March 28, 2004

NOAM CHOMSPIRASKY

I stand to be corrected on this, but Noam Chomsky seems to be suggesting that coverage of US deaths in Iraq is designed to somehow increase support for the Illegal Unilateral Invasion:

There's a lot of focus on the American death toll but personally I think that's partly propaganda exaggeration. Polls have demonstrated time and time again that Americans are willing to accept a high death toll - although they don't like it, they're willing to accept it - if they think it's a just cause.

Beats me. Of course, when Cambodia was being erased by the Khmer Rouge, Noam had another body-count theory:

Allegations of genocide are being used to whitewash Western imperialism, to distract attention from the `institutionalized violence' of the expanding system of subfascism and to lay the ideological basis for further intervention and oppression.

Those pesky “allegations”. They haunted Pol Pot to the grave.

Posted by Tim Blair at March 28, 2004 06:01 PM
Comments

Why is it that Chomsky's blather always sounds like Stalin-era Soviet propaganda?

Oh, wait...

Posted by: Spiny Norman at March 28, 2004 at 06:07 PM

As Marc Miyake of Abode of Amritas has pointed out, Chomsky's linguistic "theory" is structured in such a way that all facts support it. It doesn't matter what the facts are, they always support his theory.

Exactly the same applies to his political "theory": He is always right according, no matter what the reality is. And you can't prove him wrong, because he will only ever talk about motivations, and will never discuss events.

The fifth ideology of the apocalypse, along with Greens, Commies, Fascists and Islamists: Post-Modernists.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 28, 2004 at 10:23 PM

Oops:

He is always right according to his own theory

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 28, 2004 at 10:30 PM

I like the part about the US constructing "the world's largest embassy." Oooh, how scary! An embassy! Which might even have spies in it! And the military might stick around a few years. How awful, since we clearly have no interests in the middle east that require intelligence gathering and an intimidating military presence. How sad that the M.E. will be crushed under the iron heel of freedom the way Europe was for 60 years.

And notice how he tries to spin that yes, while Russia France and Germany may have supported Saddam a teensy bit, it was Britain and the US "all the way through." I think there's a linguistic term for that-- oh yes. A "lie."

But I do like the idea of bringing to justice everyone who was responsible for the "murderous sanctions regime." Yes, let's put the whole antiwar movement on trial!

Posted by: Mike G at March 29, 2004 at 12:12 AM

thanks for the Cambodia link.
Chomsky is indeed the world master of the art of Historical revisionism. He brings new meaning to the phrase " the ends justify the means".
one cannot help wandering if his endorsement of Faurisson's holocaust revisionism was not the recognition of one master for another.
Theory is more important than truth and so when truth clashes with theory it is truth that must be rewritten and not theory.
The killing fields was the film that first woke me up to the brainwashing i had suffered at the hands of such academics.

Posted by: davo at March 29, 2004 at 03:43 AM

Thanks for the links, Tim. It is a cultural & academic scandal that Noam Chomsky’s name remains yet insufficiently linked publicly with the names of Pol Pot & the Khmer Rouge.

Posted by: ForNow at March 29, 2004 at 05:41 AM