His point was always that the most inflated estimates of deaths in Cambodia were uncritically accepted by Western media and widely broadcast, while atrocities committed by friendly nations always leaned towards the very low estimates and the stories were buried.
He wrote that before the truth was known, while the genocide was ongoing and the only thing we had was scattered reports of atrocities. This was the 70s, we did not exactly have telegram livestream channels from the frontlines. It was a mistake and he recanted those views in the later stages of the regime and afterwards, when the evidence became overwhelming.
Before the truth was known? No. Before he accepted the truth after it became untenable for him to continue to reject it.
Chomsky simply rejected all the earlier evidence pointing to a genocide as an American imperialist lie.
For goodness sake, he characterized Barron and Paul's Murder of a Gentle Land as being sourced from "informal briefings from specialists at the State and Defense Departments" despite it clearly sourcing testimony of hundreds of Cambodian refugees and Khmer Rouge radio broadcasts. His characterization of it was so intellectually dishonest that it is difficult to believe it was either an intentional lie or willful ignorance.
He searched for any counter-evidence that would confirm his belief that the US was evil (and its adversaries were good or just misunderstood), no matter how questionable - a pattern he continued his entire life.
This is just false. The main piece of evidence -- the death figures published by La Couture -- which was being widely cited, had to be retracted after Chomsky fact-checked it. The author himself said in the retraction something to the effect of "it doesn't matter what the numbers are".
As for "Gentle Land" he supports his claim that "[their] scholarship collapses under the barest scrutiny". He writes: "To cite a few cases, they state that among those evacuated from Phnom Penh, “virtually everybody saw the consequences of [summary executions] in the form of the corpses of men, women and children rapidly bloating and rotting in the hot sun,” citing, among others, J.J. Cazaux, who wrote, in fact, that “not a single corpse was seen along our evacuation route,” and that early reports of massacres proved fallacious (The Washington Post, May 9, 1975). They also cite The New York Times, May 9, 1975, where Sydney Shanberg wrote that “there have been unconfirmed reports of executions of senior military and civilian officials … But none of this will apparently bear any resemblance to the mass executions that had been predicted by Westerners,” and that “Here and there were bodies, but it was difficult to tell if they were people who had succumbed to the hardships of the march or simply civilians and soldiers killed in the last battles.” They do not mention the Swedish journalist, Olle Tolgraven, or Richard Boyle of Pacific News Service, the last newsman to leave Cambodia, who denied the existence of wholesale executions; nor do they cite the testimony of Father Jacques Engelmann, a priest with nearly two decades of experience in Cambodia, who was evacuated at the same time and reported that evacuated priests “were not witness to any cruelties” and that there were deaths, but “not thousands, as certain newspapers have written” (cited by Hildebrand and Porter)."
Elsewhere he cites official CIA figures which also did not support the claim.
But none of this was even the point of his article, he explicitly writes "We do not pretend to know where the truth lies amidst these sharply conflicting assessments". The point is that the evidence is distorted to smear enemies and make ourselves look good. He writes in the penultimate paragraph:
"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. Evidence that focuses on the American role, like the Hildebrand and Porter volume, is ignored, not on the basis of truthfulness or scholarship but because the message is unpalatable."
That is the simple message that Chomsky has been conveying his entire political life and, as exemplified by current events, people continue to ignore it.
Chomsky's entire shtick was to start from the belief that the US is evil and that any evidence that might be favorable to US positions is suspect, then searching for contrary evidence, no matter how questionable, to show this was the case - even if it means manufacturing or distorting it.
Olle Tolgraven? He said the Khmer Rouge were shooting people during the ordered mass evacuation, something Chomsky left out. He also left out the other accounts from the same article which describe Phnom Penh as being littered with decomposing bodies.
He pointed to Hildebrand and Porter and called it "based on a wide range of sources" when in reality, everything documented after the Khmer Rouge took charge came from one source: official Khmer Rouge propaganda.
In order to refute claim Barron and Paul that "virtually everybody saw the consequences" he invented citations to J.J. Cazaux and Schanberg so he could use carefully cherry-picked quotes from them against it.
Chomsky claimed publications like the Economist have "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." Notably, the Economist did write an article that hundreds of thousands had been executed. The claim the number was in the thousands came not from the Economist's highly qualified specialists, but rather a letter from a reader in response to that article.
