On Wednesday I wrote an open letter to Noam Chomsky concerning his statements that the Serbian government has committed war crimes, and the effect of these attacks, which, I think, merely parrot media lies, on the potential antiwar movement. This criticism has generated debate on various email lists. The debate has been posted widely outside those lists. Yesterday Noam Chomsky responded. I answered. He replied to my answer last night and I wrote back today. I believe these issues are most important for the antiwar movement. FIRST REPLY FROM NOAM CHOMSKY Subj: Re: Fwd: Is it not slander because it is said by Chomsky? Date: 09/05/2000 3:22:12 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Noam Chomsky) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (by way of Noam Chomsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>) Dear Jared, I think you are aware of the fact that in the past 10 years the Milosevic regime has committed many crimes. The statement you quote is from a forum, where I rejected the charges made by a questioner against the Milosevic regime. In that context there is no need whatsoever to add an essay documenting every factual statement that is made. Noam FIRST ANSWER BY JARED ISRAEL Subj: Re: Is it not slander because it is said by Chomsky? Date: 09/06/2000 3:15:52 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: <A HREF="mailto:JaredI">JaredI</A> To: <A HREF="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]">[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> Dear Noam, In a message dated 09/05/2000 3:22:12 PM Eastern Daylight Time, you wrote: << I think you are aware of the fact that in the past 10 years the Milosevic regime has committed many crimes. >> "The fact that"? Who said it was a fact? You construct a sentence that asserts as given the truth of the very thing which in my note I said was a lie. Clever. Noam, I have been reading your stuff for a long time and I am not a dope. I am "aware of the fact" that you have repeatedly charged Milosevich AND "The Serbs" with criminal actions, e.g., atrocities against civilians. Your sentences are routinely constructed so as to assert the truth of your charges, despite no proof. Your writing has "in fact" had a negative effect on the left, such as it is, cooling antiwar passions and hindering the creation of a serious antiwar movement. The burden of proof cannot be escaped by tricky wording or sloppiness. I repeat, what crimes has Milosevich committed in Kosovo, Bosnia, Croatia? Date or dates, place or places. Details. Prove the credibility of your sources. I think you just parrot what's written in the mass media. Jared SECOND REPLY FROM NOAM CHOMSKY Subj: Re: Is it not slander because it is said by Chomsky? Date: 09/06/2000 9:28:36 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Noam Chomsky) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (by way of Noam Chomsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>) Dear Jared, Apologies. I didn't realize you thought that Milosevic's regime was alone in the world in not having committed many crimes. If you think I'm going to take time to discuss this topic with you, think again. There are serious things to do. Noam SECOND REPLY FROM JARED ISRAEL Subj: Regarding your unserious note, Noam Date: 09/07/2000 6:18:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: <A HREF="mailto:JaredI">JaredI</A> To: <A HREF="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]">[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> Dear Noam, Yesterday you wrote me: << Apologies. I didn't realize you thought that Milosevic's regime was alone in the world in not having committed many crimes. >> What's the point of the sarcasm, Noam? You cannot avoid the serious questions I and others have raised about your writing on Yugoslavia by resorting to mockery. Your writing is full of explicit accusations such as: ""By summer [1998], the KLA had taken over about 40 per cent of the province, eliciting a vicious reaction by Serb security forces and paramilitaries, TARGETING THE CIVILIAN POPULATION." (el Ahram, June 2000, my emphasis) Obviously you are not talking about every government in the world. You are claiming that the Yugoslav government made certain choices. That is, faced with an isolated terrorist group (which the KLA was until after the onset of NATO bombing convinced key Albanian clan leaders that the KLA had the full support of NATO) - given that the Yugoslavs were faced with an isolated terrorist gang the Yugoslavs could a) do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties or b) take it out on civilians, thus guaranteeing support for the KLA. The Yugoslav Army has an unusual history. It's doctrine is based on the expectation of conducting a mass-based resistance to a new attack from the West, an attack which they anticipated for 50 years. This army studied the tactics