Noam Chomsky Military Quotes

• When Israelis in the occupied territories now claim that they have to defend themselves, they are defending themselves in the sense that any military occupier has to defend itself against the population they are crushing. You can't defend yourself when you're militarily occupying someone else's land. That's not defense. Call it what you like, it's not defense.

  Noam Chomsky

  Crush, Military, Land

  "Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land". Documentary, www.imdb.com. 2004.

• The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.

  Noam Chomsky

  Kings, Military, Party

  Noam Chomsky (2011). “Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order”, p.125, Seven Stories Press

• We still name our military helicopter gunships after victims of genocide. Nobody bats an eyelash about that: Blackhawk. Apache. And Comanche. If the Luftwaffe named its military helicopters Jew and Gypsy, I suppose people would notice.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Eyelashes, Names

  David Barsamian, Noam Chomsky (2001). “Propaganda and the Public Mind: Conversations with Noam Chomsky”, p.194, Pluto Press

• Control of thought is more important for governments that are free and popular than for despotic and military states. The logic is straightforward: a despotic state can control its domestic enemies by force, but as the state loses this weapon, other devices are required to prevent the ignorant masses from interfering with public affairs, which are none of their business… the public are to be observers, not participants, consumers of ideology as well as products.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Government, Ignorant Masses

  "Force and Opinion". Article by Noam Chomsky, chomsky.info. July, 1991.

• The costs of the Bush-Obama wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now estimated to run as high as $4.4 trillion - a major victory for Osama bin Laden, whose announced goal was to bankrupt America by drawing it into a trap. The 2011 military budget - almost matching that of the rest of the world combined - is higher in real terms than at any time since World War II and is slated to go even higher .

  Noam Chomsky

  Running, Military, Real

  Noam Chomsky (2016). “Who Rules the World?”, p.62, Metropolitan Books

• The threat of China is not military. The threat of China is they can't be intimidated. Europe you can intimidate. When the US tries to get people to stop investing in Iran, European companies pull out, China disregards it. You look at history and understand why - they've been around for 4,000 years, they have contempt for the barbarians, they just don't give a damn.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Iran, Years

  Interview with Robert Trivers, seedmagazine.com. September 06, 2006.

• Suppose that, say, China established military bases in Colombia to carry out chemical warfare in Kentucky and North Carolina to destroy this lethal crop [tobacco] that is killing huge numbers of Chinese.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Kentucky, Numbers

• North Korea and China have proposed what sounds like a pretty sensible option that North Korea should end its development of nuclear weapons, the US should stop carrying out hostile military maneuvers on the North Korean border. The US immediately rejected it. Modernization program is a very clear example of how security doesn't matter. There is no gain in security but massive overkill of the adversary's deterrent capacity. The only consequence of it is to elicit the likelihood of a preemptive attack. And a preemptive attack leads to a nuclear winter world.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Winter, World

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• American imperialism has suffered a stunning defeat in Indochina. But the same forces are engaged In another war against a much less resilient enemy, the American people. Here, the prospects for success are much greater. The battleground is ideological, not military. At stake are the lessons to be drawn from the American war in Indochina; the outcome will determine the course and character of new imperial ventures.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, War, Character

  Source: chomsky.info

• Student debt is structured to be a burden for life. The indebted cannot declare bankruptcy, unlike Donald Trump. Current student debt is estimated to be over $1.45 trillion. There are ample resources for that simply from waste, including the bloated military and the enormous concentrated private wealth that has accumulated in the financial and general corporate sector under neoliberal policies. There is no economic reason why free education cannot flourish from schools through colleges and university. The barriers are not economic but rather political decisions.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, School, College

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• The United States is a violent military state. It's been involved in military action all over the place.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, United States, Action

  "Chomsky: Instead of “Illegal” Threat to Syria, U.S. Should Back Chemical Weapons Ban in All Nations". "Democracy Now!" with Amy Goodman, www.democracynow.org. September 11, 2013.

