"Hitchens' nervous breakdown"

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

At 12:32 PM -0400 9/27/02, Dennis Perrin wrote:
>>we're talking about a writer who slandered the holy hell out of 
>>people like Noam Chomsky in the aftermath of 911 with claims that 
>>he and others like him supported Al Qaeda as a liberating 
>>force...yada yada yada...
>
>Chomsky's first public takes after 9/11 were clunkish at best  -- his worst
>effort yet, and I say this as one who's held Chomsky in high regard and who
>publicly defended him against slanderous attacks from the likes of Jonathan
>Alter. But his robotic approach to the deaths of thousands in Manhattan was
>dreadful, as was his immediate attempt to shift the focus to Clinton's
>bombing in Sudan. There was a lack of humane feeling to his initial
>responses that left me, and others I know, cold.

Suppose Chomsky had chosen a different example that you thought more 
apt and delivered it with a tone that you approved of.  That would 
not have changed your and Hitchens' support for the war on 
Afghanistan, as you two's convictions, I believe, are neither 
thoughtlessly adopted nor lightly held.  Sometimes, people who used 
to be on the same political side part company, developing substantial 
political differences in the face of changed politico-economic 
conditions, which, for all his erudition, Chomsky as an individual 
cannot undo.
-- 
Yoshie

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