Shock And Yawn

Dennis Perrin dperrin at comcast.net
Wed Feb 26 11:47:55 PST 2003



> >Chomsky:
> >
> >"Well we could easily go on..but all of that..first of all indicates to
us
> >what's happening. Looks like what's happening is some sort of silent
> >genocide.
>
> We know now that that didn't happen. But right before the war, aid
> officials from NGOs and the UN all said the risk was very high - and
> the U.S. didn't care. Thank god it didn't happen, but the point
> remains that the U.S. started bombing despite credible warnings that
> millions could starve because they didn't really care.
>
> Doug

No, the point is that had the US done nothing and allowed the Taliban and al-Q to remain in power (something a fair number of lefties supported), chances are that many more would have starved than did. And if the US was so intent on killing massive amounts of Afghans, why allow record amounts of wheat through?

Chomsky said what he said because he's being saying pretty much the same thing for years (and in many cases with good reason). It's just that in this context, he was wrong. And he made that "silent genocide" statement around the time that it was reported by relief agencies that famine had been averted. Maybe he missed those reports. But he hasn't, to my knowledge, ever owned up to how wrong he was.

DP



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