Noam Chomsky Gets Basic Fact About Afghanistan Wrong

In an interview with the Guardian in Great Britain, noted leftist “anti-American imperialism” writer Noam Chomsky makes a number of observations about Afghanistan. Firstly, he believes that Barack Obama, a President who has been compared with some of the most leftwing figures in history, is little more than a “shift back towards the centre” and a striking foreign policy continuity with George Bush’s second administration:

The veteran activist has described the US invasion of Afghanistan as “one of the most immoral acts in modern history”, which united the jihadist movement around al-Qaida, sharply increased the level of terrorism and was “perfectly irrational – unless the security of the population is not the main priority”. Which, of course, Chomsky believes, it is not. “States are not moral agents,” he says, and believes that now that Obama is escalating the war, it has become even clearer that the occupation is about the credibility of Nato and US global power.

This is a recurrent theme in Chomsky’s thinking about the American empire. He argues that since government officials first formulated plans for a “grand area” strategy for US global domination in the early 1940s, successive administrations have been guided by a “godfather principle, straight out of the mafia: that defiance cannot be tolerated. It’s a major feature of state policy.” “Successful defiance” has to be punished, even where it damages business interests, as in the economic blockade of Cuba – in case “the contagion spreads”.

I don’t know whether al-Qaeda qualifies as being merely “defiant” to American foreign policy, but of course that is a debate Mr.Chomsky would welcome, since it plays entirely into his worldview. But one important correction needs to be made, and it’s one that has had to be reminded by Mark Collins writing chiding letters to newspapers around Canada for proliferating the same type of errors. The United States did not “invade” Afghanistan:

There was no “invasion” of Afghanistan.

Before the fall of Kabul to the insurgent Afghan Northern Alliance in November 2001, and the consequent collapse of the Taliban regime, there were no foreign regular combat formations in Afghanistan. The Northern Alliance did receive air support and assistance from special forces (both U.S. and British); that however is not an invasion.

Substantial foreign ground combat forces — including Canadian — only entered the country after the Taliban had been deposed by indigenous Afghan forces.

Those foreign troops entered with the agreement of the Northern Alliance — which was the internationally recognized government of Afghanistan and held the country’s seat at the United Nations. In any event, the U.S was exercising its legitimate right of self-defence against the Taliban regime that was harbouring al-Qaida, the group behind the murderous Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S.

Indeed the U.S action was fully in accord with UN Security Council Resolution 1368 of Sept. 12, 2001, that stated that the council, “recognizing the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence in accordance with the (UN) Charter . . . calls on all states to work together urgently to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these terrorist attacks and stresses that those responsible for aiding, supporting or harbouring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these acts will be held accountable. . . .”

There also is no “occupation” of Afghanistan.

The International Security Assistance Force is not an occupying force but rather a mission to assist in Afghanistan that was authorized by the security council in December 2001.

That authorization was most recently extended by a resolution this September.

There is, therefore, nothing “illegal” about the assistance force or Canada’s participation in it.

It would appear that most ideological leftists get their rhetoric from the same ill-informed sources.