In any case, just to summarize before having to leave for the weekend: The more these multi-post hair-splittings go back and forth about any of CAMERA’s disputed claims by Carter, with impassioned battles over how some not-very-clearly-expressed statement ought to be interpreted, the less persuaded I am that any of these discrepancies are due to blatant lies or outright incapacity on the part of anyone on either side.
As I said, I certainly wouldn’t argue that Carter is totally unbiased about the Middle East. But I think it’s a stretch to get from “twenty-three debatable, misinterpretable, careless and/or slanted statements in a 288-page book” to “riddled with errors rife with errors liar senile false-to-facts lazy bigot hatred intolerance bigot untrustworthy malice incompetence unreliable prejudice objectively factually wrong”.
Every time finn has brought up one of these gotcha’s of Carter’s book the case has been working very very hard to still not be convincing that he was being untruthful.
Why don’t you try your next favorite? Maybe that will stick. Or you could just admit that the criticisms of Carter have nothing to do with him being a bigot. (or being stupid, since that’s absurd as well to claim of the guy)
And yet, I’ve attempted multiple times to actually discuss this with you, and each time you changed the subject.
Of course, I also showed exactly why Carter’s errors show that he’s either a liar, senile or simply doesn’t care if the claims he makes are true. You were unable to respond and changed the subject. If you only change the subject and cannot actually defend your position, it’s clear that your’e wrong. If all you can do is attempt to mock the facts, and the definition of the word “bigot”, then it’s clear that not only do you not have an argument, you can’t create the shadow of one.
Peres never said any such thing. Assad’s only claim was that Peres said “Syria would accept [a] demilitarized Golan.” Not that Syria would do so immediately. Not that Syria had “spontaneously proposed” anything.
In response to the question “would you accept demilitarization of [the] Golan Heights?” Assad said “we cannot accept this because we are sacrificing our sovereignty.” There is no ambiguity. Assad said he would not accept a DMZ. Period. Full stop.
Yes, he was. You cannot exercise sovereignty over neutral territory, for example.
No, you only touched on one of Carter’s lies. He also claimed that Syria agreed that it would “move its troops farther from the border because of the terrain.” What Assad actually said was “If anyone can ask for additional measures, we should ask for a larger DMZ [demilitarized zone] from their part.” Carter has attempted to turn Assad saying that even if he’d agree to a DMZ, he’d Israel to give up a larger share of territory into Assad offering to move his own forces back further.
The mistake you’re making is equating “semi-demilitarized” with “demilitarized”. Even if Assad meant that he was still willing to agree to “semi-demilitarization”, he made quite clear that he would never agree to a DMZ (unless you believe that Assad felt it was a violation of sovereignty then but wouldn’t be later?). He then said that if anybody could ask for additional measures (like a DMZ, as Carter claimed he’d agreed to), that “we should ask for a larger DMZ [demilitarized zone] from their part.”
In other words, Assad was saying ‘fuck additional measures, in the past we’ve agreed to a semi-DMZ only and I’m telling you right now that agreeing to a DMZ would be relinquishing our sovereignty over the Golan.’
Your own quote shows that Peres said nothing of the sort. Rather than anything “unconditional” he said that he’d been told Syria was "proposing peace negotiations, demilitarizing the Golan Heights.‘’
Beyond that, you might want to actually research Chomsky before making such statement.
Chomsky most certainly has been an apologist for the notorious French Holocaust Denier Robert Faurisson.
Way back in the late 70s, Robert Faurisson, while a lecturer at a French university published a bunch of pamphlets insisting the Holocaust was a hoax and that no Jews had died in the gas chambers and that it was a myth invented to cover up American atrocities and to justify the creation of Israel.
The French university he was working for disciplined Faurisson for academic misconduct, specifically deliberating falsifying and misrepresenting data, including transcripts from war crime trials.
He later tried to claim he was just doing this because he was believer in free speech despite the fact that, as Alan Dershowitz pointed out, he had no record of standing up for free speech during that period and even seemed to be against it when he’d tried to prevent MIT from allowing Henry Kissinger to speak there.
However, he went far beyond just being an advocate for free speech and engaged in behavior not remotely comparable to Voltaire’s dictum of defending people’s right to speak even if he despised what they say.
He signed a petition that numerous other leftists rightly refused to sign regarding Faurisson which declared:
Now, leaving aside the fact that, as Eric Alterman(hardly anyone’s idea of a neocon) pointed out, Faurisson was disciplined for academic misconduct not for expressing his opinions, anyone who chooses to sign a petition which puts the word Holocaust in quotes, refers to a Holocaust denying crank as engaging in “extensive historical research” and claims that the lies he spreads are “findings” is engaging in apologia.
