Index

Plato’s Beard » Pomo

Plato’s Beard » Pomo

Plato’s Beard » Pomo

This is the second (and final) part of my response to Berube's characterisation ("pack of lies") of Chomsky's writing on the NATO attack on Yugoslavia. You can read Part 1 by following this link.

Here again is Berube quoting Chomsky (this is the text that Berube calls a pack of lies):

My original response dealt with the purely logical/analytical aspect of Berube's response to the above and how this response did not constitute a refutation. Here I want to go a bit further and read into Chomsky (which if done carefully, is not an unfair thing to do, given that we do not communicate in formal languages).

There are two angles from which we can approach Chomsky. One of them is what I recommend based on his voluminous writing and his own words. In this reading, Chomsky concentrates his criticism on the powerful: state and corporate action. He documents historical record, standard sources, and offers fairly straightforward reasoning to derive his conclusions. He has explicitly stated, many times over, the reasons for his concentration on certain things (U.S action, for instance) as opposed to others (say the actions of Cory Smith, the school bully at PS 132). Not only can he say more about his country of residence (for what should be obvious reasons) and effect change, but also it coincidentally happens to be the most powerful one in the world today (and therefore impacts the world in a larger scale for the same bad behaviour). The context, therefore in which to read (the quoted text) is this: if some entity exercises its power, what are the facts, the stated reasons and justifications, the result, and how do these match up. This I will call either the parsimonious or sceptical attitude.

The second angle, employed consistently by the right, and now by these segments of the left, is one which starts with the question of Chomsky's motives. The next step is a shortcut to examine his record and conclude that he is "anti-American". It follows then that what Chomsky writes serves this interest (or some similar ideological commitment) and one has to do no more than wait for his commitment to trip up his reasoning.

With the latter attitude, the quoted text reads so: given we believe that Chomsky thinks America is always wrong, Chomsky is clutching at whatever he can get, even to the extent of defending Milosevic (let us set aside how such reasoning is peppered with all sorts of assumptions of mental states). Chomsky uses this or that evidence to show that Milosevic was guiltless and the U.S and allies had no justification.

The analysis here is at best naive in that it looks for a coincidence between the state of the world (Kosovo) and the U.S-NATO story and once found (in one way or another) derides anyone who questions U.S action. The coincidence, it should be obvious (but isn't!), does not imply any justification. This we can charitably call the naive attitude.

By the parsimonious attitude things look significantly different: the U.S/NATO acted in a particular manner, and justified the action with some claims. The claim was not just that atrocities were afoot in Kosovo, but that they knew (in the sense of having a record) of such atrocities. Chomsky asks the simple question, giving them the benefit of the doubt, after the end of the NATO action: where is that record? One good place to look for that record is the charges filed. So there he looks. And he finds (and is not refuted on that point by Berube) that the evidence/record is events that happened after the event! What is worse, Chomsky rationally suggests, is that it should have been known that these events would occur as a consequence of the attack. Then Chomsky wonders: could this then be one of the reasons for the attack: to produce the necessary data? ("There is a reason for that").

He then points out that the charges against Milosevic reach back into earlier history. Once again, he asks, what of the events implied in these charges? Are they documented? He offers one fairly official source (the Danish government) and finds that they found a different conclusion than what the charges imply.

Chomsky's argument can be posed as a call to judgement of NATO action:

Let us give all the leeway possible to the naive attitude:

There is one point where Chomsky seems to make a statement:

How do we read this? Is Chomsky saying that irrespective of the US/NATO story and their justifications/evidence, there was in his opinion no atrocities committed by Milosevic and Yugoslavia in Kosovo? This would be the harshest reading of Chomsky but even here Chomsky does not wave his hands in the air. He goes back to those he is questioning and their own findings: the British parliamentary report that found most of the crimes to be attributable to the KLA.

Note that in all of this, to call Chomsky incorrect (let alone a liar) one has to show that his reasoning of that time was wrong i.e., his justification for his point is either factually or logically wrong, or there were other facts he had in possession (or could have easily obtained) that should have led him to the opposite conclusion. But this harsh reading doesn't gel with Chomsky's general style (which I think he has stated many times): doesn't matter much what I think, what can we conclude from what we know?

Let us go down that path, nonetheless. What else has Chomsky written on Kosovo? Here is him quoting the WSJ:

It is clear from this that Chomsky does not suppress the notion that the war in Kosovo was cruel. Rather, the line below makes it clear (as I have stated above) that he is concerned with the NATO justification:

Finally, it is utterly childish to ask that Chomsky speak to every issue and to every aspect of each issue. There is no real "A-Ha" moment in turning on him with the question: what do you say of the poor Albanians? Nothing! Shame!