CHOMSKY: I don't recall having criticized media for excluding me, though I do use personal experiences as an illustration when asked about media subordination to systems of power. And I haven't been much concerned with their balance in opinion pages altogether (some media critics are, reasonably, but that hasn't been my particular concern). My work has focused on how deep-seated ideological commitments, traceable largely to institutional structures, influence the choice of topics covered and how they are framed and presented. The work that I and others have done provides extensive and to my mind quite persuasive evidence of systematic and large-scale distortion in service to power and privilege. It is easy enough to give current examples, and there are literally thousands of pages of documentation on the earlier record.

On changes and continuity over time I know of no serious studies, so judgments are impressionistic. The media, and the intellectual classes generally, are part of the broader society and are influenced by developments within it. The civilizing effect of the popular activism of the 1960s and its aftermath led to some improvement of media integrity and quality, I think, and the reactionary statist backlash of the past few decades seems to me to have reversed those effects to some extent. But the basic framework changes little, for good reasons.

FLAK: The title of your book is "interventions." Are interventions, military or otherwise, by one nation into the affairs of another ever justified?

CHOMSKY: Intervention into someone else's affairs, naturally, carries a burden of proof. The burden is particularly heavy one when it is intervention in violation of the fundamental principles of international law, and therefore contributes to undermining these principles. I have discussed a few cases in which a substantial argument can be made that forceful intervention was justified. In the post-World War II period, the two most credible examples I know of are the Indian invasion of East Pakistan in 1971 and the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in December 1978 — in both cases bitterly condemned by the US, incidentally. There may be others. Perhaps the British intervention in Sierra Leone, occasional others. But while the burden of proof for intervention may sometimes be met, that is a long way short of meeting the conditions for humanitarian intervention, quite a different matter. Genuine examples of that are extremely rare.

FLAK: As you mention in your book, in Latin America there has been in the past few years a movement toward regional independence — for example, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, et cetera, freeing themselves from the IMF. How does this trend threaten US interests and will the US allow it to continue?

CHOMSKY: It depends what we mean by "US" If by "US" we mean the state and the concentrated private power that it largely represents, then moves towards independence are "threats" in that (by definition) they weaken the capacity to dominate and control; however, independent development can also create business opportunities — markets, investment, etc. If by "US" we mean citizens, then I think these developments should be welcomed. I don't see how your personal interests, or mine, or those of our children and grandchildren are harmed if countries of the South move towards integration, independence, development, and social justice. Quite the contrary.

FLAK: Despite popular opinion in the US and abroad that the US should set a timetable for a pull-out of military forces in Iraq, President Bush has gone in the opposite direction and has "surged" the military presence in Iraq. His rationale for staying in Iraq is that leaving it without an adequately trained army and security force would open the door for a full-fledged civil war and possibly genocide. Is that a legitimate reason to keep our military forces in Iraq?

CHOMSKY: It might lead to increased violence and destruction. It might reduce the violence and destruction that has been a hideous effect of the US invasion. You, and I, and President Bush are entitled to have our low-credibility personal speculations about that, just as individual Russians, whether in the Kremlin or on the streets, were entitled to have their equally uninformed speculations about what the effect would be of Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan. As we know, it turned out to be a horror story as the US-backed insurgents subjected the country to atrocities so extreme that the population largely welcomed the Taliban — but I haven't run across any claim that the Russians should have maintained their occupation because of the effects of their withdrawing.

The basic principle is the same, whether here, or in Russia in the 1980s, or in other similar cases: the personal judgments of the invaders have no standing. Aggressors have no rights, only responsibilities, among them to pay enormous reparations for their crimes, to punish the perpetrators, and to give serious consideration to the will of the victims. In Iraq, as we know from US-run polls, a very large majority believe that US forces increase the level of violence and call for a firm timetable for withdrawal — and soon. The burden of proof is always on those who favor aggression and military occupation. In this case, to put it mildly, it is very far from having been met.

FLAK: In a September 2003 op-ed piece, you wrote: "Those who accept elementary moral standards have some work to do to show that the United States and Britain were justified in bombing Afghans to compel them to turn over people suspected of criminal atrocities, the official reason given when the bombings began."

