The attack on Yugoslavia follows the familiar anti-socialist bent of late
capitalism and is suspect on other counts.  As a result many will not take
corporate media reports of atrocities as Holy Writ.

At 08:05 AM 6/17/02 -0700, you wrote:
>http://www.newsandletters.org/Issues/1999/Dec/12.99_chomsky.htm
>
>BOOK REVIEW:
>The New Military Humanism: Lessons from Kosovo, by Noam Chomsky (Monroe,
>Maine:
>1999, Common Courage Press)
>December 1999
>
>
>
>Chomsky
>ignores lessons of wars in Kosova
>
>
>
>By Peter Hudis
>
>There once was a time when the
>radical critic, faced with rape camps and mass killings against an ethnic
>minority, could be counted on to attack the offending regime, expose the
>complicity of the Western powers, and extend solidarity to the victims of
>oppression. But no more-at least judging from Noam Chomsky's latest book
>on the
>war in Kosova.
>
>Chomsky debunks the myth that the U.S. went to war over Kosova for
>"humanitarian" reasons. He is right that this wasn't the first time U.S.
>imperialism tried to justify a military intervention through ideological
>double
>talk. As he shows, the U.S. bombed Serbia to bolster the prestige of NATO, not
>to aid the victims of "ethnic cleansing."
>
>The problem, however, is that not one but TWO wars were fought in Kosova this
>year. One was the U.S. war against Serbia. The other was Serbia's war against
>the Kosovars. Reading Chomsky, you'd barely know the second ever occurred.
>Neither the nature of Milosevic's regime nor the struggle of the Kosovars
>receives any serious discussion.
>
>A 'NEW HUMANISM'?
>
>Chomsky does the imperialists one better by not only debunking what they say,
>but attributing to them what they never claimed-namely, that the bombing of
>Serbia represents "the New Humanism of the New Millennium." (The phrase was
>actually first used by the German intellectual Ulrich Beck.)
>
>This is an incredible choice of words. Far from having anything to do with the
>actions of imperialist commanders, the quest for a "New Humanism" has been
>integral to the freedom struggles of our time, from the East European revolts
>against statist "Communism" to the African Revolutions to the Black freedom
>struggles in the U.S. By attributing to the rulers the opposite of what they
>are about-a "New Humanism"- Chomsky manages to purge from his purview the
>ACTUAL humanism which comes from mass struggles for freedom. This is most of
>all seen from his callous treatment of the Kosovars.
>
>He first of all denies that genocide was ever at issue, since "only" 2,500
>Kosovars were supposedly killed by Serb troops prior to the start of
>NATO's air
>war. Most of the killing of Kosovars by Serbs, he says, occurred after the
>bombing started. Serbia is therefore not to blame for the mass killings and
>expulsions; it's really the fault of the U.S.
>
>He does mention that before the U.S. bombing Milosevic made plans for a
>massive
>invasion of Kosova, code- named Operation Horseshoe, but he dismisses it.
>After
>all, he says, the U.S. probably has contingency plans to invade Canada but
>that
>hardly means it's planning on taking imminent action. Chomsky doesn't mention
>that Operation Horseshoe was named after the tactic used by Serb
>paramilitaries
>in Bosnia of surrounding a village in a U-shaped formation, killing and raping
>those caught in it while forcing the rest of the populace to flee. Nor does he
>mention that Milosevic sent 40,000 troops into Kosova BEFORE the U.S. invasion
>replete with veterans of the paramilitaries in Bosnia who knew very well what
>was expected of them with "Operation Horseshoe."
>
>The one time he mentions genocide is by citing Miranda Vicker's comment about
>"genocidal tactics of Albanian separatists." Since he has told us that the
>killing of "only" 2,500 Kosovars prior to the U.S. bombing did not constitute
>genocide, one is left wondering how the killing of a few dozen Serbs by
>Kosovars up to then constituted genocide-especially when most of those killed
>were Serb policemen.
>
>For all his acumen in criticizing the media, Chomsky's critical reasoning
>comes
>to a dead stop when it comes to considering the Kosovars. He accepts without
>criticism THE NEW YORK TIMES writer Chris Hedges' statement that "between 1966
>and 1989 an estimated 130,000 Serbs left [Kosova] because of frequent
>harassment and discrimination by the Kosovar Albanian majority." The
>revocation
>of Kosova's autonomous status by Milosevic in 1989 comes out sounding like a
>benign act of a man trying to protect the Serb minority. Chomsky either
>doesn't
>know, or doesn't bother to tell us, that Milosevic used such exaggerated tales
>about the suffering of Serbs to consolidate his hold on power in 1989 and then
>launch a genocidal war against Bosnia.
>
>Incredibly, Bosnia hardly figures in the book at all. It's as if the massacre
>of hundreds of thousands through a carefully orchestrated genocide were a
>historical trifle without relevance to what Milosevic was doing in Kosova.
>
>ONE-SIDED ANTI-IMPERIALISM
>
>The gist of Chomsky's approach is seen when he draws an analogy to the U.S. in
>explaining why Serbia responded harshly to attacks by the Kosova Liberation
>Army (KLA): "We need scarcely tarry on how the U.S. would respond to
>attacks by
>a guerrilla force with foreign bases and supplies, seeking, say, independence
>for Puerto Rico" (p.31). No one need be told what would be the response of the
>U.S. But what would be the response of those opposed to U.S. imperialism?
>Obviously, to support the fighters for Puerto Rican independence. But when it
>comes to Kosova, Chomsky uses the analogy to ATTACK the KLA's fight for
>independence, on the grounds that it provoked the Serbs!
>
>Though an anarchist, Chomsky suffers from such tunnel-vision anti- imperialism
>that he becomes a virtual apologist for Milosevic: "Serbia is one of those
>disorderly miscreants that impedes the institution of the U.S.- dominated
>global system" (p.13).
>
>This statement leaves one speechless. He has apparently forgotten that Serbia
>was a virtual ALLY of the U.S. during 1995-98, following the signing of the
>Dayton accords-which REWARDED Milosevic by dividing Bosnia into distinct
>ethnic
>cantons.
>
>Chomsky's failure to support the fighters against genocide in Bosnia and
>Kosova, after writing eloquently for years in defense of the victims of
>"ethnic
>cleansing" in Guatemala, East Timor and elsewhere, shows that the power of
>U.S.
>militarism has become so total that even anti-statist radicals are being drawn
>into making apologies for any force, no matter how reactionary, so long as it
>can be considered a bulwark against U.S. dominance.
>
>It isn't that Chomsky actually SUPPORTS Serbia. He knows the regime has
>committed unspeakable crimes. But that just doesn't matter that much to
>him. He
>instead wants to expose the hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policy. The inevitable
>result of such a one-sided approach when a TOTAL view is needed is that the
>HUMAN dimension-those struggling against Serbian policies in Kosova- drops
>from
>sight.
>
>Last spring some of Chomsky's writings on the war were circulated by the
>Tanjug
>press-Milosevic's state-run propaganda bureau. No doubt this book too will be
>used by those out to defend Serbia as the "lesser evil." It's a sad commentary
>that Chomsky allows himself to be used in this way.
>
>
>
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