State terrorism is terrorism that a state conducts against another state, non-state actors or against its own citizens . Acts accused of being state terrorism typically involve the use or threat of violence by state agents, including military, police, or intelligence agencies, and targets can be domestic or foreign individuals or groups.
164-428: Governments accused of state terrorism may justify these actions as efforts to combat internal dissent, suppress insurgencies, or maintain national security, often framing their actions within the context of counterterrorism or counterinsurgency . Accused actions of state terrorism are normally also criticised as severe violations of human rights and international law, but contrast with state-sponsored terrorism in that
328-648: A bomb shelter in every building and school, but also deploying active protection systems such as the Arrow ABM , Iron Dome and David's Sling , which intercept the incoming threat in the air. Iron Dome has successfully intercepted hundreds of Qassam rockets and Grad rockets fired by Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. A more sophisticated target-hardening approach must consider industrial and other critical industrial infrastructure that could be attacked. Terrorists do not need to import chemical weapons if they can cause
492-564: A corresponding fellow of the British Academy . In the late 1970s and 1980s, Chomsky's linguistic publications expanded and clarified his earlier work, addressing his critics and updating his grammatical theory. His political talks often generated considerable controversy, particularly when he criticized the Israeli government and military. In the early 1970s Chomsky began collaborating with Edward S. Herman , who had also published critiques of
656-670: A full professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics. He was appointed plenary speaker at the Ninth International Congress of Linguists , held in 1962 in Cambridge, Massachusetts , which established him as the de facto spokesperson of American linguistics. Between 1963 and 1965 he consulted on a military-sponsored project to teach computers to understand natural English commands from military generals. Chomsky continued to publish his linguistic ideas throughout
820-482: A mechanical translation project and half teaching a course on linguistics and philosophy. He described MIT as open to experimentation where he was free to pursue his idiosyncratic interests. MIT promoted him to the position of associate professor in 1957, and over the next year he was also a visiting professor at Columbia University . The Chomskys had their first child, Aviva , that same year. He also published his first book on linguistics, Syntactic Structures ,
984-486: A " red herring " he stated: "This argument has been used by the terrorists themselves, arguing that there is no difference between their activities and those by governments and states. It has also been employed by some sympathizers, and it rests on the deliberate obfuscation between all kinds of violence ..." Prevention of terrorism Counterterrorism Counterterrorism (alternatively spelled: counter-terrorism ), also known as anti-terrorism , relates to
1148-596: A BBC Panorama documentary was aired about the MRF. It drew on information from seven former members, as well as a number of other sources. Soldier H said: "We operated initially with them thinking that we were the UVF ." Soldier F added: "We wanted to cause confusion." In June 1972, he was succeeded as commander by Captain James 'Hamish' McGregor. In June 2014, in the wake of the Panorama programme,
1312-464: A Dutch photographer. The organisation who committed the attack, the Directorate-General for External Security (DSGE), is a branch of France's intelligence services . The agents responsible pleaded guilty to manslaughter as part of a plea deal and were sentenced to ten years in prison, but were secretly released early to France under an agreement between the two countries' governments. During
1476-518: A bomb on Korean Air Flight 858 , killing everybody aboard. Following the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and the initial investigations into war crimes committed by Russian soldiers, there were calls for Russia to be designated a terrorist state. On May 10, 2022, Lithuania's parliament designated Russia a terrorist state and its actions in Ukraine a genocide. The US Senate unanimously passed
1640-495: A catalyst for connecting what in Hjelmslev 's and Jesperson 's time was the beginnings of structural linguistics , which has become cognitive linguistics . Transformational grammar was the dominant research paradigm through the mid-1970s. The derivative government and binding theory replaced it and remained influential through the early 1990s, when linguists turned to a "minimalist" approach to grammar. This research focused on
1804-694: A definition of state terrorism as "state agents using threats or acts of violence against civilians, marked by a callous indifference to human life, to instill fear in a community beyond the initial victim for the purpose of preventing a change or challenge to the status quo." These acts of violence can include both the types of state violence that some argue ought to be considered terrorism, such as: genocide , mass murders , ethnic cleansing , disappearances , detention without trial , and torture ; and more widely accepted methods of terror including bombings and targeted killings . Stohl and George A. Lopez have designated three categories of state terrorism, based on
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#17328851560711968-412: A human baby and a kitten are both capable of inductive reasoning , if they are exposed to exactly the same linguistic data, the human will always acquire the ability to understand and produce language, while the kitten will never acquire either ability. Chomsky referred to this difference in capacity as the language acquisition device , and suggested that linguists needed to determine both what that device
2132-413: A language. Chomsky is commonly credited with inventing transformational-generative grammar, but his original contribution was considered modest when he first published his theory. In his 1955 dissertation and his 1957 textbook Syntactic Structures , he presented recent developments in the analysis formulated by Zellig Harris , who was Chomsky's PhD supervisor, and by Charles F. Hockett . Their method
2296-511: A major industrial accident such as the Bhopal disaster or the Halifax Explosion . Industrial chemicals in manufacturing, shipping, and storage thus require greater protection, and some efforts are in progress. Equipping likely targets with containers of pig lard has been used to discourage attacks by suicide bombers. The technique was apparently used on a limited scale by British authorities in
2460-660: A modern nation. France initially denied any involvement in the attack, and it even joined in condemning the attack as a terrorist act . In July 1986, a United Nations -sponsored mediation effort between New Zealand and France resulted in the transfer of the two prisoners to the French Polynesian island of Hao , so they could serve three years there, as well as an apology and an NZ$ 13 million payment from France to New Zealand. In November 2023, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused Israel of being "a terrorist state" committing war crimes and violating international law in
2624-624: A national response might be required for a nuclear, biological, radiological, or significant chemical attack. Fire departments , perhaps supplemented by public works agencies, utility providers, and heavy construction contractors, are most apt to deal with the physical consequences of an attack. Again under an incident command model, local police can isolate the incident area, reducing confusion, and specialized police units can conduct tactical operations against terrorists, often using specialized counterterrorist tactical units. Bringing in such units will typically involve civil or military authority beyond
2788-622: A peacekeeping force; Chomsky was critical of this, believing it was designed to secure Australian access to East Timor's oil and gas reserves under the Timor Gap Treaty . Chomsky was widely interviewed after the September 11 attacks in 2001 as the American public attempted to make sense of the attacks. He argued that the ensuing War on Terror was not a new development but a continuation of U.S. foreign policy and concomitant rhetoric since at least
2952-703: A pivotal role in the decline of linguistic behaviorism , and was particularly critical of the work of B. F. Skinner . An outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War , which he saw as an act of American imperialism , in 1967 Chomsky rose to national attention for his anti-war essay " The Responsibility of Intellectuals ". Becoming associated with the New Left , he was arrested multiple times for his activism and placed on President Richard Nixon 's list of political opponents . While expanding his work in linguistics over subsequent decades, he also became involved in
3116-559: A post-Sukarno Indonesia." According to Simpson, the terror in Indonesia was an "essential building block of the quasi neo-liberal policies the West would attempt to impose on Indonesia in the years to come". Historian John Roosa, who commented on documents which were released by the U.S. embassy in Jakarta in 2017, said they confirmed that "the U.S. was part and parcel of the operation, strategizing with
