Having made the mistake of having joked about
Noam Chomsky and so provoked a Chomskyite troll eruption that was painful
to clean out, I believe that I have to make my position clear:
Noam Chomsky is a liar.
For example, Noam Chomsky says:
On the NATO Bombing of
Yugoslavia, Noam Chomsky interviewed by Danilo Mandic: Director of
Communications [for Clinton Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott], John
Norris.... [T]ake a look on John Norris’s book and what he says is that the
real purpose of the war had nothing to do with concern for Kosovar Albanians.
It was because Serbia was not carrying out the required social and economic
reforms, meaning it was the last corner of Europe which had not subordinated
itself to the US-run neoliberal programs, so therefore it had to be eliminated.
That’s from the highest level...
Here’s the passage from
John Norris (2005), Collision Course: NATO, Russia, and Kosovo
(New York: Praeger), that Chomsky is misciting, p. xxii ff.:
For Western powers, the
Kosovo crisis was fueled by frustration with Milsoevic and the legitimate fear
that instability and conflict might spread further in the region, The evolving
political aims of the Alliance and the changing nature of the transatlantic
community also played a role. In that vein, it is useful to more broadly
consider how NATO and Yugoslavia came to be locked in conflict....
NATO’s large membership and consensus style may cause
endless headaches for military planners, but it is also why joining NATO is
appealing to nations across central and eastern Europe. Nations from Albania to Ukraine want in the western club. The
gravitational pull of the community of western democracies highlights why
Milosevic’s Yugoslavia had become such an anachronism. As nations throughout
the region sought to reform their economies, mitigate ethnic tensions, and
broaden civil society, Belgrade seemed to delight in continually moving in the
opposite direction. It is small wonder NATO and Yugoslavia ended up on a
collision course. It was Yugoslavia’s resistance of the broader trends of political
and economic reform--not the plight of the Kosovar Albanians--that best
explains NATO’s war. Milosevic had been a burr in the side of the transatlantic
community for so long that the United States felt that he would only respond to
military pressure Slobodan Milosevice’s repeated transgressions ran directly
counter to the vision of a Europe “whole and free,” and challenged the very
value of NATO’s continued existence.
Many outsiders accuse western countries of selective
intervention in Kosovo--fighting on a hair-trigger in the Balkans while
avoiding the Sudans and Rwandas of the world. This was hardly the case. Only a
decade of death, destruction, and Milosevic brinkmanship pushed NATO to act
when the Rambouillet talks collapsed. Most of the leaders of NATO’s major
powers were proponents of “third way” politics and headed socially progressive,
economically centrist governments. None of these men were particularly hawkish,
and Milosevic did not allow them the political breathing room to look past his
abuses.
Through predatory opportunism, Milosevic had
repeatedly exploited the weakest instincts of European and North American
powers alike. Time and again, he had preserved his political power because
nations mightier than his own lacked the political resolve to bring him to
heel. His record was ultimately one of ruin, particularly for the Serbs, as
Yugoslavia dwindled into a smaller and smaller state verging on coallpse. It
was precisely because Milosevic had become so adroit at outmaneuvering th ewest
that NATO came to view the ever-escalating use of force as its only option.
Nobody should be surprised that Milosevic eventually goaded the sleeping giant
out of repose. NATO went to war in Kosovo because its political and diplomatic
leaders had enough of Milosevic and saw his actions disrupting plans to bring a
wider stable of nations into the transatlantic community. Kosovo would only
offer western leaders more humiliation and frustration if they did not
forcefully respond U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s view of
Milosevic was probably best revealed when she said that, at a certain stage at
Rambouillet, it was evident that Milosevic was “jerking us around.” In early
June of 1999, German Minister Joschka Fischer rather angrily responded to those
who questioned NATO’s motives. Fischer observed that he had originally resisted
military action, but that his views had changed, “step by step, from mass
murder to mass murder”...
John Norris simply does not say what Chomsky says
Norris says. It’s that simple.
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