Noam Chomsky maintains the rage

Photo supplied
The octogenarian Noam Chomsky photographed earlier this year

via CAAI

Written by Stuart Alan

Tuesday, 05 October 2010 13:00

Renowned philosopher and linguist Noam Chomsky may be approaching his 83rd year but he has maintained the rage.

Part of his fury is directed at the United States and former secretary of state Henry Kissinger for their role in the bombing of Cambodia.

Chomsky has told the The Phnom Penh Post that the US owes Cambodia an apology and massive reparations for the B-52 bombing campaign that killed up to a million people.

The campaign lasted from March 18, 1969, to May 26, 1970, destroyed an estimated 1,000 towns and villages, displaced 2 million people and, Chomsky says, helped bring the Khmer Rouge to power.

Chomsky says Kissinger would certainly be brought to trial for his role in the bombing, if the world were governed by justice, not forces.

Bellow are extracts of Journalist Stuart Alan Becker’s exclusive question-and-answer session with Chomsky, the full version of which will be available with an exclusive report in tomorrow’s Phnom Penh Post or online from 3PM.

When you look at the genocide under the Khmer Rouge that occurred in Cambodia, do you put the blame on the American bombing of Cambodia for creating the conditions that brought Pol Pot to power, or is it more complex than that?

Two leading Cambodia scholars, Owen Taylor and Ben Kiernan, point out that when the intense US bombing of rural Cambodia began, the Khmer Rouge were a small group of perhaps 10,000. Within a few years, the KR had grown to a huge army of some 200,000, deeply embittered and seeking revenge. Their recruitment propaganda successful highlighted the US bombing. Pentagon records reveal that the tonnage of bombs released on rural Cambodia was about the same as total US bombing in the Pacific during World War II, and of course far more intense. But that was surely not the only factor.

Do you think Henry Kissinger ought to be brought to trial for the bombing of Cambodia? Do you think the Khmer Rouge would have remained a marginal force and never taken power had the US bombing of Cambodia never taken place? Does the US owe Cambodia an apology for the bombing?

In a world governed by justice, not forces, Kissinger would certainly be brought to trial, not just for his hideous crimes in Cambodia. These, as I mentioned earlier, contributed to the rise of the Khmer Rouge while killing unknown numbers of people and leaving vast destruction. The effects were so severe that high US officials predicted that a million would die under the best of circumstances after the war ended in 1975, and that two years of virtual slave labour would be required to at least partially restore a functioning society in Cambodia. The US owes Cambodia not just an apology but massive reparations. And that is very far from the only case.

How is it that people got the idea you were soft on Khmer Rouge atrocities as a result of your 1988 book with Edward S. Herman, Manufacturing Consent?

In our 1988 book, Herman and I reviewed the way the horrors in Cambodia had been treated through three distinct phases: the US war before the Khmer Rouge takeover in April 1975; the Khmer Rouge period; the period after Vietnam invaded and drove out the Khmer Rouge and the US and Britain turned at once to direct military and diplomatic support for the Khmer Rouge ("Democratic Kampuchea"). By the time we wrote, it was known that the pre-1975 US war was horrendous, but it is only in the past few years that more extensive documents have been released.

We now know that the most brutal phase began in 1970, when Henry Kissinger transmitted President Nixon's orders for "massive bombing of Cambodia, anything that flies on anything that moves" (Kissinger's words, to General Haig). It is hard to find a declaration with such clear genocidal intent in the archival record of any state. And the orders were carried out. Bombing of rural Cambodia was at the level of total allied bombing in the Pacific theatre during World War II. The Khmer Rouge, as we now know, expanded to about 200,000, largely recruited by the bombing.

During the first and third period there was quite a lot that Americans -- more generally Westerners - could do. During the second period no one even had a suggestion as to what to do. The coverage is exactly the opposite of what elementary moral considerations would dictate. During the first period, there was some protest, but coverage was slight and it was quickly forgotten. The new revelations have been almost entirely suppressed. During the third period, coverage again was very slight and the history has also been almost entirely forgotten.

Our accurate review of these facts did lead to considerable outrage, and massive lies, such as what you mention. That was even more true of our 1979 two-volume study Political Economy of Human Rights, which provides extensive documentation to show that this pattern was (and is) quite generally, extending all over the world. Most of the study concerned US crimes, so it was therefore unreviewed and unread - confirming our thesis. One chapter was about Cambodia. In it, we harshly condemned Pol Pot's crimes, and also revealed extraordinary fabrication and deceit. We wrote that the crimes were horrible enough, but commentators ought to keep to the truth, and to the most reliable sources, like State Department intelligence, by all accounts the most knowledgeable source at the time - and also largely suppressed, apart from our review, because it did not conform to the image that was manufactured. That image was important.

It was exploited quite explicitly to whitewash past US crimes in Indochina, and to lay the groundwork for new and quite awful crimes in Central America, justified on grounds that the US had to stop the "Pol Pot left." We compared Cambodia to East Timor, accurately: two huge atrocities in the same time period and same area of the world, differing in one crucial respect: in East Timor the US and its allies had primary responsibility for the atrocities, and could have easily brought them to an end; in Cambodia they could do little or nothing - as noted, there was scarcely even a suggestion - and the enemy's atrocities could be and were exploited to justify our own.

We showed that in both cases there was massive deceit in the US and the West, but in opposite directions: in the case of East Timor, where the crimes could have easily been terminated, they were suppressed or denied; in the case of Cambodia, where nothing could be done, the fabrication and lies would, literally, have impressed Stalin.

What we wrote about East Timor was entirely ignored (except in Australia), along with the rest of what we wrote about US crimes and how they were covered up.

What we wrote about Cambodia, in contrast, elicited huge outrage and a new flood of lies, as we discussed in our 1988 book. And it continues. In general, it is extremely important to suppress our own crimes and to defend the right to lie at will about the crimes of enemies. Those are major tasks of the educated classes, as we documented at length, in these books and elsewhere.

It is a rare study that does not contain errors, but our chapter on Cambodia seems to be an exception. Despite massive effort, no one has found even a misplaced comma, let alone any substantive error. We would be more than happy to concede and correct any error, but despite Herculean efforts, none has been found. Please don't take my word for it, of course. Check and see for yourself. ...read the full exclusive interview and report in tomorrow’s Phnom Penh Post or see the updated story version from 3PM UTC/GMT +7 hours.