Here we present a selection of texts from Noam Chomsky’s new book, “Why Ukraine” (Tide) in relation to the war that worries the world,
USA. “Until the civil war, until 1865, the name “United States” was written in the plural, as it is still written in many other languages. After the civil war, it became singular, which means that, in the United States at that time, it took eighty years and one of the most devastating wars in history to overcome deep conflicts, and that they have not been resolved completely. all. Recent studies on political behavior present us with a clear fracture between slave and non-slave states. It is so entrenched that, if a State of the Union once defended slavery, today it tends to defend conservative or reactionary positions on many issues, not only those directly connected to slavery. They are faults that have not been welded in two hundred and fifty years of history”.
Invasion of Ukraine. “We do not know why the decision to invade Ukraine was made, nor if the decision was made by Putin alone, or in consensus with the Security Council of the Russian Federation, in which he commands. There are other things, however, that we know for sure, including those asserted by the people just quoted who control US strategic planning. In plain words: this crisis had been brewing for twenty-five years, during which time the United States contemptuously ignored Russia’s alarms regarding its security and the red lines that should not be crossed: Georgia and, even less, Ukraine . That is why we have every right to think that this tragedy could have been avoided, until the end. We have talked about it more than once. About the reasons why Putin has launched this criminal aggression at this time, we can make all the hypotheses we want, but the general-historical context is not unknown: it can be avoided, but not questioned.
The victims. “As I have said other times, I remember a lesson I learned a long time ago. In the late sixties I participated in a meeting in Europe attended by representatives of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (the Viet Cong, in the jargon of our country). It was at that stage of very strong opposition to the horrendous US crimes in Indochina. Our young people were so angry that they thought that only a violent reaction could be consistent with this monstrosity: smashing shop windows, throwing Molotov cocktails at a military training center. A different reaction could be considered complicity with the crimes in Indochina. The Vietnamese saw things completely differently. They were against such actions. In fact, they implemented a more effective model of protest. Some women, for example, stood silently in prayer at the graves of American soldiers killed in Vietnam. They didn’t care what made America’s opponents of the war feel righteous and noble: they just wanted to survive. It is a lesson that I have often been taught, in a different way at times, by the victims of the atrocious suffering suffered by third world countries, the favorite target of imperial violence. A lesson that we should record in our minds and adapt to the circumstances. Today, this lesson exhorts us to make an effort to understand why this tragedy (the war in Ukraine) has taken place and what could have been done to prevent it. Understanding it may be useful to apply it to future events.”
Climate change. We must find a way to help a much more numerous type of victims: the living beings that populate the planet. This catastrophe comes at a time when the great powers, or rather, all of us, must work together to control the catastrophe that is also the devastation of the environment – which is already exacting an enormous price – whose effects will be much worse if decisive action is not taken immediately. Just to remind you of the obvious, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just released a disturbing report explaining that we are headed for catastrophe. Meanwhile, the measures that could reverse climate change have been blocked and even forced to go into reverse, since the indispensable resources are now destined for destruction and fossil fuels remain essential, including the most dangerous, economical and abundant : charcoal. A more macabre situation could not have been devised even by the most evil of demons. But we cannot pretend that nothing is happening. Time is short”.
The conflict with Russia. “The main effect, I fear, will be the one I have already mentioned: the imposition of an Atlanticist model based on NATO under the command of the United States and once again marginalizing initiatives that want to build a European system independent of the United States, a ‘third strength’ in international affairs, as is sometimes said. It is a pending issue since the Second World War. Putin has single-handedly resolved it by making Washington fulfill his most ardent wish: a Europe subjected to such an extent that an Italian university has tried to ban a series of lectures on Dostoyevsky, just to cite one of the many striking examples of how ridiculously they can get. Europeans to behave.
fair war. “The notion of ‘just war’, unfortunately, has the same credibility as ‘humanitarian intervention’, the ‘duty to protect’ or ‘the defense of democracy’. At first glance, it seems obvious that an armed people has the right to defend itself against the attack of a brutal aggressor. But, as always happens in this sad world, if we reflect a little, some questions arise. Take resistance to Nazism: it’s hard to find a nobler cause. One can, of course, understand and approve of the motives of Herschel Grynszpan when he assassinated a German diplomat in 1938, or of the UK-trained partisans who assassinated the ferocious Nazi Reinhard Heydrich in May 1942. they had and their thirst for justice, without reservations. However, the story does not end here. The first murder served as a pretext for the Germans to carry out the atrocities of the Night of Broken Glass and encouraged the Nazi project and the horrific results that we know. The second led to the shocking Lidice Massacre. Actions always have consequences. The innocent suffer, and do so terribly, many times. These questions cannot be evaded by someone with a solid moral upbringing, they cannot be evaded whenever we consider whether and how to arm those who bravely resist homicidal assault. It’s the least we should do. In this particular case, we must also ask ourselves how willing we are to take the risk of an atomic war, which will mean not only the disappearance of Ukraine, but something else, something unthinkable.
-Noam Chomsky (93) is one of the most brilliant scientists of the last century, whose studies on language revolutionized linguistics and the sciences of knowledge. In addition, he is an active participant in current political debates through writing critical of capitalism and the power of the United States and Israel. “Why Ukraine?” (Marea), which arrives this week in bookstores, was produced this year with the collaboration of political scientists Valentina Nicolì, CJ Polychroniou and Pablo Bustinduy.
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