Chomsky, Bloody Chomsky: A Profile in Complexity

Note the prevarication in the second example, similar to his previous juxtaposition of the Balkans and East Timor. Israel simply bombed the poor civilians out of their homes with no cause whatsoever, in attacks reminiscent of Vietnam; Syria apparently did something similar, but in its case we are dealing with intrigue too complex for the same forceful denunciation. Again, sometimes a corpse is not a corpse, nor a refugee a refugee. According to Chomsky, Israel did not even invade a country, it simply killed or expelled people from West Asia, while Syria got involved in Lebanon’s civil strife, a rhetorical device I spoke of earlier. that the author has elsewhere critiqued. Also, though Syria apparently caused more refugees, Chomsky’s language at first seems to frame Israel’s actions more dramatically - a quarter million versus several hundred thousand. To speak Chomskyan, I would say that he seems to bear out two forms of state oppression - Nefarious (as in Indonesia or Israel, U.S. clients) and Complex (Syria or Serbia, former Soviet allies).

Chomsky’s immediate comparison of the World Trade Center attacks to Clinton’s rocketing of Somalia’s Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in 1998 followed in this vein: The terrorist attacks were major atrocities. In scale they may not reach the level of many others, for example, Clinton’s bombing of the Sudan with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and killing unknown numbers of people. So, they were both major atrocities. Good enough, get that out of the way and then explain the real atrocity, a bombing with no credible pretext (are we to assume that bin Laden had a credible pretext?) that killed unknown numbers of people - unlike the 9/11 attacks, whose death toll was apparently clear to Chomsky on 9/12.

Indeed, as much as Chomsky has made a living as a critic of American power, his most extreme and strange animus has always been reserved for Israel, which he glibly refers to as a U.S. military base (even though one can think of many comparable U.S. clients about which Chomsky has never written a 500-page book). Consider this passage from Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians:

Shortly after Israel announced its magnanimity in agreeing to a partial withdrawal from Lebanon under the conditions reviewed, the USSR announced that Kabul has expressed its readiness, in agreement with the USSR, for withdrawal of the total, limited Soviet contingent from [Afghan] territory and even expressed their willingness to give a timetable in this regard. The USSR is of course prepared to withdraw completely in conformity with the wishes of the legitimate government of Afghanistan, though there remains the problem of guaranteeing nonintervention in Afghanistan from the territories of other states, intervention which is taking place every day, which should be stopped, the Soviet spokesman asserted - referring to intervention by U.S.-backed guerillas based in Pakistan, who carry out violence and disruption. We are all supposed to be deeply impressed (427).