Noam Chomsky - Utrecht University - 2011 03 15 - GCJM

Thanks a lot for all these torrents. Really appreciate it

Will be interesting to hear more from him on the Libyan intervention, especially if he draws connections to R2P as he was in the UN participating in that debate a couple of years ago.

"R2P"? are you fucking serious, that is an illusion, if not a delusion. you need a responsible party to be involved if there is be any r2p'n. and i dont see any. if youve been paying attention NATO is randomly bombing the shit out of Libya- like kids playing a video game- killing both civies, rebels and pro libyan forces. the whole thing is fucking theatrical. its a sick deadly joke. they have no desire whatsoever to remove their best friend until now Gaddafi. just because they spit bullshit doesnt mean its true.

you want to talk about r2p? end bad farming practices, end bad extraction practices, protect forests and biodiversity, criminalize unfettered greed, destroy the financial system in place, create a new mythology.

r2p what retarded joke that idiot political scientists discuss as they give academic backing for the corruption of their illegitimate governments. talk about r2p to the Canadians stuck in Japan amidst nuclear fallout while Canadian warplanes bomb Libya like kids playing a game.

Quite a hefty rant there, but why do you assume I am in favour of R2P?

I am not. I know too well it would be used in exactly these kinds of cases, where the country has resources the West want and a leader we don't really like. There is a reason the West is bombing in Libya and not Bahrain or Cote d'Ivoire or Western Sahara. Syria should praise themselves lucky they don't have oil (not much anyhow).

This is why I mentioned I would be interested to hear Chomsky draw connections to R2P in Libya, because he was in the UN saying essentially what I said above, that it would be an expansion of the misued term "humanitarian intervention" and a watering down of the strict rules for military intervention in international law.

You've got the wand?? USE it man!!
(But on something more useful than us)

I actually saw a debate yesterday. I couldn't find the main one, it was from a press briefing, but the main R2P guy was there, Gareth Evans.

You are right he can get a bit repetitive about the failing media and such and it was obvious he was uncomfortable as he sat there with crossed arms a lot, but it is an important message. Also thought it was particularly striking that when Evans was asked how one could separate between the worst crimes and others, that he basically said "you know it when you see it".

The moral idea behind the concept is good, to stop dictators from killing their own people, but we KNOW states do not send people into war unless they can profit from it somehow. Even today states can't be arsed to send peacekeepers to Ivory Coast, Sudan and Congo (much too few at least), and this concept won't change that. It would simply be an open invitation to bomb, instead of having to go through the Security Council. For example, if this was in place the invasion of Iraq would have been okay, and Blair would not have had to try to convince Bush that they needed a second UN resolution. It's a dangerous development and I hope it never gets passed.

I actually considered writing a thesis about it, but it couldn't be done given our framework.