3280-674: A pro- Iranian Shiite group connected to the Palestine Liberation Organisation ) issued a claim of responsibility for the mining, but circumstantial evidence indicated that Libya was responsible. Myanmar has been accused of state terrorism in the internal conflict . North Korea has been accused of state terrorism on several occasions, such as in 1983 in the Rangoon bombing , the Gimpo International Airport bombing , and in 1987 when North Korean agents detonated
3444-563: A public dissident. This essay and other political articles were collected and published in 1969 as part of Chomsky's first political book, American Power and the New Mandarins . He followed this with further political books, including At War with Asia (1970), The Backroom Boys (1973), For Reasons of State (1973), and Peace in the Middle East? (1974), published by Pantheon Books . These publications led to Chomsky's association with
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#17328851560713608-520: A resolution to this effect on July 27, 2022, and the US House of Representatives is to consider such legislation. On August 11, Latvia's parliament designated Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. Ukraine 's Verkhovna Rada on 20 August 2022 also designated Russia as a terrorist state. On October 17, the European Parliament approved a request to debate and vote on a resolution recognizing Russia as
3772-623: A section on confronting terrorism in the recommendations in the Madrid Agenda arising from the Madrid Summit on Democracy and Terrorism (Madrid March 8–11, 2005): Democratic principles and values are essential tools in the fight against terrorism. Any successful strategy for dealing with terrorism requires terrorists to be isolated. Consequently, the preference must be to treat terrorism as criminal acts to be handled through existing systems of law enforcement and with full respect for human rights and
3936-712: A security-cleared Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation , whose often influential reports are submitted to Parliament and published in full. One of the primary difficulties of implementing effective counterterrorist measures is the waning of civil liberties and individual privacy that such measures often entail, both for citizens of, and for those detained by states attempting to combat terror. At times, measures designed to tighten security have been seen as abuses of power or even violations of human rights. Examples of these problems can include prolonged, incommunicado detention without judicial review or long periods of 'preventive detention'; risk of subjecting to torture during
4100-520: A significant figure in linguistics with his landmark work Syntactic Structures , which played a major role in remodeling the study of language. From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a National Science Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study . He created or co-created the universal grammar theory, the generative grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy , and the minimalist program . Chomsky also played
4264-471: A subcategory of "rapid dominance" is the name given to massive intervention designed to strike terror into the minds of the enemy. It is a form of state-terrorism. The concept was however developed long before the Second Gulf War by Harlan Ullman as chair of a forum of retired military personnel. However, others, including governments, international organisations, private institutions and scholars, believe
4428-402: A system that relates meaning and sound using the minimum possible faculties, Chomsky dispenses with concepts such as "deep structure" and "surface structure" and instead emphasizes the plasticity of the brain's neural circuits, with which come an infinite number of concepts, or " logical forms ". When exposed to linguistic data, a hearer-speaker's brain proceeds to associate sound and meaning, and
4592-586: A terrorist state, which it did on November 23. As of October 2023, the following states and organizations have designated Russia as terrorist or a sponsor of terrorism: Between 1979 and 1990, the Apartheid government in South Africa operated a branch of the South African Police known as Vlakplaas who routinely used methods of terrorism to support the state in maintaining Apartheid. These methods included
4756-437: A very small and finite subset of the allowable syntactic variants within their first language, they somehow acquire the highly organized and systematic ability to understand and produce an infinite number of sentences , including ones that have never before been uttered, in that language. To explain this, Chomsky proposed that the primary linguistic data must be supplemented by an innate linguistic capacity . Furthermore, while
4920-472: A victim. The audience of the act or threat of violence is more important than the immediate victim." Scholar Gus Martin describes state terrorism as terrorism "committed by governments and quasi-governmental agencies and personnel against perceived threats", which can be directed against both domestic and foreign targets. Noam Chomsky defines state terrorism as "terrorism practised by states (or governments) and their agents and allies". Simon Taylor provides
5084-427: A work that radically opposed the dominant Harris– Bloomfield trend in the field. Responses to Chomsky's ideas ranged from indifference to hostility, and his work proved divisive and caused "significant upheaval" in the discipline. The linguist John Lyons later asserted that Syntactic Structures "revolutionized the scientific study of language". From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a National Science Foundation fellow at
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5248-484: Is a broad theory used to model, encode, and deduce a native speaker's linguistic capabilities. These models, or " formal grammars ", show the abstract structures of a specific language as they may relate to structures in other languages. Chomsky developed transformational grammar in the mid-1950s, whereupon it became the dominant syntactic theory in linguistics for two decades. "Transformations" refers to syntactic relationships within language, e.g., being able to infer that
5412-487: Is a great challenge with the security of cell-based systems, since the ideal, but the nearly impossible, goal is to obtain a clandestine source within the cell. Financial tracking can play a role, as a communications intercept . However, both of these approaches need to be balanced against legitimate expectations of privacy. In response to the growing legislation. Since 1978 the UK's terrorism laws have been regularly reviewed by
5576-470: Is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics , political activism , and social criticism . Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science . He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at
5740-426: Is and what constraints it imposes on the range of possible human languages. The universal features that result from these constraints would constitute "universal grammar". Multiple researchers have challenged universal grammar on the grounds of the evolutionary infeasibility of its genetic basis for language, the lack of crosslinguistic surface universals, and the unproven link between innate/universal structures and
5904-688: Is derived from the work of the Danish structural linguist Louis Hjelmslev , who introduced algorithmic grammar to general linguistics. Based on this rule-based notation of grammars, Chomsky grouped logically possible phrase-structure grammar types into a series of four nested subsets and increasingly complex types, together known as the Chomsky hierarchy . This classification remains relevant to formal language theory and theoretical computer science , especially programming language theory , compiler construction, and automata theory . Chomsky's Syntactic Structures became, beyond generative linguistics as such,
6068-406: Is employed by governments—or more often by factions within governments—against that government's citizens, against factions within the government, or against foreign governments or groups." While the most common modern usage of the word terrorism refers to political violence by insurgents or conspirators, several scholars make a broader interpretation of the nature of terrorism that encompasses
6232-611: Is more often perceived as targeting of non-combatants as part of a strategy directed against governments. Historian Henry Commager wrote that "Even when definitions of terrorism allow for 'state terrorism', state actions in this area tend to be seen through the prism of war or national self-defense, not terror." While states may accuse other states of state-sponsored terrorism when they support insurgencies, individuals who accuse their governments of terrorism are seen as radicals, because actions by legitimate governments are not generally seen as illegitimate. Academic writing tends to follow
6396-497: Is neither an academic nor an international legal consensus regarding the proper definition of the word terrorism . Some scholars believe the actions of governments can be labelled "terrorism". Using the term 'terrorism' to mean violent action used with the predominant intention of causing terror, Paul James and Jonathan Friedman distinguish between state terrorism against non-combatants and state terrorism against combatants , including " shock and awe " tactics: "Shock and Awe" as
6560-419: Is partially inborn, implying that children need only learn certain language-specific features of their native languages . He bases his argument on observations about human language acquisition and describes a " poverty of the stimulus ": an enormous gap between the linguistic stimuli to which children are exposed and the rich linguistic competence they attain. For example, although children are exposed to only
