A New Generation Draws the Line: Kosovo, East Timor and the Standards of the West by Noam Chomsky (PDF)

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The conflicts in Kosovo and East Timor, looked at side-by-side by Noam Chomsky, starkly illuminate the strategies of the Western powers in the new century. Chomsky convincingly argues that humanitarianism was not the moving force behind NATO’s intervention in Yugoslavia, and that there, as in East Timor, strategic concerns were dominant while the fate of the civilian population was incidental.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Judged in terms of the power, range, novelty, and influence of his thought, Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive.”—The New York Times“Better than anyone else now writing, Chomsky combines indignation with insight, erudition with moral passion. That is a difficult achievement, and an encouraging one.”—In These Times“On the one hand we have the established media, the respectable community of foreign affairs analysts, the government—and on the other, Noam Chomsky.”—Nation“For Chomsky, the ‘official doctrine’ … of military intervention to safeguard human rights is as much a sham as the ‘New World Order’ trumpeted during the Gulf War.”—Guardian“A 20th-century Rousseau.”—The Boston Globe About the Author Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of American Power and the New Mandarins, Manufacturing Consent (with Ed Herman), Deterring Democracy, Year 501, World Orders Old and New, Powers and Prospects, Profit over People, The New Military Humanism and Rogue States.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Agudo análisis de Noam Chomsky sobre cómo la banda terrorista OTAN demonizó a Slobodan Milosevic para despedazar a Yugoslavia y provocar el espurio nacimiento de Kosovo como una gran base militar, centro de distribución de drogas y tráfico de órganos.Habla también sobre el genocidio realizado contra el pueblo de Timor del Este por Indonesia, Australia y bendecido por las nocivas potencias occidentales.¡Gracias por tanta luz, querido Chomsky!Truth about Australian failure to protect the innocent.

⭐Here Chomsky compares and contrasts the responses of western governments (specifically, those of Clinton’s USA and Blair’s Britain) to two instances of “ethnic cleansing”, both of which received extensive media attention at the end of the millennium. In Kosovo, there was NATO intervention, a 78-day bombing campaign, and a much-publicised war crimes tribunal; in East Timor, at the very most, a few regretful shakes of the head and perhaps the suspicion that we are not, as yet, quite living up to our high ideals of truth, justice and liberty. Chomsky collates some of the facts underlying this apparent irony and shows that, as usual, the paradox has a rather simple solution. For example: (1) The indictment against Milosevic confines itself largely to crimes committed after the bombing began; it seems logical to assume that (a) “ethnic cleansing” in Kosovo was not a major motivation for the bombing, and (b) any crimes committed before the bombing are not a major concern of our new generation of moral crusaders. Nevertheless, on the grounds that they sanctioned and participated in “ethnic cleansing”, Milosevic and his cronies have been routinely portrayed as the worst enemies of human life and moral decency since Adolf Hitler. (2) The 1999 massacre in East Timor (much advertised in advance as the inevitable consequence if a referendum concerning independence from Indonesia should go the wrong way) was the latest episode in an extremely well-documented record of slaughter dating from the Indonesian invasion of 1975. All the atrocities, including the accession to power of the Indonesian leader Suharto in 1965, with its attendant third of a million casualties, were carried out with western backing and with US armament and training. The solution to that paradox, then, is obvious: the west has, as is traditional, no problem with genocide just so long as it’s done by the right people. Chomsky is adept at drawing out the salient points (e.g. the timing of the Serbian war crimes indictment noted above) from voluminous and often skewed information; and, as befits a scientist, his sources of evidence are painstakingly documented. The focus on two contrasted sets of events throws the Standards of the West into sharp and unpleasant perspective.

⭐Chomsky uses the NATO bombing of Milosevic as a framework for analyzing the direction of Western foreign policy, specifically in East Timor. While NATO (remember, not UN) forces were destroying non-military targets and infrastructure in the name of a “just cause”, US sponsored paramilitaries were rampaging through E Timor slaughtering thousands. It is the awareness of this hypocrisy (as well as the well documented FACT that NATO bombing would worsen the humanitarian crisis it was designed to alleviate) that forms the framework for his analysis. With recent events in the world (easy to predict for those of us who actually know our own foreign policy, our history, and the history of the regions and people in question) Chomsky is one of the few, non PC, intellectuals who are willing to actually hold their own nation to the standards that we hold other nations to. Not surprisingly, CNN, Fox, and the other worthless entertainment disseminators masquerading as flag-waving “news” outlets refuse to cover the obvious issues raised by Chomsky (or Zinn, Fisk, Pilger, Nader, Roy, Herman, Said; the list is much to long to list). Oh well, its just the bodies and misery of the “evildoers” (read: Bush Daddy’s old friends who no longer know their place) that are piling up in the name of corporate US hegemony. Also, beware of negative reviews like the one above (nothing wrong with negative reviews, but it woiuld be nice if they would at least attempt to deal with and refute Chomsky’s thesis) that quote passages completely out of context.

⭐This is scholar and public servant Noam Chomsky at his analytic best. The focus is “new internationalism where the brutal repression of whole ethnic groups will no longer be tolerated,” as thunderingly stated by British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Never content with rhetoric, Chomsky examines the record of new internationalism for actual results, paticularly in test cases like East Timor, Kosovo, and NATO member Turkey with its repressed Kurdish population. The tone is sober, the style searching, the results depressing for a new millenium, demonstrating that more of the same old bloody double-standard wine is being served, this time in new rhetorical bottles. There’s no need to editorialize on the professor’s findings. They speak eloquently for themselves. Instead a salute is due him: his tireless ongoing pursuit of truth, pleasant or not, his refusal to bow down before the gods of government and media, his steady deep regard for the powerless and voiceless – all in modest, accessible fashion – recommend him as the conscience of the nation and the hope of a better America.

⭐An excellent analysis of the Kosovo conflict, which (rightfully) challenges the official (Western) rationale behind its intervention. Having worked for the UN in Kosovo in the aftermath of the conflict, I know what I am talking about. Based on official NATO intelligence documents, Chomsky demonstrates that the US, Britain, France and Germany didn’t intervene in order to stop a genocide (which never happened), but because the alliance didn’t like the then Yugoslav (Serbian) leadership – and wanted to humiliate Russia. Same old, same old.

⭐As described and prompt delivery.

⭐An excellent analysis of the Kosovo conflict, which (rightfully) challenges the official (Western) rationale behind its intervention. Based on official intelligence documents, Chomsky demonstrates that NATO didn’t intervene in order to stop a genocide (which never happened), but because the alliance didn’t like the then Yugoslav (Serbian) leadership. Same old, same old.

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