The War on Syria and Noam Chomsky

The War on Syria and Noam Chomsky

by Ghali Hassan, Axis of Logic, 4 September 2013



"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.”

[Samuel P. Huntington, 1996, p.51. ]



For centuries, Western imperialism has terrorised the world, using violence to occupy lands and expropriate resources and markets. From Asia and the Middle East to Africa, millions of innocent people, mostly women and children have been killed to satisfy Western appetite for violence and barbarism, and millions more have become displaced and refugees. Enhance by sophisticated false propaganda to manipulate public opinions and justify aggression, Western imperialism led by the U.S. is the greatest menace to the survival of humanity today.

After more than two years of covert war, including economic sanctions on food and medicine, the U.S. and its allies or vassals (France, Britain and Israel in particular) are preparing their armies to wage overt aggressive war on the people of Syria citing the same lie that led to the bloodbath in Iraq, “chemical weapons”. As most people know, the U.S. war on the Iraqi people was one of the most unjust barbaric wars that have ever been inflicted on defenceless nations, a major international crime.

Sadly, the thirst for another bloodbath among Western imperialists is as big as ever. In order to sell the war to the American people and world public, Western leaders invoke the Nazi’s beloved phrase of “humanitarian intervention” as a “moral justification”. It is the same “moral justification” that terrorised the Iraqi people and caused the deaths of more than one-and-a-half million innocent Iraqis, mostly women and children. After more than a decade of murderous military occupation, Iraq –once a progressive nation and an envy of many nations – is a deliberately destroyed cauldron of violence, human misery and deprivation for everyone to see. Instability and violence have gripped Iraq since the murderous invasion. Libya is the same. The West-invented “Humanitarian intervention” is a convenient tool to manipulate public opinions and mask Western violence as a “just war”.

The U.S. and its vassals are accusing (without credible evidence) the Syrian Government of using “chemical weapons against civilians”. The chemical attack in Syria is one of many lies fabricated by the Mossad (the Israeli Gestapo) and fed to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and then spread by the Israeli and Western media. It is a planned and baseless pretext to justify aggression. The current UN team investigating the chemical attack takes its orders from Washington and was instructed by the U.S. to only determine if chemical weapons had been used and not who used them. According to Michael Mandel, a professor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University in Canada, “because the U.S. promised to intervene militarily if gas were used, giving the [terrorists] who are on the run [chased by the Syrian Army] a huge incentive to use it and giving the Syrian Government an equally huge disincentive”.

According to the Minnesota Mint Press News (29 August 2013), Syrian residents in Ghouta have confirmed that Saudi-armed terrorists were behind the chemical attack on their neighbourhood on the outskirt of the Syrian Capital Damascus. In a detailed report on the use of chemical weapons in Syria by UN commissioner on Syria, Carla Del Ponte stated:

"Our investigators have been interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals. According to their report of last week, which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated. I was a little bit stupefied by the first indications we got ... they were about the use of nerve gas by the opposition."

However, the U.S. dismissed the report and insisted on an “inspection” that covers all Syria. A recent Russian report presented to the UN Security Council, show that the Western-backed terrorists were responsible for the March 2013 chemical attack in Khan al-Assad.

Furthermore, in May 2013, OE Watch reported that Turkish security forces found sarin gas in the homes of suspected Western-backed (al-Nusra terrorists).

The gas was reportedly to be used to make bombs. It is most likely that, Israel, the C.I.A., Saudi Arabia, Britain and France are complicit in supplying the terrorists with chemical weapons in order to justify Western aggression against Syria. In fact U.S. President Obama (indirectly) suggested the use of chemical weapons by drawing a “red line” on their use. That is, if chemical weapons are used, we will go to war. Therefore, the U.S. and Israel have an obvious motive in accusing the Syrian Government of using chemical weapons.

