Chomsky's original quote:
Tom,
Thanks for the quote and the link to the full text of Chomsky's response to Hitchens. I assume the Chomsky response is to the Hitchens article in The Nation. If so, I've read that also.
I have no way to check Chomsky's factual assertions in this response; nor, for that matter, Hitchens' own facts in his article in The Nation. So I won't go there. However, I do have a couple of thoughts, for what they are worth.
1. Chomsky's point that any attempt to come to terms with the bombing of civilians needs to count not only the victims at the bombing site but also the consequences, in this case, patients in need of the drugs. Given Chomsky's known tendency to exaggerate, I would guess the numbers he advances are too large, but the structure of the argument sounds about right. Do you disagree?
2. Chomsky's reply to Hitchens raises the point of intentions. If one compares 9-11 to the Sudan bombing, it's clear that the first intended the harm it inflicted, the second did not, at least not on civilians. It was a mistake so admitted by everyone involved. Moreover, Chomsky notes that he has not argued that the Clinton folk did the bombing to obscure the Lewinsky business; but Hitchens is certain that's the reason it occured. I have to agree with Chomsky on this point; it's simply not possible to know, though given the numbers of actors involved and their worries that precisely those motives would be attributed to them, I doubt that was even a peripheral reason. As for Clinton himself, who knows.
John |
