Chomsky on 9/11, Syria's "Bloody Partition" and Why U.S. Role Ensures Failure of Mideast Talks

Noam Chomsky, the worldrenowned political dissident, linguist and author, weighs in on today's 12th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks and how the civil war in Syria appears destined to permanently break the country apart. "[9/11] was very significant, a major terrorist act, thousands of people killed," Chomsky says. "It's the first time since the war of 1812 that U.S. territory had been attacked. The United States has had remarkable security, and therefore was, aside from the horrible atrocity, a very significant, historical event. And it changed attitudes and policies in the United States quite considerably. And in reaction to this, the government was able to ram through laws that sharply constrained civil liberties. It was able to provide pretexts for the invasion of Afghanistan, invasion of Iraq the destruction of Iraq, with consequences that spread through the region. And it's the basis for Obama's massive terrorist war, the drone war, the most extreme terrorist campaign that's underway now, maybe most extreme in history, and the justification for it is the same, the second 9/11 9/11, 2001. So yes, it's had enormous effects on society, on attitudes, on policies. Many victims throughout the world can testify to that." On Syria, Chomsky says the country "is plunging into suicide. If negotiations [don't] work, Syria is moving towards a kind of very bloody partition."

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