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Sunday, May 10, 2009 - 12:26 pm  Since the 'war on terror' began how do you see it going? I feel the 'terrorists' have become more powerful. 'Liberated' afghanistan I expect will go back into fundamental islam in a few years. Pakistan is on a slippery slop. Somalia is as bad as ever. Basically the whole area is looking over the abyss. On the home front (UK) I see freedoms being eroded, politicians bending over backwards to promote Islam, whilst eroding britishness. A paranoid (or incompetent) police force raiding every tom dick and harry thinking they have a bomb. In short I dont think it is going well. We may well be winning the physical war, but the psycological war is not so good.
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| Sunday, May 10, 2009 - 10:15 pm I think that the word war is really rather foolish. Terrorism is a criminal act and should be treated as such. I dont think politicians are promoting Islam (except for Galloway perhaps) rather then failing to expound the virtues of secularism. It sounds like you feel that multiculturalism (as initiated in the mid 90's by (new) Labour) has failed. I tend to think that secularism, which is superior to blind nationalism, will win out given time and equal opportunity.
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| Sunday, May 10, 2009 - 11:02 pm war on terror, the way we handle, it is in a way like war on drugs = epic fail Terrorism is a criminal act and should be treated as such. - Maxwell 'Danger' Powers thats what Chomsky would say. criminal acts require police action not military.
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| Sunday, May 10, 2009 - 11:29 pm Osama declared war in 1996. The link can be found here No one really noticed. So its not a criminal act. It is indeed an act of war.
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 - 12:26 am If it is an act of war, is it also terrorism?
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 - 01:14 am Zdenek: I think I did get it from Chomsky actually. Pope: War is an act of nations. A person does not count as a nation. Calling the response to terrorism war, imo, plays into the hands of people like Bin Laden who want to escalate conflict.
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 - 02:22 am I guess you are right Maxwell, if you ignore the fact it is a holy war.
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 - 02:39 am Yes ignoring him and treating him as a criminal for 5 years worked so well. /me looks at hole in New York City skyline. As for the rest I doubt I could find a sufficient reason for war to please the liberal secular apologists. However it is an act of war. Chomsky is wrong.
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 - 02:59 am War is not an act of nations. Nations that train terrorist and call them allies but do not like it when other people train terrorist make up nonsensical definitions. The United States trains more terrorists than any other nation. The most effective way to fight terrorism is to adjust the budget. That battle has not been very successful. Invading other nations will, of course, inspire insurgency. Insurgency may or may not be terrorism depending on which definition(s) you choose. Some authors about war I have read would categorize some of the Al Queda's attacks as strategic warfare. You can claim attacks like the bombing of Heroshima in 1945 was not terrorism because the goal was to kill all the targets and destroy the economy. Compare to the doolittle raid in 1942 which was clearly intended as terrorism.
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 - 03:11 pm I don't care what we call them. As long as we're stopping their terrorism, crusade, holy war, &.c. you can kill them and call them what ever you like. BC
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 - 05:20 pm One man's terrorism is another man's fight against oppression.
/me looks at hole in various forms of London public transport. We all get over it, eventually.
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 - 05:42 pm We all forget, eventually. Giving them room to remind us. Fortunately, some don't forget as easily as others.
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 - 07:01 pm Dubhthaigh: I dont see how prefixing with holy changes anything. War is defined as armed struggles between nations, think the wars of Rome, the Napoleonic wars, the Vietnam war. Bin Laden used the term erroneously. There is no reason for us to do the same and give him legitimacy. Pope: I dont really understand why treating someone as a criminal is the same as ignoring them, as you seem to imply. Acts of war are committed by nations, not individuals. 9/11 was an act of terrorism, not war. Terrorism is a criminal act because it is committed by individuals against other individuals or people. We do not call rape, murder or theft and act of war between two people (because to use the term 'war' in this context would be non-sensical), we call it a criminal act. In the same way a mass murder is not an act of war, it is a criminal act of terrorism. We do, however, call rape, murder or theft acts of war if they occur by one nation on another. This entire debate is one of semantics, as we both may or may not agree that a warlike response is appropriate for terrorism. My arguement of the semantics does not imply I feel in any way about the best approach to combating the subject. RC: I see a claim with no supporting reasoning. Can you find a war, not the WoT or WoD, which has occured between individuals? BorderC: Do you think that the best way to prevent terrorism is to kill as many terrorists as possible?