6724-448: Is sometimes directed to specific ethnic or religious groups, which are the sources of political conversy. Mass surveillance of an entire population raises objections on civil liberties grounds. Domestic terrorists , especially lone wolves , are often harder to detect because of their citizenship or legal status and ability to stay under the radar. To select the effective action when terrorism appears to be more of an isolated event,
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6888-423: Is the uncertainty of the future: the threat of terrorism may increase, decrease or remain the same, the type of terrorism and location are difficult to predict, and there are technological uncertainties. A potential solution is to incorporate engineering flexibility into system design, allowing for flexibility when new information arrives. Flexibility can be incorporated in the design of a counter-terrorism system in
7052-461: Is to directly engage terrorists and prevent terrorist attacks. Such units perform both in preventive actions, hostage rescue, and responding to ongoing attacks. Countries of all sizes can have highly trained counterterrorist teams. Tactics, techniques, and procedures for manhunting are under constant development. These units are specially trained in military tactics and are equipped for close-quarters combat , with emphasis on stealth and performing
7216-446: Is to place hostile vehicle mitigation to enforce protective standoff distance outside tall or politically sensitive buildings to prevent car bombings . Another way to reduce the impact of attacks is to design buildings for rapid evacuation. Aircraft cockpits are kept locked during flights and have reinforced doors, which only the pilots in the cabin are capable of opening. UK railway stations removed their garbage bins in response to
7380-496: Is unacceptable and fits into the definition of terrorism." Dr. Bruce Hoffman has argued that failing to differentiate between state and non-state violence ignores the fact that there is a "fundamental qualitative difference between the two types of violence." Hoffman argues that even in war , there are rules and accepted norms of behaviour that prohibit certain types of weapons and tactics and outlaw attacks on specific categories of targets. For instance, rules which are codified in
7544-408: Is used to describe such acts." Walter Laqueur has said those who argue that state terrorism should be included in studies of terrorism ignore the fact that "The very existence of a state is based on its monopoly of power . If it were different, states would not have the right, nor would they be in a position, to maintain that minimum of order on which all civilized life rests." Calling the concept
7708-446: Is very large in physical terms and in other dimensions, such as type and degree of terrorist threats, political and diplomatic ramifications, and legal concerns. Ideal counterterrorist systems use technology to enable persistent intelligence , surveillance and reconnaissance missions, and potential actions. Designing such a system-of-systems comprises a major technological project. A particular design problem for counterterrorist systems
7872-492: Is widely recognized as having helped to spark the cognitive revolution in the human sciences , contributing to the development of a new cognitivistic framework for the study of language and the mind. Chomsky remains a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy , contemporary capitalism , U.S. involvement and Israel's role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict , and mass media . Chomsky and his ideas are highly influential in
8036-419: The 2014 Scottish independence referendum , Chomsky supported Scottish independence. Chomsky retired from MIT in 2002, but continued to conduct research and seminars on campus as an emeritus . That same year he visited Turkey to attend the trial of a publisher who had been accused of treason for printing one of Chomsky's books; Chomsky insisted on being a co-defendant and amid international media attention,
8200-578: The Cambodian genocide and the Bosnian genocide also generated controversy. Since retiring from active teaching at MIT, he has continued his vocal political activism, including opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and supporting the Occupy movement . An anti-Zionist , Chomsky considers Israel's treatment of Palestinians to be worse than South African–style apartheid , and criticizes U.S. support for Israel. Chomsky
8364-603: The Cold War . The United States government justified this policy by saying it needed to contain the spread of Communism , but Blakeley says the United States government also used it as a means to buttress and promote the interests of U.S. elites and multinational corporations. The U.S. supported governments who employed death squads throughout Latin America and counterinsurgency training of right-wing military forces included advocating
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#17328851560718528-743: The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), house most of the federal agencies that are prepared to combat domestic and international terrorist attacks. These include the Border Patrol , the Secret Service , the Coast Guard and the FBI . Noam Chomsky Active Defunct Publications Works Avram Noam Chomsky ( / n oʊ m ˈ tʃ ɒ m s k i / nohm CHOM -skee ; born December 7, 1928)
8692-519: The Gaza Strip . He said Israeli settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories should be recognized as "terrorists". In December 2023, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel condemned the alleged genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and called Israel a "terrorist state". The 2024 Lebanon pager explosions , which killed 39 people and wounded nearly 3,500, have been widely attributed to Israel. Iran referred to
8856-480: The Geneva and Hague Conventions on warfare prohibit taking civilians as hostages , outlaw reprisals against either civilians or POWs , recognise neutral territory , etc. Hoffman says "even the most cursory review of terrorist tactics and targets over the past quarter century reveals that terrorists have violated all these rules." Hoffman also says that when states transgress these rules of war "the term " war crime "
9020-552: The Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 , British propagandists secretly incited anti-communists including army generals to eliminate the PKI , and used black propaganda , due to Indonesian President Sukarno 's hostility to the formation of former British colonies into the Malayan federation from 1963. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson 's government had instructed propaganda specialists from
9184-590: The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey . Chomsky's provocative critique of B. F. Skinner , who viewed language as learned behavior, and its challenge to the dominant behaviorist paradigm thrust Chomsky into the limelight. Chomsky argued that behaviorism underplayed the role of human creativity in learning language and overplayed the role of external conditions in influencing verbal behavior. He proceeded to found MIT's graduate program in linguistics with Halle. In 1961, Chomsky received tenure and became
9348-876: The Malayan Emergency , the Mau Mau uprising , and most of the campaigns against the IRA during the Irish Civil War , the S-Plan , the Border Campaign , and the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Although military action can temporarily disrupt a terrorist group's operations temporarily, it sometimes does not end the threat completely. Repression by the military in itself usually leads to short term victories, but tend to be unsuccessful in
9512-541: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American left as a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy , contemporary capitalism , and corporate influence on political institutions and
9676-538: The Nicaraguan Contra War —in which the U.S. supported the contra militia against the Sandinista government—Chomsky traveled to Managua to meet with workers' organizations and refugees of the conflict, giving public lectures on politics and linguistics. Many of these lectures were published in 1987 as On Power and Ideology: The Managua Lectures . In 1983 he published The Fateful Triangle , which argued that
9840-561: The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) opened an investigation into the matter. In an earlier review of the programme, the position of the PSNI was that none of the statements by soldiers in the programme could be taken as an admission of criminality. The Dirty War is the name used for the period of state terrorism in Argentina between 1974 and 1983. Chile during Augusto Pinochet 's rule
10004-727: The Provisional IRA threat, as convenient locations for depositing bombs. Scottish stations removed theirs after the 7 July 2005 London Bombings as a precautionary measure. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority purchased bomb-resistant barriers after the September 11 attacks. Due to frequent shelling of Israel's cities, towns, and settlements by artillery rockets from the Gaza Strip (mainly by Hamas , but also by other Palestinian factions) and Lebanon (mainly by Hezbollah ), Israel has developed several defensive measures against artillery, rockets, and missiles. These include building
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#173288515607110168-692: The Russian Empire in 1913 to escape conscription and worked in Baltimore sweatshops and Hebrew elementary schools before attending university. After moving to Philadelphia, William became principal of the Congregation Mikveh Israel religious school and joined the Gratz College faculty. He placed great emphasis on educating people so that they would be "well integrated, free and independent in their thinking, concerned about improving and enhancing
