This post is absurd. Have you got anything to contribute besides ad hominem nonsense? What does it matter how much effort Kamm devotes to criticizing Chomsky? Who cares if he is "obsessed?" Why don't you respond to his actual criticism instead of talking about how often he makes it? This is absolutely intellectually worthless. Are the only things that you, and the readers, can muster general accusations of being a Zionist or a Blairite etc? Can't you come up with any substantive criticism?

 

Pathetic.

I was surpised by this.  Just because people hate me for being pro-Israel doesnt mean they should distort Fisk's work or history.  Fisk does a great service by pointing out that 300,000 Palestinians were forcibly deported from Kuwait in 1992.  This was under-reported in the media at the time.  In addition it is a fact that the origins of these Palestinians is from the 1950s when men such as Arafat immigrated to Kuwait.  I dont know why this is worth denying, it doesnt hurt or help Israel either way.  Palestinians came to Kuwait because Kuwait offered them jobs in the 1950s.  Many Palestinians who had fled were literate and hard working and many considered immigration to the Americas but Kuwait offered a great opportunity to stay close to home.

Any biography of Arafat will give this very interesting story of his time in Kuwait.  In addition it is also true that by throwing out the Palestinians in 1992, because the Palestinians were percevied by the Kuwaiti royal family as having collaborated with Saddam in 1990, they were deported.  Now Kuwait is over-flowing in foreign workers from Pakistan and India and elsewhere, many of whome are treated like little more than slaves.

 So I dont get it, what do people like you gain by distorting the role of Palestinians in the Kuwaiti economy?  Fisk did in fact write a whole chapter on this in his book.  if you have evidence that I made this up, or that Palestinians didnt go to Kuwait in the 1950s please email me at sfrantzman@hotmail.com because I would like to know what the other side of the story is.

 Seth J. Frantzman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just becuase people hate Israel and Zionism I dont understand the connection to also denying that Italy saved many Jews during the Holocaust.  I understand that in the hatred of Zionism one must connect it to Nazism and Fascism as like-minded ideologies, but ignoring history is, in my opinion, stupid.  Mussolini passed race laws that mirrored the Nazis in 1938.  Mussolini was also a friend of Arab nationalism and he called himself the 'sword of Islam' on a visit to Libya.  However during the war Italian troops in Yugoslavia, France and Libya did save Jews.  This is a fact.  Mussolini himself ordered Italian troops to delay German requests for deporting Jews.  This is why not one Italian Jew was murdered by the Nazis in Italy before Mussolini's ouster in 1943.  I am sorry but just because you hate Zionism doesnt mean you have to deny that many Italians helped Jews during the Holocaust.  There is no connection to Zionism.  You think people like me defend Mussolini because he was a fascist but I defend him because Italians, on his orders, in Slovenia and France saved Jews when the Croatian Uskazi and French collaborationists came to take them. 

So I'm sorry, I am glad that Italian Jews survived in the second world war.  This is, by the way, also the case with Spain where Franco did not deport Jews to Hitler.  Just because fascism was right wing doesnt mean every fascist was a racist and a nazi, there was a difference, just as there is a difference between Nazism and some of the many Germans who were not Nazis.   

 

 

 It is easy to categorise Kamm-he is a an intellectual snob and a Zionist of the worst kind. He claims to be a leftist yet he supports the clerical fascists in Israel and the United States and he is snobbishly contemptuous of critics of the illegal war in Iraq. Unfortunately, there are plenty of Kamms in the Labour Party and they have helped make a once great party into a vehicle for dishonest careerists. My critique of Kamm and the Blairites is that they are not only dishonest in a political sense, but, that, they are utterly contemptuous of anyone who dares to oppose and expose their anti-socialist and neo-fascist opinions. In the 1980s these people would have joined the Tory Party.  posted by Sean Connor                               

The only primer that you need, Zubub is one in elementary human morality - likely the "Zionist" desease has eaten away your functioning brain cells. So how about answering the questions? I suppose this is how this thread would end.

All I can suggest at this point is a reading comprehension primer, although admittedly in some cases this has limited value, and an introduction to deductive logic, which is offered in most universities. I sincerely wish my interlocutor the best of luck.

So tell me, Zubub that opposing origins of slavery should be more important to human rights activists than actually stopping murder and killing that they can realistically stop? The former argument has historical value, the latter has a MORAL value. If you understand that murder and aggression is wrong, do you stick your head in the sand instead of showing REAL courage by opposing your own government's atrocities, if need be? The fact is that the citizens can stop the crimes of their own states (the more democratic the state, the better the chance) and have NO CHANCE to stop atrocities of other states. Are you really so dumb as not to see this? By studying the atrocities of the ancient Persians you will allow your criminal government to commit another genocidal act of mass murder like Fallujah and then pretend that you acted in a morally responsible manner? If you have the moral of a Nazi, perhaps you thnk that you did. DOn't forget that that nearly the ENTIRE WORLD views the actions of the USA as WAR CRIMES - which can be stopped by people who will not retreat into the study of ancient history. By your own logic, Zubub, Germans who opposed the Holocaust whould have studied ancient Visigoth history instead of doing everything they can do save the Jews? You are truly pathetic.

"Why don't we now start opposing the atrocities of the Roman empire?" Trivially, we should indeed acknowledge that slavery and torture as widely practiced in Ancient Rome were wrong. But obviously human rights activists should devote only limited time to atrocities of the distant past, mainly to learn lessons from them. The point, presumably shared by my interlocutor, is that one should give priority to ongoing injustice where one can still make a difference. His error (following guru Chomsky, though for different motivations) is in thinking that that means one should protest only the injustices of one's own side or its allies. That does not follow. To the extent that activism can affect U.S. policy - a premise presumably shared by all U.S. activists - then it also has the potential to affect U.S. policy (in a superpower class of its own) regarding any major world injustice: Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia, or Afghanistan, where latest news describes how Taliban militants murdered and beheaded a school headmaster in front of his wife and children (who were forced to watch) because the school admits girls. Most Afghans - certainly if you count women – applaud the routing of the Taliban as the best opportunity for Afghanistan in half a century. Incidentally, it seems that my interlocutor either thinks Abu Ghraib is in Afghanistan or continues to be innocent of elementary logic, as his second sentence is a non sequitur.