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 - 08:25 pm Bin Laden was ignored by most people ignorant of what the man wants to achieve. Sure Clinton slapped up a reward poster and the FBI was on the lookout for him but it did absolutely no good. His protection by the Taliban gave him a state to operate from. Once that was removed he still remains a military target as law enforcement has zero chance of apprehending him and "bringing him to justice". You told someone in an other thread..."You are not a molecular biologist, I am." Well.....You are not a soldier Maxwell, I am. War is not based on semantics.
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| Monday, May 11, 2009 - 09:05 pm Pope: I wish to make it clear I am not commenting on what is the best course of action to combat terrorism. I would argue that a soldier is not the best qualified to comment what is essentially a political and criminal question. I am not saying war is based on semantics. I am claiming that the term 'war' is innappropriate when used in 'WoT'. That is all. I see no reason why law enforcement has zero chance of apprehending Bin Laden. I believe police action has prevented much more terrorism than massive military action.
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 04:54 am Police action against who Maxwell. Which jurisdiction? Which department? Perhaps a warrant for the Pakistani police to arrest Bin Laden? This is the real world Maxwell. Effete liberal sentiments have no place in it. And the name of this conflict is irrelevant. It involves military forces and equipment on both sides. It is a war. People are dying. If a man shoots at you do you ask "Why is he shooting at me?" or do you kill him. That is the difference between realist and idealist. Where do you fall in that spectrum?
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 05:05 am As a combat veteran I am offended by your comments max!
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 06:11 am I'm not going to say I think we should forgive and forget, because I honestly don't. All I'm going to say is that its clear brute force isn't working. If anything, I think we need to look at historical examples of dealing with terrorism and quelling it. I don't think the American strategists fully understand the nature of terrorism, nor how to combat it effectively. I know that "liberal" is a term you pin to anytbody who doesn't agree that simply killing these people is the right course of action Sam, though I don't mean any offence to you in saying so because you know that you have my utmost respect as my friend. Historical precedence shows that trying simply to destroy this sort of person/organisation in open military conflict doesn't work. Sledgehammer tactics are not, will never be and have never been effective against such an enemy. The only way to win this "war" is in the hearts and minds of local populations who would otherwise be inclined to side with the terrorists. All in all, it is a far more subtle mode of warfare. And it is the only one which will ultimately prove effective.
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Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 08:37 am
One could say that D-day 1944 was fought entirely by individuals. Individual pilots flew planes. Individual rangers climbed cliff. Individual machine gunners strafed the beach. Perhaps someone loaded but it was an individual pulling the trigger. One could also say that the attack on September 11 2001 was a highly coordinated group activity that could not possibly have worked if one person attempted it. Taking of one aircraft required beating multiple flight personnel to death or to submission. The first hit on the towers would not have caused a collapsed if the second plane had not hit a another tower. In addition to the hijackers, there was a network that paid for combat and flight training and there was a chain of command that enabled the coordinated timing. The research done by Jane Goodall would be a good example of a gray area. It is unlikely that the chimpanzees planned an extermination of neighboring band. It is more likely that individuals were killed one by one in isolated acts of aggression. It is difficult to label the type of warfare because we can not ask them about the motives. Some claim that control of territory near the banana supply was primary motivator. That would suggest tactical warfare rather than strategic or terrorism. The chimps behavior suggests instincts that go back a long way. The human branch of the evolutionary tree is a hacked up mangled branch with one leaf. Governments and civilization are relatively new. All of our close relatives disappeared due to decisions made by individuals or small groups. Humans are weak and prone to disease. The only advantages we have is aim, the ability to talk strategy, and a second generation gap so that grandma can tell us how/what to aim. In the Illiad, homer describes combat as a series of individual combats. David and Goliath comes to mind. So does Cain vs Able. Most important the butter battle almost fought entirely by van itch and grandpa. 