One wonders why when Israel and the U.S. use chemical weapons, including white phosphorus, napalm, cluster bombs, and depleted uranium to murder innocent civilians (in broad daylight), most Western governments and the media turned blind eye. In the 2008/2009 the Israeli fascist regime killed over 1500, innocent civilians, including 400 children in unprovoked attacks on an entirely defenceless and besieged population of the Gaza Concentration Camp in Palestine. Despite world-wide condemnation of the Israeli regime, John Kerry and the mostly Zionist U.S. Congress rushed to praise Israel’s terror and provided Israel with more cash, weapons, including white phosphorous and cluster bombs and diplomatic backing. There were no red lines in Palestine or in Iraq, except those drawn in Palestinians and Iraqis blood. The U.S. and its vassals view war crimes through an imperialist lens of “how this serves our interests”.

Like Iraq and Libya, Syria is targeted on behalf of the fascist state of Israel. The aim is to control the Middle East military by destroying any resistance to Israel's fascist (Zionist) ideology. After the atrocity in Libya, the U.S. and its allies resorted to using proxy terrorists to implement their imperialist agenda. The so-called "rebels" (a common euphemism for Western-backed terrorists in Western media) are a collection of U.S.-Israel backed terrorists and foreign mercenaries. They are openly recruited, trained, armed, and directed by the U.S., Israel, NATO members and U.S. allies, including the disgraceful and corrupt dictators of the Middle East – Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, etc. (New York Times). In short, they are foot soldiers used to facilitate Western military invasions and the destabilisation of the region. If the so-called “rebels” are truly Muslims fighting for democracy, why are they destroying Syria and terrorising the Syrian people?

True Muslims do not fight on U.S.-Israel’s side against fellow Muslims. However, associating the terrorists with Islam is part of the U.S.-Israel racist campaign to demonise Islam and justify war against Muslims. Like Iraq and Libya, once Syria has been completely destroyed, a group of U.S.-trained expatriates and criminals will be installed as a “government” to legitimise the expropriation of the nation’s land, natural resources and market. The terrorists will be encouraged to fight each other for turf or will be airlifted to soften and prepare the ground of the next target. Just take a look at what is happening in the Middle East. Israel is the biggest and only beneficiary of this “creative chaos” strategy.


The Western-orchestrated “Arab Spring” provides a useful platform not only for anti-Muslim neo-fascist, such as Gilbert Achcard, Bernard-Henry Levy and Fawaz Gerges to promote their hostility to Islam, but also an opportunity for Western apologists to show their loyalty and obsequiousness to Western imperialism. A careful reading of the “Left” liberals’ response to the Western-backed terror in Syria, reveals that the “Left” liberals have display a staggering level of complacency, complicity and outright hostility to the Syrian people. Representatives of the milieu of the “Left” liberals led by the like of Noam Chomsky have lost credibility. Their arguments are part of the standard propaganda talking points that serve Israel-U.S. Zionist ideology. Strikingly, not only the “Left” liberals failed to think about Israel-U.S. Zionist ideology, they made serious efforts to spread Western propaganda that the war on Syria is a “civil war” between Syrians.

Noam Chomsky, the darling of the “Left” and the so-called “arguably the most important intellectual alive today” is leading the propaganda campaign. In recent interviews, Chomsky engaged in what can best be described as, highly misleading imperialist propaganda. On 16 June 2013, Chomsky, told al-akhbar newspaper:

“First of all, Israel was not opposed to Assad. He has been more or less the kind of dictator they wanted. He has done the kind of things they wanted. The U.S. has no opposition to Assad. He was cooperating on intelligence and they did not like everything, but he was pretty satisfactory.” (Al-akhbar English, 16 June 2013).

The same propaganda was repeated on The Republic website:

“Israel has done nothing to indicate that it is trying to bring down the Assad regime. There are growing claims that the West intends to supply the opposition with arms. I believe this is quite misleading. The fact of the matter is, that were the United States and Israel interested in bringing down the Syrian regime there is a whole package of measures they could take before they came to the arms-supply option. All these other options remain available, including, for example, America encouraging Israel to mobilize its forces along the northern border, a move that would not produce any objections from the international community and which would compel the regime to withdraw its forces from a number of frontline positions and relieve the pressure on the opposition. But this has not happened, nor will it, so long as America and Israel remain unwilling to bring down Assad regime. They may not like the regime, but it is nevertheless a regime that is well practiced in accommodating their demands and any unknown alternative might prove worse in this respect. Much better, then, to watch the Syrians fight and destroy each other”.