American "liberation" of Afghanistan? How about the Abu Ghraib human rights abuses, Guantanamo, illegal NSA spying, multitude of others? There are plenty of choices where you COULD make a substantive difference rather than condemning Chinese or Burmese human rights abuses which you have no control over. My question still stands - what would you think of a Chinese dissident (OK, let's change the atrocity) - what would you think of a Chinese dissident who would spend his time condemning human rights abuses in Taiwan, and refusing to take a stand on the repression of Tibetans? Or a Syrian intellectual who is condemning human rights abuses in Israel? To criticize others while ignoring your own crimes only makes you look noble in the eyes of others who were unfortunately either brainwashed, or complicit. This is rather a cowardly stand, and says nothing for any genuine concern for other human beings, regardless of official dogma - and it is exactly what you are saying now. You either do not understand that to make a REAL difference, at least in a democratic society, you should oppose the atrocities that you have some ability to stop, and not atrocities of others - unless you are a hypocrite - which I suspect many have already noticed. Why don't we now start opposing the atrocities of the Roman empire? It's your call, and your conscience. If you refuse to see that US has committed an unspeakable war crime in destroying Iraq, you are either a propagandist of a fool.

Zionism wasn't discussed anywhere in this thread until Larouche fanatic RobinHood introduced his favourite obsession. (Does he agree with Larouche that "the Zionists" were behind 9/11 too?). I was simply answering Laughing Man about an element in his hero worship of Chomsky, who, by the way, claims to identify with Zionism (if RobinHood were not so innocent of elementary logic he'd realise his problem was with Chomsky not me). As for his little homily about an imagined Chinese dissident, not least among its peculiar features is the absurd presupposition of the dissident that China could do good by interfering with the American liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban. Whatever one thinks of that liberation (or call it what you want), what it has to do with whether the U.S. should pressure China on human rights is probably only intelligible to the Larouche logician. For Z-Net's dubious sake I'll attempt to leave it at that.

Let me put it to you this way. Suppose a Chinese dissident said that "in today's interconnected world, China could do much good in opposing US atrocities in Afghanistan or Iraq", rather than taking a stand on the Tibetan issue. Would you think that this "dissident"'s priorities are in order? What you are doing is EXACTLY that. As for the Zionist's repeated attempts to deflect criticism of Israel by pointing to other atrocities - this is a principled stand of a hypocrite.

Opposing Chinese policy in Tibet is "a favourite Zionist topic"? Hey, maybe it's not Z-Net's fault that a Lyndon Larouche lunatic has invaded its website, but when Peterson actually encourages this "RobinHood" character by inviting attention to his "important" postings, does it not say something about the quality of this sect?

Zubub, this proves once for all that your comments basically reveal your bias in your own selfish interests, anyone else be damned. You simply do not care that Palestinians were NOT immigrants into their own land - you did not and CAN NOT provide any sources to back up that ludicrous claim. You claim that by opposing Chinese policy in Tibet (a favorite Zionist topic) can do "as much good" as the US "stopping" Serbian genocide. You don't even know that the US was not, did not and was never intereted in stopping any genocide, in fact it facitly supported one in Rwanda. You are a tool, a hyopcrite whose only allegiance is to preserve your own petty perch in society. You are no humanitarian.

To David Peterson: Thanks for your reply. I of course check the "notify me of follow-up comments" box repeatedly; I used to receive the notifications; suddenly they stopped. If the problem is indeed technical, sorry for jumping to conclusions, but it does seem very odd (it is I who needs to be "charitable" for the moment). (No idea what Robin Hood is sarcastically blathering about, but will let it go). Laughing Man: just saw your reply of Dec 20, which I wasn't notified of. You say Chomsky “has more or less created the anti-capitolist (sic), anti-slaughter movement”. I'm afraid your hero worship would be embarrassing to every long-time human rights activist. Chomsky has created no movement, though arguably has manoeuvered to take one over. Moreover, his record as a public intellectual is not wholly admirable. He did useful work in publicising the genocide of Timor, but shamefully minimises, apologises for, or denies genocides and atrocities committed by non-U.S. allies. He went out of his way to minimise the Pol Pot genocide in Cambodia. He consistently opposed Nato intervention to end the genocide in Bosnia while denying, minimising, and excusing the horrendous atrocities committed there. He often hides behind the claim that as a U.S. citizen he focuses on the U.S. and its allies, but this is lame in today's interconnected world; the U.S. could do much good by opposing Chinese policy in Tibet or Burmese repression, as it did in stopping Serbian genocide.

I guess it one of two things: Either Zubub is just too radical and inquiring with his probing prose so as to practically invite a conspiracy to squelch his fierce "independence of mind" by delaying his lightning-fast analysis, or he simply clicked on the wrong box.

Friends: Odd. I've received "update"---or "Someone just responded to the entry"---notices, both to "Zubub's" most recent post (December 26 at 11:13 PM) as well as to "RobinHood's" (December 27 at 05:42 AM). "Zubub": Are you sure you haven't unchecked the "Notify me of follow-up comments" - box that appears at the bottom of each page of Comments? "Zubub" and everyone else should understand that I will never interfere with comments posted to my blog. (About which, please see "For Christ's sake!" ZNet, July 17, 2005.) So, perhaps one or more charitable interpretations of "Zubub's" complaint are in order? Perhaps "Zubub" inadvertently unchecked the "Notify me of follow-up comments" - box? Or, perhaps the notification system itself simply isn't working properly?

Zubub - what you wrote proves without aby doubt that you have either not read the material relevant to this blog or you have severely misunderstood the relatively simple concepts described herein. I suggest you read the relevant material before posting - your posts are obviously not indicative of someone with your (acknowledged) the rarest of rare very high caliber of independence of thought (as displayed in this blog, at least). "Zubub" wrote: "Incidentally, apparently because I do not share the official fawning view of Chomsky I've been cut off from notifications of further comments (an old tactic of Stalinist front groups of the Thirties who would “forget” to send info about meetings to insufficiently compliant or too independent-minded members), so apologies if I don't see your reply immediately." I am perplexed, to say the least, that I may not be receiving your replies immediately. The jist of response below was also posted on another blog here, incidentally. I must confess that when I came across your posts for the first time, I was struck at your so near total apocalyptic independence of mind. It is so indeed a dirty Stalinist trick to cut you off from receiving notifications, as the editors here probably did when they could not at least subdue your fiercely unique independence of thought. It's now clear as day. Oh Zubub, by the way did you press the top or the bottom link when clicking through to the blog from the notification email? Just wondering.

Thanks, joshd (Dec. 23), for the quotes from Kamm. I agree with you that the quoted remarks on Chile and Salvador appear on their face objectionable. The Genoa quote is too out of context for any opinion to be offered - you provided your own context but it's not clear from the quote whether Kamm is even discussing that. On Brocke's interview, however, Kamm is primarily correct, as it happens. Brocke was wrong to attribute to Chomsky putting "massacre" (at Srebrenica) in quotations marks, but Ed Herman unabashedly does so, while Chomsky puts "genocide" in quotes with reference to Bosnia, arguably much more despicable; meanwhile the host of this blog, Dave Peterson, unabashedly praised Ed Herman's massacre-denial as "powerful analysis", while Chomsky praised Diana Johnstone's massacre-denial (Srebrenica) AND genocide-denial (Bosnia as a whole), as "serious and important". So why all the fuss? The Guardian more or less hit the nail on the head. But thanks for citing facts in a civil manner; so rare on this website. Incidentally, apparently because I do not share the official fawning view of Chomsky I've been cut off from notifications of further comments (an old tactic of Stalinist front groups of the Thirties who would “forget” to send info about meetings to insufficiently compliant or too independent-minded members), so apologies if I don't see your reply immediately.

