Essays from Chomsky, I feel lack in depth of analisys compared to other collections. It seems a bit of a opportunistic title and timing for this very light release.

Chomsky’s most masterful political argumentation is around the Vietnam war. ( )

Link:

Part of review: https://thebeerthrillers.com/2022/02/18/book-review-9-11-noam-chomsky/

It is a rushed book, and a rush series of interviews collected and edited into this volume. Which is all the more reason why this is actually an impressive work - twenty years after the fact. Chomsky certainly sheds a lot of light on events leading up to 9-11 from a non-American perspective and gives some form of indication and idea of why the attacks were not a complete and total 'surprise' by the world at large. He brings up salient points on how America could (before the attacks) have been considered the largest terrorist active country in the world, with regards to our actions in Beirut, Nicaragua, and elsewhere.

This isn't an pro-American piece of work, and Chomsky doesn't paint America in the most sympathetic light. This isn't to be confused with him believing it was a justified attack. Far from it. Nothing justifies what happened on 9-11 and Chomsky wants to be very clear about that. But our actions in Afghanistan, radicalizing fanatical Islamic groups, our actions in Beirut, and Nicaragua, and numerous other countries over the past few decades (leading up to 2001 - 1990s, 1980s, 1970s), certainly doesn't make us the complete victims we always believed us to be. And don't get me wrong here - we are victims in this attack. Its an immeasurable and incomparable attack. Pure innocents and civilians died. This wasn't a 'war' attack on a military unit. This was a terrorist attack on innocents.

Like I said above, Chomsky brings up a lot of good points, many of which I only learned years after September 11th, 2001. Especially since I was younger then, in my teens, and my knowledge and research base wasn't nearly what it is today. The interviews in the book are done well and Chomsky comes off very well, and in his normal talking and writing style. There is some bad or off point questions, but I believe they've edited this enough that its coherent, makes sense, and stays on point and topic and creates a nice piece of work with the book.


For more of the review visit here: https://thebeerthrillers.com/2022/02/18/book-review-9-11-noam-chomsky/ ( )

Not classic Chomsky, but resounds with a truth we must face sooner or later: we have been responsible for a lot of unnecessary death. ( )

Useful to put the attacks in context, and hits at how we could have better responded, but it is in a question and answer format. This a format that always irritates me. It tends to feel disjointed and prevents a coherent analysis. ( )

Commentary. Interesting collection of interviews with Noam Chomsky following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the USA. I found it much more concise and readable than some of Chomsky's more academic efforts. ( )