10332-712: The Security Courts dropped the charge on the first day. During that trip Chomsky visited Kurdish areas of Turkey and spoke out in favor of the Kurds' human rights. A supporter of the World Social Forum , he attended its conferences in Brazil in both 2002 and 2003, also attending the Forum event in India. Chomsky supported the 2011 Occupy movement , speaking at encampments and publishing on
10496-649: The University of Arizona in 2017 and was later hired as a part-time professor in the linguistics department there, his duties including teaching and public seminars. His salary was covered by philanthropic donations. After a stroke in June 2023, Chomsky moved to Brazil full-time; this was not publicly reported until June 2024. What started as purely linguistic research ... has led, through involvement in political causes and an identification with an older philosophic tradition, to no less than an attempt to formulate an overall theory of man. The roots of this are manifest in
10660-550: The University of California, Berkeley , in 1966. These lectures were published as Language and Mind in 1968. In the late 1960s, a high-profile intellectual rift later known as the linguistic wars developed between Chomsky and some of his colleagues and doctoral students—including Paul Postal , John Ross , George Lakoff , and James D. McCawley —who contended that Chomsky's syntax-based, interpretivist linguistics did not properly account for semantic context ( general semantics ). A post hoc assessment of this period concluded that
10824-561: The University of Cambridge , Columbia University ( Woodbridge Lectures ), and Stanford University . His appearance in a 1971 debate with French continental philosopher Michel Foucault positioned Chomsky as a symbolic figurehead of analytic philosophy . He continued to publish extensively on linguistics, producing Studies on Semantics in Generative Grammar (1972), an enlarged edition of Language and Mind (1972), and Reflections on Language (1975). In 1974 Chomsky became
10988-460: The University of Chicago and Yale University . He had not been registered as a student at Pennsylvania for four years, but in 1955 he submitted a thesis setting out his ideas on transformational grammar ; he was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree for it, and it was privately distributed among specialists on microfilm before being published in 1975 as part of The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory . Harvard professor George Armitage Miller
11152-589: The anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements. Since 2017, he has been Agnese Nelms Haury Chair in the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona . Chomsky was born on December 7, 1928, in the East Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia , Pennsylvania. His parents, William Chomsky and Elsie Simonofsky, were Jewish immigrants. William had fled
11316-587: The bombing of Guernica has been called an act of terrorism. Other examples of state terrorism may include the World War II bombings of Pearl Harbor , London , Dresden , Chongqing , and Hiroshima . An act of sabotage, sometimes regarded as an act of terrorism, was the peacetime sinking of the Rainbow Warrior , a ship owned by Greenpeace , which occurred while in port at Auckland , New Zealand on July 10, 1985. The bomb detonation killed Fernando Pereira ,
11480-528: The linguistics wars . In collaboration with Edward S. Herman , Chomsky later articulated the propaganda model of media criticism in Manufacturing Consent , and worked to expose the Indonesian occupation of East Timor . His defense of unconditional freedom of speech , including that of Holocaust denial , generated significant controversy in the Faurisson affair of the 1980s. Chomsky's commentary on
11644-403: The principles and parameters framework, which explained children's ability to learn any language by filling open parameters (a set of universal grammar principles) that adapt as the child encounters linguistic data. The minimalist program, initiated by Chomsky, asks which minimal principles and parameters theory fits most elegantly, naturally, and simply. In an attempt to simplify language into
11808-746: The "thousands of those hell-hounds called terrorists" who he believed threatened Europe. During the Reign of Terror , the Jacobin government and other factions of the French Revolution used the apparatus of the state to kill and intimidate political opponents, and the Oxford English Dictionary includes as one definition of terrorism "Government by intimidation carried out by the party in power in France between 1789–1794". The original general meaning of terrorism
11972-468: The 1940s. The approach stems from the idea that Muslims perpetrating the attack would not want to be "soiled" by the lard in the moment before dying. The idea has been suggested more recently as a deterrent to suicide bombings in Israel. However, the actual effectiveness of this tactic is likely limited. A sympathetic Islamic scholar could issue a fatwa proclaiming that a suicide bomber would not be polluted by
12136-594: The 1980s, Chomsky's students had become prominent linguists who, in turn, expanded and revised his linguistic theories. In the 1990s, Chomsky embraced political activism to a greater degree than before. Retaining his commitment to the cause of East Timorese independence, in 1995 he visited Australia to talk on the issue at the behest of the East Timorese Relief Association and the National Council for East Timorese Resistance. The lectures he gave on
12300-488: The 1990s by covertly assisting loyalist paramilitaries . Ruth J Blakeley, Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield , accuses the United States of sponsoring and deploying state terrorism, which she defines as "the illegal targeting of individuals that the state has a duty to protect in order to instill fear in a target audience beyond the direct victim", on an "enormous scale" during
12464-744: The 20th and 21st centuries are listed below. See list of hostage crises for a more extended list, including hostage-takings that did not end violently. Sea , south of the French coast ; subsequently Mogadishu International Airport , Somalia March 30, the Manawan Police Academy in Lahore attack – 8 gunmen, 8 police personnel and 2 civilians killed, 95 people injured, 4 gunmen captured. Plaza Cinema Chowk attack – 16 police officers, an army officer and unknown number of civilians killed. As many as 251 people injured. The scope for counterterrorism systems
12628-473: The American New Left movement, though he thought little of prominent New Left intellectuals Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm and preferred the company of activists to that of intellectuals. Chomsky remained largely ignored by the mainstream press throughout this period. Chomsky also became involved in left-wing activism. Chomsky refused to pay half his taxes, publicly supported students who refused
12792-514: The Foreign Office to send hundreds of inflammatory pamphlets to leading anti-communists in Indonesia, inciting them to kill the foreign minister, Subandrio , and claiming that ethnic Chinese Indonesians deserved the violence meted out to them. Britain has been accused of involvement in state terrorism during the Troubles , an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland from the 1960s to
12956-563: The Indonesia/East Timor Documentation Project at the National Security Archive , says "Washington did everything in its power to encourage and facilitate the army-led massacre of alleged PKI members, and U.S. officials worried only that the killing of the party's unarmed supporters might not go far enough, permitting Sukarno to return to power and frustrate the [Johnson] Administration's emerging plans for
13120-626: The Indonesian army and encouraging them to go after the PKI." Geoffrey B. Robinson, a historian at UCLA, argues that without the support of the U.S. and other powerful Western states, the Indonesian Army's program of mass killings would not have happened. An Organization of American States report on human rights violations in Venezuela stated that colectivos , armed groups that support Nicolás Maduro and
13284-507: The Jewish leftists who frequented his New York City newspaper stand to debate current affairs. Chomsky himself often visited left-wing and anarchist bookstores when visiting his uncle in the city, voraciously reading political literature. He became absorbed in the story of the 1939 fall of Barcelona and suppression of the Spanish anarchosyndicalist movement, writing his first article on the topic at
13448-721: The Reagan era. He gave the D.T. Lakdawala Memorial Lecture in New Delhi in 2001, and in 2003 visited Cuba at the invitation of the Latin American Association of Social Scientists. Chomsky's 2003 Hegemony or Survival articulated what he called the United States' "imperial grand strategy " and critiqued the Iraq War and other aspects of the War on Terror. Chomsky toured internationally with greater regularity during this period. During
13612-593: The Soviet Union, it was eventually unleashed on victims chosen at random." The terror of tsarism was directed against the proletariat . Our Extraordinary Commissions shoot landlords, capitalists, and generals who are striving to restore the capitalist order. Do you grasp this ... distinction? Yes? For us communists it is quite sufficient. Leon Trotsky , Terrorism and Communism , 1920. Military actions primarily directed against non-combatant targets have also been referred to as state terrorism. For example,
