Revisiting Noam Chomsky’s “9/11” 20 Years Later

Looking through the reviews I’ve written for Goodreads, one of them was Noam Chomsky’s book “9/11”, which surprised me because I read that book so long ago. I read this book back in high school, when I was really into journalism and writing for my school paper. While I didn’t become a journalist, I still remember many of the types of left wing rhetoric books I’ve read back then and the effects they have on my current thinking, from Seymore Hersh’s critical account of the Bush years, “Chain of Command” to Noam Chomsky’s famous left wing books, which are almost text books in how to criticize America’s weaker pointers both in America and their policies abroad. As well as more mainstream left wing books, including the only liberal bestseller at the time, Michael Moore’s humorous left wing screed “Stupid White Men and Other Sorry Excuses For The State of The Nation.” Though I would like to revisit all these books, I think the first one to revisit is Chomsky’s “9/11.”

First I should give some background to my experience as a reader at that time. After September 11^th, growing up in New York, and being in the New York metro area as a middle school student right after the attacks happened, uncritical patriotism was reparent and understandably so. However, there were still left wing facets in America, but unlike other times, where being left wing or right wing is hotly debated in the country, being left wing at that time was absolutely a crime against humanity. The country was firmly behind President Bush, things like the Patriot Act where being enacted and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where just starting to take shape. Simply put, it wasn’t popular to question any of this. Comedian Bill Maher lost his ABC show for bringing up American abuses that could of embolden terrorists and filmmaker Michael Moore was booed off a typically left wing Oscar stage for calling the reasoning for a Iraq war a pack of lies. However, in smaller corners, academic liberalism was still going, and one of the most influential leftists in American history is author and professor Noam Chomsky.

One of the unique things about Chomsky is he is a professor of linguistics, not political science, yet his writings on politics and his activisms are more famous then the text books he’s written on languages. Reading “9/11” by Noam Chomsky, published by Seven Stories Press, a New York City based publisher known for less mainstream books, covers the many reasons America wasn’t totally free of the implications that led up to 9/11. People where asking at the time, why do they hate us? This book would provide a clear answer. Chomsky talks about America’s abusive foreign policies throughout the years in other countries. He brings up America’s poor policies in Latin America, something Chomsky has brought up multiple times before in other publications and appearances. He also brings up the many dictatorships America has helped prop up in the Middle East, leading to resentment among the people towards America.

Chomsky points out the many times America had been condemned by the World Court in the Hague for foreign policy actions, as well as asking if the United States should follow the World Court or shouldn’t they? He thinks they should, despite having a spotty record following up. 9/11 is a fast read at only 140 pages, but it’s packed with much information about abuses by America that fuelled resentment towards countries who wanted to see the United States pay, and thus helped lead to the 9/11 attack. Chomsky’s writing, is as usual, dry, as he writes in the same way he wrote his text books on language, but the information and views he shares are some of the most influence in American left wing literature.

The only right wing figure I remember commenting on Noam Chomsky’s books after 9/11 was right wing radio show host Sean Hannity, who in his book “Deliver Us From Evil”, criticized a speech Chomsky gave after 9/11 where he criticized what he called “propagandist military leading” as “bizarre”. Chomsky and co-author Edward Herrman, another professor, wrote a book together in 1988 where they criticized American media’s ability to lead people down the wrong road as “manufactured consent”, also titling the book itself that term. The themes in Chomsky’s book would be used in a more mainstream platform through Michael Moore’s Oscar winning film “Bowling For Columbine” in his infamous “Wonderful World” segment, which set footage of abuses by American policy that helped lead to 9/11 to Louis Armstrong’s recording of “It’s A Wonderful World”, considered one of the most famously powerful montages in the history of documentary making. After this week where America’s involvement in Afghanistan finally ended, 20 years after the fact, a reconsideration of leftist views should be brought up in reasonable ways so we aren’t led down the same road, and  re-reading Chomsky’s book “9/11” and other texts by him would be helpful.