I was fortunate enough to attend the Noam Chomsky lecture organised by Amnesty International last night in the RDS. With 4,000 people on the cancellation list, Chomsky certainly holds a massive appeal in this country. Love him or hate him, there is no doubt he stirs debate and taps into the minds of many beyond the academic elite.

Just after 7pm Prof Chomsky received rapturous applause when he arrived on stage to begin his lecture entitled, "The War on Terror". He began by defining the term 'terror' as "the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature...through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear" and he then went on to say "The primary concern should naturally be to take measures to alleviate the threat, which has been severe in the past and will be even more so in the future." This set the tone for the night in which he outlined the threat of terror in the past, how terrorism has been executed, in his opinion predominantly by the U.S. and how today America and its allies continue to be the main protagonist of terrorism in the world. Throughout he quoted from various sources and cited numerous examples to reiterate his statements.

Quickly he went on to outline how American foreign policy and various aggressive military intervention led by the U.S since the end of World War 2, constituted illegal terror acts as defined during the Nuremburg Tribunals. He highlighted examples in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Iran and Iraq. He then discussed in detail the various means by which America has managed to render useless International law and the power of the UN by its refusal to sign up to a host of treaties and by its persistent vetoing of a wide variety of motions at the UN Security Council. Prof Chomsky also highlighted the hypocrisy of American foreign policy, for example, its support for Saddam Hussein during the 80's when providing him with conventional and biological warfare and subsequently justifying its pre-emptive war on the basis that Saddam held weapons of mass destruction.

He cited a number of reports and studies, both independent and within the Bush administration, which showed that, rather than alleviating the threat of terror, attacking Iraq would actually perpetuate the problem. Britain and Tony Blair's alliance in particular with the US came in for repeated criticism. At one point he described Blair as America's "pillion rider" . In responding to a question from the floor he also suggested that Ireland may be complicit in US war crimes by allowing the US army to use Shannon Airport in its war in Iraq.

Throughout he spoke clinically and with precision as you would expect from a professor of linguistics, even if he is 77. However, I would not describe him as a powerful speaker but one could not argue with the manner and clarity in which he put his argument across. A major disappointing factor was the lack of critical debate during the Q & A. Mostly, the questions came from people with similar views to Chomsky, most notably from Richard Boyd Barrett of the anti-war movement. He predictably brought up the issue of American flights through Shannon. Other topics raised in the Q&A session included: proliferation of nuclear arms; Americas intentions regarding an exit strategy from Iraq; the West's dependency on oil and a comment from a self-proclaimed 'anarchist paper boy' who suggested that capitalism is the root of all evil. He may well be right.