13776-591: The Soviets] sought to impose total political control on society. Such a radical aim could be pursued only by a similarly radical method: by terrorism directed by an extremely powerful political police at an atomized and defenseless population. Its success was due largely to its arbitrary character—to the unpredictability of its choice of victims. In both countries, the regime first suppressed all opposition; when it no longer had any opposition to speak of, political police took to persecuting 'potential' and 'objective opponents'. In
13940-609: The Troubles , an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland from the 1960's to the 1990's, the Military Reaction Force (MRF), a counterinsurgency unit of the British Intelligence Corps , was tasked with tracking down members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). During the period when it was active, the MRF was involved in the killings of Catholic civilians in Northern Ireland. In November 2013,
14104-517: The U.S. had continually used the Israeli–Palestinian conflict for its own ends. In 1988, Chomsky visited the Palestinian territories to witness the impact of Israeli occupation. Chomsky and Herman's Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988) outlines their propaganda model for understanding mainstream media. Even in countries without official censorship, they argued,
14268-774: The U.S. war in Vietnam. Together they wrote Counter-Revolutionary Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact & Propaganda , a book that criticized U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia and the mainstream media's failure to cover it. Warner Modular published it in 1973, but its parent company disapproved of the book's contents and ordered all copies destroyed. While mainstream publishing options proved elusive, Chomsky found support from Michael Albert 's South End Press , an activist-oriented publishing company. In 1979, South End published Chomsky and Herman's revised Counter-Revolutionary Violence as
14432-614: The United Kingdom and elsewhere. The International Conference of Rome for the Social Defense Against Anarchists has been identified as the first international conference against terrorism. The first tactical counterterrorist unit was GSG 9 of the German Federal Police , formed in response to the 1972 Munich massacre . Counterterrorist forces expanded with the perceived growing threat of terrorism in
14596-594: The United Kingdom, the United States, and Russia have taken this approach, while Western European states generally do not. Another major method of preemptive neutralization is the interrogation of known or suspected terrorists to obtain information about specific plots, targets, the identity of other terrorists, whether or not the interrogation subjects himself is guilty of terrorist involvement. Sometimes more extreme methods are used to increase suggestibility , such as sleep deprivation or drugs. Such methods may lead captives to offer false information in an attempt to stop
14760-452: The Vietnam War. There has since been a wide-ranging debate about what effects Chomsky's employment at MIT had on his political and linguistic ideas. Chomsky's anti-war activism led to his arrest on multiple occasions and he was on President Richard Nixon's master list of political opponents . Chomsky was aware of the potential repercussions of his civil disobedience, and his wife began studying for her own doctorate in linguistics to support
14924-449: The above-mentioned Munich massacre. Most counterterrorism strategies involve an increase in policing and domestic intelligence gathering. Central techniques include intercepting communications and location tracking . New technology has expanded the range of military and law enforcement options for intelligence gathering. Many countries increasingly employ facial recognition systems in policing. Domestic intelligence gathering
15088-514: The age of 10. That he came to identify with anarchism first rather than another leftist movement, he described as a "lucky accident". Chomsky was firmly anti-Bolshevik by his early teens. In 1945, at the age of 16, Chomsky began a general program of study at the University of Pennsylvania , where he explored philosophy, logic, and languages and developed a primary interest in learning Arabic . Living at home, he funded his undergraduate degree by teaching Hebrew. Frustrated with his experiences at
15252-539: The appropriate government organizations need to understand the source, motivation, methods of preparation, and tactics of terrorist groups. Good intelligence is at the heart of such preparation, as well as a political and social understanding of any grievances that might be solved. Ideally, one gets information from inside the group, a very difficult challenge for human intelligence operations because operational terrorist cells are often small, with all members known to one another, perhaps even related. Counterintelligence
15416-534: The attacks as "Israeli terrorism". Leon Panetta , the former- CIA director, also termed the attack terrorism. In the 1980s, Libya under Muammar Gaddafi was accused of state terrorism following attacks abroad such as the Lockerbie bombing . Between 9 July and 15 August 1984 seventeen merchant vessels were damaged in the Gulf of Suez and Bab al-Mandeb straits by underwater explosions. Terrorist group Al Jihad (thought to be
15580-693: The bombing of civilian buildings ( COSATU House and Khotso House ), and the targeted-killing and assassinations of anti-Apartheid activists. In the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, the former Major-General and Commander of Vlakplaas, Sarel “Sakkie” du Plessis Crafford gave the following three reasons for the Apartheid state’s policy of extra-judicial killings: (1) “It scared off other supporters and potential supporters; it made people reluctant to offer open support; it created distrust and demoralization amongst cadres. (2) It gave white voters confidence that
15744-488: The concepts of state terrorism and state-sponsored terrorism. Michael Stohl argues, "The use of terror tactics is common in international relations and the state has been and remains a more likely employer of terrorism within the international system than insurgents. Stohl clarifies, however, that "[n]ot all acts of state violence are terrorism. It is important to understand that in terrorism the violence threatened or perpetrated, has purposes broader than simple physical harm to
15908-430: The conservative-dominated political science department. When student activists campaigned to stop weapons and counterinsurgency research at MIT, Chomsky was sympathetic but felt that the research should remain under MIT's oversight and limited to systems of deterrence and defense. Chomsky has acknowledged that his MIT lab's funding at this time came from the military. He later said he considered resigning from MIT during
16072-574: The couple moved to the Allston area of Boston and remained there until 1965, when they relocated to the suburb of Lexington . The couple took a Harvard travel grant to Europe in 1953. He enjoyed living in Hashomer Hatzair 's HaZore'a kibbutz while in Israel, but was appalled by his interactions with Jewish nationalism, anti-Arab racism and, within the kibbutz's leftist community, Stalinism . On visits to New York City, Chomsky continued to frequent
16236-506: The crimes of their own states". Chomsky had long publicly criticized Nazism , and totalitarianism more generally, but his commitment to freedom of speech led him to defend the right of French historian Robert Faurisson to advocate a position widely characterized as Holocaust denial . Without Chomsky's knowledge, his plea for Faurisson's freedom of speech was published as the preface to the latter's 1980 book Mémoire en défense contre ceux qui m'accusent de falsifier l'histoire . Chomsky
16400-655: The decade, including in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965), Topics in the Theory of Generative Grammar (1966), and Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought (1966). Along with Halle, he also edited the Studies in Language series of books for Harper and Row . As he began to accrue significant academic recognition and honors for his work, Chomsky lectured at
16564-492: The definitions accepted by states. Most states use the term terrorism for non-state actors only. The Encyclopædia Britannica Online defines terrorism generally as "the systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective", and states that "terrorism is not legally defined in all jurisdictions." The encyclopedia adds that "[e]stablishment terrorism, often called state or state-sponsored terrorism,
16728-543: The draft , and was arrested while participating in an anti-war teach-in outside the Pentagon. During this time, Chomsky co-founded the anti-war collective RESIST with Mitchell Goodman , Denise Levertov , William Sloane Coffin , and Dwight Macdonald . Although he questioned the objectives of the 1968 student protests , Chomsky regularly gave lectures to student activist groups and, with his colleague Louis Kampf, ran undergraduate courses on politics at MIT independently of
16892-417: The ease of understanding what he writes and says—is his work on sociopolitical analysis; political, social, and economic history; and critical assessment of current political circumstance. In Chomsky's view, although those in power might—and do—try to obscure their intentions and to defend their actions in ways that make them acceptable to citizens, it is easy for anyone who is willing to be critical and consider
