>I'm not sure what relevance Margaret thinks this has to the issue
You're right, i got a little derailed. Thanks for pointing it out. Let me see if i can recover:
You among others have held out Russian opposition to the bombing as a reason not to do it. I questioned whether that made sense, since Russia is not a disinterested party, and Russian goals are not necessarily more worthy than US goals. I used the term 'appeasement' since it seemed to me you were advocating 'making nice' to the Russians so that they wouldn't do something military, to me an unlikely possibility at most. You then asked whether i would have been a Good German in '38, and that's how i got derailed to the extent i did. The US in '99 is not Germany in '38, and one of the proofs of that is that you and i are still running around loose.
>of the bombing, but the issue is u.s. foreign policy and the
>awareness among u.s. citizens (and especially intellectuals) of
>the immense human suffering brought about by that policy over
>the last 50 years. All who read the essay by Chomsky forwarded
>by Gar can see that U.S. intellectuals have not the German
>excuse for ignorance of the ongoing holocaust the U.S. is
>imposing on the world's peoples.
It's not at all clear to me that the issue is as you state, Carrol. You implied -- almost claimed outright -- that the US is an unalloyed force for evil in the world, and the source of all human misery. That overstates the case by quite a lot, it seems to me, and i have to wonder why you're doing it. I don't think the cause of peace or equality is well-served by obscuring the complex skein of forces at work in the world. Psychopathy, like stupidity, is not in short supply, nor is it limited to any one group of people. Why not focus your attention on the question 'who benefits?' That's where i think we'll find the true culprits.
>Chomsky has again justified the remark someone made of him,
>that he is a national treasure -- and also once again illustrated
>why defenders of U.S. imperialism have such a strong stake
>in discrediting his work with a campaign of disinformation.
Chomsky is indeed a treasure. He is also pretty even-handed in his condemnations, as we all should be.
le meas, Margaret