Chomsky: No Evidence Provided For 9/11 War

In a recent interview with Iran’s Press TV, leading American intellectual and political dissident Noam Chomsky stated that the wars launched in response to the 9/11 attacks are “criminal” and noted that US government provided no evidence that bin Laden was responsible for the attacks before bombing Afghanistan.
Chomsky told Press TV: “The explicit and declared motive of the [Afghanistan] war was to compel the Taliban to turn over to the United States, the people who they accused of having been involved in World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist acts. The Taliban…they requested evidence…and the Bush administration refused to provide any. We later discovered one of the reasons why they did not bring evidence: they did not have any.”
In the years since 9/11, Chomsky has often been at odds with activists seeking accountability for the attacks, which have been used as justification for an ongoing global “war on terror” and continuing infringement of civil liberties. Chomsky has at times derided the cause and accused 9/11 activists of distracting from more important issues. In 2008, Chomsky added his name to a petition started by 9/11 family members calling for the release of classified documents relating to the 9/11 attacks.
Watch a clip of the Press TV interview with Noam Chomsky, courtesy of oumma.com:
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It’s important to note that Noam Chomsky is referring to the incident specifically about Osama Bin Laden. Not “Al-Qaeda.”
Much as I appreciate the 911truthnews.com site, your headline for the excerpt from the Chomsky interview misrepresents its content. N C does not say al-Qaeda in this excerpt; he repeatedly says “the Taliban.” He says that in October 2001 the U.S./British Governments could not supply evidence linking the Taliban to the 9/11 attacks. Also, he hugely misstates the full dimension of Robert Mueller’s admission in Spring 2002 about the FBI’s lack of evidence in regard to the 19 alleged “hijackers.” (Mueller told the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on April 19, 2002: “In our investigation, we have not uncovered a single piece of paper – either here in the United States, or in the treasure trove of information that has turned up in Afghanistan and elsewhere – that mentioned any aspect of the September 11 plot.”) Also, Chomsky specifically echoes in this video-clip the U.S. Government’s secondary line that the plot originated “in the United Arab Emirates and Germany”–i.e., with al Qaeda.
In short, this excerpt from the recent interview does not convey any real step forward by Chomsky toward 9/11 truth.
Readers might want to check out a more extensive rebuttal to Chomsky’s kind of “structural analysis”, offered through an interview with Bob Feldman from June 2003–http://www.questionsquestions.net/docs04/0526_donpaul.html .
Perhaps I should have gone with my first headline pick “Chomsky: No Evidence Provided For 9/11 War”.
Cosmos,
Yes, I think your first pick is definitely preferable and actually puts Chomsky and the war-makers more on the spot.
Don
I changed the headline. I was hesitant to do so, since it had already been published for so long, but I think the mandate for maximal accuracy and clarity outweighs that consideration. I do think I might have been swayed by other sites – including Raw Story – going with “No evidence of al Qaeda” line. But this headline is better and I’ll go with my gut next time. Chalk one up for editorial transparency and thanks for the feedback!
i dont see the difference. Al Qaeda, like the ‘intelligence’ to invade Iraq, and how confounded the two were in the minds of most Americans, was created out of thin air, so to speak.