"My quarrel with Chomsky goes back to the Balkan wars of the 1990s, where he more or less openly represented the "Serbian Socialist Party" (actually the national-socialist and expansionist dictatorship of Slobodan Milosevic) as the victim. Many of us are proud of having helped organize to prevent the slaughter and deportation of Europe's oldest and largest and most tolerant Muslim minority, in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Kosovo. But at that time, when they were real, Chomsky wasn't apparently interested in Muslim grievances. He only became a voice for that when the Taliban and Al Qaeda needed to be represented in their turn as the victims of a "silent genocide" in Afghanistan. Let me put it like this, if a supposed scholar takes the Christian-Orthodox side when it is the aggressor, and then switches to taking the "Muslim" side when Muslims commit mass murder, I think that there is something very nasty going on. And yes, I don't think it is exaggerated to describe that nastiness as "anti-American" when the power that stops and punishes both aggressions is the United States … In some awful way, his regard for the underdog has mutated into support for mad dogs. This is not at all like watching the implosion of an obvious huckster and jerk like Michael Moore, who would have made a perfectly good Brownshirt populist. The collapse of Chomsky feels to me more like tragedy."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Christopher Hitchens, "Love, Poverty and War", FrontPageMagazine.com (2004-12-29): On Noam Chomsky
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Yugoslav Wars
46 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Yugoslav Wars →
Related Quotes
"Unfortunately, for a variety of specific reasons - in Romania, in Bulgaria, in Albania, and in a very different sense…"
"The first step for Democrats was embracing violence as a tool of positive social change. In 1965, liberals viewed the…"
"Nationalism’s gravitational pull made extremists even of politicians who cared little for the nation. The seemingly u…"
"We might add now that we do have an authoritative account of why the United States bombed Serbia in 1999. It comes fr…"
"We stood with those taking risks for peace: in Northern Ireland, where Catholic and Protestant children now tell thei…"
"We should be proud of our role in bringing the Middle East closer to a lasting peace, building peace in Northern Irel…"
"In his first Inaugural Address, Thomas Jefferson warned of entangling alliances. But in our times, America cannot and…"
"There are only three nationalisms: Serbian, Croatian and Muslim. A new Fascism, different from Italian Fascism or Naz…"
"Yugoslavia is prey to three forms of Fascism: Serbian, Croatian and Muslim. Let me explain: these are not Mediterrane…"
"That Clausewitz lives, and will live, is equally shown in such cases as the former Yugoslavia, where Nato has simply …"