The Iraq Flim Flam

Noam Chomsky, from a recent interview.

US policy should be that of all aggressors: (1) pay reparations; (2) attend to the will of the victims; (3) hold the guilty parties accountable, in accord with the Nuremberg principles, the UN Charter, and other international instruments. A more practical proposal is to work to change the domestic society and culture substantially enough so that what should be done can at least become a topic for discussion. That is a large task, not only on this issue, though I think élite opposition is far more ferocious than that of the general public.

There were no WMD in Iraq. Iraq had nothing to do with the attack on 9/11. Reparations are owed. But the war criminals, the neocons, their republican enablers and even many democrats can be expected to argue that our putatively noble intentions exempt us from a reparation obligation, or that our gift of the misshapen and stunted democracy in Iraq is reparation enough. How completely absurd. We've destroyed their country, killed hundreds of thousands of innocents, and did so without any justification whatsoever, but like some flim-flam man, some plaid-suited huckster, we'll try to sell those Iraqi rubes on the notion that purple fingers are reparation enough. "Sorry 'bout that whole WMD thing; sorry 'bout that mistaken belief that you were involved in 9/11; but ain't democracy grand?"