17056-485: The effective inclusion of human rights protection as a crucial element in that cooperation. They argue that international human rights obligations do not stop at borders, and a failure to respect human rights in one state may undermine its effectiveness in the global effort to cooperate to combat terrorism. Some countries see preemptive attacks as a legitimate strategy. This includes capturing, killing, or disabling suspected terrorists before they can mount an attack. Israel,
17220-550: The enduring underlying inequalities which fuel terrorist activity. Causal factors need to be delineated and measures implemented which allow equal access to resources and sustainability for all people. Such activities empower citizens, providing "freedom from fear" and "freedom from want". This can take many forms, including the provision of clean drinking water, education, vaccination programs, provision of food and shelter and protection from violence, military or otherwise. Successful human security campaigns have been characterized by
17384-461: The enemies of the people. Now the term "terrorism" is commonly used to describe terrorist acts committed by non-state or sub-national entities against a state. (italics in original) Later examples of state terrorism include the police state measures employed by the Soviet Union beginning in the 1930s, and by Germany's Nazi regime in the 1930s and 1940s. According to Igor Primoratz, "Both [the Nazis and
17548-629: The facts to discern what they are up to. —James McGilvray, 2014 Chomsky is a prominent political dissident. His political views have changed little since his childhood, when he was influenced by the emphasis on political activism that was ingrained in Jewish working-class tradition. He usually identifies as an anarcho-syndicalist or a libertarian socialist . He views these positions not as precise political theories but as ideals that he thinks best meet human needs: liberty, community, and freedom of association. Unlike some other socialists, such as Marxists, Chomsky believes that politics lies outside
17712-673: The family in the event of Chomsky's imprisonment or joblessness. Chomsky's scientific reputation insulated him from administrative action based on his beliefs. In 1970 he visited southeast Asia to lecture at Vietnam's Hanoi University of Science and Technology and toured war refugee camps in Laos . In 1973 he helped lead a committee commemorating the 50th anniversary of the War Resisters League . Chomsky's work in linguistics continued to gain international recognition as he received multiple honorary doctorates . He delivered public lectures at
17876-575: The form of options that can be exercised in the future when new information is available. While some countries with longstanding terrorism problems have law enforcement agencies primarily designed to prevent and respond to terror attacks, in other nations, counterterrorism is a relatively more recent objective of law enforcement agencies. Though some civil libertarians and criminal justice scholars have criticized efforts of law enforcement agencies to combat terrorism as futile and expensive or as threats to civil liberties, other scholars have analyzed
18040-451: The interactions between organisms and their environments. Accordingly, Chomsky argues that language is a unique evolutionary development of the human species and distinguished from modes of communication used by any other animal species. Chomsky argues that his nativist , internalist view of language is consistent with the philosophical school of " rationalism " and contrasts with the anti-nativist, externalist view of language consistent with
18204-649: The interrogation and torture of suspected insurgents. J. Patrice McSherry , a professor of political science at Long Island University , says "hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans were tortured, abducted or killed by right-wing military regimes as part of the U.S.-led anti-communist crusade," which included U.S. support for Operation Condor and the Guatemalan military during the Guatemalan Civil War . More people were repressed and killed throughout Latin America in
18368-542: The kind of normal skepticism and willingness to apply one's analytical skills that almost all people have and that they can exercise. —Chomsky on the Vietnam War Chomsky joined protests against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War in 1962, speaking on the subject at small gatherings in churches and homes. His 1967 critique of U.S. involvement, " The Responsibility of Intellectuals ", among other contributions to The New York Review of Books , debuted Chomsky as
18532-603: The language. Chomsky revised this thesis for his MA , which he received from the University of Pennsylvania in 1951; it was subsequently published as a book. He also developed his interest in philosophy while at university, in particular under the tutelage of Nelson Goodman . From 1951 to 1955, Chomsky was a member of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University , where he undertook research on what became his doctoral dissertation. Having been encouraged by Goodman to apply, Chomsky
18696-608: The last three decades of the Cold War than in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc , according to historian John Henry Coatsworth . Declassified documents from the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta in 2017 confirm that U.S. officials directly facilitated and encouraged the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of suspected Communists in Indonesia during the mid-1960s . Bradley Simpson, Director of
18860-565: The late 20th century. After the September 11 attacks , Western governments made counterterrorism efforts a priority. This included more extensive collaboration with foreign governments, shifting tactics involving red teams , and preventive measures. Although terrorist attacks affecting Western countries generally receive a disproportionately large share of media attention, most terrorism occurs in less developed countries. Government responses to terrorism, in some cases, tend to lead to substantial unintended consequences, such as what occurred in
19024-500: The leftist journal Politics , which furthered his interest in anarchism, and the council communist periodical Living Marxism , though he rejected the Marxist orthodoxy of its editor, Paul Mattick . Chomsky befriended two linguists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)— Morris Halle and Roman Jakobson —the latter of whom secured him an assistant professor position there in 1955. At MIT, Chomsky spent half his time on
19188-408: The linguistic theory ... The discovery of cognitive structures common to the human race but only to humans (species specific), leads quite easily to thinking of unalienable human attributes. — Edward Marcotte on the significance of Chomsky's linguistic theory The basis of Chomsky's linguistic theory lies in biolinguistics , the linguistic school that holds that the principles underpinning
19352-635: The local level. Emergency medical services are capable of triaging, treating, and transporting the more severely affected individuals to hospitals, which typically have mass casualty and triage plans in place for terrorist attacks. Public health agencies , from local to the national level, may be designated to deal with identification, and sometimes mitigation, of possible biological attacks, and sometimes chemical or radiological contamination. Many countries have dedicated counterterrorist units trained to handle terrorist threats. Besides various security agencies , there are police tactical units whose role
19516-473: The long run (e.g., the French doctrine used in colonial Indochina and Algeria ), particularly if it is not accompanied by other measures. However, new methods such as those taken in Iraq have yet to be seen as beneficial or ineffectual. Whatever the target of terrorists, there are multiple ways of hardening the targets to prevent the terrorists from hitting their mark, or reducing the damage of attacks. One method
19680-609: The media. Born to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants in Philadelphia , Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City . He studied at the University of Pennsylvania . During his postgraduate work in the Harvard Society of Fellows , Chomsky developed the theory of transformational grammar for which he earned his doctorate in 1955. That year he began teaching at MIT, and in 1957 emerged as
19844-453: The mission with minimal casualties. The units include assault teams, snipers , EOD experts, dog handlers, and intelligence officers. Most of these measures deal with terrorist attacks that affect an area or threaten to do so, or are lengthy situations such as shootouts and hostage takings that allow the counterterrorist units to assemble and respond; it is harder to deal with shorter incidents such as assassinations or reprisal attacks, due to
20008-576: The most important dimensions of the policing of terrorism as an important dimension of counter-terrorism, especially in the post-9/11 era, and have discussed how police view terrorism as a matter of crime control. Such analyses highlight the civilian police role in counterterrorism next to the military model of a war on terror . Pursuant to passage of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 , federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies began to systemically reorganize. Two primary federal agencies,
20172-515: The movement, which he called a reaction to a 30-year class war . The 2015 documentary Requiem for the American Dream summarizes his views on capitalism and economic inequality through a "75-minute teach-in ". In 2015 Chomsky and his wife purchased a residence in São Paulo , Brazil , and began splitting their time between Brazil and the U.S. Chomsky taught a short-term politics course at
