky’s analysis of policy and media coveragein the United States poses difficult questions. Should theUS obey the International Court? Should the US obeyUN resolutions? Should the US abide by the same princi-ples and rules to which it holds other countries? Whathave the US wars since / accomplished? The facts areharsh: Thousands of US soldiers have been killed on for-eign soil. Untold numbers of people in Afghanistan,Pakistan, and Iraq have been killed, injured, displaced, ordetained.What are the consequences? Is the world a bet-ter place? Was there an alternative?Was there an alternative? This is now one of the great

moral and political questions of our time, and it is the title

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of Chomsky’s new essay written to introduce this thirdedition -. Written in June , Chomsky’s text exam-ines the impact and consequences of US foreign policy upto the assassination of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad,Pakistan, and reflects on what may have resulted if thecrimes against humanity committed on / had been“approached as a crime, with an international operation toapprehend the likely suspects.”In exploring possible answers, Chomsky reviews another

notorious September and major historical events, manyof which are simply overlooked and forgotten in the UnitedStates. In discussing the operation against bin Laden, healso touches on the “imperial mentality” and the decisionto name the mission “Operation Geronimo.” “The casualchoice of the name,” writes Chomsky, “is reminiscent of theease with which we name our murder weapons after vic-tims of our crimes: Apache, Blackhawk, Tomahawk. . . .We might react differently if the Luftwaffe were to call itsfighter planes ‘Jew’ and ‘Gypsy.’”For many who read Chomsky for the first time, his

analysis can be disorienting because he focuses precisely onthose facts that have been systemically under-reported orcompletely ignored by mainstream media. Consequencesof US actions in Nicaragua, for example, are not widelyknown or remembered in the United States. As Chomskysaid in an e-mail while we were working on the book,“These facts have been completely removed from history.One has to practically scream them from the rooftops.”Ten years after its original publication, the overlooked

facts and difficult questions Chomsky poses in - con-

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tinue to be heard over the rooftops of official history.Despite wars, despite indefinite detentions, despite dronesand increasing militarization, people in this country andaround the world have shown their resistance not just inthe streets, but also by what we read.A “Surprise Best Seller”—to quote the title of an article

about it in the New York Times—- has been publishedin more than two dozen countries and has appeared onmultiple bestseller lists, including theWashington Post, theLos Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the New YorkTimes. An article about it in The New Yorker stated, “-

was practically the only counter-narrative out there at atime when questions tended to be drowned out by a cho-rus, led by the entire United States Congress, of ‘GodBless America.’ It was one of the few places where theother side of the case could be found.”

Published years before Facebook and Twitter wereinvented, people found out about the book largely throughcommunity bookstores, word of mouth, newspapers, pub-lic radio, and even CNN, where Chomsky debated thebook as a guest on American Morning with Paula Zahn.

Bookstores, particularly independents like St. Mark’sBookshop and City Lights, became a driving force of dis-tribution and sales. “Seeking to explain the book’s success,”wrote Michael Massing in the New York Times, “book-sellers cite its succinct title, striking cover (a starkblack-and-white picture of the twin towers before theattacks), low price . . . and accessible question-and-answerformat. ‘People are coming in every day, asking, “What canI read that can give me some understanding of what’s hap-

Editor’s Note 11

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pening?”’ said Virginia Harabin, the floor manager at thePolitics and Prose Bookstore in Washington. ‘This is theone I recommend.’”

“The primary challenge facing the people of the worldis, literally, survival,” writes Chomsky. If we indeed sur-vive our government’s propensity for confrontation andviolence over diplomacy, it may be because we break awayfrom the news feed long enough to heed dissident voiceslike Chomsky’s, published in pamphlets, posted online,spoken at protests, and shouted from the rooftops.

Greg RuggieroJuly ,

Union County, New Jersey

. Michael Massing, “Surprise Best Seller Blames U.S.,”New YorkTimes, May, , .

. Louis Menand, “Faith, Hope, and Clarity: September th and the Amer-ican Soul,” The New Yorker, September , .

. AmericanMorning with Paula Zahn, live debate with Noam Chomsky,May, , transcript posted here: http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS///ltm..html.

. Michael Massing, “Surprise Best Seller Blames U.S.,”New YorkTimes, May, , .

. Noam Chomsky, “Delaying Doomsday: This Century’s Challenges,” April, , distributed by the New York Times Syndicate and forthcomingin Noam Chomsky,Making the Future:The Unipolar Imperial Moment, CityLights Books/Open Media Series.

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