Noam Chomsky - When is Military Intervention Justified?

[@spinnact]

How does he have this depth of knowledge at his fingertips? Correcting a journalist on the nuances of a paper that the journalist appears to have actually had in front of him. It's astounding. He will be an unbelievable loss when he goes; I won't know where to go for this kind of intellectual rigour and analysis, his firm handle on the truth despite the oceans of bullshit coming from governments and the media.

[@spinnact]

I totally agree; it's his ability of recall details (on top of the general depth of knowledge) that astounds me. He must have something approaching a photographic memory. I remember hearing a story from a journalist who gave Chomsky a 500 page (or something similar) document during the Vietnam War (re Cambodia, I think) to read the night before an interview with an American military figure. During the interview Chomsky was able to cite a statistic from a footnote on a random page to counter in person what the interviewee was saying. He has a genuinely extraordinary mind.

[@jones1351]

Try and try as he did, the last interviewer could not trip him up.

[@MrB1923]

Interviewer is not clever enough to understand. Too interested in drama.

[@darkwarlock123]

The full interview was 30 mins of that. It was painful to watch, but I still wanted to see the whole thing to listen to Chomsky's wisdom.

[@math_fax]

Anyone I've ever heard or seen try to go up against him thinking that they've got their facts straight ends up getting smoked by more detailed information from sources that are cited on point, the likes of which I have no idea how Chomsky recalls at a moment's notice off the top of his head. It's insane. The guy must have spent virtually every waking moment of his life reading, non-stop.

[@smashmouthleonard]

Who takes Mr Chomsky's place when he dies?

[@MrB1923]

Cometh the hour. Cometh the man.

[@momenshakerhameed9362]

Jeremiah Leonard that’s what I keep worrying about

[@dorianphilotheates3769]

Jeremiah Leonard- Well, let’s see: we’ve got ‘Dr. Phil’, Deepak Chopra, Jordan Peterson, ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’...

[@atwell8]

Glenn Greenwald is the closest that I can think of.

[@LivingfoodsCoUk]

MrB1923 cometh the woman?

[@johnsmith92704]

I think these conditions are extremely important, and the fact that they’ve been so flagrantly ignored by the architects of US foreign policy is revealing. However, couldn’t there be cases that are hypothetically warranted that fall outside of either of these conditions? Suppose that a state led genocide of a minority population were being perpetrated, and other countries only received information of this as it began to occur. Technically then the situation might be that the majority is against intervention (if tribal tensions within the country are strong enough that they support genocide, or if the state propaganda is extremely effective). Also, one could technically argue that non violent means have not been “exhausted”, though it would seem rather immoral to make lame attempts at diplomacy in the process of such an atrocity. I do understand this is an extreme hypothetical and am aware of the state propaganda that exists to convince people that such situations make up the majority of US intervention. I’m under no such illusion that this is the case, but I’m wondering about this simply as an exercise in thought and am attempting to establish some points of principle. If anyone has an answer to this, I’d much appreciate feedback 👍🏽

[@lonniejackson4225]

That's not hypothetical. That's basically the situation surrounding the Syrian civil war. Using Syria as an example, I think the role of our military should not be offensive. Don't depose a dictator. Don't hand out any weapons to "freedom fighters". We just need to be there to secure the State against rogue terrorists and give a voice to marginalized groups to stop an ethnic cleansing. Or if the State is the terrorist, we're there to balance the power of its citizens. This avoids alienating our allies and enemies in the region who might aid the propaganda machine for selfish reasons. A state that manages itself is in everyone's interest. After that I think the best way forward is to have an impartial 3rd party like the UN rewrite their Constitution. And rearrange the power balance in the government and the economy such that no one is faced with an unbearable situation that would lead groups of people to organize and work outside the law. I know that kind of sounds like Iraq, but the crucial difference here is that we don't seek out terrorists. We just defend people's right so that they can restore law and order and decide how to punish a dictator or a terrorist once they're stable.

[@n8zog584]

Hm. Noam Chomsky changed his tune after the soviet Union collapsed apparently. He had advocated for the Soviets to annex yugoslavia. Not that a grown man isnt allowed to change his opinion. But I feel a certain youtuber named Kraut has a nice breakdown of how Mr. Chomskies outlook changed.

[@doodelay]

There are two ways to look at this confrontation, u can hold Chomsky up to be a sort of savant who has perfect recall of everything he's read down to the year and line of each paragraph, or you can imagine that maybe he was wrong in this case and is very good at obscuring it.

[@imhoisntworthmuch5441]

nobody can 'replace' chomsky and his legacy will last when that time comes.. look at the views. it *must* continue. *yes, everything must pass.. I prefer this channel as opposed to early 'archives'.

[@mauriciowalnut8742]

what interview is this from?

[@Hhenryarero]

Military intervention..Its Universal Declaration of human rights laws

[@nicolemusic2242]

He argues that there are some conditions in which military intervention is justified. One is that all non-military means have been tried/exhausted but with no result. 'A second condition is that the people in the country in which you're intervening support the intervention. Under those conditions and you can think of others, intervention would be justified. However, we don't ever apply those conditions.' citing South Africa under an apartheid state. For that case, '"there's not a doubt that the overwhelming majority [of the] population would have favoured intervention, probably military intervention [...] other means had been tried for decades" before turning to military intervention.

[@julianthornley5322]

I wish I and people were More like him

[@Hhenryarero]

UDHR Protects the Civilians but to what extent?

[@Hhenryarero]

When the Rebels, Talibans,Alqaeda and the Terrorist hides behind the Civilians

[@dragunov815]

Good grief.

[@jcolwill]

0:29 Unless the intervention was undertaken by an imperialist country.

[@nicholasdarraugh7626]

You always give the original source, where is it (especially for the final one)?

[@chomskysphilosophy]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qKLdn6R_pdCNsJI & kzbin.info/www/bejne/faTJeYWkqdN9p9k

[@nicholasdarraugh7626]

Thank you thank you!

[@imhoisntworthmuch5441]

these guys take care of the comments pertaining to sources and most replies would have been 'look in the description'.

[@ceooflonelinessinc.267]

Chomsky in a nutshell: You are wrong. What a great thinker 🤣

[@patrickbooth8766]

Well Noam, Its difficult to get approval of a foreign population for intervention.

[@aaaatttt101]

How so.?

[@FreekinEkin2]

Hence why it is so rarely justified and rarely turns out well...

[@sxrgxxfit4511]

Yeah that's the point. Only when this difficult requirement is actually met then military intervention is legitimate.

[@kentallard8852]

He cited an example

[@ZedNebuloid]

I don't believe he said it was easy. And it probably shouldn't be.

[@kentallard8852]

Although the Indonesian government formally complied with the UN vote once Clinton phoned Jakarta to warn them about their IMF loans many in the government and military did not want to and were very eagre for war. Many members of the militias in East Timor were in fact soldiers, police, and special forces in plain clothes and the militias had been provided access to government armories. There was some effort to try to use them to provoke a confrontation. The British made Hawke jets that Chomsky mentions were on standby in West Timor to attack if fighting broke out. British Special Boat Service commandos and Gurkhas were embedded with the Australian special operations RESFORCE that were the first to sweep through the areas first as the Australians deployed, they had firefights with these militias and disguised soldiers. Had things indeed escalated British forces would have been fired on by British made equipment.