Noam Chomsky Quotes About Crime

• If something is right (or wrong) for us, it’s right (or wrong) for others. It follows that if it’s wrong for Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and a long list of others to bomb Washington and New York, then it’s wrong for Rumsfeld to bomb Afghanistan (on much flimsier pretexts), and he should be brought before war crimes trials.

  Noam Chomsky

  New York, War, Long

  "On Terrorism". Interview with John Bolender, chomsky.info. January, 2004.

• The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mother, People, Drug

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

• For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.

  Noam Chomsky

  Powerful, Political, Crime

  Noam Chomsky, David Barsamian (2010). “Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World”, p.73, Macmillan

• The crimes committed against the people of West Papua are some of the most shameful of the past years. The Western powers have much to answer for, and at the very least should use their ample means to bring about the withdrawal of the occupying Indonesian army and termination of the shameful exploitation of resources and destruction of the environment and the lives and societies of the people of West Papua, who have suffered far too much.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Army, Past

• Nothing can justify crimes such as those of September 11, but we can think of the United States as an innocent victim only if we adopt the convenient path of ignoring the record of its actions and those of its allies, which are, after all, hardly a secret.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, September 11, Secret

  Noam Chomsky (2001). “9-11 [neuf-onze]”, p.35, Seven Stories Press

• The new crimes that the US and Israel were committing in Gaza as 2009 opened do not fit easily into any standard category—except for the category of familiarity.

  Noam Chomsky

  Israel, Gaza Strip, Fit

  Noam Chomsky, Ilan PappŽ (2014). “Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War Against the Palestinians”, p.101, Haymarket Books

• Take any country that has laws against hate crimes, inspiring hatred and genocide and so on. The first thing they would do is ban the Old Testament. There's nothing like it in the literary canon that exalts genocide, to that extent. And it's not a joke either. Like where I live, New England, the people who liberated it from the native scourge were religious fundamentalist lunatics, who came waving the holy book, declaring themselves to be the children of Israel who are killing the Amalekites, like God told them.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Religious, Children

  Talk at the University of Houston, Texas, October 18, 2002.

• The September 11 attacks were major atrocities. . . . This was a horrendous crime . . . The primary victims . . . were working people: janitors, secretaries, firemen, etc. It is likely to prove to be a crushing blow to Palestinians . . . It is also likely to lead to harsh security controls, with many possible ramifications for undermining civil liberties and internal freedom.

  Noam Chomsky

  Crush, Blow, People

• Our crimes, for which we are responsible: as taxpayers, for failing to provide massive reparations, for granting refuge and immunity to the perpetrators, and for allowing the terrible facts to be sunk deep in the memory hole. All of this is of great significance, as it has been in the past.

  Noam Chomsky

  Memories, Past, Church

  Noam Chomsky (2001). “9-11 [neuf-onze]”, p.46, Seven Stories Press

• Naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk... It's as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes 'Jew' and 'Gypsy.'

  Noam Chomsky

  Weapons, Gypsy, Fighter

  "Noam Chomsky: My Reaction to Osama bin Laden’s Death". www.guernicamag.com. May 6, 2011.

• The invasion of Iraq was simply a war crime. Straight-out war crime.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Iraq, Invasion

  "On the Election". "Real Time" with Bill Maher, chomsky.info. November 10, 2004.

• The crime of liberation theology was that it takes the Gospels seriously. That's unacceptable. The Gospels are radical pacifist material, if you take a look at them . . . Liberation theology, in Brazil particularly, brought the actual Gospel to peasants. They said, let's read what the Gospels say, and try to act on the principles they describe. That was the major crime that set off the Reagan wars of terror.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Trying, Principles

• The worst terrorist crimes going on right now are the drone campaigns.

  Noam Chomsky

  Drones, Campaigns, Crime

  "Anti-Intellectualism, Terrorism, and Elections in Contemporary Education: a Discussion with Noam Chomsky". Interview with Dan Falcone, www.counterpunch.org. June 3, 2016.

• Why did the people think [Vietnam war] was fundamentally wrong and immoral? The guys who ran the polls, John E. Rielly, a professor at the University of Chicago, a liberal professor, he said what that means is that people thought too many Americans had being killed. Another possibility is they didn't like the fact that we were carrying out the worst crime since the Second World War. But that's so inconceivable that wasn't even offered as a possible reason.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Mean, Thinking

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

• There are people on the left who say, Look, we can't let these atrocities go on, so let's enter the war and get rid of Bashar Assad. The problem with that is you get into a nuclear war with Russia. And Syria gets wiped out along with everything else. So, it's fine to say, OK, let's stop the crimes, but how exactly?

  Noam Chomsky

  War, People, Problem

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• To achieve respectability, to be admitted to the debate, they must accept without question or inquiry the fundamental doctrine that the state is benevolent, governed by the loftiest intentions, adopting a defensive stance, not an actor in world affairs but only reacting to the crimes of others...If even the harshest of critics tacitly adopt these premises, then the ordinary person may ask, who am I to disagree?

  Noam Chomsky

  Ordinary, Doctrine, Inquiry

• Enormous and growing parts of the population are basically superfluous for profit-making purposes. Along with this, the jail population is increasing very rapidly; it's the highest in the industrial world by far. New and onerous crime bills are being passed to deal with this superfluous population.

  Noam Chomsky

  Jail, Population, Purpose

• Take the Iraq War,it's the second worst crime after the Second World War. It's the first time in history, in the history of imperialism, there were huge demonstrations, before the war was officially launched.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Iraq, World

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

• If you and I go into a store to rob it, and I say "shoot," that's not protected. Like all judicial decisions and legislation, this leaves plenty of gray areas, including many of great significance that are rarely discussed: advocacy of imminent war crimes, such as aggression, for example. I think we would all agree that such speech should be protected, despite the often horrific consequences, but it's worth noting that that stretches the doctrine to its limits.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Thinking, Decision

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

• As international support for Obama's decision to attack Syria has collapsed, along with the credibility of government claims, the administration has fallen back on a standard pretext for war crimes when all else fails: the credibility of the threats of the self-designated policeman of the world.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Government, Self

• It's fine to criticize somebody else's crimes and misdeeds, but you don't talk about your own. The only exception is a country that is defeated. And even that is rather nuanced.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Defeated, Crime

  Source: www.madre.org

• In fact, various lawyers' groups - to some extent in the U.S. but mostly in England and Canada and elsewhere - are bringing demands for a war crimes trial for the crime of aggression. However, though the invasion of Iraq was plainly an act of aggression, it doesn't break any records.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Iraq, Invasion

  Source: progressive.org

• Kaplan can't understand trivialities. The triviality here is that nobody except the ultra right-wing jingoists like Kaplan are comparing atrocities by various countries. What honest people are saying seems to be incomprehensible: that we should keep to the elementary moral level of the gospels. We should pay attention to our own crimes and stop committing them. This would be true even if we were killing one person, OK? And it's even more true when we're killing millions of people.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Wings, People

  "Noam Chomsky On the Middle East and the US War on Terrorism". "Hot Type" with Evan Solomon, dissidentvoice.org. April 16, 2002.

• The good news from the U.S. military survey of focus groups is that Iraqis do accept the Nuremberg principles. They understand that sectarian violence and the other postwar horrors are contained within the supreme international crime committed by the invaders.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Focus, News

• Take Germany and Japan, both defeated in the Second World War. Germany has acknowledged its monstrous crimes to a certain extent, has paid reparations and so on. Japan, in contrast, apologizes for nothing and has paid no reparations, with one exception: It pays reparations to the United States, but not to Asia.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Japan, Asia

  Source: www.madre.org

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