Unfortunately for you, Chomsky did not take the time to make his argument by inference and insinuation, as he usually does, but did so directly.
Thus, when he starts off the very beginning of his statement with a "This was an atrocity, but..." formulation, without even an expression of sympathy separating the qualifications to come, it is all too easy to understand that what comes behind the but, the qualification, is the central statement and message.
Like Ramsey Clark, who today's _New York Times_ reports commuting between Tanzania, where he is defending Hutus charged in the genocide of Rwandan Tutsis, and Belguim, where he is defending Milosevic against charges of ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims and Albanian Kosovars, you -- and Chomsky -- hold that every American action in the world is, by definition, a crime. It is not sufficient that you condemn NATO intervention to end the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, you must add situations like Somalia, where the failed American effort was clearly one of peacekeeping, and East Timor, where you apparently feel it was a great crime to support UN intervention against the massacres of the Indonesian backed militia. And, of course, you manage to avoid what was indeed one of the great humanitarian failures of American foreign policy this last decade -- the failure to intervene to end the genocide of the Tutsis -- because that would mean that intervention could be for good purposes.
Why do I think you are Caucasian? Because of the cynical, self-serving way you throw about the charge of racism to cover your lack of an argument. It is not an exclusive trait of our white brethren, but 9 out of 10 times, one does find it there.
>Let's review what Chomsky actually wrote:
>
>"The terrorist attacks were major atrocities. In scale they may not reach
>the level of many others..."
>
>We'll go slowly here, pal. "Major atrocities." Got that?
>
>Now -- "In scale" -- he means the total number of dead people -- "they may
>not reach the level of many others." Are you contending that no other
>atrocity killed more people?
>
>He offers an example of an incident the effects of which you continue to
>discount, and then says that there are "much worse cases, which easily
>come to mind."
>
>Again, do you dispute that? Or don't examples from the Clinton
>Administration alone easily come to your mind? Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine,
>Serbia, Somalia, Timor, Turkey, Palestine, Colombia...?
>
>"But that this was a horrendous crime is not in doubt," says Chomsky. "It
>is likely to prove to be a crushing blow to Palestinians and other poor
>and oppressed people."
>
>I can understand why you're uncomfortable, since you want to defend
>Clinton's cruise missiles and the US/NATO war. How do you feel about the
>coming Bush War?
>
>Chomsky helps you get your thoughts together by quoting Robert Fisk:
>
>"This is not the war of democracy versus terror that the world will be
>asked to believe in the coming days. It is also about American missiles
>smashing into Palestinian homes and US helicopters firing missiles into a
>Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American shells crashing into a village
>called Qana and about a Lebanese militia - paid and uniformed by America's
>Israeli ally - hacking and raping and murdering their way through refugee
>camps."
>
>Regards, CGE
>
>PS: What makes you think I'm Caucasian? Doing some of your own racial
>profiling, are you?
.