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 10:12 am Pope, Jason: I honestly do not mean to offend. I do not, however, understand how arguing about definitions can possibly offend. I am not denegrating combat veterans by arguing that something should be named more appropriately. The 'effete liberal sentiments' I have so far espoused are that criminal acts should be dealt with by police action and that words should be used consistently. I have never implied that the military have no place carrying out police action in certain circumstances (which you seem to take I mean). You seem keen to apply labels to what I am saying without good reason. You note that people are dying, therefore this is war. The analogy is false. People die all the time for lots of reasons, and applying the label of war there would be equally fallacious (natural causes, firearms, accidents etc). In you ultimate rhetorical question you seem to imply that there are two causes of action, which you name realism and idealism. In the former, one shoots the man who tries to shoot one. In the latter, one simply asks 'why?' and does not protect oneself. You then ask which camp I identify with as though my response would mean that I would have to support another position regarding a completely different situation. Obviously, if being shot at I would protect myself and others. But we are talking about how to deal with people who want to send others to commit mass murder. Simplistic strawman analogies get nowhere. RC: Depending on how you look at it, you can claim that wars are mass actions of large collections of individuals. But the crucial difference is that these individuals are aligned to a nation, such that it is the nations that utilise the individuals to conduct the war. A riot fits the former, but not the latter criterion, therefore we do not call a riot a war on shop fronts. Motivation does not affect whether we call something war. War can be for profit or war can be for presevation of the nation. The Illiad describes the war of Troy, where the Greek kingdom (of Menelaos?) attacked the kingdom of Troy, thus satisfying the national combat criterion. Also, I would not define battles as necessarily occuring within the context of a war.
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 02:44 pm He is right about the definitions etc, but you are still missing the point war can be waged between religions. They have declared holy war on all 'infidels' (or at least that is how they justify their actions). In this religious war, we are responding to their acts of sabotage with force of our own. Sparta and the other Achaeans were justified in their attacks on Troy, as Paris violated the moral codes of hospitality. Furthermore, there can be few relevant comparisons between that time and ours - they thought/spoke/thought in entirely different ways than we do now.
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 03:06 pm "I see no reason why law enforcement has zero chance of apprehending Bin Laden. I believe police action has prevented much more terrorism than massive military action." What? Whose police force? The U.S.? So you think there should have been an U.S.P.D. to have gone into Afghanistan to arrest Bin Laden? And you don't think the Taliban, who governed the country and protected BL, would have just been okay with that? Do you visit any legitimate news sites? That is the most absurd comment I've read since nix. It borders on delusional. If we're not at war with terrorists, who do you think we are at war with? Do you think it's not a war at all? I mean, soldiers are over there fighting, killing, and dying. It's not training. It may not be the conventional sort of war that you have stuck in your mind because of movies and books but it is war. What is the purpose of not calling it war?
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 03:33 pm I say nuke them all! Nuke the middle-east, nuke the arabs, nuke the fidels. No more terrorist ~ problem solved. Next WE can nuke car drivers who drive to market to buy bottled water for example, because they surely do more damage and kill more than the so-called Islamic terrorists.
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 04:14 pm BorderC: We declared war on Iraq and Afghanistan. A country cannot sensically declare war on an individual. I wish to reserve the term 'war' for armed struggle between nations. That is all. You seem to assume I am defining the action which should be taken against people like Bin Laden. I am not. Perhaps it is the case that massive military action would be necessary to arrest Bin Laden. But I think it is more consistent and helpful to call this action police action rather than WoT. I am claiming that this kind of terrorism has never been dealt with before by declaring war on terror. What is terror? How do you defeat terror? The term is non-sensical.
