[link|http://www.damianpenny.com/archives/002022.html|It's a little harder to get away with being a Chomsky in the Internet age]

Excerpt:

By now, everyone's read about St. Noam's Q&A with readers of The Independent, in which he says antisemitism in the West "scarcely exists now". Better writers than I, most notably Pejman, have fisked that one beyond recognition. But I'm disappointed no one else, to the best of my knowledge, has taken Chomsky to task for this one:

Where is the "silent genocide" you predicted would happen in Afghanistan if the US intervened there in 2001?
Mike Dudley, Ipswich

That is an interesting fabrication, which gives a good deal of insight into the prevailing moral and intellectual culture. First, the facts: I predicted nothing. Rather, I reported the grim warnings from virtually every knowledgeable source that the attack might lead to an awesome humanitarian catastrophe, and the bland announcements in the press that Washington had ordered Pakistan to eliminate "truck convoys that provide much of the food and other supplies to Afghanistan's civilian population".

All of this is precisely accurate and entirely appropriate. The warnings remain accurate as well, a truism that should be unnecessary to explain. Unfortunately, it is apparently necessary to add a moral truism: actions are evaluated in terms of the range of anticipated consequences.

Here's what St. Noam actually said on October 18, 2001:

After the first week of bombing, the New York Times reported on a back page inside a column on something else, that by the arithmetic of the United Nations there will soon be 7.5 million Afghans in acute need of even a loaf of bread and there are only a few weeks left before the harsh winter will make deliveries to many areas totally impossible, continuing to quote, but with bombs falling the delivery rate is down to 1/2 of what is needed. Casual comment. Which tells us that Western civilization is anticipating the slaughter of, well do the arithmetic, 3-4 million people or something like that. On the same day, the leader of Western civilization dismissed with contempt, once again, offers of negotiation for delivery of the alleged target, Osama bin Laden, and a request for some evidence to substantiate the demand for total capitulation. It was dismissed. On the same day the Special Rapporteur of the UN in charge of food pleaded with the United States to stop the bombing to try to save millions of victims. . . .

Well we could easily go on . . . .but all of that . . . .first of all indicates to us what\ufffds happening. Looks like what\ufffds happening is some sort of silent genocide. It also gives a good deal of insight into the elite culture, the culture that we are part of. It indicates that whatever, what will happen we don\ufffdt know, but plans are being made and programs implemented on the assumption that they may lead to the death of several million people in the next few months . . . .very casually with no comment, no particular thought about it, that\ufffds just kind of normal, here and in a good part of Europe. [emphasis added]

Strictly speaking, Chomsky didn't predict a "silent genocide". He said it was already happening.

As you can see, he basically pulled "the slaughter of 3-4 million people" out of his ass, with just a casual reference to a New York Times story which made no such claim. And now, two years later, he's trying to disown his dire predictions and say other people misled him. I call that cowardice.

And if we take Chomsky's response in The Independent at face value, it shows that he was simply repeating what he heard from "virtually every knowledgeable source" without applying even a hint of skepticism to it. In other words, the same allegation he levels at plebes like us.

If the Chomsky cultists were capable of thinking on their own instead of unquestioningly accepting everything their hero says, they'd be disappointed.

I say:

Chomsky chomps choad yet again. Reminiscent of Bert Russell's purported flip-flop on nuclear weapons. And the Fat Stubbly One's Payback Tuesday.