Polls show that more Americans supported the war in Afghanistan than the war in Iraq (88 percent to 77 percent, respectively). Some supporters of the war in Afghanistan might argue that immediately following 9/11, there was an appreciable link, even if indirect, between Al Qaeda, or at least those sympathetic to it, and the 9/11 attacks, given the history of Bin Laden's terror network. Al Qaeda had well before 9/11 issued a fatwa of war against the US and its allies, and had made its promise good as evinced by the bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993, the US Embassy in East Africa in 1996, and the USS Cole in 2000. Well before 9/11, the Taliban had provided support and harbor for Al Qaeda operatives, including Bin Laden, for years. Why, then, was the US government wrong to invade Afghanistan given the Taliban's refusal to hand the suspects over to the US?

CHOMSKY: The Taliban responded to Bush's demands that bin Laden and others be turned over by asking for evidence, which the US refused to provide. That suffices to refute the argument you repeat, and it's only the bare beginning. I've reviewed the major arguments in print, and can't repeat here.

On the particular point you raise, we know why the US government refused to provide evidence. They didn't have it. Eight months later, after the most intensive investigation in history, the head of the FBI informed the press that it "believed" that the 9/11 plot was hatched in Afghanistan but that it was implemented in the Gulf states and Europe. What the US "believed" 8 months after 9/11 it did not "know" at the time. Same with the other examples. Let's now turn to "elementary moral standards." The reference was to the principle of universality, which is the foundation of any moral code that deserves to be taken seriously. According to the argument you report, if some people in Cuba, or Nicaragua, or Palestine, or...(you can add many more names) believe that the US government has been linked to terrorist actions against them, then they are entitled to bomb and occupy the US, and if that is beyond their means, to carry out massive terror in the US. And in these cases we can go far beyond belief and suspicion. The evidence is very solid, even from US government sources. The conclusion is, rightly, regarded as horrendous. Accordingly, the argument you report is pure cynicism.

FLAK: What do you make of the present conflict between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank and in particular the US' and Israel's strategy to "solve" the conflict by providing economic and military support to Fatah in order to isolate Hamas?

CHOMSKY: I've written about this in a number of places, including an op-ed distributed by the NYT syndicate, which I suppose will appear in a second edition of Interventions, if there is one.

In brief, in January 2006, Hamas won political power in Palestine in a carefully monitored election judged to be free and fair. The US and Israel instantly turned to severe punishment of Palestinians for voting "the wrong way," Europe toddled along politely as usual, and the intellectual classes labored mightily not to perceive what this implies about the real attitudes towards "democracy" that prevail among those who preach most passionately about their love of democracy.

There is a standard operating procedure for overthrowing a civilian government: arm the military to carry out a coup. In keeping with their bitter contempt for democracy, US and Israeli leaders immediately turned to that plan, joined by the Egyptian and Jordanian dictatorships, which have their own reasons for fearing democracy. They began to provide arms and training for their favorites, the Fatah supporters of President Abbas, who had been defeated in the election, and who refused to accept its outcome. Despite their foreign support, Fatah forces in Gaza were defeated in a vicious and brutal conflict, which many close observers describe as a preemptive strike targeting primarily the security forces of the brutal Fatah enforcer Muhamad Dahlan. The US-Israeli alliance then turned to the next option: seizing the opportunity to tighten the stranglehold on Gaza while they carry forward their policies of annexation and dismemberment in the West Bank, with the shrinking Palestinian cantons imprisoned as Israel takes over the Jordan valley. In the language of the rulers, this is called "seeking peace" in a "two-state solution."

The present US-Israel strategy, tacitly backed by Europe despite some timid critical words, has been in operation for 30 years, ever since 1976, when the US vetoed the first UN Security Council resolution calling for a two-state settlement on the international border, put forward by the major Arab states and backed by the PLO, which condemned "the tyranny of the veto." There have been occasional and temporary departures from this stance, notably in Clinton's last month in office (January 2001), but apart from these the US and Israel have led the rejectionist camp, and still do. The record has been amply documented elsewhere, but it does not conform to the required self-image, so it is obscured or denied. Anyone who may be interested can readily verify the facts.

FLAK: You argue that while the democratic process in the US is too often undermined by the unwillingness of the government to heed to popular preferences on policy, Americans still live in one of the freest countries in the world. In light of that, how much clout do average Americans have in shaping public debate and public policy and how responsible are we for the decisions made by our government?

CHOMSKY: It is a truism that privilege provides opportunity, particularly under conditions of freedom; and that opportunity confers responsibility. To the extent that "we" share a degree of privilege, we have corresponding responsibilities. To exercise them may not be easy, but that does not efface the responsibilities. As for the amount of clout that "the average American" has, in isolation it is very little, but in cooperation with others it is substantial indeed.

— Jeremy Carlos Foster (jcarlosfoster at gmail dot com)