[In the following review, Hook stresses that, despite his extreme stance on U.S. foreign policy, Noam Chomsky's arguments in 9-11 provide some useful correctives about recent political history.]

Foremost amongst Chomsky's gifts as a critical political analyst is an eye for the counter-intuitive. 9-11, a collection of interviews conducted in the immediate aftermath of September 11th, is a case in point. Chomsky's flair for political arguments that run against the grain of commonsense manifests in two particular ways here: a refutation of overly conventionalized modes of response to these events, and the astute use of historical counter-examples with which to challenge such formulaic responses.

Although condemning the attacks, Chomsky focuses on the particular rhetoric of propaganda characteristic of the U.S. media's treatment of these events. The notion of “terrorism”, argues Chomsky, applies as pertinently to the U.S. as to those considered responsible for the Manhattan and Washington attacks. Turning political stereotypes on their head, Chomsky convincingly argues—with reference to the definitions of U.S. military protocols—that the U.S. is itself a leading terrorist state. (The key example being the U.S.'s condemnation in 1986 by the World Court for unlawful use of force as means of pursuing its international interests in Nicaragua). Not stopping there, Chomsky also checks the loaded use of the term “fundamentalist”, pointing out to one interviewer that “The U.S. … is one of the most extreme religious fundamentalist cultures in the world” (p. 18).

In the past critics have bemoaned Chomsky's lack of a broader, more over-arching theory of power that might be transposed downwards to provide critical illumination of specific historical events. In 9-11 one sees the benefits of a form of political analysis that is notably reticent to generalize, and that is thoroughly immersed in the fine-grain details of the specifics of the event it examines. This is particularly present in those parts of Chomsky's commentary which deal, however circuitously, with the ostensible causes of September 11. Hence many of the more fashionable, or readily available offerings here, talk of globalization, economic imperialism, or of conflicting cultural values, are almost summarily rejected by Chomsky. Similarly, he repeatedly sidesteps the obvious historical comparisons put to him by his interviewers. Allusions to the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the beginning of the Vietnam War, to Pearl Harbor are all politely rejected in favor of more tailored comments, which signal his insistence that this is a unique historical event that cannot be simply explicated on the basis of analogues. Having said this, Chomsky offers few real explanatory suggestions; a tentativeness which no doubt will be proved prudent given his lack of historical distance (and a corresponding lack of information) at the time of his writing. Indeed, one can already see how historical events have overtaken the text—the U.S.'s recent military campaign in Afghanistan realizing Chomsky's fears of “an escalating cycle of violence”.

In many ways Chomsky's commentary is far more about the U.S. than it is about bin Laden or any other assumed aggressors. (And whilst Chomsky clearly views bin Laden's politics as detestable, he is by no means convinced of the latter's singular responsibility for the attacks). Indeed, although it is not a prioritized agenda of the text, one of the successes of 9-11 is the way it suggests a causative line which does not exclude the consideration of American foreign policy in what happened. Toward the end of the book Chomsky encourages Americans to reflect on why they are so hated in the undeveloped world, and to consider the reality of the political violence with which the U.S. has furthered its international economic interests. The pivotal example he cites is the U.S.'s bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan in August 1988. Now although seemingly a “footnote in the record of state terror, quickly forgotten” (p. 42), that is, an event that would seem to in no way rival the massive media attention accompanying the September 11th atrocities, Chomsky evokes it, and its long-term effects, as if not equal to, then as surpassing the violence of the U.S. attacks. Clearly, argues Chomsky, it is not simply a case of the media impact of the event, or even of the immediate death-toll, but of the number of those who die as an ultimate consequence of the events. A year after the Al-Shifa bombing, casualties continued to mount—reaching the hundreds of thousands according to a source quoted by Chomsky—due to the country's inability to more adequately supply the medicines needed to aid sufferers of malaria, tuberculosis and other usually easily treatable diseases.

Ultimately, no doubt, there will be more definitive accounts of September 11. Surely, the histories of this date will only proliferate. Chomsky's polemics will not however, one hopes, be lost. As debatable as certain of his assertions may seem, they stand as useful correctives to more self-promoting representations of recent American political history. Perhaps more than anything else, what Chomsky has achieved here can be assessed in just these terms, as a stretching of the routine explanations and self-understandings beyond this ideological reach.