Iraq

Noam Chomsky is that rare philosopher who actually has something substantial to say about the world beyond philosophy (contrast: Hilary Putnam or Richard Rorty, significant philosophers who are politically and morally trivial). For a typically trenchant and provocative set of comments, that cut through the usual sanctimonious bullshit, see this recent short essay on Iraq. As Chomsky notes, correctly, the Bush doctrine of "preventive war" was also a fascist doctrine, condemned at Nuremburg.

In what passes for "independent" media in the US--why is the media in the US so much inferior to the media in, say, the UK?--it has become customary, of course, to preface any criticism of the US-UK invasion of Iraq with due reference to how wonderful it is that the people of Iraq are now "liberated." Among the people not "liberated," however, are the Iraqis recorded on this site, which provides a useful reminder about what wars actually do. For the remainder, it is, shall we say, a bit premature to describe them as being "liberated," since large parts of the country are in chaos, disarray and even more misery than before, and the new political structure that will replace the old one is still unclear. Is not Islamic fascism on the Iranian or Saudi Arabian model still in the offing? Or an authoritarian puppet state of the kind the US has historically supported in the countries it has invaded? The liberation of the people of Iraq--those that weren't killed, that is--is, alas, something to be accomplished, not something that has happened.