Another piece from Pervanic who most definetly has a political agenda http://www.bosnia.org.uk/bosrep/report_format.cfm?articleid=830&reportid=153 In this one he calls for the abolition of Republika Srpska:" By failing to nullify the legitimacy of Republika Srpska, we continue to oppress these men's victims" and compares the existence of that weak part of a NATO colony to NAZI Germany's Occupied Europe.Talk about historical revisionism. The Bosnian Institute which distributed this piece also has as one of its important members Dr. Marko Attila Hoare.

Dimitri: Thank you for calling this weblink to our attention: "Speeches by Kemal Pervanic, survivor of the Omerska concentration camp, Bosnia," May 15, 2005 (as posted to the ProtectDarfur.org website). Along with the earlier posts by "RobinHood" and "Joshd," some very interesting cross-currents appear to be at work here. Not sure how to characterize them, however. Though you will all notice that Kemal Pervanic is described as a "survivor of the Omerska concentration camp."

A bit off the topic of Kamm but I notice that Kemal Pervanic, the Bosnian Muslim survivor whose letter was paired with Chomsky's, is not only supporting the offical line on Bosnia but also urging Great Power intervention in Sudan http://www.protectdarfur.org/Pages/Index_Files/Demonstration_Files/Kemal_Pervanic_Speeches.htm I wonder what his story really is.

There is an "Anti-Chomsky Blog", where Kamm and others regularly get together and discuss "strategies" on how to "deal with" Chomsky. http://www.antichomsky.blogspot.com/ Here is another one. I have not seen any rational arguments in either one of these. http://www.leftwatch.com/

I just recalled to that somebody had built a "Kammbot". It uses some of his most common phrases and randomly links them together. It really could save him a lot of time writing his blog: http://kammbot.netfirms.com/cgi-bin/kammbot.pl

"why don't you cite directly just one thing this horrible Kamm has said that you disagree with" "THERE IS NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER THAT THE US WAS DIRECTLY INVOLVED IN THE 1973 COUP [in Chile]" - afnc Oct 2 2001 -------------- "The US was entirely innocent of the economic chaos of Chile" - afnc Oct 4 2001 -------------- "a brave attempt by an elected civilian government to protect the people from the fascist death squads linked to ARENA and the fascist death squads of the FMLN" - describing the murderous US supported dictatorship of El Salvador in the 1980s - afnc Feb 13 2002 ------------------ "Go, Italian police." - afnc Nov 30 2002 Praising Italian police at Genoa who used fascist salutes, had swastikas and pictures of Mussolini on the walls of their stations, and forced protestors to shout fascist slogans and sing fascist songs... -------------- And more recently: "I thought Emma Brockes's interview with Chomsky was the most constructive and thoughtful exchange with him I have yet seen." [And he claims to have seen them all. This was the best.] ------------------- "I thought Emma Brockes's interview with Chomsky in The Guardian was a fine piece of work, and I wish I'd done it." - Oliver Kamm - Nov 13 2005 ------------------- As far as "explain to us why you think it's false", no comment necessary.

Jesus, has this Kamm actually criticised Chomsky many times? The low-life, reactionary bastard. Just incredible, actually criticising Chomsky. Maybe RobinHood should lead a Salvadoran-style death squad and make him "disappear", as he said he'd like to do to me. Or else, try bombarding any website he appears at with postings accusing him of being a "liar" (as he does to me, without, of course, being able even to read correctly, let alone refute, a single thing I said); after all, if you criticise Chomsky you must be a liar (in your sectarian little world). But tell me, Peterson, why don't you cite directly just one thing this horrible Kamm has said that you disagree with, and explain to us why you think it's false. I'm still waiting for you to tell this website whether you think there was a massacre in Srebrenica, given that you praised Ed Herman's denial of such as "powerful analysis".

What about an open letter?

Joshd: Thank you for these illuminating comments on Ollie Kamm (December 23 at 05:29 AM; and December 23 at 05:52 AM). They jibe quite nicely with the earlier comments by "RobinHood" (December 19 at 09:02 PM; and December 21 at 03:18 PM). Both of you have helped otherwise unsuspecting, innocent readers to see the labors of Ollie Kamm, David Aaronovitch, and Francis Wheen with respect to The Guardian and Noam Chomsky, as well as those of Ollie Kamm alone with respect to Prospect and Noam Chomsky, in a deservedly harsh and malignant light.

"Chomsky Answers Guardian," as posted to ZNet, November 13, 2005 "Corrections and clarifications: The Guardian and Noam Chomsky," as posted to The Guardian, November 17, 2005 "Open Door: The readers' editor on ... a complaint about a controversial correction," Ian Mayes, The Guardian, December 12, 2005 "Global Public Intellectuals Poll," David Herman, Prospect, November, 2005 "For and Against Chomsky," Robin Blackburn, Ollie Kamm, Prospect, November, 2005 "We are all complicit," Noam Chomsky, Prospect, January, 2006. (For the full-length version of the same letter, as posted to the Chomsky.Info website) "Oliver Kamm," ZNet, December 12, 2005

You can see some of his output from the afnc newsgroup in the google archives: http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=&num=10&scoring=r&hl=en&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_ugroup=alt.fan.noam-chomsky&as_usubject=&as_uauthors=oliver+kamm&lr=&as_drrb=q&as_qdr=&as_mind=1&as_minm=1&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=23&as_maxm=12&as_maxy=2005&safe=off His posts date back to 1998 (though they could have begun earlier and just were not archived, i don't know), and continue into 2003, when he suddenly stopped posting to afnc. I think this was roughly when he started his blog. I'm assuming he stopped posting in afnc to start his blog and pretend to be a respectable writer for Prospect magazine. On the newsgroup he had the problem of myself and several others having the ability to directly point out his distortions and falsehoods directly under his postings. The blog format offered him a change of format, where he could have a monologue, a billboard for him to plaster semi-daily rants about the evils of Noam Chomsky. I was sad to see Chomsky write a lengthy response to him in Prospect magazine. He does not deserve such consideration. He deserves to be ignored, and it's a shame that Chomsky did not give him what he deserves.

