Where I've been, where I am

[Lawrence Bryan]

Aside from two visits to Dubrovnik after the Bosnia conflict was over,  
I have never been in that area of Europe.

After reading the references provided by Richard Ryan and Paul  
Nightingale it would seem that you must have read the original  
Guardian and the retractions. Chomsky is a very careful writer and  
speaker and tries to be precise. He seems to have never denied that a  
massacre occurred there but seemed reluctant to call it genocide. One  
of the main themes in his communications has been to point out the  
hypocrisy of much that is written by one side or the other. If the  
Serbs killing 8,000 in Srebrinica is genocide then why isn't the  
untold number of people killed in Panama under Bush or untold number  
of Iraqi soldiers killed in Gulf War One or untold number killed in  
etc. also labeled genocide? To label what our American troops did  
'genocide' upsets a lot of people. (By the way, I am not claiming  
those were genocide.) So perhaps the debate is not whether of not the  
massacre happened but how to label it.

In any case I think I'll try to find a copy of Johnstone's book and  
read it myself. If you have a book to recommend presenting a differing  
point of view, please post it and I will read it also.

It should be clear that even if we were there at the time it would be  
difficult to see the big picture of what happened. Milosevic  is dead.  
It would have been interesting to see what defense he planned to  
present if any.

It took some time to find Chomsky's letter defending Johnstone's book,  
but here is the URL.

http://www.manifest.se/balkan/chomsky.html

Also a letter from some of the other signers to the Swedish publisher  
regarding the aftermath of The Guardian's retraction.

http://www.birn.eu.com/en/1/285/1486/

Lawrence, trying to figure out why Dave Monroe thinks my rather plain  
white underwear is unusual and wondering what he was doing nosing  
around in my underwear drawer...


On Mar 18, 2009, at 2:35 PM, Carvill John wrote:

>
> You're teh one that seems to be launching ad hominem attacks. I am  
> not an 'anti-Chomskyite', I used to enjoy his stuff. But he is dead  
> wrong on the Balkans, and that's an area I (unlike you or Chomsky)  
> happen to know something about, first-hand, so it's hard to ignore.
>
> < about what really happened there and compare them with> Chomsky's  
> opinion. By the way, where did you see a "recent> pronouncement" of  
> his on Bosnia/Serbia/Kosovo?>>
>
> I 'got my facts' from reading the newspapers, reading books,  
> watching documentaries, visiting Bosnia, Croatia, etc., having  
> numerous Bosnian friends, marrying a Bosnian woman, etc. etc. Ok?  
> How about you?
>
>
> I don't know if 2005 is 'recent' enough for you, but in November of  
> that year, Chomsky and Diana Johnstone (rabidly pro-Serb author and  
> friend of Mira Milosevic) forced the Guardian newspaper in teh UK to  
> retract and apologise for a story which claimed that Chomsky had, in  
> referring to the Srebrinica massacre, "placed the word 'massacre' in  
> quotes". Chomsky may not have *literally* placed the word 'massacre'  
> in quotes in the cousre of the disputed interview, but neither did  
> the journalist involved actually claim that he had literally done  
> so, she was merely making a point about CHomsky's general attitude  
> to teh matter, which includes supporting Living Marxism magazine in  
> its claims that ITN's footage of Serbian prsion camps was faked (but  
> lets not dig up that old story please).
>
> Here's an excerpt from that article (now deleted from teh Guardian  
> website after pressure from Chomsky):
>
> These days, [Chomsky's wife] Carol accompanies her husband to most  
> of his public appearances. He is asked to lend his name to all sorts  
> of crackpot causes and she tries to intervene to keep his schedule  
> under control. As some see it, one ill-judged choice of cause was  
> the accusation made by Living Marxism magazine that during the  
> Bosnian war, shots used by ITN of a Serb-run detention camp were  
> faked. The magazine folded after ITN sued, but the controversy  
> flared up again in 2003 when a journalist called Diane Johnstone  
> made similar allegations in a Swedish magazine, Ordfront, taking  
> issue with the official number of victims of the Srebrenica  
> massacre. (She said they were exaggerated.) In the ensuing outcry,  
> Chomsky lent his name to a letter praising Johnstone's "outstanding  
> work". Does he regret signing it?
>
> "No," he says indignantly. "It is outstanding. My only regret is  
> that I didn't do it strongly enough. It may be wrong; but it is very  
> careful and outstanding work."
>
> How, I wonder, can journalism be wrong and still outstanding?
>
> "Look," says Chomsky, "there was a hysterical fanaticism about  
> Bosnia in western culture which was very much like a passionate  
> religious conviction. It was like old-fashioned Stalinism: if you  
> depart a couple of millimetres from the party line, you're a  
> traitor, you're destroyed. It's totally irrational. And Diane  
> Johnstone, whether you like it or not, has done serious, honest  
> work. And in the case of Living Marxism, for a big corporation to  
> put a small newspaper out of business because they think something  
> they reported was false, is outrageous."
>
> They didn't "think" it was false; it was proven to be so in a court  
> of law.
>
> But Chomsky insists that "LM was probably correct" and that, in any  
> case, it is irrelevant. "It had nothing to do with whether LM or  
> Diane Johnstone were right or wrong." It is a question, he says, of  
> freedom of speech. "And if they were wrong, sure; but don't just  
> scream well, if you say you're in favour of that you're in favour of  
> putting Jews in gas chambers."
>
> Eh? Not everyone who disagrees with him is a "fanatic", I say. These  
> are serious, trustworthy people.
>
> "Like who?"
>
> etc. etc.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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