Chomsky went even further, publishing a defense of Faurisson in which he went far beyond justifying Faurisson’s “free speech” but insisted that Faurisson was “not an anti-Semite” and also insisted that Faurisson was “a relatively apolitical liberal”.
Chomsky’s claim of course was utterly moronic unless one wants to argue that people who insist that the Holocaust was hoax invented to justify the creation of Israel are “apolitical liberals”.
Chomsky for years afterwards continually insisted, “I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the gas chambers or denial of the Holocaust” and repeatedly declared that no one had ever produced any evidence that Faurisson was an anti-Semite because no one had ever shown that Faurisson had ever claimed that Jews were dumber or inferior to gentiles.
Now, leaving aside the fact that he is deliberately redefining the term anti-Semtism, unless one wants to claim that classifying Holocaust denial and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as anti-Semitic is wrong, no reasonable person can deny that he was an apologist for Faurisson.
As for his stance on the Cambodian Holocaust, yes he now claims that he believes it occurred and denies ever doing so, but he repeatedly spoke out against it for years claiming that it was a hoax and the Khmer Rouge were being blamed for crimes they didn’t commit.
He went so far as to write an infamous essay in The Nation, for which he was roundly criticized by The Nation’s readers.
In the essay, he took the same line towards the Cambodian Holocaust that David Irving took towards the Shoah. Claiming that merely a few thousand people were killed, that most of those killed were do to the Americans, that the Americans had invented this hoax to cover up war crimes and that the survivors were liars who shouldn’t be trusted.
So yes, he was also an apologist for the Khmer Rouge and a genocide denier, unless you wish to claim that David Irving shouldn’t be classified as “Holocaust Denier” but a “Holocaust Minimizer”.
Let’s start with your error on this point. In a post I’ve referenced for you, multiple times, I point out just three that are not possibly “debatable”, open to “misinterpretation” or “careless statements” unless of course you assume that Carter is senile or is so careless as to not care at all what the facts are.
In one, he claims that something which explicitly isn’t a border, *by treaty, * is a border.
In another, he claims that despite the UN certifying that Israel had withdrawn from all of Lebanon, despite the fact that Syria and Lebanon agreed that Shabaa Farms was Syrian until Israel captured it, that Shabaa is really Lebanon’s and Israel is occupying Lebanese territory. In a third, he claims that the security fence is built “entirely within Palestinian territory”. The facts clearly show that no such thing is true. Are you going to even try to explain how any of those are “debatable”, open to “misinterpretation” or mere “careless statements”? Can you explain how someone who could make such errors out of being “careless” is, at the same time, a reliable source for information about history?
-When Carter claims that Hamas had launched no attacks during a period when Hamas claimed responsibility for attacks, is that somehow “debatable”? Can one “misinterpret” Hamas claiming responsibility"? Are you honestly going to claim it’s mere garden variety “carelessness” to unambiguously claim that Hamas “meticulously observed a cease-fire commitment” during a time period when Hamas publicly admitted and took credit for launching attacks? Someone who doesn’t even know about a group’s multiple attacks that they publicly took responsibility for… he’s a reliable source for the history of a conflict involving that group? Are you serious? Can you even attempt to defend your claim?
-When carter claims that Haniyeh never said “We will never recognize the usurper Zionist government …’” (and then claims that, well, at least he never saw any such reports) and the reports were in multiple major newspapers, what does that reveal about Carter’s commitment to factual accuracy? His intellectual curiosity? His willingness to make definitive statements about issues which he hasn’t even bothered to read up on and which were fairly major news in the topic he’s claiming to be an expert on? Do you really want to claim that, even given the most charitable interpretation of Carter’s motivations, that he’s simply an incurious idiot who can’t bother to do basic fact checking, that he’s someone who is “reliable and true to history”?
-Carter claims that “neither Olmert nor his predecessor Sharon has been willing to negotiate at all with the Palestinians”. Of course, Sharon and Abbas did negotiate. On multiple occasions. Is Carter simply so unconcerned with the truth that he made that claim and didn’t care if it was true or not? Did he make that claim because he’s senile and can’t tell the difference between truth and fiction? Did he lie, deliberately, to paint Israel in a negative light? If you have a fourth possibility, can you actually explicitly state it, or can you only handwave away facts and logic that you don’t like?