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 04:17 pm No one is suggesting that Tuco. /me gives Tuco some tea and jam. The people who are actively engaged in terrorist activities or supporters of those activities are valid military targets for collection or termination. @Maxwell. You sir are worse than Tuco or Nix with outlandish statements. There are only two results from the scenario I gave you . 1. You question the motives behind being shot at and you die. 2. You fight back and perhaps you might live. I find your arguments pedantic and sophomoric. Your ideology is repulsive. And I find the desire to invade you grows stronger each day. @Klarina. You always have my respect although we seldom agree on anything but pie and lulz. Who needs anything more?
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 04:37 pm I am suggesting it. I mean why not? There is more than enough people on the Earth already so casualties are non-issue. We have the power and who can stop us? Better take care of it now, than to be sorry later, its called preemptive strike, we are no strangers to. Just nuke them and be done with it.
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 06:09 pm We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal. Winston Churchill. "Blood, toil, tears and sweat".
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 06:59 pm I don't see how we are declaring war on an individual. We are declaring war on an ideology and its supporters. It's not just about Osama Bin Laden, or Khalid Sheik Mohammed, or any individual. It's about all of these people and beliefs that have developed into an organized and actual threat against the safety of our people. This is a war. There are targets, leaders, fighters, suppliers, and objectives. They may not be as clear as they were in WW2 or other wars but that doesn't make it more or less of a war. It just means the government has more leeway in conducting it - which could be good or bad. Anyways, for those of you telling us that military conflict doesn't work, I think it's done a damn fine job so far, in conjunction with other methods. The U.S. hasn't been hit again. We may never be able to eliminate terrorists, but we're doing a fine job of keeping civilians safe since 9/11, which is what this should all be about. There's no perfect solution to this because we won't change the hearts and minds of our enemies. We can't do that. So, killing them works out to be the next best thing. BC
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 09:30 pm As always, Sam. As always. No doubt why we get on so well. I'm not talking about changing the hearts and minds of our enemies, BorderC. I'm talking about changing the minds of the people who live in close proximity to these people day in and day out; the would-be terrorists of the future. You want proof that it works? Protestant and Catholic communities, reactions to the 08/03/2009 shootings. It works.
Those words ring hollow. The US does not suffer alone in this.
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - 02:09 am Pope: You miss my point that the gun threat analogy is not accurate. Which arguements do you disagree with? So far I have only argued in the case of semantics and made observations. I will conceed my use of the terms 'military action' and 'police action' have been a little confused, but I dont think this is the heart of your disagreement. Crafty: I must say it sounds almost immoral. Victory whatever the cost? I am sure the phrasing is more rhetoric than reason. BC: A fair point. But war does not occur between ideologies either. You would do better by arguing that Al Queda constitutes a nation (a people unified for a common cause, think the Jewish nation of the diaspora) without a country. I would counter that by claiming it would be inaccurate to characterise Al Queda as a nation as it does not have the shared heritage necessary to define it as a national group. Even if you did argue this line, the WoT is still a misnomer as it should be called the WoAQ. As for the 'US hasnt been hit again' quote: I bought a rock on 9/12. The US hasnt been hit again. Clearly my rock has the power to prevent the US being hit again. Correlation does not imply causality. Evidence should be presented to support the claim. Perhaps by comparing numbers of people who have died in terror attacks since 9/11 with a comparable period prior. Klarina: The peace process in Northern Ireland is indeed an example of a modern sectarian conflict the situation of which has been improved significantly. I am not so afraid of the person who raises the gun to me as the reason which the person had to raise the gun in the first place. As the fact that unless I tackle the reason I wont be able to prevent all the people raising all the guns.
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - 02:17 am Humm Sam me thinks its time to go hunting.
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - 05:26 am zdenek, You forgot about Timmy and the Unabomber. Nuke all the white boys in North America too. Maxwell, quote{But the crucial difference is that these individuals are aligned to a nation, such that it is the nations that utilise the individuals to conduct the war.} Nation states have a vested interest in making us believe that violence is O.K. when committed by nations. Nation states also have a vested interest in criminalizing any form of power that in not nationalist. I think you are wrong about the illiad. The warriors who sacked troy were not familiar with "Greek" as an identity. It is quite possible that the citizens of Troy were of the same ethnic group. They were clearly of the same religion and spoke to each other in the same language. The masses of rowers were following individuals. The myrmidons were following Achilles for example. They were motivated by an oath not by nationalism. The Philadelphia police department filled a garbage can with tovex and C4 and then dropped it from a helicopter over someones house. Is that terrorism? War?
