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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 11:27 am Post subject: 200 of Chomsky's lies |
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It used to be 100. Paul Bogdanor has since updated it.
The top 200 Chomsky lies
Far too many to list here exhaustively. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 12:24 pm Post subject: |
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edit, see below
Last edited by On the other hand on Fri Dec 26, 2008 1:04 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 1:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
The Lie: Vietnam's crime of terminating the atrocities of Pol Pot was punished by a US-backed Chinese invasion, while the US turned to overt diplomatic and military support for the displaced Pol Pot regime...
The Truth: Vietnam did not invade Cambodia to halt Khmer Rouge atrocities but to impose an obedient dictatorship led by ex-Khmer Rouge officers. These new rulers enslaved 380, 000 peasants at the cost of 30, 000 lives. Western aid went to the non-communist forces of Son Sann and Prince Sihanouk, not to the defeated Pol Pot regime. As Cambodia specialist Nate Thayer wrote, there is "no credible evidence" that the US gave "any material aid whatsoever to the Khmer Rouge". |
1. I don't see where in the original quote Chomsky says that Vietnam's main purpose in the invasion was to end Pol Pol's atrocities. He just indicates that that's what did happen, and sarcastically calls it a crime(probably as a reference to western propaganda about the event).
2. The writer says that Hun Sen and Company "enslaved" the Cambodian peasants. Does this mean that Cambodian peasants had more freedom under the Khmer Rouge than they did under Hun Sen? That would be a rather original reading of that period in history. Funny how things in Cambodia have gotten even worse than they were during the killing fields, but we haven't heard anything about it.
3. re: 30, 000 lives snuffed out by Hun Sen. Were these all children, babies, and blind old nuns? Or does it include a few guys who might have died firing machine guns while shouting Khmer Rouge slogans?
4. The writer says that the US never gave material aid to the KR. Setting aside his pasting together of quotation fragments, my understanding is that the KR was in a formal alliance with Sihanouk and Son Sann, so is it really possible to regard aid given to one group as separate from the others?
Furthermore...
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But while the United States gave tens of millions of dollars in aid throughout the 1980's to Cambodian refugees, it orchestrated a complete program of sanctions against Cambodia because it was under Vietnamese occupation. And to insure that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge would fight the Vietnamese occupiers, the Carter Administration helped arrange continued Chinese aid.
''I encourage the Chinese to support Pol Pot,'' said Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser at the time. ''The question was how to help the Cambodian people. Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him, but China could.''
At the United Nations, the United States, along with most countries of Europe and Asia, gave the Cambodia seat to the Khmer Rouge Government by itself and, after 1983, in coalition with other anti-Vietnamese Cambodian groups.
All attempts even to describe the Khmer Rouge regime as genocidal were rejected by the United States as counterproductive to finding peace. Only in 1989, with the beginning of the Paris peace process, was the word genocide spoken in reference to a regime responsible for the deaths of more than a million people.
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So, it seems to me that the writer of the 200 Lies piece is kind of fetishizing the issue of direct military aid, in order to prove Chomsky a liar on narrow technical grounds.
The link is impossible to cut-and-paste, and I don't feel like typing things out, so this will probably be my only comment on an actual quote from the article.
http://tinyurl.com/9p2rp8 |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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OTOH,
Did the US give OVERT military or diplomatic support to the Khmer Rouge? It appears not.
Many more of Chomsky's misstatements, distortions, and inaccuracies here are less controversial. |
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moosehead
Joined: 05 May 2007
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| Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 5:48 pm Post subject: Re: 200 of Chomsky's lies |
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| Kuros wrote: |
It used to be 100. Paul Bogdanor has since updated it.
The top 200 Chomsky lies
Far too many to list here exhaustively. |
you know you might TELL PEOPLE IT'S A PDF FILE  |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 6:14 pm Post subject: |
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| N. Chomsky carries no credibility at all with any but my colleagues who stand on the far left. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 7:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Noam Chomsky followers are the same as the Raliens. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 7:30 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
| 4. The writer says that the US never gave material aid to the KR. Setting aside his pasting together of quotation fragments, my understanding is that the KR was in a formal alliance with Sihanouk and Son Sann, so is it really possible to regard aid given to one group as separate from the others...? |
KR exploited Sihanouk for a time, yes. But do you understand that the American govt intended to aid KR through Sihanouk and therefore approved in advance of all that followed? This is exactly the kind of nuance that N. Chomsky and his followers and emulators murder in their historical writing.
And, again, I have said this on the other thread: every single thing N. Chomsky has written on United States-Latin American relations betrays his complete ignorance of, and his obviously never having taken any time whatsoever to read about, the Inter-American System that emerged from the independence era forward. He merely and simplistically leaps from one high-profile, sensationalist event to the next (this or that coup), and reports them from the U.S.-centric perspective, and his people seem to just gobble it up uncritically.