20336-494: The news is censored through five filters that greatly influence both what and how news is presented. The book received a 1992 film adaptation . In 1989, Chomsky published Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies, in which he suggests that a worthwhile democracy requires that its citizens undertake intellectual self-defense against the media and elite intellectual culture that seeks to control them. By
20500-479: The occupation, and meetings with refugees in Lisbon . Marxist academic Steven Lukes most prominently publicly accused Chomsky of betraying his anarchist ideals and acting as an apologist for Cambodian leader Pol Pot . Herman said that the controversy "imposed a serious personal cost" on Chomsky, who considered the personal criticism less important than the evidence that "mainstream intelligentsia suppressed or justified
20664-742: The office of the Yiddish anarchist journal Fraye Arbeter Shtime and became enamored with the ideas of Rudolf Rocker , a contributor whose work introduced Chomsky to the link between anarchism and classical liberalism . Chomsky also read other political thinkers: the anarchists Mikhail Bakunin and Diego Abad de Santillán , democratic socialists George Orwell , Bertrand Russell , and Dwight Macdonald , and works by Marxists Karl Liebknecht , Karl Korsch , and Rosa Luxemburg . His politics were reaffirmed by Orwell's depiction of Barcelona 's functioning anarchist society in Homage to Catalonia (1938). Chomsky read
20828-514: The openness or secrecy with which the acts are performed, and whether states directly perform the acts, support them, or acquiesce to them. Aristotle wrote critically of terror employed by tyrants against their subjects. The earliest use of the word terrorism identified by the Oxford English Dictionary is a 1795 reference to tyrannical state behavior, the " reign of terrorism " in France. In that same year, Edmund Burke decried
20992-418: The opposing programs ultimately were complementary, each informing the other. [I]t does not require very far-reaching, specialized knowledge to perceive that the United States was invading South Vietnam. And, in fact, to take apart the system of illusions and deception which functions to prevent understanding of contemporary reality [is] not a task that requires extraordinary skill or understanding. It requires
21156-411: The participation of a diverse group of actors, including governments, NGOs , and citizens. Foreign internal defense programs provide outside expert assistance to a threatened government. FID can involve both non-military and military aspects of counterterrorism. A 2017 study found that "governance and civil society aid is effective in dampening domestic terrorism, but this effect is only present if
21320-403: The philosophical school of " empiricism ", which contends that all knowledge, including language, comes from external stimuli. Historians have disputed Chomsky's claim about rationalism on the basis that his theory of innate grammar excludes propositional knowledge and instead focuses on innate learning capacities or structures. Since the 1960s, Chomsky has maintained that syntactic knowledge
21484-421: The practices, military tactics , techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement , businesses, and intelligence agencies use to combat or eliminate terrorism . If an act of terrorism occurs as part of a broader insurgency (and insurgency is included in the definition of terrorism ) then counterterrorism may additionally employ counterinsurgency measures. The United States Armed Forces uses
21648-413: The recipient country is not experiencing a civil conflict." Terrorism has often been used to justify military intervention in countries where terrorists are said to be based. Similar justifications were used for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the second Russian invasion of Chechnya . Military intervention has not always been successful in stopping or preventing future terrorism, such as during
21812-530: The remit of science, but he still roots his ideas about an ideal society in empirical data and empirically justified theories. In Chomsky's view, the truth about political realities is systematically distorted or suppressed by an elite corporatocracy , which uses corporate media, advertising, and think tanks to promote its own propaganda. His work seeks to reveal such manipulations and the truth they obscure. Chomsky believes this web of falsehood can be broken by "common sense", critical thinking, and understanding
21976-500: The roles of self-interest and self-deception, and that intellectuals abdicate their moral responsibility to tell the truth about the world in fear of losing prestige and funding. He argues that, as such an intellectual, it is his duty to use his social privilege , resources, and training to aid popular democracy movements in their struggles. Although he has participated in direct action demonstrations—joining protests, being arrested, organizing groups—Chomsky's primary political outlet
22140-550: The rule of law. We recommend: (1) taking effective measures to make impunity impossible either for acts of terrorism or for the abuse of human rights in counter-terrorism measures. (2) the incorporation of human rights laws in all anti-terrorism programs and policies of national governments as well as international bodies." While international efforts to combat terrorism have focused on the need to enhance cooperation between states, proponents of human rights (as well as human security ) have suggested that more effort needs to be given to
22304-420: The rules of grammar we observe are in fact only the consequences, or side effects, of the way language works. Thus, while much of Chomsky's prior research focused on the rules of language, he now focuses on the mechanisms the brain uses to generate these rules and regulate speech. The second major area to which Chomsky has contributed—and surely the best known in terms of the number of people in his audience and
22468-537: The ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) party, murdered at least 131 individuals between 2014 and 2017 during anti-government protests . The National Assembly of Venezuela designated the colectivos as terrorist groups due to their "violence, paramilitary actions, intimidation, murders and other crimes," declaring their acts as state-sponsored terrorism. The chairman of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee has said
22632-675: The scourge of terrorism is compromised by what we did through SOE. The justification ... That we had no other means of striking back at the enemy ... is exactly the argument used by the Red Brigades , the Baader-Meinhoff gang , the PFLP , the IRA and every other half-articulate terrorist organisation on Earth. Futile to argue that we were a democracy and Hitler a tyrant. Means besmirch ends. SOE besmirched Britain." British Foreign Office documents declassified in 2021 revealed that during
22796-506: The security forces were in control and winning the fight against Communism and terrorism. (3) The information gleaned during the interrogation needed to be protected against disclosure.” The most notorious of the Vlakplaas operatives were Eugene de Kock and the askari Joe Mamasela , who were linked to several high-profile extra-judicial killings, including that of Griffiths Mxenge . Following South Africa's transition to democracy , de Kock
22960-518: The short warning time and the quick exfiltration of the assassins. The majority of counterterrorism operations at the tactical level are conducted by state, federal, and national law enforcement or intelligence agencies . In some countries, the military may be called in as a last resort. For countries whose military is legally permitted to conduct domestic law enforcement operations, this is not an issue, and such counterterrorism operations are conducted by their military. Some counterterrorist actions of
23124-508: The state is carrying out the actions rather than sponsoring violent non-state actors who do so. Historically, governments have been accused of using state terrorism in various settings . The exact definition and scope of state terrorism remain controversial, as some scholars and governments argue that terrorism is a tool used exclusively by non-state actors, while others maintain that state-directed violence intended to terrorize civilian populations should also be classified as terrorism. There
23288-403: The structure of language are biologically preset in the human mind and hence genetically inherited. He argues that all humans share the same underlying linguistic structure, irrespective of sociocultural differences. In adopting this position Chomsky rejects the radical behaviorist psychology of B. F. Skinner , who viewed speech, thought, and all behavior as a completely learned product of
23452-546: The structures of specific languages. Michael Tomasello has challenged Chomsky's theory of innate syntactic knowledge as based on theory and not behavioral observation. The empirical basis of poverty of the stimulus arguments has been challenged by Geoffrey Pullum and others, leading to back-and-forth debate in the language acquisition literature. Recent work has also suggested that some recurrent neural network architectures can learn hierarchical structure without an explicit constraint. Transformational-generative grammar