Since you don't seem to know about Kamm, I'll fill you in because I'm familiar with him and have had several exchanges with him on a usenet newsgroup called alt.fan.noam-chomsky, where he used to spend what had to be several hours every day, day in, day out, disparaging Chomsky, on anything and everything down to the most irrelevant minutia. Kamm is, politically, an extreme neo-liberal globalizationist. He's some kind of investment banker, and considers himself an expert in economics. So he's a kind of extreme pro-capitalist, who's is very pre-occupied with the evils of communism and socialism. He's also a hard-line zionist, who loves to smear critics of the Israeli occupation with anti-semitism, and he's a huge fan of the neo-con plan to "democratize" the middle east by war and conquest. But a big part of his stick is to call himself a "leftist". He's the 'real' left, while the left is all "totalitarians" (one of his favorite labels). You could call him a kind of internet "stalker", pathologically obsessed with his target and looking for any forum to disparage him. So when he wasn't busy stalking Chomsky's books on amazon.com to paste a 1 star review on virtually all of them, he spent most of the rest of his time in alt.fan.noam-chomsky, stalking him there.

"RobinHood" has called to our attention the fact that Ollie Kamm---along with David Aaronovitch and Francis Wheen, one of three people named by The Guardian's Ian Mayes to have lobbied it to "consider a complaint about the content of the correction" it published on November 17 in the case of Noam Chomsky---has been prolific in his criticisms of NC in a venue that I had not previously considered: The webpages that Amazon.com reserves for people who'd like to post comments on the books that this Internet bookseller markets. ("RobinHood" had other very provocative comments to share with us, too. Be sure to given them a look. At, for example, December 21 at 03:18 PM.) So I checked. And---sure enough. At present, Amazon.com lists a catalog of no less than 86 reviews posted by Oliver Kamm. A close check shows that three of these reviews are duplicates or variations on the same comments. So Amazon.com archives reviews of a total of 83 different books by Ollie Kamm. "RobinHood" characterizes Kamm's method as the "usual disinformation about Chomsky disguised in an Amazon 'review'" (December 21 at 03:18 PM). As "RobinHood" also puts it elsewhere, Kamm "automatically it seems praises all kinds of vile and improbable publications that support Israeli expansionism and justify its repressive policies, and gives low ratings to any that oppose them" (December 19 at 07:26 PM). The accuracy of the second of these comments goes beyond what I myself have managed to determine. But the accuracy of the first is beyond doubt. Ollie Kamm has got some kind of thing against Noam Chomsky. And the Amazon.com website is one place where Kamm has exhibited it before the public. By my count, Amazon.com currently archives Ollie Kamm's comments on 19 different books either written by Noam Chomsky (e.g., The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians), collections of interviews with Noam Chomsky (e.g., 9-11), coauthored by Noam Chomsky (Manufacturing Consent, with Edward S. Herman), or written about Noam Chomsky (Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent, Robert F. Barsky). Of these 19 titles, Ollie Kamm have all 19 of them one star---the lowest rating possible for a reader's review of a book at Amazon.com. A glance at some of Ollie Kamm's Amazon.com "reviews" gives the game away. Noam Chomsky's Peace in the Middle East? is a "Speculative scheme of an imaginary movement;" The Fateful Triangle "Unreliable history and dubious politics;" Pirates and Emperors: International Terrorism in the Real World "Orwellian logic beyond parody;" Year 501 "A stark violation of the tenets of historical inquiry;" Towards A New Cold War "An ahistorical and unscholarly tirade;" 9-11 "Sophistry in the service of the indefensible." And so on. And so on. Including Kamm's review of Barsky's study of Chomsky ("A superficial and pointless hagiography"). And Kamm's review of Manufacturing Consent, written with Edward S. Herman ("Dated, derivative and erroneous"). All very bad to absolutely negative reviews. All one-star. About the book A New Generation Draws the Line: Kosovo, East Timor and the Standards of the West (Verso, 2000), Kamm writes (see the sixth entry on Page Four):

The message - indeed, almost the entire content - of this book is the conceit that the military campaign of Nato countries in Bosnia and Kosovo is comparable to terrorists advancing their own aims by violence. It is difficult to believe that many critical readers would be impressed by this type of sophistry: there is, after all, a rather clear-cut moral and epistemic difference between practising genocide (Milosevic) and trying to prevent it (Nato). Chomsky has been coming up with this sort of stuff for decades, and - given that his polemics are never surprising in their hostility to the United States and Israel - it is tempting to assume that the extremism of his sentiments is intended more to shock than to illuminate. But that would be a mistake: this book takes on a new and sinister light after the mass murders carried out by Islamist terrorists in New York and Washington on 11 September 2001. I am constrained by reviewer guidelines from quoting the relevant passage at length, but Chomsky maintains that, in light of Nato's intervention in the Balkans, moral consistency would require supporting a hypothetical bombing of Jakarta and western capitals in protest at Indonesia's annexation of East Timor. Astonishingly, Chomsky describes this as an "honorable course", and states that if western leaders were unable to countenance it, "they should have been leading honest citizens to do so themselves, perhaps joining the Bin Laden network." Read that sentence again, carefully; it's almost impossible to credit, but it really does say what it appears to say on first reading. One can only hope that outside the university campus, in the real world where terrorism kills and maims innocent men and women, this book will be taken with an appropriate lack of seriousness. The alternative and frightening hypothesis is that it is regarded by the theocratic fascist murderers of 4,000 civilians as a sober work of analysis.

Kamm gives other authors the same treatment. But one author in particular: The late Edward Said. Kamm reviews five different books by Edward Said. (See Page Two.) As with Chomsky's work, each of Said's receives insultingly negative reviews. Thus, Culture and Imperialism Kamm denigrates as "A case study in cultural incomprehension;" and Covering Islam "A trivial counter-example to scholarly criticism." Norman Finkelstein's The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitations of Jewish Suffering receives a similar treatment ("A highly familiar ideological bent"). As does Joseph Stiglitz's Globalization and Its Discontents ("A disappointing and often inaccurate critique"). And William Greider's One World Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism ("An almost complete misunderstanding of economics"). While among the titles that Kamm lauds are the following:

- Caspar Weinberger, In the Arena: A Memoir of the 20th Century ("Fine memoir of an exemplary public servant"), four stars - Kenneth L. Adelman, The great universal embrace: Arms summitry--a skeptic's account ("A witty and percipient account of Reagan's arms policies"), four stars - Merton H. Miller, Merton Miller on Derivatives ("Profound, economically rigorous - and hugely entertaining"), five stars - Ronald Radosh, Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left ("A notable activist's progress"), five stars - Sidney Hook, Marxism and Beyond ("The intellectual legacy of an outstanding democrat"), five stars - Sidney Hook, Philosophy and Public Policy ("Thought-provoking application of reason to human affairs"), five stars - Sidney Hook, Convictions ("Fitting epitaph to an exemplary life"), five stars - Edward S. Shapiro, Ed., Letters of Sidney Hook: Democracy, Communism, and the Cold War ("Spirited and erudite defence of democratic ideals"), five stars Robert Gordon Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson: A Life in Politics (" A model biography of a good man"), five stars - Mary Lefkowitz, Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth As History ("A scholarly and brave work of critical inquiry"), five stars - Gary Burtless, Globaphobia: Confronting Fears About Open Trade ("Excellent and necessary"), five stars - Daniel Pipes, Conspiracy ("An original and important study of a perverse tradition"), five stars - Harvey Klehr, The Soviet World of American Communism (Annals of Communism Series) ("A model of historical documentation and interpretation"), five stars

