Chomsky's Views on the Khmer Rouge Distorted

Long time readers of this blog know that I've been heavily influenced recently by Noam Chomsky. Some tell me I focus on him too much. I need to branch out. It's probably true. But in my experience I can think of nobody that writes in such an effective way. In other words, when I read books on controversial topics I want to not just learn new things, but also learn how I can know that those things are true. Chomsky doesn't just tell you things that you didn't know. He tells you things you didn't know and tells you how he knows them. So you don't have to take his word for it. Glenn Greenwald is also like that, which is why I love him as well. It does me little good to hear an important claim. I need to have a reputable source for any claim.

Early on when I first started reading him I'd also look at criticisms, as I still do today. I often saw claims that he had defended the Khmer Rouge and/or denied the reality of the killings they perpetuated. I saw the claim so often initially I had to assume it was probably true. And so what. Suppose Chomsky made a mistake 40 years ago. Stranger things have happened. And suppose (as his critics allege) he never conceded it. OK. Could be. What do I care? It's not like he's my Dad or something. I don't care if people beat on him for that. The fact remains that many of his arguments today and in the past make a lot of sense and need to be considered on their own terms, not on whether or not he made a mistake years ago.

Still I was curious to see this alleged error and I had difficulty finding the real evidence. It was just an assertion. People would say this is what he did, but they didn't generally quote him. Here's David Horowitz offering that kind of thing. Once again more recently. Yeah, the assertion makes him look bad. But where is the actual evidence.

So a friend of mine turned me on to something from Brad DeLong. This guy has excellent credentials, so you'd have to think he'd know what he's talking about. And he's making the same points about Chomsky and the Khmer Rouge. OK. Probably they have merit. Still I want to understand them. So let's take a look at DeLong's specific arguments. Here's DeLong quoting Chomsky.

And uncovering the cynical crimes of mad governments? Take a look at Chomsky's 1979 After the Cataclysm:

If a serious study…is someday undertaken, it may well be discovered…that the Khmer Rouge programs elicited a positive response…because they dealt with fundamental problems rooted in the feudal past and exacerbated by the imperial system.… Such a study, however, has yet to be undertaken.

Reflect that it was published three full years after the Cambodian Holocaust of the Year Zero. Ask yourself whether this is an uncovering or a covering of the crimes of an abominable regime.

Sounds pretty bad. If only we'd study things we'd find that the Khmer Rouge programs elicited a positive response. But here's a weird thing. See all those ellipses? I wondered what was lacking. So I turned to google. Here's the full quote.

If a serious study of the impact of Western imperialism on Cambodian peasant life is someday undertaken, it may well be discovered that the violence lurking behind the Khmer smile, on which Meyer and others have commented, is not a reflection of obscure traits in peasant culture and psychology, but is the direct and understandable response to the violence of the imperial system, and that its current manifestations are a no less direct and understandable response to the still more concentrated and extreme savagery of a U.S. assault that may in part have been designed to evoke this very response, as we have noted. Such a study may also show that the Khmer Rouge programs elicited a positive response from some sectors of the Cambodian peasantry because they dealt with fundamental problems rooted in the feudal past and exacerbated by the imperial system with its final outburst of uncontrolled barbarism.

So notice that the ellipses are placed so as to omit Chomsky's references to the evil nature of the Khmer Rouge. We lose the "violence lurking behind the Khmer smile". We lose the whole tone of the statements, which is that the evil of the Khmer is likely a response to the great evil inflicted on them by the U.S. with it's savage bombing campaign. This is painted by DeLong in his bastardized quote as a defense. What it really is is an effort to understand the causes of the wickedness that was the Khmer Rouge. This is the same thing I'm told with regards to OBL. Because I attempt to understand the causes of his evil I'm painted as a defender of OBL. But many evils have been perpetuated against the Muslim world, and I do believe those evils help bring about OBL. If we look to Hitler and attempt to understand why this evil regime came to power and we look to the pain inflicted on the Germans after WWI I think people can recognize that this is not a defense of Hitler, but simply an attempt to understand the causes. This is Chomsky's sin. SOME SECTORS of the Cambodian peasantry REACTED POSITIVELY to the Khmer Rouge because of the suffering they had undergone, just as some Muslims react positively to Al Qaeda. This is very reasonable and probably truthful analysis and it is hardly a defense of Al Qaeda.

