There is no plausible theory under which the record of the Pentagon Papers can be interpreted as relating to the national defense.
Noam ChomskyRead
U.S. Government propaganda tries to give the impression that aerial bombardment achieves near-surgical accuracy, so that military targets can be destroyed with minimal effect on civilians. Technical documents give a different picture.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the misleading portrayal of military precision in government propaganda.
Noam Chomsky highlights the disparity between the government's claims about the accuracy of aerial bombardment and the reality described in technical documents. He suggests that while the government presents an idealized image of military operations, the actual consequences for civilians are significantly more tragic, revealing a disconnection between official narratives and on-the-ground realities.
Themes
PropagandaWarAccuracyCiviliansMilitary
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about media representation of war.
More from Noam Chomsky
All quotes →The 'free-floating intellectual' may occupy himself with problems because of their inherent interest and importance, perhaps to little effect.
Noam ChomskyRead
If you're teaching today what you were teaching five years ago, either the field is dead or you are.
Noam ChomskyRead
There are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, 'That person I see is a savage monster;' instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do.
Noam ChomskyRead
The Republican Party has become overwhelmingly so extreme that it's hardly a traditional political party anymore.
Noam ChomskyRead
There is still much debate about whether torture has been effective in eliciting information - the assumption being, apparently, that if it is effective, then it may be justified.
Noam ChomskyRead
Similar quotes
If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been whole-heartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism.
Winston ChurchillRead
Nothing can be more evident, than that an exclusive power of regulating elections for the National Government, in the hands of the State Legislatures, would leave the existence of the Union entirely at their mercy . . . . It is to little purpose to say that a neglect or omission of this kind [not letting the feds have elections], would be unlikely to take place. The constitutional possibility of the thing, without an equivalent for the risk, is an unanswerable objection.
Alexander HamiltonRead
The right to vote is the easiest of all rights to grant.
Robert KennedyRead
There is a fundamental difference between the Polish experience of the state and the Russian experience. In the Polish experience, the state was always a foreign power. So, to hate the state was a patriotic act.
Ryszard KapuscinskiRead
The Republican Party supported the Equal Rights Amendment before the Democratic Party did. But what happened was that a lot of very right-wing Democrats, after the civil rights bill of 1964, left the Democratic Party and gradually have taken over the Republican Party.
Gloria SteinemRead
Government is, or ought to be instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community... when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.
George MasonRead