To zero-in on just one of these five-star reviews for Amazon.com, of Robert Gordon Kaufman's Henry M. Jackson: A Life in Politics, Ollie Kamm writes (see the fifth entry on Page Four):

Senator Jackson represented a distinctive, honourable and above all prescient tradition in American politics: that of the liberal hawk.... Kaufmann describes this political background with a sure touch. He is unflinchingly honest in his depiction of Jackson's personal flaws, such as periodic irascibility with aides, but the essential Jackson - a man of deep humanitarian impulses, evident in such causes as his campaign for persecuted Soviet Jewry, and searing moral insight into the nature of Communist totalitarianism - shines through. The book is a fine political biography, but also a most touching personal portrait. It depicts admirably and with fine insight the circle around Jackson, some of whom later held office in the Reagan administration. I was unaware, for example, that the common view that Jackson's adviser, Richard Perle, was responsible for Jackson's unwavering support for Israel has it exactly the wrong way round. In fact, Perle, a secular Jew, came to see the urgency of supporting Israel because of the influence of Jackson - a Niebuhrian Protestant who understood better than any post-war American politician the moral import of a liberal democracy's struggle for survival while assailed by totalitarian states and terrorist organisations.

As Ollie Kamm ranks among the founding members of the Henry Jackson Society at Cambridge University, I suspect that it was much less any Niebuhrian Protestantism than it was his State-of-Israel fanaticism that recommended the name of the "Senator from Boeing" (1953-1983) for this current batch of U.S.-U.K. hawks that includes among its "international patrons" Bruce Jackson, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Joshua Muravchik, Richard Perle, General Jack Sheehan, and James Woolsey. Anyone interested in further pursuing Ollie Kamm's practice of disguising political smears and disinformation as "reviews" at Amazon.com can use the weblinks I've provided below. Note that all of Ollie Kamm's anti-Chomsky smears are to be found on pages one through four.

"Corrections and clarifications: The Guardian and Noam Chomsky," as posted by The Guardian, November 17, 2005 "Open Door: The readers' editor on ... a complaint about a controversial correction," Ian Mayes, The Guardian, December 12, 2005 Reviews Written by Oliver Kamm (London United Kingdom), Amazon.com Ollie Kamm, Page One Ollie Kamm, Page Two Ollie Kamm, Page Three Ollie Kamm, Page Four Ollie Kamm, Page Five Ollie Kamm, Page Six Ollie Kamm, Page Seven Ollie Kamm, Page Eight Ollie Kamm, Page Nine "Oliver Kamm," ZNet, December 12, 2005

David and others who are following this blog: Here are some of the links to the "Zionists" that post "reviews" on Amazon. I find them to be largely baseless support for Israel and Zionism (or actually Israeli expansionism and militarism). Here is one from Jill Malter http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AU7ND6NOCX9IA/103-5222981-5213430?_encoding=UTF8 Alyssa Lappen stating that Joan Peters's fraudulent case (that Palestinians were recent immigrants to Palestine) makes an "understated case" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0963624202/103-5222981-5213430?v=glance&n=283155 Her contribution to Front Page Magazine, where she makes the case that Jihadists are taking over US universities: http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/readarticle.asp?ID=16375&p=1 A sample Oliver Kamm's usual disinformation about Chomsky disguised in an Amazon "review" http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AT547I3XYU4LS/103-5222981-5213430?_encoding=UTF8 Here Seth Frantzman falsely claims that Robert Fisk says in his new book that 300,000 Palestinians immigrated into Kuwait in the 1950s - and therefore were not subsequently expelled in and after 1967. He says that this claim is the only value of Fisks's monumental work. http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A2Z4KA3EFQWZOX/103-5222981-5213430?%5Fencoding=UTF8&display=public&page=2 These people are nothing short of fanatics, in my opinion. Facts are irrelevant when it comes to the Holy State of Israel.

Zabub: Lets assume for a second what you say is true, and Chomsky did not talk enough about certain attrocities. Now, what strikes me as interesting, is that its patently irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that Chomsky is not responsable for whatever attrocietes took place. Chomsky`s main area of expertise and criticism is the US, he lives in it and is partially responsable for its actions, therefore he strives for awareness of US attrocites. He doesnt come out against Chinese attrocies because he doesnt live there. Wether or not Chomsky didnt talk enough about attrocies committed by non-US actors, does not concern his critique of the US government, capitolism or whatever. You cant cling on to one thread of something that appears to be fallacious, and then claim that he`s wrong about everything, it simply doesnt work like that. Moreover, saying that Chomsky is apologist for certain crimes, clearly ignores the fact that he is alot less culpable of war crimes then anyone of us on this blog, he has been fighting for over 50 years against attrocities, and has more or less created the anti-capitolist, anti-slaughter movement, this mitigates him largely of whatever culpability he has for any warcrimes whatsoever, neither you nor I have the right to accuse Chomsky of being apologist, because we are much more then he is.

David, I will post some of the links. These people have an absolute obsession - for example I have even seen Seth Frantzman and infact, many of these others that I mentioned post positive reviews of books that take a pro-Mussolini stands - this is pretty revolting. I think that many of these people are not in fact Zionists in the sincere sense - just supportive of stands that are anti-Palestinian or anti-Arab. Seth Franzman wrote that "Mussolini proved that Mussolini in fact proved that some forms of fascism work" and "he [Mussolini] opposed sending Jews to concentration camps". Pretty disgusting.

Robinhood: It seems to me that you really are on to something here (i.e., December 19 at 07:26 PM, and December 19 at 09:02 PM).---Might you post one more more weblinks to better illustrate your point that in the reviews he has posted to Amazon.com (and as of this moment, I've never read a single one of them), Ollie Kamm lauds "all kinds of vile and improbable publications that support Israeli expasionism and justify its repressive policies, and gives low ratings to any that oppose them"? Also, I should add that I am not familiar with the work of many of the other individuals you've named (e.g., Jill Malter, M. Roberts, Seth Frantzman, Alyssa Lappen). Though I do suspect some sort of connection between Ollie Kamm et al.'s obsession with Chomsky, on the one hand, and a State-of-Israel fanaticism on the other---Chomsky having been among the handful (one or two fingers worth, actually) of serious critics of Israel writing in English during the past 40-odd years.