Well, it "gets worse" according to DeLong. Worse than the truthful analysis above apparently. Here's the next quote, and I'm going to **star** an additional section of a quote omitted by DeLong and also bold an important quote from the omitted section.

...there are many other sources on recent events in Cambodia that have not been brought to the attention of the American reading public. Space limitations preclude a comprehensive review, but such journals as the Far Eastern Economic Review, the London Economist, the Melbourne Journal of Politics, and others elsewhere, have provided analyses by highly qualified specialists who have studied the full range of evidence available, and who concluded that executions have numbered at most in the thousands; that these were localized in areas of limited Khmer Rouge influence and unusual peasant discontent, where brutal revenge killings were aggravated by the threat of starvation resulting from the American destruction and killing. **These reports also emphasize both the extraordinary brutality on both sides during the civil war (provoked by the American attack) and repeated discoveries that massacre reports were false. They also testify to the extreme unreliability of refugee reports, and the need to treat them with great caution, a fact that we and others have discussed elsewhere (cf. Chomsky: At War with Asia, on the problems of interpreting reports of refugees from American bombing in Laos). We do not pretend to know where the truth lies amidst these sharply conflicting assessments; rather, we again want to emphasize some crucial points. What filters through to the American public is a seriously distorted version of the evidence available, emphasizing alleged Khmer Rouge atrocities and downplaying or ignoring the crucial U.S. role, direct and indirect, in the torment that Cambodia has suffered.**

DeLong then immediately quotes a commenter who writes of Chomsky (with my emphasis):

He claims that these are "conflicting reports" that justify disbelief in the alleged crimes of the Khmer Rouge....

Justify disbelief in the crimes. Think about that. Supposedly Chomsky thinks disbelief in the crimes is justified. But then that's only true if we don't consider the omitted portion, which I provide above, and with the bold lettering. We do not pretend to know where the truth lies amidst these sharply conflicting assessments. There are various reports, but it is interesting that what filters to the American public is the picture that suits US propaganda purposes. Once again we have truthful analysis that is not in any way an actual denial that the Khmer Rouge is guilty of crimes. How does this become "disbelief in the crimes is justified"?

DeLong continues quoting the commenter:

In the case of the Far Eastern Economic review the review did indeed publish an article that said almost, but not quite, what Chomsky represents it as saying.... Nayan Chanda ( Far Eastern Economic Review October 29 1976 ) does indeed doubt the refugees are telling the truth... but he... [presents no] evidence contradicting their stories. He does indeed say "thousands"... he does not say "at most in the thousands"... [he says] "the numbers killed are impossible to calculate."

So the presentation is that Chomsky is going beyond the evidence. The review says that "thousands" were killed, not "at most in the thousands" as Chomsky writes. I could be wrong here but I imagine this is just a misreading of Chomsky. DeLong is probably right that the review puts the death toll in the thousands. I assume Chomsky is replying to assertions that put the death toll in the 10's or 100's of thousands. So when he says "at most in the thousands" he's saying since the review talks about death tolls in the thousands we do sort of have an order of magnitude limitation. Talk of death tolls as high as 9,000 makes sense. But we're seeing claims of 10's and 100's of thousands. That's unreasonable based on the review.

Chomsky's claim was that the documentary record did not justify the level of atrocities that were being reported of Pol Pot while he was an enemy of the state. DeLong omitted the part about how Chomsky's source claimed that the refugee reports were shown to be extremely unreliable and that they needed to be treated with caution. Also the actual discoveries that the massacre reports were false. Delong does say that yes, these specialists did doubt the refugee reports, but they didn't provide evidence. But what are we supposed to do when the experts say the reports are doubtful? Are we to be faulted for thinking maybe the experts know something we don't? Or should we just accept the refugee reports and report them anyway because that's the desire of the propaganda machine?

