7 décembre 1941

December 7, 1941, the date of the attack on Pearl Harbor, is invoked by Noam Chomsky (interviewee) as a misleading comparison for September 11. The distinction he draws is geographical and political: Pearl Harbor’s targets were military bases on U.S. colonies, while September 11 marked the first attack, or even threat, to the United States’ national territory since the War of 1812. In Chomsky’s account, that reversal—not the scale or character of the violence—is what made September 11 historically unprecedented for the country.

The comparison with Pearl Harbor

Chomsky notes that many commentators likened the September 11 attacks to Pearl Harbor, but rejects the analogy as misleading. On December 7, 1941, military bases were attacked in two U.S. colonies, neither of which, in his account, was part of the national territory. He adds that Americans often call Hawaii a territory, whereas he describes it as a colony. The comparison therefore turns on the difference between an attack on military installations outside the national territory and an attack on the territory itself.

A reversal in the direction of violence

The date gains significance within Chomsky’s wider historical contrast. He describes the United States as having used force across surrounding regions and, especially during the preceding century, across much of the world, with an enormous toll of victims. Against that history, he characterizes September 11 as the first time the guns were pointed in the opposite direction. December 7, 1941, is not presented as an equivalent precedent, but as the comparison that clarifies why the later attacks represented a dramatic change in the direction and location of violence.

Historical scope and limits

Chomsky places the distinction alongside a broader argument about imperial history: the United States had experienced violence in conflicts abroad and attacks on colonial possessions, but, he argues, had not previously faced an attack on its national territory since the War of 1812. The reference to December 7 thus helps separate familiar descriptions of wartime attack from the specific claim being made about September 11. Its function is analytical rather than commemorative: it exposes what the analogy leaves out and locates the historical rupture in the choice of targets.