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People of Afghanistan

By Noam Chomsky at Oct 05, 2004

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In mid-September, the NYT reported that the US was ordering Pakistan to restrict food shipments, at a time when they also reported that about 5 million were facing a grave threat of starvation (the NYT reported a month later that the number had risen by 2.5 million, after aid agencies withdrew under the threat, then the reality, of bombing, with vigorous protests, in which they were joined by leading anti-Taliban Afghans, including US favorites). Well after that, Harvard's leading authority on Afghanistan warned in Harvard's major international security journal that millions were facing the grave threat of starvation. It is, perhaps, the most elementary moral truism that we evaluate actions -- personal or state -- on the basis of expectations, not outcomes. We don't praise Khrushchev because his placement of missiles in Cuba didn't lead to nuclear war, but we condemn him because there was a chance of that -- and it happened to come very close. We allow ourselves to be honest about enemies, but that is strictly forbidden about ourselves. If we did allow ourselves to be honest, we would recognize that launching a war under those circumstances was a major crime, even putting aside the official reason, not those concocted long after, but the official reasons: to bomb Afghanistan because its leadership was unwilling to hand over to the US people the US suspected of responsibility for 9-11, while refusing to provide evidence (because, as conceded much later, they didn't have any) and refusing even to consider tentative offers of extradition. We do not investigate the consequences of our crimes. No powerful state does. Thus we do not know, literally within millions, how many people died in Indochina, and there is no inquiry into the matter (let alone assignment of responsibility). Those are among the prerogatives of power. In talks and articles in the months following the war I reviewed what was known. Those are in print, with footnotes, so you can check (and maybe posted on Znet). In this case, thankfully, the worst expectations were not realized, as in the case of Khruschev's missiles. But exactly what did happen, we don't know and never will.

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By Maahaadave, Gurudave at Oct 18, 2004 21:23 PM
Here is an interesting article on the autocratic musings of Russell, with some good links as well. It begins by citing Noam Chomsky. [url=http://www.questionsquestions.net/docs04/russell.html]When Bertrand Russell advocated preventive atomic war[/url]

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Re: People of Afghanistan

By Maahaadave, Gurudave at Oct 18, 2004 21:13 PM
Bertrand Russell was not being sarcastic, he was indeed a racist and social darwinist, which was the predominant ideology of the ruling class in the west in his day, and to a large extent today as well. "It is to the European races, in Europe or out of it, that the world owes most of what it possesses in thought, in science, in art, in ideas of government, in hope for the future." (Autobiography, 1969) Russell was that peculiar breed of aristrocrat with a "scientific" basis for their racist views, which was paternal in it's nature and not virulent like the KKK. This was common in his circle, and still is today. Malthusian dogma is not only about overpopulation. It's main fear inducing component, is the rise of a large underclass which can [url=http://www.trufax.org/avoid/manifold.html]overthrow the existing order[/url]. cont.

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Re: People of Afghanistan

By Maahaadave, Gurudave at Oct 10, 2004 13:30 PM
Russell is like a caricature of the British aristocrat you would expect to see parodied on Monty Python. His brand of racism and colonial paternal affectation, is exactly what you would expect to see from a slave owner of the antebellum south, in the U.S. That type of self assured superiority complex manifests in cruel and unusual tendencies. Darwinism became like a religion in the 19th century. The idea of superior racial stock combined with superior technology was too much for the addled aristocratic minds. Like perverse schoolyard children they went on their merry way, albeit controlling the worlds governments. Bush is a direct continuation of that breed of amoral child men.

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Re: People of Afghanistan

By Maahaadave, Gurudave at Oct 10, 2004 12:41 PM
The Impact of Science on Society (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1953), pp. 102-104

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Re: People of Afghanistan

By Rogers, Pietros at Oct 10, 2004 07:13 AM
Impressive list of quotations "gurudave" - particularly interested in where the Bertrand Russell one is sourced from. Would you be so kind as to share this information with us?

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Re: People of Afghanistan

By Maahaadave, Gurudave at Oct 08, 2004 19:43 PM
``Malthus has been vindicated, reality is finally catching up with Malthus. The Third World is overpopulated, it's an economic mess, and there's no way they could get out of it with this fast-growing population. Our philosophy is: back to the village.'' --Dr. Arne Schiotz, World Wildlife Fund Director of Conservation, 1984 ``The biggest problems are the damn national sectors of these developing countries. These countries think that they have the right to develop their resources as they see fit. They want to become powers.'' --Thomas Lovejoy, vice president, World Wildlife Fund U.S.A., 1984 ``In the event I am reborn, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation.'' --Prince Philip, quoted in Deutsche Presse Agentur, August 1988

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Re: People of Afghanistan

By Maahaadave, Gurudave at Oct 08, 2004 19:40 PM
``If necessary, nations of the Third World must be forced to remain poor if their development threatens resources on which all life depends.'' --Michael Soverstein, president, Environmental Economics ``You cannot keep a bigger flock of sheep than you are capable of feeding. In other words conservation may involve culling in order to keep a balance between the relative numbers in each species within any particular habitat. I realize this is a very touchy subject, but the fact remains that mankind is part of the living world.... Every new acre brought into cultivation means another acre denied to wild species.'' --Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