Now, let's suppose that the analysis that Chomsky was relying upon turned out to be wrong. Let's suppose the death toll was beyond thousands and into the 10's and 100's of thousands. This does not make Chomsky a defender and lover of the Khmer Rouge. It makes him a responsible and rational person, following the scholarship the whole way. He accepts the lower figures when that was initially what the evidence suggested, then presumably he would later adopt the enlarged figures if reputable studies modified the earlier conclusions. This is in no way justification for any murderous regime. Extensive murder and limited murder are both awful. But let's be honest about the present state of the evidence of crimes even for enemies of the state.

So is this the basis on which people claim Chomsky defends the Khmer Rouge? The fact that he considers the causes of their violence? The fact that he notices that only the most heinous descriptions of the events of the Khmer are what filter through the US propaganda system? If so that's just plain weak. If it's something else and in fact Chomsky is in the wrong I'll be glad to have it pointed out to me. What do I care? I've still learned tons from him.

David Wood Calls for Free Speech

But bans informed criticism from his own blog. And on what basis? He really doesn't say. I can only surmise. I imagine he doesn't want to do the work required to refute informed criticism. I imagine my comments aren't something his readers like to read. They might more say it's annoying. Maybe that's true.

And I have my own blog. I can say whatever I want. Nobody is stopping me. But the fact is I do not have the legal right to impose myself on people that don't want to be subjected to my statements.

So in Dearborn there was an Arab festival. I suppose a group of Arabs got permission from the city to have a festival where they would meet and enjoy themselves. David Wood decided that he would impose himself on these people and subject them to information that they aren't interested in seeing. The cops decided that he didn't have the legal right to do that. He's outraged as are many Christians.

Suppose David's "Answering Muslims" blog was really a group gathering. Let's suppose a bunch of neocons like to get together and talk about Islamic terrorism while ignoring the far greater terrorism of their own government which they support. Should I have the right to impose myself at the entry point of his house, maybe on the sidewalk, so that all of his guests can be subjected to my thoughts? Should I have the right to take advantage of the fact that he's bringing together people with a neocon mindset since I like driving such people nuts? They want to get together and have some fun. They want to get outraged that a Pakistani born guy tried to put firecrackers and gasoline together, which naturally caused no damage. They're outraged and want to revel in it while ignoring the however many hundred died today in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. They're having fun. Do I have the right to rain on that parade?

I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think I do. I think I can express my thoughts about politics generally, but I can't crash a party and make people uncomfortable. And I don't have a legal right to post comments at a blog. By sectioning off part of a city so that people of a certain culture can gather and enjoy themselves Arabs in Dearborn are temporarily creating a private environment. They should have a right to do that without being subjected to proselytizing, especially from a person like David Wood that runs a website that contains apologetics for extensive terrorism against Muslims.

Bob Dutko on Information and Evolution

When I did my in studio interview with Bob Dutko one question he posed related to a challenge regarding evolution. He says that the information content of a DNA molecule has never been observed to increase, and evolution requires that increase. This means evolution is wrong. This is at about the 50 minute mark.

I replied that certain bacteria had been observed to mutate and develop an ability to consume nylon, which is a recently invented substance. Why isn't that an increase in information?

Bob's answer was something like "I'm afraid you're incorrect. You do not have new genetic information you only have a reshuffling of existing information. That does not produce new genetic information." I admitted my ignorance and said I'd look into it.

And so I did and what do I discover? Bob is completely wrong. Mutations can and do increase information content. Also a reshuffling of existing DNA can increase the information content. It's pretty easy to see when when you understand what information is.

