User:Smallchief/Marne

One thing this article now misses is a discussion of what Chomsky/Herman said in their 1979 book, After the Cataclysm (text available on-line). In 1977, when Chomsky/Herman wrote their Nation article, you can make a case (a weak one in my opinion) that information out of Cambodia was not yet definitive enough to 100 % characterize the KR as genocidal. However, in 1979 when After the Cataclysm was published, there was no doubt that the Khmer Rouge (KR) had been responsible for a million or more deaths in Cambodia. Some former deniers, such as Ben Kiernan, had recanted and others, such as Gareth Porter, were silent.

However, in 1979 Chomsky/Herman admitted no error in their previous analysis and continued to attack the many, many sources that called the KR genocidal. For example, on page 137 of the book Chomsky/Herman say the "alleged genocide in Cambodia" (If a person were to say the "alleged Holocaust" or the "alleged Armenian genocide', as Chomsky/Herman said of the Cambodian genocide, would he or she be considered a holocaust or genocide denier? You bet.)

On page 244, Chomsky/Herman say: "The methodology for estimating post war [Cambodian] deaths...is hardly more than a joke; one does not have to be a 'dedicated skeptic' to question their basis for concluding that 'at least 1m people have died since the fall of Cambodia as a direct result of the excesses" of the KR.

On page 266, Chomsky/Herman say that authors Francois Ponchaud and Jean Lacouture "built their case [for KR genocide] on sand."

It is worth reminding the reader that the people Chomsky/Herman were disagreeing with for 160 pages in the book were correct: the KR were responsible for the deaths of vast numbers of people in Cambodia. Every fair-minded source knew that in 1979 -- except for Chomsky/Herman and a few other fringe scholars. I don't know of any correction or retraction of their views by Chomsky and Herman until years later -- and then their retractions were cursory and reluctant.

Do you want more recent second-han evidence? Here's a comment in Yale University "Globalist," 2017. "At the time, American scholars Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman argued that media claims of the Cambodian genocide were propaganda, designed to make the US look favorable in the ongoing Vietnam War." {https://globalist.yale.edu/in-the-magazine/glimpses/ghosts-of-cambodias-past/)

There is no excuse in 1979 for not acknowledging the genocide in Cambodia. To do so is to be a denier of established facts. I can add

I don't know of any correction or retraction of their views by Chomsky and Herman until years later -- and then their retractions were cursory and reluctant.

Do you want more recent evidence? Here's a comment in Yale University "Globalist," 2017. "At the time, American scholars Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman argued that media claims of the Cambodian genocide were propaganda, designed to make the US look favorable in the ongoing Vietnam War." {https://globalist.yale.edu/in-the-magazine/glimpses/ghosts-of-cambodias-past/)

Perhaps I should add this additional information to the article?

In 1977, Chomsky and Herman published a long essay titled "Distortions at Fourth Hand." That essay criticized books by journalists John Barron and Anthony Paul and by a leftist priest who initially supported the KR, François Ponchaud describing the atrocities being committed by the KR in Cambodia. Chomsky/Herman's judgement of Barron/Paul were scathing: "their scholarship collapses under the barest scrutiny," and "third rate propaganda." They characterized Ponchaud's book as "careless" and "fast and loose with quotes and numbers." (https://chomsky.info/19770625/, pages 4, 6-9)

Ponchaud responded in the UK edition of his book: "Even before this book was translated it was sharply criticised by Mr Noam Chomsky and Mr Gareth Porter. These two "experts" on Asia [sarcasm] claim that I am mistakenly trying to convince people that Cambodia was drowned in a sea of blood after the departure of the last American diplomats. They say there have been no massacres, and they lay the blame for the tragedy of the Khmer people on the American bombings. They accuse me of being insufficiently critical in my approach to the refugees' accounts. For them, refugees are not a valid source."

It is worth reminding the reader that Barron/Paul and Ponchaud were correct: the KR were responsible for the deaths of vast numbers of people in Cambodia.

A generous view might be that in 1977 only limited information about events in Cambodia was available to Chomsky/Herman. However, by 1978, most former deniers of KR genocide were running for cover, Ben Kiernan and Gareth Porter. for example. Chomsky/Herman continued to deny Cambodian genocide. In 1979, they published After the Cataclysm (full text available online). The tenor of the book is not to acknowledge the scope of the crimes of the KR but rather to continue to criticize publications and authors reporting on genocide in Cambodia and to minimize the killings and deaths by the KR. Relevant quotes from the book include:
 * Chomsky/Herman say the "alleged genocide in Cambodia" (page 137). (If a person were to say the "alleged Holocaust" or the "alleged Armenian genocide', as Chomsky/Herman said of the Cambodian genocide, would he or she be considered a holocaust or genocide denier? You bet.)


 * Chomsky/Herman said that Barron/Paul: "failed to observe the most obvious and elementary cautions" in listening to refugee stories (page 147) (Again, a reminder to the reader: Barron and Paul were correct);


 * Chomsky/Herman minimized the numbers of KR victims by comparing the motives and the consequences of KR rule in Cambodia to post World War II France "where a minimum of 30,000 to 40,000 people were massacred" for collaborationist activities with Nazi Germany. (page 149) (Pointing fingers and over-stating post-war French violence while minimizing the violence perpetrated by the KR.)


 * Chomsky/Herman refer to "more sensational claims that have been endlessly repeated by the media." (pages 168-169) (Again, the "sensational claims" of genocide in Cambodia were correct.}


 * Criticizing journalist William Shawcross, Chomsky/Herman say that Shawcross "does not, here or elsewhere, present evidence that the use of terror [by the KR] is systematic and deliberate policy." (There is no indication that Chomsky and Herman ever talked to a single Cambodian while writing their book.)