Can you actually defend Carter’s ‘honest errors’ as merely “debatable”, open to “misinterpretation” or “careless statements” ? Can you actually defend your claims that Carter is “reliable and true to history” when he’s shown on multiple topics that if you relied on his claims about history, you would have been duped? Can you actually defend your claims that in a book based around such things as borders, occupation, negotiations and military action, if its author makes shockingly obvious errors about borders, occupation, negotiations and military action, that he’s someone we can rely on for facts about history? Can you actually come up with a reason why Carter is wrong about objective facts so often other than the three I’ve pointed out, that he’s either deliberately distorting facts, unable to tell fact from fiction, or simply doesn’t care about facts? When all of Carter’s ‘honest errors’, without exception, serve to demonize Israel and/or exonerate its enemies, do you have an actual cogent argument to deny that evinces that he’s “a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance”?
Do you have any reasoned argument on this topic or just some sort of faux egalitarianism when objective facts and proper logic are equal with whatever anybody chooses to claim?
You might wish to do some research on him before making such statements.
He has a long habit of deliberately misrepresenting what people have said and being guilty of dishonesty as well as being fast and loose with the truth.
Eric Alterman and Matthew Yglesias, neither of whom could ever be accused of being right-wingers have both regularly written about this.
His own publisher would laugh at your comments that no one can question “his facts.”
Years ago, he was caught in a lie and humiliated by Arthur Schlessinger(again no right-wing whack job). In his book American Power and the New Mandarins, he pointed out that Chomsky had grossly misquoted a speech Harry Truman made. Chomsky rather lamely tried to claim that he was sloppy and should have made clear that he was paraphrasing Truman not quoting him.
This was also quite humbling for his publishers who were forced to put out new, corrected versions of the book.
Schlessinger called him “an intellectual crook” and Chomsky was extremely lucky that the Truman family chose not to sue him for libel.
Any cites you can give for this would be helpful. I’ll tell you that I believe all of what youre saying to be a distortion ginned up from people that wanted to destroy his credentials specifically around this time period.
I’m looking it up atm and already finding that his statements about the Khmer Rogue have been widely misrepresented. But I’ll keep looking and let you know what I find.
The Khmer Rouge thing really does not seem to be true at all. Chomsky is enthusiastic in his investigation of the merits of various sources of information and had at times criticized the conclusions and sourcing of other and the media regarding the conflict. Each time he does so he seems not at all to be sympathizing with the brutal regime and only questioning correctly estimates of the death toll at various points that were poorly done with bad methodology. At one point his writings are severely edited to make him appear to be sympathizing but in their full account are nothing of the kind. He merely wonders at the source of such violence and speculated that the horror of war around and on them from outside their country hardened their hearts and made them susceptible to an extremist ideology.
http://bigwhiteogre.blogspot.com/2010/07/chomskys-views-on-khmer-rouge-distorted.html
I kind of think I’m going to find the same manufactured monstrosity in the other issue but I’ll go ahead and work that up to just because it makes me angry that the defamation industry is so successful in getting people like you to believe this stuff and reproduce it.
Aaand the other half, Oh man you’re referencing Dershowitz ugh, you know that guy is terrible in any contest of logic or facts right? Watch the Dershwitz Chomsky debate on youtube if you don’t believe me. a simple google search will find it.
ON the Holocaust denier thing the worst comments attributed to Chomsky are from a freedom of speech petition he signed. He didn’t write it, and it’s not damning. It’s just not phrased as best as it could. It’s still just saying the guy should be allowed to do his research because you know freedom of speech is good.
And Chomsky on the context of his comments and that he made no assessment either way of the quality of the man’s “research”.
"I made it explicit that I would not discuss Faurisson’s work, having only limited familiarity with it (and, frankly, little interest in it). Rather, I restricted myself to the civil-liberties issues and the implications of the fact that it was even necessary to recall Voltaire’s famous words in a letter to M. le Riche: “I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.” […] Many writers find it scandalous that I should support the right of free expression for Faurisson without carefully analyzing his work, a strange doctrine which, if adopted, would effectively block defense of civil rights for unpopular views. […]
It seems to me something of a scandal that it is even necessary to debate these issues two centuries after Voltaire defended the right of free expression for views he detested. It is a poor service to the memory of the victims of the holocaust to adopt a central doctrine of their murderers."
Here we’ve got Chomsky reviewing the events in some detail.
“Faurisson’s conclusions are diametrically opposed to views I hold and have frequently expressed in print (for example, in my book Peace in the Middle East?, where I describe the holocaust as “the most fantastic outburst of collective insanity in human history”). But it is elementary that freedom of expression (including academic freedom) is not to be restricted to views of which one approves, and that it is precisely in the case of views that are almost universally despised and condemned that this right must be most vigorously defended. It is easy enough to defend those who need no defense or to join in unanimous (and often justified) condemnation of a violation of civil rights by some official enemy.”