"Information" is a field of study related to computer science and electrical engineering. The definition can be somewhat technical, but here's a basic overview. Take a Word file as an example. Within your computer the file is represented as a string of 1's and 0's. Suppose a file is 1000 kilobits when saved. That can actually be reduced with compression. WinZip is a program that can compress files. Basically WinZip can recognize patterns and can represent repeating patterns with a reduced quantity of 1's and 0's. The fully compressed file might be 500 kilobits. That's the quantity of information for that Word file. The fully compressed # of bits required to describe the file.

What this means is that in fact something can be less coherent but have more information. A book with letters in a random sequence will have more information than an encyclopedia of the same length with English words. Real words form patterns that can be compressed into a reduced string of data. Random sequences of letters wouldn't have those patterns. So ultimately the number of bits required to describe the random book would be greater than the number of bits required to describe a book of the same length with real words.

So let's apply this to DNA. Suppose a mutation occurred and the new string produced a sequence that was more random. It could be that nothing but a reshuffling of existing information has occurred, but if it's more random it has more information. On the other hand it might produce a more repeatable pattern in which case the information content could reduce. But this really doesn't matter for evolution anyway. A more random sequence might express itself physically in a manner that produced a selective advantage or it might not. Natural selection doesn't care if the DNA sequence can be expressed with a large or small quantity of bits. All it cares about is whether the physical expression makes the organism more or less capable of reproducing successfully.

So now I'm annoyed. Bob Dutko knows that an average person doesn't know this stuff, so he can spring this on an unsuspecting person knowing that they'll just have to defer to what they think is his informed opinion. Of course I suspected he didn't understand what he was saying, but since I didn't either there wasn't much I could say.

Soon after my interview Bob Dutko interviewed Kenn Hamm where he made the same argument. I also had recalled that Bob makes the same argument in his Top 10 Proofs Evolution is Scientifically Impossible. It's obviously an argument he thinks is very important. So I thought I'd call in on open line Friday and discuss it.

So I did. I called in and told the screener Jan that I wanted to talk about Bob's argument related to evolution and information. The first time I tried I thought I was early in the queue, but he never got to my call. So I called again the following Friday and described my call the same way. This time Bob spoke with me during commercial. He wasn't going to take my call. He said something like "You probably got some obscure stuff from talkorigins and I'm not going to let you ambush me in this way." So I said to him "How about I do this. I'll send you my question in an email, send you any related links, you can look it over and I'll call you at a later date." He said OK.

So I sent him my question. There was some miscommunication as I tried to get the right contact information. Before Bob received my question he told me that he'd allow this kind of thing just this once, but he wasn't going to let me turn open line Friday into some sort of semi-regular debate between me and him where he has to run around and do a bunch of research. He's a busy guy and can't be doing that. He also told me that he wouldn't be able to discuss it for this upcoming Friday. Anyway, here is what part of what I wrote:

OK Bob. I'll tell you what I intended to say.

"You argue that evolution is not possible because it requires an increase in genetic information. I have two questions. How do you measure information? In other words how do you know if information has increased from one generation to the next. And second, how do you know that there has never been a generational increase in information?"

That is the totality of my question. I've looked in to what information is and as I understand it information content does increase with mutations. There is evidence here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB102.html

Contact me if you would like any of my further thoughts.

I like this question because it demands that Bob know what information is. And I don't think he does know what it is. This is obviously very bad for him. When you see what it is you see his argument that he's been pushing, and in fact selling in his CD series, is just completely wrong.

So I didn't hear back for a while and I also was swamped at work and couldn't even listen to his show. Finally this week things have eased up, so I emailed him to ask if it's a good time to call in about this.

Nope. He hasn't looked at it, doesn't know when he might have time to. And frankly he thinks I should just call in as a regular caller instead of expecting him to do a bunch of work preparing for my calls. I'm playing games that put him at an unfair advantage since I'm researching a topic he's not prepared for, and he's not going to allow me to come on and pull a fast one. If I'm all bent on talking about this particular topic and demanding he prep for a debate it will be a long wait.