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - 05:52 am As the saying goes, "What happened on 9th November, anyway?"
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - 10:43 am RC: Yes, I was mistaken about the details, it has ben some time since I read the Illiad. It was the kingdom of Mycennes and king Agamemnon. Mycenae was a kingdom in Greece. Thank you, Wikipedia! I take your point that wars can occur between mixed national groups. So I will extend the definition: war is armed struggle between oppositely aligned groups of nations. As for the PDP point: I would call it terrorism unless it was ordered/sanctioned by someone of high rank in the national command structure, such as a nationally elected official or their deputies, in which case I would call it war.
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - 02:14 pm So by your definition, nations are incapable of acts of terror against other nations?
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Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - 03:15 pm
The Iliad was set in the 'Golden period' of the Mycenaean age, before language and communication seemed to disappear for a couple of centuries, then reappear with the advent of Homer and the other travelling bards. The Mycenaean period is portrayed as a time when it was glory from war and conquest, not duty to the nation that led to the aquisition of kudos. In fact, never until modern days was the concept of 'Greece' true. Athens, Sparta, Thebes and later Macedon, were all individual city states with similar customs and language, but with different aims and loyalties. It's similar to the misconception of 'celts' today.
You cannot use the Iliad as defacto historical evidence - for example it would have been read aloud to groups of uneducated warriors, who would know only one language, hence all characters in the text would have to speak it. And if you disregard that, trading and contact between the cities of Mycenae and Troy would no doubt have occured (Paris met Helen in the hall of the Spartan king Menelaos after all) so some sort of familiarity of culture would have been evident.
Achilleus was king of the Myrmidons, so depending on your definition of nationalism it could be argued that they were doing duty to their country. However, i believe they were following Achilleus in search of glory, which was the driving force of their warrior culture (see how annoyed Achilleus gets when Agamemnon steals his woman (loot) and thus diminishes his glory). On a more practical note it makes more dramatic sense having a small group of leaders whom the main body of men follow- in battle scenes the leaders can go on aristeias (killing sprees) which would give them glory and excite the audience. The action will follow characters that you can become attached to, instead of thousands of anonymous soldiers. Anywho, thus ends my rant about the misconceptions of 'Greece' and the Iliad. Don't use it as an analogy for modern day war, it doesn't make sense. If you want to use it to explain something, give it to a woman and tell her it "represent what it feels like to be a man."
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - 08:09 pm Could somewhat explain this using "Cat in the Hat" instead of the Iliad?
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| Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - 10:13 pm Maxwell, its the sentiment.
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| Thursday, May 14, 2009 - 01:29 pm Kalrina: An interesting point. I would have to agree, given my definition, that countries are incapable of committing acts of terror, only acts of war. I think this is a fair enough claim. Crafty: Then I find the sentiment deplorable. Victory whatever the cost is a terrible idea. There are somethings that I will not sacrifice for victory.
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| Thursday, May 14, 2009 - 04:17 pm Then what of slavery? What of attacks against civilian targets? What about the atrocities?
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| Thursday, May 14, 2009 - 05:35 pm Klairna: Im not sure about slavery, is it true to say slavery is perpetrated by the state or private individuals? I would define attacks against civilians and similar atrocities by nations as war crimes.
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| Thursday, May 14, 2009 - 08:10 pm War crimes being an act of terrorism. Traditional slavery, as endorsed by nations in the past.
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| Thursday, May 14, 2009 - 08:49 pm Its a damn good job that we are not all cheese eating surrender monkeys then Maxwell, isn't it. Your comment insults the courage and determination of my forefathers who died to maintain Englands security. Do not EVER under-estimate the price people will pay to uphold what they truly believe in. This applies nowadays, to the modern conflicts, as much as it did in the World Wars. You are exactly the sort of person that the Goldernkhan originally posted of. You have seriously annoyed me.
