Noam Chomsky Quotes: I have never heard of a state that admits it’s carrying out an…

noam-chomsky:

I have never heard of a state that admits it’s carrying out an aggressive act, they’re always engaged in “defense,” no matter what they’re doing—maybe “preemptive defense,” or something. 

…For example, one of the major scholarly books on the Cold War is called Strategies of Containment, by John Lewis Gaddis—it’s the foremost scholarly study by the top diplomatic historian, so it’s worth taking a look at. Well, in discussing this great theme, “strategies of containment,” Gaddis begins by by talking about the terminology. He says at the beginning: it’s true that the term ”containment” begs some questions, yes it presupposes some things, but nevertheless, despite the question on whether it’s factually accurate, it still is proper to adopt it as the framework for discussion. And the reason why it’s proper is because it was the