These types of replies came over the course of a couple of emails. This obviously makes no sense whatsoever. I'm calling about an argument he makes routinely. Isn't this what open line Friday is for? And I'm submitting my question in advance. How is that pulling a fast one? He repeatedly criticized me for preparing with research. So what if I've prepared? Isn't that what reasonable people do? But it was clear to me that this is not getting through to Bob.

What's weird is I really think Bob believes what he's saying. He really thinks I'm being extra demanding of him. By submitting my question in advance so that he can have the opportunity to prepare if he so chooses this is somehow me being demanding. But obviously rationality is out the window here because the alternative is looking bad on the air by revealing the fact that he's basing an argument on a subject he doesn't understand.

James White Asserts Confidently

I got to watch James White debate live last night. To the left is a crappy shot I took from my camera. Blurry unfortunately. Better pictures are here if you like. He had a pretty good night though, trouncing his opponent, Sheikh Awal. The topic was "Is The Bible We Have Today the Word of God." This ought to be a slam dunk for the negative, but it wasn't last night. White has done I don't know how many dozens of debates. Awal, while pretty knowledgeable about the Bible, just does not have the debating skills.

In addition Awal actually made some basic errors in his description of Christian belief. To me this made it pretty clear that Awal is just not of the caliber he needs to be to be involved in such a debate. So had I been debating him I would have felt a little sorry for him and tried to be gracious. Explain his errors, but in as gracious a way as possible. Not James White. It would be statements like "Honestly that's the worst example of the abuse of the text of the Bible I've ever heard" and similar statements. White would shake his head in disbelief at statements from Awal or lift his hands in exasperation, playing up Awal's ignorance.

While James White made it clear that no particular error in an English translation of the Bible is relevant Awal would just carry on and talk about mistakes in the KJV as if they proved something. White would reply to Awal's arguments specifically, briefly so as to reply to them all, and effectively. Awal barely interacted in rebuttal with the things White said, instead rambling about various often unrelated to the topic objections to Christian belief generally. It was kind of sad. For James White I suppose this is another triumph for the obvious truth of the Christian scriptures. For me it's proof that a seasoned and skilled debater can defeat an unskilled debater. The topic could have been "Is The Grass Blue" and James White would have won.

Questions were submitted on 5x7 cards, so I offered one. It was a little complex so I wasn't sure if White would have the knowledge base he needs to address it, but on the other hand discussion of textual variants was front and center throughout the debate. White seemed to have a command of these things. So this is what I asked, working from memory. And I explain this question in more detail here.

At Mark 7 Mark puts in the mouth of Jesus an argument that is based on an erroneous translation of the Hebrew scriptures from the Septuagint. Jesus criticizes the Pharisees by quoting Isaiah saying that they are "teaching as doctrines the precepts of men." That's what the erroneous Septuagint says, but in fact the Hebrew reads something like "Your worship of me is merely an act of going through the motions." It seems unlikely that the Pharisees would be stumped by a mistaken translation of Isaiah in Greek when they work with the Hebrew. Doesn't this suggest that Mark is unreliable and is putting words in the mouth of Jesus that he is unlikely to have said?

Here's how James White replied.

"Mark 7 is about certain hand washing practices from the Pharisees. The questioner presented NO EVIDENCE that there was any rational basis for his conclusion, so there's no way to respond to any of it."

He just extremely confidently said that there was nothing to my argument. Good enough. So I'm sitting there kind of confused. Didn't I just provide the relevant citations? Isn't that evidence? Now, I understand it's not easy to answer such a question on the spot. But part of the reason I asked it is because White constantly asked Awal questions like "Do you have any lexical citations that can justify your understanding of the Biblical text you cited." I thought that was a rather crappy way of treating Awal. What Awal does is he reads English translations and forms arguments based on them. White knows that Awal does not have lexical data at hand, so he can just pull this trump card as a stumper in every case and treat Awal rudely as if he hasn't done his homework. Well, has White done his homework? Shouldn't he know about the variants of the Septuagint and how they emerge in the NT? This subject was a major part of the debate.

