Chomsky’s Lectern: The War in Afghanistan—Echoes of Vietnam

Prof. Chomsky writes the WikiLeaked Afghanistan War Logs “may contribute to the unfortunate and prevailing doctrine that wars are wrong only if they aren’t successful—rather like the Nazis felt after Stalingrad”.

Ethics, Congress and War (Video)

Sooo, Congress is bothered by a little corruption? Hah! Also, will there be war with North Korea and/or Iran? (9:30):

Evening Briefing—15th July 2010

News and views from around the web posted to the Wonderland Wire:

Daily Briefing—14th-15th July 2010

News and views from around the web posted to the Wonderland Wire:

Report: Wikileaks Founder ‘Hunted by the Pentagon’

Amidst “security concerns”, the heroic Julian Assange has canceled a scheduled trip to speak today in Las Vegas after appearing remotely to a New York scheduled appearance, earlier in the week. U.S. officials confirm the Defense Department is scrambling to discover his whereabouts. Daniel Ellsburg and Philip Shenon discussed this today at “The Dylan Ratigan Show” on MSNBC (10:58):

Daily Briefing—9th June 2010

News and views from around the web posted to the Wonderland Wire:

Agent Orange Cleanup ‘Expected to Start Next Year’

The chemical weapon sprayed during the U.S. government’s crimes of aggression against Vietnam destroys and deforms lives to this day.

Daily Briefing—27th May 2010

News and views from around the web posted to the Wonderland Wire:

Petraeus’ Princeton Dissertation on ‘Lessons From Vietnam’

By off-site request, the CENTCOM commander’s 1987 “The American Military and the Lessons From Vietnam: A Study of American Influence and the Use of Force in the Post-Vietnam Era,” is now posted at Little Alex in Wonderland.

Okinawa: ‘American Pawns’

The Obama Administration is muscling the Japanese government, whose prime minister is exceedingly popular on everything except the U.S. occupation of Okinawa. Over 100,000 people protested the base in Okinawa (2:36):

Chomsky’s Lectern: ‘The Role of the Radical Intellectual—Some Personal Reflections’ (Video)

Earlier this month, in Madison, WI, Professor Noam Chomsky reflected on:

• His early personal exposure to anarchism and activism through people we wouldn’t today call ‘intellectuals’, but the insight of ‘everyday people’;
• The crushing of liberation ventures by “fascism, Stalinism and liberal democracies” and the “miraculous sympathy and humanity” of the most brutally oppressed from Vietnam to Palestine to Southern Colombia;
• His introduction to the “intellectual class” of “liberal democrat” gatekeepers during his graduate studies and its manipulation of the word “enemy” for “conquerors”, ‘radical rewrite’ of John F. Kennedy’s “legacy” to communicate him as a “dove” after the Tet Offensive, ‘liberal imperialists’  and their ‘unprincipled’ objection to the U.S. invasion of Iraq as a “strategic blunder” showing its ‘deeply rooted imperial mentality’;
• The validity of the “Tea Party Movement”, the “big business community” and their love for Obama, the “owners of society” and how policy is engineered for “their interests”;
• The “global shift in power” from the “workforce to multinational capital” making China a giant “assembly plant”, the financial community’s ‘rational externality’ of “systemic risk” for “institutional reasons” provided by the “Nanny State”, the “doom loop” of government bailouts that provide incentive for those in power to create “financial crises”;
• The “moving” and “articulate”, though “ridiculed”, “manifesto” of terrorist Joe Stack before his suicide bombing (57:48):

American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein (Full Film)

A great biography on my former adviser at DePaul University, Professor Norman Finkelstein, in whom I take great pride and to whom I extend endless gratitude for the ways he has changed my life and continues to plant seeds to make me a better man as time moves on.

Part One (9:53):

Scott Horton: Antiwar Because ‘Killing People is Wrong’ (Video)

Scott Horton, anarchist host of AntiWar Radio, spoke to the Young Americans for Liberty chapter at the University of New Hampshire on why libertarians should be antiwar, the history of oligarchs lying the U.S. into wars, the becoming of the Empire, blowback, how Osama bin Laden baited the U.S. into Afghanistan to end the Empire as the U.S. did to the Soviets, and irrational American exceptionalism—introducing Thomas Woods – 6 November 09 – (27:36):

Chomsky’s Lectern: The Elite-Manufactured Sectarian America (Video)

Prof. Chomsky discusses: e-media; the hypocritically selective nuclear hysteria; “sensibility” and “tragedy” within the ‘tea party movement’; cynical scapegoating, the natural inclinations of the human species; the business propaganda against government by those who embrace government; a world without war or a world without people; the evolution of the antiwar movement; the immoral elite debate on the Afghanistan occupation, campaign funding predicting policy; and the manufactured sectarian America.

Part One (9:56):

Reagan’s Torture Regime in Latin America (mp3)

Consortium News founder Robert Parry discusses Latin America as the political training ground for Neo-Con torture regimes, bashing moral relativism to ‘manufacture consent’ for moral relativism, statist journalism, blowback in the Middle East, the lie of Charlie Wilson’s War, Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ role in the Former President Reagan’s C.I.A., and media scare tactics used to lie the U.S. into war with Iran with AntiWar Radio host Scott Horton (63:13):