It is exactly what you said it was not, a defense of free speech. When he calls him a “apolitical liberal.” he is simply saying that he did not find him to be politically active and that otherwise his personal views are what at the time wold have been considered liberal.
Chomsky has almost a cultural/political Asperger’s. He doesn’t care that you find his analysis inconvenient to what feels good politically. He will point out errors in data that supports his friends or enemies, and point out hypocrisy especially when perpetrated by the US and it’s allies. He does this because he believes we shouldn’t just beat our enemies in war, but be better than them morally and ethically. He is not a supporter of any fascist that has ever existed or any war of aggression ever waged.
There are plenty who find his integrity and credentials inconvenient. And they would all love to see him smeared in the mud. It doesn’t work though, any intelligent person can read what he writes and listen to him speak and know he’s a positive influence on the world who loves truth, peace and democracy.
From the great man himself, where he compares the Khmer Rouge to the French resistance.
People will notice there that he also quite explicitly implies that the idea that 2 million Cambodians were murdered by the Khmer Rouge to be absurd.
Here’s the full article where he does his impersonation of David Irving insisting that the Khmer Rouge were being blamed for things the mean Americans were doing, that he survivors of the Cambodian Holocaust were untrustworthy liars and where he insists on accepting as gospel statements by the Khmer Rouge while disparaging western sources who uncover the truth of the Cambodian Holocaust.
Now, if you want to insist that this article doesn’t constitute denial of the Cambodian Holocaust then you’d also have to insist that David Irving’s various essays don’t constitute denial of the Shoah.
Sorry to disappoint you, but he’s not being “misrepresented” or “misinterpreted” and he was condemned by numerous readers of The Nation and various progressives and liberals for this.
I’d recommend reading people like Matthew Yglesias, Eric Alterman and Sydney Schanberg, and spend less time reading his groupies and apologists, since they’re the people you seem to have gleaned most of your information from.
I could be wrong about the last part, but judging by the fact that you knew absolutely nothing about such famous incidents as his denial of the Cambodian Holocaust and his apologia for Robert Faurisson.
So then are you saying that if I show that Chomsky insisted that Faurisson was not an anti-Semite, but “a relatively apolitical liberal” that you’d agree he should be considered an apologist for the man?
If I show that Chomsky has insisted that ““I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers, or even denial of the holocaust” then it would be fair to describe him as an apologist for Holocaust Deniers?
If I show that Chomsky chose to sign a petition regarding a notorious Holocaust Denier that stated:
Would you agree that he was again apologizing for the man.
If not, please explain how a petition which puts the word Holocaust in quotes, insists that Holocaust Deniers are engaging in “extensive historical research” and that their lies are actually “findings” shouldn’t be classified as holocaust apologia?
Beyond that, if you really want to insist that what Chomsky didn’t doesn’t constitute being an apologist for Holocaust Deniers it would appear to most reasonable people you have dramatically different definition of “apologist” then do most people.
What do you mean “out of context content of the petition”?
I quoted the actual petition.
People who sign petitions that express birther sentiments are classified as birthers.
People who sign petitions that express truther sentiments are classified as truthers.
Anyway, please explain why you don’t think statements like
**“I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers, or even denial of the holocaust” **
aren’t examples of being an apologist for Holocaust Deniers.
For that matter, please explain how someone who insists that Robert Faurisson isn’t an anti-Semite and is actually “a relatively apolitical liberal” are engaging in apologia for a Holocaust Denier?
I have to admit it’s rather amusing that after repeatedly declaring how familiar you were with Faurisson you’ve revealed you had no knowledge, other than what you’ve glean this evening, about two extremely famous incidents in Chomsky’s life.
It’s a little like hearing someone go on and on about what a fan of Nirvana they are and then ask “Who’s Kurt Cobain”?
I don’t mean to be rude, but if you know so little about the man that you set yourself up by declaring that Chomsky would never have declared the Cambodian Holocaust a hoax or been and apologist for Holocaust Deniers then you really might want to read up more on him and also to check out less biased sources than his groupies and wikipedia which is what you seem to be relying on.
How many, if any, of his books have you even read?
Anyway, please explain explain how insisting that Faurisson is being falsely accused of anti-Semitism, claiming that not only is it not anti-Semitic to deny the Holocaust but there aren’t even any anti-Semitic implications in denial of the Holocaust and claiming that Faurisonn is merely “a relatively apolitical liberal” as well as writing the preface to one of Faurisson’s books doesn’t warrant being classified as an apologist for Holocaust Deniers?
Moreover it’s a but amusing to hear demands for a reputable cite for someone defending a known liar like Chomsky, though you continue to display that you’re really not all that familiar with your hero.
Once again, how many, if any, of his books have you read?