Chomsky Backpedals on "Silent Genocide" in Afghanistan

by Anarcho Sun Jun 06, 2004 11:46

Seems to me that people are complaining that Noam Chomsky made a mistake. Wow, is that news? He is only human.

Barney writes:
"Old Noam makes a few mistakes along the way but the real problem with this charlatan is what he omit from his 'analysis'."

And as evidence links to James Donald's webpage. Not convincing. For those who don't know James, he is a well-known liar who absolutely hates Noam Chomsky.

Bordering on mad, James also really hates the left. Having discussed various issues with him I know how he regularly lies to "prove" his point, referencing books for "facts" which turn out not to be true.

In other words, a less than reliable source!

by Barney Sat Jun 05, 2004 15:47

Old Noam makes a few mistakes along the way but the real problem with this charlatan is what he omit from his "analysis".

by ? Sat Jun 05, 2004 12:54

Chomsky writes a lot. and talks a lot. Are you seriously prepared to dish him over one paragraph? I suppose that Mr Chomsky has good days and bad days, I'm sure he bloggs, I'm sure before the essay gets spellchecked and edited, there is loads of invective, and I'm sure he gets emotional. And thats cool, he's a very good writer, but he's not scripture.
= backpeddle away Mr Chomsky.
When a passing commentator has chalked even a tenth of the volume of work and text then they can have a go. Anyway on his linguistic side, Chomksy has since the 1960s been subject to accusations of inconsistency, yet it seems more of the same "begrudgery". Yep, he backtracks, but he does it well. He says "2+2=5" someone else says that's drivel. total bollox.
Noam goes off, thinks about it, next semestre comes back "2+2=4" AHA! now you've got it say all of them.

Great man. still I doubt he could admonish Bush with quite the same effect as the other great man Il Papa.

by R. Isible Sat Jun 05, 2004 00:43

I think your comment is completey devoid of any content and that you need to actually say what's "devastating". Otherwise I'm entitled to assume that you're full of it.

by Wavering Sat Jun 05, 2004 00:06

This is fairly devastating for Chomsky. I'm begininning to have my doubts about his reliability.

by ZXBarcalow Fri Jun 04, 2004 17:09

More disinformation from the desperate anti-chomsky brigade. I have actually been following this 'debate' about Chomsky's various alleged lies for quite some time now, and have noticed several things:

Firstly, critics of Chomsky very rarely attempt to counter his arguments -ie "Chomsky is wrong that the US is a terrorist state, and here is why..." or "When Chomsky says that there was a credible peaceful route that could have been tried in the Gulf Crisis in 1991 he is wrong because...".

Instead they throw insults or slander or bring up things he said years ago and distort them to try show that he got things wrong.

Insults and slander include accusing him of anti-semitism (apparently even jewish people like Chomsky can hate jews), Holocost denial (too absurd to detail here), and 'anti-americanism' because he criticises US foreign policy.

Alternatively they bring up old accusations like the Cambodia thing (mentioned in this post) that Chomsky has answered a million times, and which Chomsky and others have shown many many times to be complete bollocks. See here for example:

http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/albertnov97.htm

or alternatively you can go to the original text which has caused all this petty controversy -its a small paragraph in 'After the Cataclysm', also known as 'The Political Economy of Human Rights Volume 2'. I very much doubt that this self-styled thought policeman has even bothered to check it up.

Another accusation is the one put forward here that Chomsky, by repeating the warnings made by many NGOs that the Afghan Bombing campaign endangered milllions of lives, was wrong to voice those warnings because millions did not in fact die (instead the numbers were in the tens of thousands). By this logic it would be wrong to point out a DANGER sign to someone driving along a cliff edge, unless they actually go on to fall to their death!

According to this poster: "Chomsky... made the absurd leap that since aid shipments were being cut in half that the U.S. and its allies were planning to murder 3.5 million people."

Of course anyone who has read 'Power and Terror', '9-11', or any of the other stuff Chomsky has written that deals with the bombing of Afghanistan knows that nowhere does he say that "the U.S. and its allies were PLANNING TO MURDER 3.5 million people."

It really does show the desperation that is caused among apologists for US crimes by the analysis Chomsky makes that in order to counter such offensive arguments they have to go digging up the same old discreditted misinterpretations of Chomsky's work, year in year out. This is undoubtedly far easier for these people than actually trying to address his arguments, or in fact than thinking for themselves at all.

by hmmm Fri Jun 04, 2004 14:13

AFGHAN MASSACRE tells of the horrific forced journey undertaken by thousands of prisoners who surrendered to America’s Afghan allies after the siege of Kunduz.

Bundled into containers, the lucky ones were shot within minutes. The rest suffered an appalling road trip lasting up to four days, clawing at the skin of their fellow prisoners as they licked perspiration and even drank blood from open wounds.

Up to 3,000 now lie buried in a mass grave, but this was NOT a simple matter of Afghans killing Afghans.

AFGHAN MASSACRE tells of how American Special Forces took control of the operation, re-directed the containers carrying the living and dead into the desert and stood by as survivors were shot and buried.

And it details how the Pentagon lied to the world in order to cover up its role in the greatest atrocity of the entire Afghan War. This is the documentary they did not want you to see.

from
http://www.acftv.com/more.asp?id=271&catid=5

Video sample at...
http://www.acftv.com/streaming/wmedia.asp?stream_id=4