of conducting a war of resistance. Now whether one likes or dislikes armies per se, this particular army grasps the key role played by popular support (and antagonism!) in warfare. Why would they make such a stupid mistake as to target the civilian population when they were fighting a (then) isolated gang of dope smuggling fascists? Moreover, as you have known for a year, the antiwar movement possesses a number of documents from the German Courts and Foreign Ministry, documents produced in response to the requests by Kosovo Albanians to receive the status of political refugees. The German courts studied the situation in Kosovo and ruled in every case that there was no evidence - none - that the Yugoslav Army targeted civilians. The Humanitarian Crisis was manufactured by Western officials and the mass media to justify Western demands that the Yugoslav special troops leave Kosovo - Yugoslav territory. All this was known to you a year ago. Every website that opposed the bombing of Yugoslavia featured those documents. I believe that even the Z website, stronghold of Serb bashing within the antiwar movement, posted those documents. Why then, a year after the end of the war, after Carla Del Ponte admitted in mid November that they had found a grand total of 2108 bodies whose identities were unknown - that is, that these bodies, which they allegedly found, could be anyone - why did you write in June, 2000 that the Yugoslav Army targeted Albanian civilians? This is not a trivial matter, Noam. And this is only one of the times you made statements which uncritically parroted what we have been told by the Western media. This particular statement was written in an Arab publication - particularly harmful since the Western media tries to convince Arabs of the lie that "the Serbs" are anti-Muslim bigots. You say: <<If you think I'm going to take time to discuss this topic with you, think again. There are serious things to do.>>. What could be more serious than whether Yugoslavia has committed serious crimes of war? What could be more serious then whether you have, in fact, publicly lied with the effect of discouraging action by antiwar activists? A year ago you sent me the following email post: Date: 5/12/99 10:40:46 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dear Jared, I guess I feel I've known you for many years, even if we haven't actually met (so you tell me; I would have guessed otherwise). Thanks for the text of the speech [I had sent you Milosevic's speech, made in 1989 at Kosovo Field], which I'd never seen. Interesting. On the "demonization," it's actually been conceded. An article in the Times a few weeks ago, which I'm sure I kept, observed that "demonization" of Milosevic was necessary in order to maintain public support for the bombing. Noam [End of last year's email from Noam to Jared] Now Noam, if you knew way back then that demonizing Milosevich is critical in order to maintain public support for the attack on Yugoslavia, why have you persistently demonized him and the Serbian people and Yugoslav army? For example, during the bombing you wrote: "The bombing was then undertaken under the rational expectation that KILLING and refugee generation would ESCALATE as a result, as indeed happened, even if the scale may have come as a surprise to some, though apparently not the commanding general. " (This is from a piece you wrote and posted in May, 1999 on the Z website, my emphasis) I have done text analysis of several of your articles about Yugoslavia and the above excerpt demonstrates a technique you employ over and over. In brief, you attack the Yugoslavs in the guise of either defending them or attacking NATO. Thus, here you say that the NATO commanding general obviously knew how terribly the Serbs would react. Posing your point in this form seems to be a criticism of NATO; this lends it credibility on the left. But what you are really doing is taking the "commanding general's" statement - that the bombing DID precipitate escalated Serbian atrocities - as axiomatic: true without requirement of proof. Indeed, you assert the truth of NATO's charge in passing, using it as the basis of your false criticism of NATO. Now, your claim to fame is media criticism. You opposed the Vietnam War. Why does an antiwar activist, who studies the media, and who knows - who has told me he knows - that demonization "is critical in order to maintain public support for" the attack on Yugoslavia - why does such a person fail to even question - even question! - the anti-Yugoslav news reports? Why? Why, during the bombing and since, have your statements even at times lagged behind what we are reading in some of the mass publication newspapers? (This is the case with the El Ahram article which was contradicted by the German Court and Foreign Ministry documents over a year ago!) If these are trivial questions then what is serious? Jared