What a distortion of reality by Chomsky!

Chomsky's distortion of reality is based on a deeply-entrenched Zionist belief, that Israel is innocent of any crimes. To paraphrase Frantz Fanon, Chomsky has shown that he is unable to deal with cognitive dissonance and has worked hard to “protect his core belief, often rationalising, ignoring and even denying anything that doesn’t fit in with the his core belief”. Such false propaganda designed to shield Israel and allows Israelis to believe falsely that they’re innocent bystanders, even victims. The truth is Israel is directly involved in the foreign-backed aggression against Syria. In coordination with the U.S. and the Turkish army, the Israeli army continues its unprovoked aggression against Syria, including the recent missiles attack (05 July 2013) on the port city of Latakia. Iran is thrown in the mix by the “Left” liberals to deflect attention away from Israel. It is Israel, not Iran, which is deeply involved in the war on Syria.

Together, with the U.S., Israel is the major supplier of weapons, including chemical weapons to the terrorists to unleash against the Syrian people. Once the Western-backed terrorists were on the run, chased by the Syrian Army, Israel in coordination with the U.S. and Turkey came to their aid. The latest atrocity is a case in point. Chomsky failed to even mention that since the Western-backed violence erupted in Syria, Israel has been the only state that has openly attacked Syria unprovoked. This is consistent with Chomsky’s support for Israel, as he often said that he is “the biggest supporter of the state of Israel”.

Much of the war on Syria has been planned by pro-Israel Zionist think-tank like the Brookings Institute in the U.S. It is part of Israel’s Zionist ideology to dominate the Middle East by force and remove any resistance to Israel’s Zionist expansion. It is Israel which driving the U.S. to war on Syria. As former Israeli Intelligence Chief, Amos Yaldin told the audience at the Israel Policy Forum in February 2013:

“And this [Syrian] military, which is a huge threat to Israel, is now also weakening and, in a way, disintegrating. We still have risk from Syria – a risk of being an al-Qaeda country, a Somalia-type country – but from military point of view, each one of these is less dangerous than the Syrian regular army.”

In addition, the Israeli army (in coordination with the Turkish army) is on full alert on the border with Syria and coordinating with the terrorists. Furthermore, with the backing of the Israeli army, the terrorists have recently occupied the UN border post in Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. They were subsequently defeated by the Syrian Army and fled into the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan. As a result of the violence, the Austrian UN “peace-keeping” force withdrew from the area. The entire Middle East has been turned into a bloodbath specifically to enhance Israel military dominance and advance Israel’s Zionist-fascist ideology.

In another interview with the Lebanese newspaper the Daily Star (18 June 2013), Chomsky went to great length to portray the U.S.-Israel war on Syria in an ignorant and devious term: “Syria is destroying itself”. He said: “The country is heading toward suicide, it is destroying itself and it is very dangerous.” In Chomsky parlance: It is a civil war between the Syrian people (“Sunni versus Shiite”) and we are not involved. What a crass dishonesty, false propaganda and mind-boggling distortions of reality. Chomsky knows that there is no civil war taking place in Syria. He knows that Syria is under Western-backed terrorist attacks. Chomsky knows very well who the perpetrators of the violence in Syria are and who their backers are. From the outset (March 2011), it has been Western-backed terrorists (not “peaceful demonstrators”) who have been wreaking havoc on Syria and killing civilians who opposed them. Nowhere in Chomsky’s interviews has he acknowledged that the U.S. has been training, financing, and arming the terrorist in for almost two years. He is for a UN-backed war on Syria.