This for example...
"[America has] opposed with tremendous ferocity any improvements in human rights, raise [sic] of living standards and democratization in Latin America. The very essence of American policy has been to increase massacre and repression."
is unmitigated garbage.
Last edited by Gopher on Fri Dec 26, 2008 9:28 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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manlyboy
Joined: 01 Aug 2004
Location: Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
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| Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 7:43 pm Post subject: |
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Many bemoan the U.S's "anti-intellectual streak", but I believe this is one of the things that has made it great. America has always recognised the danger of a powerful intellect in the hands of a pathological individual. (The Joker in The Dark Knight is the latest character in a long line of the evil genius archetype depicted in American film.)
Chomsky is a great example of how intellect and wisdom are completely different things. American culture has always recognised this. That's why in Europe Chomsky is a rock star, but in America he is a paranoid old crank relevant only to addle-brained academics and hollywoodenheads. In Europe his type wield great power, but in America their opinions are worth no more than Joe the Plumber's. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 8:40 pm Post subject: Re: 200 of Chomsky's lies |
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| Kuros wrote: |
It used to be 100. Paul Bogdanor has since updated it.
The top 200 Chomsky lies
Far too many to list here exhaustively. |
I remember reading the original 100. There was so much wrong with it, I didn't know where to start. Hats off to OTOH for at least bothering to address it. I can't be bothered to read the latest so called 'lies' as I was so unimpressed with the earlier ones. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 9:12 pm Post subject: Re: 200 of Chomsky's lies |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
It used to be 100. Paul Bogdanor has since updated it.
The top 200 Chomsky lies
Far too many to list here exhaustively. |
I remember reading the original 100. There was so much wrong with it, I didn't know where to start. Hats off to OTOH for at least bothering to address it. I can't be bothered to read the latest so called 'lies' as I was so unimpressed with the earlier ones. |
Ha ha. Boo hoo.
Yeah, I think about half of these might actually be lies, the others are distortions and inaccuracies. Again, always good to upset Big Bird.  |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 9:38 pm Post subject: |
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Er, yer...right. I'm very upset.   |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 10:17 pm Post subject: |
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Big_Bird: I agree that "lies" remains too strong a word. But N. Chomsky chronically exceeds the evidence -- and I am not certain that, with respect to United States-Latin American relations, he has ever even familiarized himself with it. Here is an example...
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| [America has] opposed with tremendous ferocity any improvements in human rights, raise [sic] of living standards and democratization in Latin America. The very essence of American policy has been to increase massacre and repression. |
At the Inter-American Conference in Colombia in 1948 -- the one which established the Organization of American States and codified FDR's "Good Neighbor Policy" (i.e., nonintervention, noninterference, and reciprocity) into international law, the Truman Administration declined to enter into any anticommunist alliances, bilateral or multilateral, with any Latin American govt. Many were seeking and even pressuring the United States govt to enter into such an alliance at this conference, Big_Bird.
The Department of State had advised Truman and his cabinet not to do so, however. Foggy Bottom foresaw "dangers�in possible bilateral or multilateral anti-Communist agreements�there would be many cases in which such anti-Communist agreements would be directed against all political opposition, Communist or otherwise, by dictatorial governments, with the inevitable result of driving leftist elements into the hands of the Communist organization."
Please add JFK, LBJ, and J. Carter to the list of those who complicate N. Chomsky's essentialism, as he articulates it, above. Sure, he can selectively cite the Bay of Pigs, the Dominican Republic, and then cite the Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan Administrations liberally -- especially the high-profile, sensationalist events -- from Guatemala to Chile to Central America. He indeed does this.
Again, this represents simplistic and sloppy, sloppy scholarship -- albeit effective antiAmerican propaganda. Nevertheless, this represents N. Chomsky's thinking and writing. |
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cangel
Joined: 19 Jun 2003
Location: Jeonju, S. Korea
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| Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2008 1:27 am Post subject: |
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| I've personally met Chomsky and spent 30 minutes after a lecture with him (small group of about 7). Never have I met someone so full of himself. He argues just to argue, much like some on this board. Regardless of if he actually believes in something, he thinks the measure of a man's intelligence is his ability to influence others. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2008 2:57 am Post subject: |
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Gopher wrote:
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| KR exploited Sihanouk for a time, yes. But do you understand that the American govt intended to aid KR through Sihanouk and therefore approved in advance of all that followed? |
If by "all that followed", you mean Year Zero and the killing fields, no, that's not what I'm referring to. I'm talking about the period after the KR was kicked out of power. |
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