23616-577: The subject between two sentences is the same person. Chomsky's theory posits that language consists of both deep structures and surface structures : Outward-facing surface structures relate phonetic rules into sound, while inward-facing deep structures relate words and conceptual meaning. Transformational-generative grammar uses mathematical notation to express the rules that govern the connection between meaning and sound (deep and surface structures, respectively). By this theory, linguistic principles can mathematically generate potential sentence structures in
23780-496: The subject were published as Powers and Prospects in 1996. As a result of the international publicity Chomsky generated, his biographer Wolfgang Sperlich opined that he did more to aid the cause of East Timorese independence than anyone but the investigative journalist John Pilger . After East Timor attained independence from Indonesia in 1999, the Australian-led International Force for East Timor arrived as
23944-475: The swine products. For a threatened or completed terrorist attack, an Incident Command System (ICS) may be invoked to control the various services that may need to be involved in the response. ICS has varied levels of escalation, such as might be required for multiple incidents in a given area (e.g. 2005 London bombings or the 2004 Madrid train bombings ), or all the way to a National Response Plan invocation if national-level resources are needed. For example,
24108-454: The term terrorism is applicable only to the actions of violent non-state actors . This approach is termed as an actor-centric definition which emphasizes the characteristics of the groups or individuals who use terrorism; whilst act-centric definitions emphasize the unique aspects of terrorism from other acts of violence. Historically, the term terrorism was used to refer to actions taken by governments against their own citizens whereas now it
24272-694: The term " foreign internal defense " for programs that support other countries' attempts to suppress insurgency, lawlessness , or subversion , or to reduce the conditions under which threats to national security may develop. The first counterterrorism body to be formed was the Special Irish Branch of the Metropolitan Police , later renamed the Special Branch after it expanded its scope beyond its original focus on Fenian terrorism. Various law enforcement agencies established similar units in
24436-529: The time the United Nations Secretary-General , said it is "time to set aside debates on so-called 'state terrorism'. The use of force by states is already regulated under international law". Annan added, "... regardless of the differences between governments on the question of the definition of terrorism, what is clear and what we can all agree on is any deliberate attack on innocent civilians [or non-combatants], regardless of one's cause,
24600-625: The transfer, return and extradition of people between or within countries; and the adoption of security measures that restrain the rights or freedoms of citizens and breach principles of non-discrimination. Examples include: Many argue that such violations of rights could exacerbate rather than counter the terrorist threat. Human rights activists argue for the crucial role of human rights protection as an intrinsic part to fight against terrorism. This suggests, as proponents of human security have long argued, that respecting human rights may indeed help us to incur security. Amnesty International included
24764-582: The treatment, or due to the confusion caused by it. In 1978 the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the Ireland v. United Kingdom case that such methods amounted to a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment , and that such practices were in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights Article 3 (art. 3). The human security paradigm outlines a non-military approach that aims to address
24928-424: The twelve previous international conventions on terrorism had never referred to state terrorism, which was not an international legal concept, and when states abuse their powers they should be judged against international conventions which deal with war crimes , international human rights law , and international humanitarian law , rather than international anti-terrorism statutes. In a similar vein, Kofi Annan , at
25092-647: The two-volume The Political Economy of Human Rights , which compares U.S. media reactions to the Cambodian genocide and the Indonesian occupation of East Timor . It argues that because Indonesia was a U.S. ally, U.S. media ignored the East Timorese situation while focusing on events in Cambodia, a U.S. enemy. Chomsky's response included two testimonials before the United Nations' Special Committee on Decolonization , successful encouragement for American media to cover
25256-512: The university, he considered dropping out and moving to a kibbutz in Mandatory Palestine , but his intellectual curiosity was reawakened through conversations with the linguist Zellig Harris , whom he first met in a political circle in 1947. Harris introduced Chomsky to the field of theoretical linguistics and convinced him to major in the subject. Chomsky's BA honors thesis, "Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew", applied Harris's methods to
25420-489: The world, and eager to participate in making life more meaningful and worthwhile for all", a mission that shaped and was subsequently adopted by his son. Elsie, who also taught at Mikveh Israel, shared her leftist politics and care for social issues with her sons. Noam's only sibling, David Eli Chomsky (1934–2021), was born five years later, and worked as a cardiologist in Philadelphia. The brothers were close, though David
25584-664: Was accused of state terror against political opponents. The Uyghur American Association has claimed that Beijing's approach to terrorism in Xinjiang constitutes state terrorism. In 2006, a Spanish court opened an investigation into claims that the Chinese state was committing acts of state terrorism in Tibet . However, the investigation was dropped in 2014. The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior took place in Auckland Harbour on July 10, 1985. It
25748-424: Was an attack carried out by French DGSE agents Captain Dominique Prieur and Commander Alain Mafart aimed at sinking the flagship craft of the Greenpeace Organisation in order to stop it from interfering in French nuclear testing in the South Pacific . The attack resulted in the death of Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira and led to a huge uproar over the first ever attack on New Zealand's sovereignty as
25912-428: Was attracted to Harvard in part because the philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine was based there. Both Quine and a visiting philosopher, J. L. Austin of the University of Oxford , strongly influenced Chomsky. In 1952, Chomsky published his first academic article in The Journal of Symbolic Logic . Highly critical of the established behaviorist currents in linguistics, in 1954, he presented his ideas at lectures at
26076-415: Was impressed by Chomsky's thesis and collaborated with him on several technical papers in mathematical linguistics . Chomsky's doctorate exempted him from compulsory military service , which was otherwise due to begin in 1955. In 1947, Chomsky began a romantic relationship with Carol Doris Schatz , whom he had known since early childhood. They married in 1949. After Chomsky was made a Fellow at Harvard,
26240-466: Was later tried and convicted on eighty-nine charges and sentenced to 212 years in prison. During World War II, the United Kingdom created the Special Operations Executive (SOE) which, in the words of Prime Minister Winston Churchill , was to "set Europe ablaze" with sabotage and subversion in countries occupied by the Axis powers , especially Nazi Germany . The British military historian John Keegan later wrote, "We must recognise that our response to
26404-562: Was more easygoing while Noam could be very competitive. They were raised Jewish, being taught Hebrew and regularly involved with discussing the political theories of Zionism ; the family was particularly influenced by the Left Zionist writings of Ahad Ha'am . He faced antisemitism as a child, particularly from Philadelphia's Irish and German communities. Chomsky attended the independent, Deweyite Oak Lane Country Day School and Philadelphia's Central High School , where he excelled academically and joined various clubs and societies, but
26568-431: Was of terrorism by the state, as reflected in the 1798 supplement of the Dictionnaire of the Académie française , which described terrorism as systeme , regime de la terreur . Myra Williamson wrote: The meaning of "terrorism" has undergone a transformation. During the Reign of Terror, a regime or system of terrorism was used as an instrument of governance, wielded by a recently established revolutionary state against
26732-434: Was troubled by the school's hierarchical and domineering teaching methods. He also attended Hebrew High School at Gratz College, where his father taught. Chomsky has described his parents as "normal Roosevelt Democrats " with center-left politics , but relatives involved in the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union exposed him to socialism and far-left politics . He was substantially influenced by his uncle and
26896-468: Was widely condemned for defending Faurisson, and France's mainstream press accused Chomsky of being a Holocaust denier himself, refusing to publish his rebuttals to their accusations. Critiquing Chomsky's position, sociologist Werner Cohn later published an analysis of the affair titled Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers . The Faurisson affair had a lasting, damaging effect on Chomsky's career, especially in France. In 1985, during
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