another instance of chomsky carefully putting forward a cover story to conceal what he must know to be the truth, namely that islamic extremism is the US's gladio plan b, after ultra-nationalism which was gladio plan a

Concern about political Islam is just like concern about any independent development. Anything that’s independent you have to have concern about because it might undermine you. In fact, it’s a little ironic, because traditionally the US and Britain have by and large strongly supported radical Islamic fundamentalism, not political Islam, as a force to block secular nationalism, the real concern. So, for example, Saudi Arabia is the most extreme fundamentalist state in the world, a radical Islamic state. It has a missionary zeal, is spreading radical Islam to Pakistan, funding terror. But it’s the bastion of US and British policy. They’ve consistently supported it against the threat of secular nationalism from Nasser’s Egypt and Qasim’s Iraq, among many others. But they don’t like political Islam because it might become independent.

- Chomsky to David Barsamian, in Power Systems, published this month and excerpted here by Tom Engelhardt