A couple of more names - of course Kamm, Seth Frantzman, Alyssa Lappen - many of these people write for Front Page Mag. I noticed that in some cases their reviews are recycled and only differ by a single sentence in a certain place that gives that impression that the review was written specifically for that book, when it obviously was not. I personally find David Horowitz on the same page as people like Oliver Kamm. I read his blog a bit and it doesn't seem to be terribly coherent to me - it tries to "catch" Chomsky making some sort of an error that would tear him apart - as if it's a single long (conspiracy) theory or something - which would collapse if any of its parts would collapse - this is what many of his detractors try to pin on him, including the folks that I mentioned at Amazon. It is just amazing as to what lenghts some would go in ludicrous efforts to discredit an individual who is fighting for human rights of others, but is supporting the rights of a side that is unpopular with some.

Zubub: If my goal was really wanted to make you disappear, it can't be all that hard, since you (or, more accurately the veracity of your debate) pretty much disappeared, and there's not much left now, isn't there. David: I saw many of Oliver Kamm's reviews on Amazon, where he automatically it seems praises all kinds of vile and improbable publications that support Israeli expasionism and justify its repressive policies, and gives low ratings to any that oppose them. There are other people that seem to sort of organize and attack on cue - Jill Malter, M. Roberts, etc. - these people praise Mitchell bard and Efraim Karsh unconditionally with reviews that are based on incredible falsehoods. These are not "reviews" at all in any case - they are Zionist advocacy - and should be somehow identified as such, so that people who have not caught on to this scam will not be fooled by these parasites.

Friends: For a very helpful look at the Wikipedia database, with obvious lessons for the entire World Wide Web (ZNet included), see below. By the way, I recall the travails of some friends of mine over Wikipedia's entry for 'Srebrenica Massacre'. Also the entry for 'Bosnian Genocide'. And similar entries. And though I haven't checked whether Wikipedia carries an entry for 'Bosnian Genocide Denier'---who can say what Wikipedia has in store for the World Wide Web? 'Bosnian Genocide Affirmer', say? Or 'Bosnian Genocide Promoter'? As the University of Richmond's James Rettig told the Chicago Tribune, "Anonymity should not be permitted in a work that purports to provide factual information." Nor should we permit the biggest fists and the loudest voices to determine the historical record. Much less the most craven politicians and the saviest P.R. firms. Dinner with President Izetbegovic. Potëmkin Tours, Inc.

* http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-0512150209dec15,1,6311812.column Chicago Tribune December 15, 2005 Wikipedia: Raising perhaps more questions than answers Steve Johnson, Tribune Internet critic "If your mother says she loves you, check it out" stands as one of the most treasured journalistic maxims, a reminder that no assertion, no matter how likely it seems, should be taken at face value. Now, thanks to a volunteer online encyclopedia, we can add another: "If Wikipedia says John Seigenthaler plotted to kill the Kennedys, check it out." Wikipedia, the free digital reference book that has grown enormously in size and stature this year, was dealt a public-relations setback recently when Seigenthaler, a prominent Nashville newspaper editor in the Civil Rights era, told of a bogus Wikipedia biographical entry on him that seemed to have been crafted by an aspiring Oliver Stone screenwriter. Or it could have been Buck Owens or Billy Crudup. For a couple of weeks after Seigenthaler's USA Today article explaining the situation, we didn't know, because one of the treasured values in the Wikipedia community is anonymity, or the possibility of anonymity, and the author of the Seigenthaler entry had held onto his. On Monday, though, after being nearly tracked down from his computer's Internet Protocol ad-dress by a Wikipedia critic, confessing to Seigenthaler and then being exposed in The New York Times, the prankster was revealed as a Nashville man trying to tweak a member of a prominent city family to amuse a co-worker. It shouldn't work like that. Wikipedia, if it wants to achieve the "better-than-Britannica accuracy" that guru Jimmy Wales says he strives for, needs to become as good as the old-school reference tomes at making its authors stand behind their work. This, I realize, puts me in the camp of the fusties, librarians and the like who prefer to steer people to sources that are trustworthy rather than quick-and-easy or, in the case of Wikipedia, trendy. But I'm not one of the Wikipedia bashers, either. It's a good, often great, first reference, an amazing feat of predominantly quality work and a refutation to those who would argue that you can't coax good work out of people without paying them. I'm impressed, too, by Wales' candor when he says, in an interview, "People definitely should not be using Wikipedia as a primary source. The real story there is, Why were they ever?" But no matter whether it strives to be the last word on a subject or the first, authorial responsibility is the right and obvious place for Wikipedia to be. "Anonymity should not be permitted in a work that purports to provide factual information,' says James Rettig, university librarian at the University of Richmond and the editor of "Distinguished Classics of Reference Publishing." "Wikipedia's very good when it's good," Rettig says. "It's useless when it's not." The Seigenthaler incident was the most prominent in the U.S., but hardly the first; in another high-profile case, the encyclopedia called Norway's prime minister a convicted pedophile before the lie was removed after about a day. Fantastical falsehoods Much lower in profile, librarian Gary Price, the editor of ResourceShelf.com and news editor for SearchEngineWatch.com, says he did his own test this past summer, inserting fantastical falsehoods into the entry about him. "I said I was a roadie for Warrant and Megadeth and AC/DC in the '80s," he says. "I said, in addition to librarian, in my spare time, I'm also a stuntman," and he linked to an Internet Movie Database article on an actual stuntman named Gary Price. "I wanted to see how long it would take for a little-known person like me to have that information removed," he says. "Kudos to Wikipedia: It took six to eight weeks." Seigenthaler's entry was up for months, time for it to spread via the search engines (which tend to rank Wikipedia entries highly in their results), to make it into high-school and college papers, to be repeated in other online reference works that use Wikipedia material but aren't as good about updating. In light of all this, the University of Richmond's Rettig was thinking about how Wikipedia might reform itself, and "it struck me as a no-brainer that you just cease the ability for people to edit it anonymously." Rule change But all Wikipedia did was tweak its rules. In the future, to create an entry you'll have to register with the site first, although you'll still be able to do that without giving your real name. Plus, you'll still be able to edit entries -- the source of most of the encyclopedia's info-vandalism -- without registering. The encyclopedia (www.wikipedia.org) has built a base of more than 830,000 English-language entries (plus more than 1 million in its next nine most popular languages) by allowing users to create entries and to edit other ones as they see fit. People who are expert in certain areas, whether amateur or professional, keep watch on the entries in those areas and are notified when changes are made. Although a prominent Wikipedia critic (at www.wikipedia-watch.org) calls the phenomenon a "hive mind," this self-policing model, not unlike eBay's, usually knocks down bad information quickly. In terms of "vandalism," malicious changes made to entries, there can be as many as one a minute, Wales says, and once or twice a week, Wikipedia has to ban somebody from editing because his or her work is consistently or deliberately bad. Those, he says, are generally easy to catch. "The tougher part is somebody comes in, and they're doing kind of good edits and kind of bad. If they seem reformable, we talk to them and encourage them to do better." To Wales, whose title is chairman of the Wikipedia Foundation's Board of Trustees, all this sudden negative attention seems out of balance after a year of mostly positive press highlighted by Wikipedia's first-rate work in constantly updating and broadening background materials on such news events as the Asian tsunami, the London subway bombings and Hurricane Katrina. "It's unfortunate that there's been this big media storm over one entry on the site, and that's not to say it's the only bad entry on the site," he says. "The big picture is this is a non-profit, charitable, humanitarian, volunteer effort to create and give away an encyclopedia to every person on the planet. `A big mistake' "And if people come away from this thinking that Wikipedia's some kind of crazed forum for trolls, that's unfortunate. At the same time we're fully prepared to accept criticism, and this was a big mistake." But Wales, who got rich as a Chicago futures trader and for-profit Internet entrepreneur, insists that anonymity should not be the issue. "It's difficult to not allow anonymity," he says. "The default setting of everything on the Internet is that people are anonymous." Many Wikipedians do share their identities, he says, but to insist on universal author identification would require "onerous" procedures, and even then you wouldn't know for sure if they were telling the truth. Which raises the question: If they're not, or might not be, telling the truth about who they are, should they be trusted to tell the truth about anybody or anything else?