 * Chomsky/Herman say: "The methodology for estimating post war deaths...is hardly more than a joke; one does not have to be a 'dedicated skeptic' to question their basis for concluding that 'at least 1m people have died since the fall of Cambodia as a direct result of the excesses" of the KR. (page 244) (The number of people dying of the KR excesses exceeds one million)


 * Chomsky/Herman say that Ponchaud and Jean Lacouture (a leftist Frenchman who reviewed Ponchaud's book favorably) "built their case [for KR genocide] on sand." (page 266)

I don't know of any correction or retraction of their views by Chomsky and Herman until years later -- and then their retractions were cursory and reluctant.

Do you want more recent evidence? Here's a comment in Yale University "Globalist," 2017. "At the time, American scholars Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman argued that media claims of the Cambodian genocide were propaganda, designed to make the US look favorable in the ongoing Vietnam War." {https://globalist.yale.edu/in-the-magazine/glimpses/ghosts-of-cambodias-past/)

There is no excuse in 1979 for not acknowledging the genocide in Cambodia. To do so is to be a denier of established facts.

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1977/dec/12/cambodian-refugees-in-thailand

Rodney Elton, 2nd Baron Elton

Views on Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge
In July 1978, Chomsky and his collaborator, Edward S. Herman reviewed three books about Cambodia. Two of the books by John Barron (and Anthony Paul) and François Ponchaud were based on interviews with Cambodian refugees and concluded that the Khmer Rouge had killed or been responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of Cambodians. The third book, by scholars Gareth Porter and George Hildebrand, described the Khmer Rouge in highly favorable terms. Chomsky and Herman called Barron and Paul's book "third rate propaganda" and part of a "vast and unprecedented propaganda campaign" against the Khmer Rouge. He said Ponchaud was "worth reading" but unreliable. Chomsky said that refugee stories of KR atrocities should be treated with great "care and caution" as no independent verification was available. By contrast, Chomsky was highly favorable toward the book by Porter and Hildebrand, which portrayed Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge as a "bucolic idyll." Chomsky also opined that the documentation of Gareth Porter's book was superior to that of Ponchaud's, despite almost all of the references cited by Porter coming from Khmer Rouge documents while Ponchaud's came from speaking to Cambodian refugees.

Chomsky and Herman later co-authored a book about Cambodia titled After the Cataclysm (1979), which appeared after the Khmer Rouge regime had been deposed. The book was described by Cambodian scholar Sophal Ear as "one of the most supportive books of the Khmer revolution" in which they "perform what amounts to a defense of the Khmer Rouge cloaked in an attack on the media". In the book, Chomsky and Herman acknowledged that "The record of atrocities in Cambodia is substantial and often gruesome", but questioned their scale, which may have been inflated "by a factor of 100". Khmer Rouge agricultural policies reportedly produced "spectacular" results." wikipedia: Contrary to Chomsky and Herman, the reports of massive Khmer Rouge atrocities and starvation in Cambodia proved to be accurate and uninflated. Many deniers or doubters of the Cambodian genocide recanted their previous opinions, but Chomsky continued to insist that his analysis of Cambodia was without error based on the information available to him at the time. Herman addressed critics in 2001: "Chomsky and I found that the very asking of questions about ... the victims in the anti-Khmer Rouge propaganda campaign of 1975–1979 was unacceptable, and was treated almost without exception as 'apologetics for Pol Pot'."

Chomsky's biographers look at this issue in different ways. In Noam Chomsky: A life of dissent, Robert Barsky focuses on Steven Lukes' critique of Chomsky in The Times Higher Education Supplement. Barsky cites Lukes' claim that, obsessed by his opposition to the United States' role in Indochina, Chomsky had "lost all sense of perspective" when it came to Pol Pot's Cambodia. Barsky then cites a response by Chomsky in which he says that, by making no mention of this, Lukes is demonstrating himself to be an apologist for the crimes in Timor and adds on this subject, "Let us say that someone in the US or UK... did deny Pol Pot atrocities. That person would be a positive saint as compared to Lukes, who denies comparable atrocities for which he himself shares responsibility and know how to bring to an end, if he chose". Barsky concludes that the vigor of Chomsky's remarks "reflects the contempt that he feels" for all such arguments.

In Decoding Chomsky, Chris Knight takes a rather different approach. He claims that because Chomsky never felt comfortable about working in a military-funded laboratory at MIT, he was reluctant to be too critical of any regime that was being targeted by that same military. Knight writes that "while Chomsky has denounced the Russian Bolsheviks of 1917, he has been less hostile towards the so-called communist regimes which later took power in Asia. ... He also seemed reluctant to acknowledge the full horror of the 'communist' regime in Cambodia. The explanation I favour is that it pained Chomsky's conscience to denounce people anywhere who were being threatened by the very war machine that was funding his research." --- Political economy of human rights 1979 In their chapter on Cambodia under Khmer Rouge rule, Chomsky and Herman firmly conclude that major atrocities have occurred. They review the available evidence, concluding that pieces of evidence that give the worst possible picture of the Khmer Rouge regime are given massive publicity in the U.S., while evidence giving a more positive picture—many of which they review, without endorsement—get systematically suppressed. One theme in the chapter is that, the very nature of the U.S. propaganda system is such that, analyses that present the Khmer Rouge in a favorable light, will be relegated to obscure sources.

The authors discuss, among many other documents, Murder in a Gentle Land by John Barron and Anthony Paul, a study extremely critical of the Khmer Rouge, which, they note was ”widely and generally quite favorably reviewed” and ”subject to extensive comment” served up to a ”mass audience”. They present a detailed review of the book, at the end of which they conclude that it ”will not withstand scrutiny. The historical comments are worthless and their effort to document what might have been observed reduces to the testimony of refugees, that is, unverifiable testimony.”