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| Thursday, May 14, 2009 - 11:56 pm Crafty: Take a step back. I have argued that victory whatever the cost justifies ultimately immoral actions. Although I think it crass to mention it, victory whatever the cost justifies mass murder, nuclear holocaust, worse. In reality no sane person would ever consider victory whatever the cost once the costs escalated sufficiently. I never said that Churchill was wrong to utter the phrase as a rhetorical tool to inspiring the utmost activity in the population. I claimed that he never really meant the phrase to be carried out to its logical conclusion. Thankfully, it is the case that the costs in Churchill's were never remotely close to the logically extended conclusion. I do not underestimate the lengths peoplea re willing to go to obtain victory, but I am able to abhour the immoral acts of my frinds as well as my enemies. Your forefathers are the same as mine. Klarina: I do not think that war crimes are classed as terrorism. It would appear that the same acts committed by the same people for different causes can be labelled different things.
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| Friday, May 15, 2009 - 12:19 am Maxwell prefers Brie cheese with his surrender Crafty. I would think a Marxist would be on the front lines rejecting any suggestion of the imposition of Islamic Theocracy in a secular Democracy such as the UK. You people have a problem. It seems you have lost the will to defend yourselves. Its easier to just "go along with their demands". Two justice systems? Sure why not. Perhaps if we chant Death to Israel loud enough the bad terrorists won't blow up our subways and buses anymore. I hope you enjoy living in the Islamic Republic of England. That's where you are heading.
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| Friday, May 15, 2009 - 12:55 am Pope: You imply that I am a Marxist? Besides the fact that in all likeihood we would struggle to agree on a definition of such a thing, I have never mentioned anything that would imply I have any political persuasion. Therefore, I must assume you mean to slander me. I have argued about definitions and you presume to know what I think with regard to entirely unrelated subjects. You are setting up a strawman.
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| Friday, May 15, 2009 - 08:16 am Wikipedia:
The definitions are so broad that discussions quickly become meaningless. In some cases people are using the word "terrorist" as "our enemy". Sort of the way we used to talk about "Indians" or "savages". Other people use the word "terrorists" to refer to "mean people" or "the bad guys". Obviously supporting the bad guys is wrong. I don't support bad guys and you shouldn't either. Many definitions of terrorism include a list of interesting people. -Jesus of Nazareth, Destroyed money lending tables. -Moses, Bio-terrorism and assassination -All members of the Boston tea party. Clearly property destruction. -The Animal Liberation Front. Old ladies who love puppies. Known to break the locks in laboratories. Counter terrorism units in lot of countries spend considerable resources tracking this group. -The teachers union. I could not figure out how these folks are terrorists but George W Bush said their methods were terroristic. Some definitions are structured to exempt nations: -Firing missiles at a pharmaceutical plant killing employees and causing the propagation of epidemic illness. Not terrorism. -Dropping union organizers out of helicopters. Not terrorism. -Torture, not terrorism. -Dropping nuclear bombs on urban areas, fire bombing, strafing and shelling civilians. Not terrorism. -"decapitation strikes", not terrorism. Apparently not assassination either. -Planting, dropping, or deploying explosives. Not terrorism, even when civilians including children are present in the building when explosives are deployed.
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| Saturday, May 16, 2009 - 12:20 am Chomsky readers are Marxist by default.
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| Saturday, May 16, 2009 - 02:49 am Pope: Now you are just being silly. Reading a single book doesnt define a person's ideology anymore than watching a war movie makes one a soldier. Do you realise that Chomsky has written extensively on universal syntax and it is entirely possible to read much Chomsky without ever reading asingle political phrase?
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| Saturday, May 16, 2009 - 04:22 am Noam Chomsky is not marxist. Leftist-pinko-radical-Jew but in Chomsky's case that is definitely not marxist. Of course marxists might read chomsky and pick out particular quotes. Chomsky made very useful contributions to linguistics, psychology and computer science. There might be some other Chomsky the tator was referring too.
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