Dear RobinHood, You used very abusive language toward me while getting wrong the simplest points at issue. The "quote" you attribute to me is exactly what I had just pointed out to someone wasn't my view at all, and the words you quoted weren't mine but his. Then you don't even get the war right - you're obviously mixing up the war in Kosovo in 1999 with the war in Bosnia in 1992. Please. Your systematic abusiveness while not even following the simplest points at issue speaks much about you, and if you aren't embarrassed then nothing one could say could ever have any effect on you. I understand that, as you say, you would like me to disappear, since I criticised your guru, and I'm sure that if you had the power you would make me disappear too.

Friends: For a nice review of Ollie Kamm's recent book:

"Humanitarian interventionists dig in," James Heartfield, SpikedOnline.com, December 16, 2005

Skipping over paragraphs 5 – 7 (little point in trying to shed empirical light on the propaganda of the Great Powers), Heartfield notes the centrality to Ollie Kamm et al. of the wars over Yugoslavia (to be precise, the centrality of a particular way of framing the variables involved), and later goes on to note (par. 16):

It is no good Kamm (or David Aaronovitch or Stephen Pollard) wringing their hands over torture in Abu Ghraib, or the continuing insecurity and loss of life in Iraq. Now that the policy has been put into practice it is no use continuing to talk about an ideal of humanitarian intervention: this is it.

Indeed it is. The principle at stake here is whether the world ought to be ruled by force. Ollie Kamm believes that it ought to be---so long as he can be on the side of the Rulers, inventing legitimations in their wake. This is the essential difference between Chomsky and him. A point which reminds me that whenever somebody feels the urge to play the “Why not in Sudan?” game (par. 19), we ought to remind him/her that this was exactly the principle that the “non-state actors” of "9/11" and "7/7" also purported to uphold: If in Iraq, if in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, if in Saudi Arabia, and so on, then why not in the United States? Why not in Britain? It will do the “liberal internationalists” (so called) no good to pretend that other people can't play the same game that, for generations, they and their forbearers have been such masters at.

Zubub, You are so full of s**t. I challenge you to find any evidence whatsoever that shows that Chomsky "didn't "write enough" on a genocide" - as you say. Also please keep it ind that it was NOT a genocide in any accepted sense of the word. Additionally, the evidence is overwhelming that the intervention vastly increased the violence on the ground - I challenge you to present any evidence to the contrary. The fact that it did was predicted by NATO as well as observers on the ground. You are so obtuse that I don't even know that it's worth wasting the time with this, or just let you disappear from your lack of credibility on your own.

If I'm "attacking the messenger" because I criticise a public intellectual's views, rather than criticising (on your view) the actual perpetrators of genocide, then what does that make your criticism of me? Attacking the messenger of the messenger? Really, Brad, this is all rather silly. I'm criticising a public intellectual, first of all, not because he didn't "write enough" on a genocide - although in some circumstances that would be perfectly legitimate and your hero Chomsky does that to other intellectuals all the time - but rather because he was an out and out apologist for the perpetrators of the genocide at a time when activists (as it happens, such as myself) were doing everything to urge intervention to stop the genocide. When that intervention did take place, albeit after Srebrenica and 3 years of mayhem, the war stopped almost immediately. If you don't think such criticism has its place you don't know much about the politics of human rights.

You are right, you are not saying Chomsky caused genocide. You are saying that he did not write enough, for your standards, on them. How is this not attacking the messenger? If you truely are concerened with human rights and bringing justice to those who are involved with genocied, wouldn't your time be better spent attacking those who commit crimes against humanity? As for the Guardian piece, this has been discredited and retracted. Your insistance on using it to "prove" your point reveals how out of touch with reality you are. Chomsky is not Johnston, shouldn't you be attacking her right now? Or, better yet attack those who are this moment commiting crimes against humanity, as Chomsky is. Like the US govenment abuse and use of torture in Iraq, gitmo and around the world. Chomsky is no threat to anyone, the true commiters of genecide do not write books and give lectures. They are in power and command armies. They are your enemy, Chomsky and Peterson are the messengers!

Your first sentence is already false. I didn't accuse anyone of "causing genocide"; where in heaven did you get that? Whether I should have, mind you, is another question. After all, while Holocaust-deniers deny a 50 year old genocide, merely insulting the memory of the victims, Z-mag's Chomsky, Albert, Robert Hayden, Ed Herman, and Shalom, were denying, minimising, and excusing Serbian atrocities at the very moment that Muslim men were being forced to bite off the pricks of other Muslim men and Muslim girls were being gang-raped to death from internal bleeding in Serb-run concentration camps. "Chomsky is being attacked for trying to bring human rights to the public eye"?? A pig's eye, perhaps. Chomsky repeated every Belgrade propaganda line (revival of German-Austrian axis, etc.), citing pro-Serb general Mackenzie as reliable (again in the Guardian article), then wrote an entire book about Kosovo with the astounding omission of discussion of crimes in Bosnia (like writing a book about Allied policy in Germany in 1945 while omitting Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Holocaust, etc.). Shooting the messenger? Rubbish. Peterson defends Chomsky's condemnation of the Guardian for allegedly misrepresenting his views, and I point out the apparently embarrassing fact that both Peterson and Chomsky actually embraced views similar to those they condemn the Guardian for attributing to Chomsky. You then come along and try to "shoot" me (without addressing the evidence).