Like many Western propagandists, Chomsky’s aim is to mislead the public that sectarian hate exists among Muslims and that the Syrian people are fighting among themselves. The so-called “sectarian violence” is part of the U.S.-Israel “creative chaos” strategy to fragment and divide the Middle East along ethnic and religious lines. Chomsky fails to even mention that Syria is a pluralistic society and that the overwhelming majority of the Syrian people support President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian legitimate government. As Russia’s President Vladimir Putin accurately observed:

“The Syrian Government is the best speaker on behalf of the Syrian people and not those liver-eating terrorists”.

Chomsky knows very well that the war in Syria is not between the Syrian people, but between the Syrian legitimate Government and foreign-backed terrorists and criminal mercenaries. It is a well-known fact that what the U.S.and it allies, including Israel and the Gulf dictators call “rebels" are foreign-backed terrorists and mercenaries that include al-Qaeda terrorists. Their crimes ranging from eating human flesh, cutting throats, beheadings, abducting and slaughtering clergymen and scholars, recruiting children, robbing factories and transporting them to Turkey and committing hundreds of terrorists acts. We know now that the U.S. and its allies have been openly training the terrorists and supplying them with weapons and cash.

Even Chomsky’s beloved Zionist newspapers, the despicable New York Times and the Washington Post have acknowledged the U.S. role in financing and arming the terrorists against the legitimate Syrian Government. According to the Wall Street Journal, President Obama’s legal team has warned him that arming the terrorists violates international law. The terrorist were directed by their supporters (“Friends of Syria”) to attack population centres (cities and towns) as primary battle grounds to give the impression that the terrorist attacks are in fact a “civil war” between the Syria people. It is consistent with U.S.-Israel policy of targeting the civilian populations.

It is important to keep in mind that Chomsky is not just a Zionist-propagandist. Chomsky is a global propaganda corporation. His repetitive and cheap propaganda are published by his supporters in the Zionist media and spread around the world. The “Chomsky Cult” is the equivalent of BBC or CNN propaganda. It is true that Chomsky has called the U.S. and Israel “terrorist states that pose the greatest threat to world’s peace”. His empty rhetoric is designed to disguise his main propaganda thesis that, “the U.S. is the greatest and freest country in the world”, and blames the US on Israel's war crimes rather than Israel itself. While Chomsky often criticised U.S. foreign policy, he is not fundamentally against U.S. imperialism. He once described the murderous Occupation of Iraq “incompetence” and suggested “better ways” to do it. With his Zionist leaning, Chomsky’s primary aim is to pacify people and put them to sleep. If he is honest, Chomsky needs to ask himself whose side he is on, a U.S.-Israel led murderous Zionism or a civilised community of diverse nations.

Finally, here in Australia, it is the last week of the election campaign and it is used to promote aggression, regurgitating Obama’s threat against the people of Syria. Meanwhile, the Australian Government – an obedient U.S. lapdog – is celebrating its one month Presidency of the UN Security Council. Australia’s main goal in September will be to please the U.S. regime and unconditionally supports U.S. terror in all its forms and at all costs. As the violence escalates in Syria, Australian immigration officials are busy issuing passports to Australian mercenaries joining the West-backed terror in Syria. According to the Time News, “Australians now make up the largest contingent from any developed nation in the Syrian [foreign terrorist] forces”.

Moreover, Australia’s Foreign Minister, Bob Carr (a carbon copy of his predecessor, the ignorant Alexander Downer) has called for the assassination of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in order to change the Government. Imagine the outrage had it been a Muslim leader calling for the assassination of Kevin Rudd or the ignorant Bob Carr himself. However, most Australians have none of it, if it will not stop a few thousands desperate refugees fleeing imperialism terror and trying to reach Australia by boat.

Speaking at the UN General Assembly in December 1964 in New York, the Cuban revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara described imperialism as:

“A carnivorous animal that feeds on unarmed peoples. […] That is what distinguishes the imperial ‘white men’”. The only way to defeat this carnivorous animal is by uniting anti-imperialist local and global forces. It is a test of conscience for every Westerner and proof of whether Western civilization is anything more than a facade for brute barbarism."



* Ghali Hassan is an independent researcher and writer living in Australia.