• Similar problems are arising in Egypt too. The question is whether the military will release its grip which has been extremely strong for the past 60 years. So this is happening all over the region and particularly strikingly in Pakistan.

  Noam Chomsky

  Strong, Military, Past

  Source: www.dawn.com

• Any incident could instantly blow up. Both sides [USA and Russia] are modernizing and increasing their military systems, including nuclear systems.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Blow, Russia

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

• South America has virtually broken away in the last decade. That's an event of historic significance. South America just doesn't follow US orders. In fact there isn't a single US military base left there.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, America, Order

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• 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

• U.S. analysts estimate that Russian military expenditures have tripled during the Bush-Putin years, in large measure a predicted reaction to the Bush administration's militancy and aggressiveness.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Years, Administration

  Noam Chomsky (2007). “Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance”, p.242, Macmillan

• There had been a free and open election in Haiti in the early 1990s and president Jean-Bertrand Aristide won, a populist priest. A few months later came the expected military coup - a very vicious military junta took over, of which the United States was passively supportive. Not openly, of course, but Haitians started to flee from the terror and were sent back and on towards Guantanamo Bay. Of course, that is against International Law. But the United States pretended that they were "economic refugees."

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Law, President

  Source: thehumanist.com

• In the mid to late nineteenth century, the gun manufacturers recognized that they had a limited market. Remember that this is a capitalist society, you've got to expand your market. They were selling guns to the military. That's a pretty limited market. What about all the rest of the people? So what started was all kinds of fantastic stories about Wyatt Earp and the gunmen and the Wild West, how exciting it was to have these guys with guns defending themselves against all sorts of things.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Gun, People

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

• Actually, the phrase "national security" is barely used until the 1930s. And there's a reason. By then, the United States was beginning to become global. Before that the United States had been mostly a regional power - Britain was the biggest global power. After the Second World War, national security is everywhere, because we basically owned the world, so our security is threatened everywhere. Not just on our borders, but everywhere - so you have to have a thousand military bases around the world for "defense."

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, War, Borders

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

• If you're worried about the deficit, pay attention to the fact that it's almost all attributable to military spending and the totally dysfunctional health program.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Attention, Pay

  "Noam Chomsky: WikiLeaks Cables Reveal “Profound Hatred for Democracy on the Part of Our Political Leadership”". Interview with Amy Goodman, www.democracynow.org. November 30, 2010.

• Take a look at the Supreme Court decision that just authorized an effort by U.S. claimants against Iran for terrorist acts. What are the terrorist acts? The terrorist acts are bombings of U.S. military installations in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, which Iran is claimed to have something to do with. Well suppose they did. That's not terrorism. I mean if we have a military base in Lebanon that while we're shelling Lebanese naval ships, the Navy is shelling Lebanese installations and somebody attacks [that's not terrorism].

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Mean, Iran

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

• It turned out that [Bill] Clinton had authorized Texaco to illegally ship oil to the military junta [in Haiti] during a time when we were supposedly opposing the military junta and supporting democracy instead.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Oil, Democracy

  Source: thehumanist.com

• The leading, the most respected Vietnam historian, military historian Bernard Fall -he was a hawk incidentally, but he cared for the Vietnamese - he said it wasn't clear to him whether Vietnam could survive as a historical and cultural entity under the most massive attack that any region that size had ever suffered. He was talking about South Vietnam, incidentally.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Fall, Talking

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

• In the early days of the military Arpanet, my daughter was studying in Nicaragua. Because the U.S. was essentially at war with them, contact was difficult. I managed to use MIT's Arpanet connection, and she found one, so we could communicate thanks to the Pentagon!

  Noam Chomsky

  Daughter, Military, War

  "Peace netter". Interviewed with Hamish Mackintosh, www.theguardian.com. October 16, 2002.

• The United States is alone among all the countries in that it does not permit US military forces to be under any threat. Other countries are willing to have forces in peace-keeping operations where they sometimes are under threat, but the US is not willing to do that.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Military, United States

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