Zubub, It is funny to read you attack Peterson, Chomsky and Herman for somehow causing genicide by not responding to questions about someone elses book about genecide. Same old right wing nonsense, attack the messenger. Chomsky is being attacked for tring to bring human rights to the public eye, then the right wing attacks him which acts to obfuscate the breach of human rights by the right wing while attempting to discredit the critics. Now we have Zubub attacking the messenger, Peterson, of the message about the attack on the messanger, Chomsky, who was attacking the source. As for what is going on here at znet regarding the poor choice of stories, who knows, but I wish someone would tell us.

David Peterson, you are really something. Will you get terribly insulted if someone suggests that you have a totalitarian mentality? Ok, then I won't suggest it. I'll just point out that you simply refuse to answer the pointed, substantive questions put to you about your (and your guru Chomsky's) role in denying that genocide took place in Bosnia, and instead wish that Z-Net simply flushed these critics(to borrow Chomsky's favourite Orwell allusion) down the memory hole. It is just so embarrassing, isn't it, when someone reminds you of what you, Herman, and Chomsky have actually said. You reply to Oliver Kamm's pointed query about whether Chomsky does or doesn't agree with Johnstone's systematic downplaying of Serbian atrocities with "Indeed". Clever. So where's the answer, "indeed"? How insulting, how demeaning, to the intelligence of your readers, that you say "indeed" as if you really want to get to the bottom of things, but then just criticise Z-net for allowing, heaven forbid, a dissenting voice among the Chomsky-worshipping cult members who is outraged at the apologia for the Serb-perpetrated campaign of genocide in the 1990s.

MTbrad and Ajit Hegde: Both of you raise what in my opinion is a very important question. Namely, why ZNet has decided to re-post to its archives the work of an individual who repeatedly has called Ed Herman, Noam Chomsky, and Diana Johnstone (among others) "genocide deniers" (and words and phrases to similarly derogatory effect) for their critical work on the wars over the breakup of Yugoslavia over the years. (For some of this individual's fare, see, e.g., "Z Magazine supports genocide," July 10; as well as his later "Chomsky jumps on Bosnia revisionism bandwagon," Nov. 1.) I wish that I could provide you with a reasonable answer. Alas. I cannot think of one. Not even by bending over backwards---at my most charitable extreme. Thus, as MTbrad wrote (December 15 at 09:53 PM):

There have been a couple of attack pieces on ANSWER showing up on znet in the past few days. Now, I know nothing about ANSWER so I am not trying to state that they are falsely being attacked. I just know that memebers of that group would like to, and have maybe tried, to dispute the attack pieces. It seems like a bad thing for znet to be running essays that attack peace groups (or whatever they call themselves). They maybe should just stay away from attacking any group claiming to be social justice oriented.

And as Ajit Hegde also wrote (December 13 at 12:03 AM):

What about Bill Weinberg of WW4 Report ? He too is another Obsessive Chomsky Basher when it comes to Yugoslav Wars. Recently the Man wrote something called "Chomsky Jumps on Bosnia Revisionist Bandwagon". When Edward Herman pointed out the Various Mistakes Weinberg has committed, Weinberg never really responded except shreiking Herman is a Stalinist, Genocidist etc. You know the stuff of Lunatic Grand Daddys like Horowitz. He even called Diana Johnstone a Stalinist, Genocide Denier etc. Weinberg calls himself an "Anarchist". This Idiot definitely has not read Diana Johnstone's Book. When it comes to attacking Dissidents Facts don't matter. And wonder of wonders, ZNET Has published a new essay by this Weinberg on ANSWER in recent days. May be one day they will publish David Horowitz.

So I'd just like to reiterate the sense of befuddlement and estrangement voiced by MTbrad and Ajit Hegde over ZNet. And to add this little question of my own: What on earth is ZNet doing running commentaries from the likes of the World War 4 Report's Bill Weinberg in the first place? Everyone's comments on this question would be welcomed.

"Counting Bodies at the World Tade Center," ZNet , June 14, 2004 "The Srebrenica Massacre," ZNet, July 10, 2005 "'Thick as Autumnal Leaves': The Guardian's Mock Interview with Noam Chomsky," ZNet, November 6, 2005 "'Serpents All': More on The Guardian's Mock Interview with Noam Chomsky," ZNet, November 12, 2005 "OOPS! The Guardian Retracts...," ZNet, November 17, 2005 "Oliver Kamm," ZNet, December 12, 2005

Someone who criticises Chomsky in a careful systematic manner becomes "an obsessive Chomsky basher". So what do you call someone who mentions Chomsky just as often, but always to defend him in spurious manner? Grovelling Chomsky-acolyte? Mindless Chomskyite cult-member? I don't know. But why doesn't David Peterson come clean by admitting first that he himself praised Ed Herman's denial of the Srebrenica massacre (using quotation marks around it) as "powerful anaylsis"? And that Chomsky praised Diana Johnstone's genocide-denying revisionism as "quite serious and important"? That he signed an open letter stating: "We regard Johnstone's Fools' Crusade as an outstanding work, dissenting from the mainstream view but doing so by an appeal to fact and reason, in a great tradition."? Why try to obscure Chomsky's role and for that matter your own in genocide-denial and apologetics for Serbian atrocities, with irrelevant ad hominem's against his ablest critics?

Sorry this has nothing to do with chomsky bashing freaks. There have been a couple of attack pieces on ANSWER showing up on znet in the past few days. Now, I know nothing about ANSWER so I am not trying to state that they are falsely being attacked. I just know that memebers of that group would like to, and have maybe tried, to dispute the attack pieces. It seems like a bad thing for znet to be running essays that attack peace groups (or whatever they call themselves). They maybe should just stay away from attacking any group claiming to be social justice oriented.

Can we just leave those bash-a-chomsky attention seekers alone, move on, and do something a trillion times less boring like, eh, watching tv or ice fishing?

What about Bill Weinberg of WW4 Report ? He too is another Obsessive Chomsky Basher when it comes to Yugoslav Wars. Recently the Man wrote something called "Chomsky Jumps on Bosnia Revisionist Bandwagon". When Edward Herman pointed out the Various Mistakes Weinberg has committed, Weinberg never really responded except shreiking Herman is a Stalinist, Genocidist etc. You know the stuff of Lunatic Grand Daddys like Horowitz. He even called Diana Johnstone a Stalinist, Genocide Denier etc. Weinberg calls himself an "Anarchist". This Idiot definitely has not read Diana Johnstone's Book. When it comes to attacking Dissidents Facts don't matter. And wonder of wonders, ZNET Has published a new essay by this Weinberg on ANSWER in recent days. May be one day they will publish David Horowitz.