Noam Chomsky: My Reaction to Osama bin Laden’s Death
May 6, 2011
We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.
It’s increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law. There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no opposition—except, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them. In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial.
ノーム・チョムスキー：ウサマ・ビンラーディンの死についての私の見解
２０１１年５月６日
もしイラクの奇襲隊員がジョージ・Ｗ・ブッシュの家の敷地内に舞い降りて彼を暗殺し、死体を大西洋に投げ込んだとしたならば、我々はどう反応するだろうかと自問することもできる。
ますます明白になって来たことだが、この作戦は計画された暗殺で、国際法の規範を幾重にも犯したものだ。犠牲者・ビンダディンが武装していなかったことを確認する努力は全くなされなかったようだ。彼の妻が突っかかってきたということはあったにせよ、８０名の突撃部員が実際は抵抗を全く受けなかったことを考えると多分出来たはずだった。少なくとも法の尊重を公言する社会においては、疑いは疑いとしてとらえ公正な審判をうけるべきである。
2011年5月6日
我々は自分たちに問わねばならない。もしイラクの特殊部隊がジョージ W. ブッシュの敷地に着地して、彼を暗殺し、彼の死体を大西洋にすてたらどう反応するかを。
この作戦が、国際法の基本原理に複数の違反をしている、暗殺作戦だっということが徐々に明らかになってきた。武装していない容疑者を逮捕する試みは行われなかった。おそらく８０人の特殊部隊が実質的な抵抗なしにやりとげたのであろう。例外は、彼らがいうには、特殊部隊に突進していったビン・ラディンの妻だけだ。 法の遵守を公言する社会においては、容疑者は逮捕され、公正な裁判にかけられるものだ。
I stress “suspects.” In April 2002, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, informed the press that after the most intensive investigation in history, the FBI could say no more than that it “believed” that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, though implemented in the UAE and Germany. What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn’t know 8 months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence—which, as we soon learned, Washington didn’t have.
Thus Obama was simply lying when he said, in his White House statement, that “we quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda.”
Nothing serious has been provided since. There is much talk of bin Laden’s “confession,” but that is rather like my confession that I won the Boston Marathon. He boasted of what he regarded as a great achievement.
There is also much media discussion of Washington’s anger that Pakistan didn’t turn over bin Laden, though surely elements of the military and security forces were aware of his presence in Abbottabad. Less is said about Pakistani anger that the U.S. invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination.
それ以来、深刻なことは何も起きていない。ビン・ラディンの「自供」についは色々な噂がある。しかし、それは私がボストン・マラソンで優勝したという自供とたいして変わりがない。彼は自分の業績として考えているもの自慢したのだ。
それから、パキスタンがビン・ラディンを始末しなかったことへのワシントンの怒りについてもメディアによる議論が盛んだ。しかし、軍部と国連軍は確かにアボッタバードに彼がいることを掴んでいた。政治的な暗殺をするために、アメリカがパキスタンの国土に侵入したことへのパキスタン人の怒りについてはあまり騒がれていない。
Anti-American fervor is already very high in Pakistan, and these events are likely to exacerbate it. The decision to dump the body at sea is already, predictably, provoking both anger and skepticism in much of the Muslim world.
It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”
We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.
我々は殺戮兵器に、我々の犯罪の被害者の名前をつけることに近い。アパッチ、トマホーク...
それはまるで、ドイツ空軍が自分たちの戦闘機に「ユダヤ人(Jew)」や「ジプシー(Gypsy)」とつけることと同じだ。
我々は、イラクの特殊部隊がジョージ W. ブッシュの敷地に着陸して、彼を暗殺し、死体を大西洋に沈めたときに、どういう反応をするかどうかを自分自身に問わねばならない。
Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.
There’s more to say about [Cuban airline bomber Orlando] Bosch, who just died peacefully in Florida, including reference to the “Bush doctrine” that societies that harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves and should be treated accordingly.
No one seemed to notice that Bush was calling for invasion and destruction of the U.S. and murder of its criminal president.
Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”
There is much more to say, but even the most obvious and elementary facts should provide us with a good deal to think about.
まだ言いたいことはあるが、最も明らかで基本的な事実でさえ、我々に考える材料を与えてくれるはずだ。