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Re: People of Afghanistan

By Maahaadave, Gurudave at Oct 08, 2004 19:27 PM
"If you attend the 1994 Cairo conference, you will find that the focus is very much on eugenics.... The Malthusian solution was to increase the death rate by diseases, starvation and such means, but there are more efficient ways now."--Mayone Stycos, Ivy League professor and former United Nations "population expert," March 1994. "War, so far, has had no very great effect on this increase [of the human population]but perhaps bacteriological war may prove more effective. If a Black Death could spread throughout the world once in every generation, the survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full... The state of affairs might be somewhat unpleasant, but what of it? Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people's." --Lord Bertrand Russell 1951

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Re: People of Afghanistan

By Maahaadave, Gurudave at Oct 08, 2004 19:20 PM
"There is a single theme behind all our work -- we must reduce population levels.... Look at Vietnam. We studied the thing. That area was overpopulated and a problem. We thought that the war would lower population rates and we were wrong. To really reduce population quickly, hou have to pull all the males into the fighting and you have to kill significant numbers of fertile age females...."In El Salvador, you are killing a small number of males and not enough females to do the job on population. If the war were to go on for 30 to 40 years, then you would really accomplish something." --Thomas Ferguson, head of the Latin America desk at the U.S. State Department's Office of Population Affairs, 1981

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Re: People of Afghanistan

By Maahaadave, Gurudave at Oct 08, 2004 02:18 AM
There is a simple answer to all of this. The ruling elites are [url=http://www.trufax.org/avoid/manifold.html]Malthusian[/url]. Ever since Malthus came up with his over population theories, the elites have "seen the light". To them "environmentalism" means reducing the burden on the environment by getting rid of the people who are a burden on it. Combined with Darwinism, we end up with a philososphy that encourages the elimination of as many "less evolved" humans as possible. When we look at the sheer enormity of deaths in Africa in recent years, and the amount in the near future that is sure to come(HIV), and then look at the response from the elites to these catastrophes, what conclusion are we left with? The Nazi beliefs i.e "Aryan" racial superiority/imperative elimination of "less evolved" humans, originated among the elites of the 19th century. These same people were ardent Malthusians and Darwinists. The western corporate elites supported Hitler, he was a devoted Darwinist and Malthusian. It's deja vu all over again. At the very top of the pyramid of power, you will find Malthusian Darwinists.

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Re: People of Afghanistan

By Maahaadave, Gurudave at Oct 08, 2004 02:05 AM
On October 2, 1979, McNamara (prez of World Bank at that time) told a group of international bankers: "We can begin with the most critical problem of all, population growth. As I have pointed out elsewhere, short of nuclear war itself, it is the gravest issue that the world faces over the decades immediately ahead...Is such a world inevitable? It is not, but there are only two possible ways in which a world of 10 billion people can be averted. Either the current birth rates must come down more quickly. Or the current death rates must go up. There is no other way... There are, of course, many ways in which the death rates can go up. In a thermonuclear age, war can accomplish it very quickly and decisively. Famine and disease are nature's ancient checks on population growth, and neither one has disappeared from the scene."

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Re: People of Afghanistan

By Matt6440, Mattb at Oct 06, 2004 09:19 AM
I didn't intend to sound snooty, but to point out this news story reported that the risks Chomsky warned about in November 01 were occurring as of early January 02. I don't subscribe to the forums, but I think the UPI story is relevant to and supports Chomsky's point. Shouldn't the headline have said something like, "2-3 million Afghans face starvation?"

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Re: People of Afghanistan

By Kminhmail, Ashphuk at Oct 06, 2004 08:14 AM
The context of this post is in reply to the forums. What exactly is your context here, it sounds snooty.?! Chomsky, like hundreds of other lefty reporters, were constantly bringing this up because the mainstream press wasn't. If there's a story in the NY Times between October and December 2001 about the risk of 4 million people dying because of US bombing, I'd like to see it.

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Re: People of Afghanistan

By Matt6440, Mattb at Oct 05, 2004 22:02 PM
I'm not sure in what context Prof. Chomsky wrote this post, but here is something further to consider. On January 8, 2002 UPI reported "Thousands forced to eat grass" (http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=08012002-024722-3570r&vm=r) According to this story, if you do the math, the average family size holds 6.8 people (340,000 people divided into 50,000 families) Later it says, "The Red Cross estimates that 300,000 to 400,000 families could still be in remote mountain areas and in desperate straits." Again, based on the math, wouldn't this mean that up to 2.72 million people "could still be in...desperate straits?" Not only is this an odd way to report such material, it also should be noted that by January 2002 people like David Horowitz and many "bloggers" had already grown bored (temporarily) with scolding Chomsky for repeating the warnings of aid agencies.

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