After the debate I introduced myself to both Awal and White. I told White that I'm "Jon in Detroit" that calls his webcast sometimes to spar and I told him that I was the one that submitted the Mark 7 question. I told him that I have to fit the question on a 5x7 card and I'm not sure what he's expecting in terms of evidence. He replied "Honestly I have no idea what you're talking about with that question." And I said "Fair enough. That's a reasonable answer." So I suggested he look into it.

But that's not what he said during the debate. He could have said "I don't know enough about the references, so I'll have to consider the question later." I can respect that answer. But that's not his method. He's honed his skills and he knows that this is not the presentation he wants to offer to listeners. That's because truth is not the goal. The goal is being as persuasive as possible. And he was.

Catastrophes of the Unpeople

Everybody's talking about the BP oil disaster, which in my mind is frightening. But did you know that if this spill had occurred in Nigeria it would have been considered routine and probably wouldn't be known worldwide, as the Gulf spill is known. See for instance this article. But then the suffering is endured by those that have been called "the unpeople." Poor blacks in Africa. It's not noticed.

The year 2009 capped the hottest decade on record. 2010 will be the hottest year ever recorded if trends continue. That's tough on the unpeople of Pakistan who are enduring temperatures of 129F these days. The expectation is that the melting of glacial sheets in Russia and other locations will cause the release of vast quantities of methane, which is a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide. Most scientists believe that man made CO2 emissions are contributing to the melting of these glaciers. As methane is released this will accelerate global warming, melting more glaciers, releasing more methane, etc, to where a cycle of heating is induced that will be difficult if not impossible to stop.

The brunt of the pain initially will probably be bore by the unpeople of the world. Poor farmers in India that rely on the cycle of glacial melting that irrigates their crops. These things tend to go unnoticed as the suffering of Nigerians today is unknown. When the pain reaches the West people will start to notice. By then it might be too late.

Unbridled Free Markets

I learned this weekend something that was new to me. There are charges that the Coca-Cola company has played a role in executing people that attempt to unionize in third world countries, particularly Colombia. I was aware that Colombia was the world leader in execution of union organizers, but I was not aware of Coca-Cola's involvement. Some details are here.

Of course Coca-Cola denies the charges, but it's interesting to note that 23 universities have banned Coke products, including my alma matter, the University of Michigan. That's rather astounding when you consider how interested universities are in getting money. Coke's denial of the charges of course mean nothing. That's to be expected regardless of the validity of the charges. These university actions mean something because a priori there's no reason for a university to single out Coke for a boycott. If I had to bet I'd bet that Coke is guilty. The documentary "Life and Debt" shows video footage that is claimed to be a violent break up of efforts by factory workers to protest their treatment with a work stoppage in a Latin American country. This is the kind of thing that happens.

So consider that when you purchase cola at the store. Pepsi may also be awful in similar ways, but I don't have suspicions of them being involved in executions. At least not yet.

Forgotten History-East Timor

You've possibly heard of Pol Pot. You probably know that Iran has committed crimes as has Hezbollah and Hamas. In other words you know of the atrocities committed by enemies of the state. Do you know of the atrocities committed by friends of the state? A panel discussion regarding East Timor from 1992 begins here and I think it remains quite relevant. Amy Goodman's account of one massacre, one of the rare ones ever witnessed by western journalists, is absolutely riveting. Her and Allan Nairn appear to have exhibited such shocking bravery it's almost unimaginable to me. Watch and learn the history that should be prominently taught but is in fact ignored.

Why taught prominently? Not because I hate America and want to bring it in to disrepute, but because the first atrocities you should become aware of are the ones that you have the most responsibility for. Those are the types of atrocities you can control in the future. Our primary concern should be our own mistakes and secondarily we should discuss the mistakes of others. Germany does not shy from teaching the history of Nazism and the holocaust. Germans know these things very well and this has contributed to the fact that Germany today is such a peaceful and great country. Knowledge of these types of incidents can contribute to America's future greatness.