It goes on and on and on and on. If Chomsky was held to the standard he held others, we would dismiss him as not credible for even a fraction of the half-truths and lies he peddled.
> Chomsky's entire shtick was to start from the belief that the US is evil and that any evidence that might be favorable to US positions is suspect
His position is that 1. people distort facts to exaggerate crimes of their enemies and minimize their own crimes and 2. we are primarily responsible for our own actions not the actions of others. Both of these things are very easy to understand in any other context.
If you follow those precepts then you would focus on your own sides' lies and crimes which might naively be viewed as "anti-US" bias.
> Olle Tolgraven? [...]
Chomsky never argues that there wasn't any evidence of killings and seems to accurately describe Tolgraven's account: "A Swedish journalist, Olle Tolgraven of Swedish Broadcasting, said he did not believe there had been wholesale executions. But he said there was evidence the Khmer Rouge had shot people who refused to leave their homes in a mass evacuation ordered the first day of the takeover. " (Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1975). (c.f. Chomsky: "who denied the existence of wholesale executions").
> He pointed to Hildebrand and Porter [...]
I will have to read the book myself but looking at the references it does look like it has a "wide range of sources".
> he invented citations to J.J. Cazaux and Schanberg
Just to be clear: You are saying that he fabricated citations? Can you tell me the specific ones?
> Chomsky claimed publications like the Economist have "analyses by highly ... but rather a letter from a reader in response to that article.
He writes "have provided analyses by highly qualified specialists". I assume he's referring to the letter he describes himself in the subsequent paragraph from, "an economist and statistician for the Cambodian Government until March 1975" who "visited refugee camps in Thailand and kept in touch with Khmers" and who relayed conversations from a "European friend who cycled around Phnom Penh for many days after its fall" and who you misleadingly describe as merely "a reader". Perhaps you could object to the phrase "provided analyses" if he hadn't described the analyses himself in detail in the very next paragraph.
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I would re-iterate the point that the La Couture numbers were fabricated and had to be retracted; and the CIAs own numbers did not support allegations of genocide. Despite this the La Couture numbers were widely cited (and the CIA numbers were not). That alone proves the point that Chomsky was making and which I described at the beginning. When claims suits our foreign policy elite no evidence is required, when they don't no evidence is possible.
> Chomsky never argues that there wasn't any evidence of killings and seems to accurately describe Tolgraven's account
Yes it was an example of one of Chomsky's half-truths.
> I will have to read the book myself but looking at the references it does look like it has a "wide range of sources".
This was an example Chomsky lying by omission. There were, indeed, plenty of other sources for information in the book - for events prior to the Khmer Rouge coming to power.
> Just to be clear: You are saying that he fabricated citations? Can you tell me the specific ones?
Yes. He wrote, "Their scholarship collapses under the barest scrutiny. To cite a few cases, they state that among those evacuated from Phnom Penh, “virtually everybody saw the consequences of [summary executions] in the form of the corpses of men, women and children rapidly bloating and rotting in the hot sun,” citing, among others, J.J. Cazaux, who wrote, [...]. They also cite The New York Times, May 9, 1975, where Sydney Shanberg wrote [...]"
Neither Cazaux nor Shanberg were cited as evidence for the passage quoted. The book certainly cited Shanberg elsewhere, though in reference to early favorable views of the Khmer Rouge.
> I assume he's referring to the letter he describes himself in the subsequent paragraph from, "an economist and statistician for the Cambodian Government until March 1975" who "visited refugee camps in Thailand and kept in touch with Khmers" and who relayed conversations from a "European friend who cycled around Phnom Penh for many days after its fall" and who you misleadingly describe as merely "a reader".
This was an example of Chomsky dishonest borrowing of authority. The Economist does provide analysis "by highly qualified specialists who have studied the full range of evidence available."
This letter to the editor authored by a UN employee (mischaracterized by Chomsky as someone who worked for the Cambodian government) offered his "first impression" of an Economist article and contained personal estimates of civilian war deaths seemingly based on what he "felt" and some anecdotes.
That certainly wasn't written by one of the Economist's stable of highly qualified specialists who have studied the full range of evidence available - unlike the article the letter was responding to - an article that stated (correctly) that there were a million civilian deaths.
In an alternative reality where the Khmer Rouge were capitalists and an anti-Chomsky had written Distortions at Fourth Hand, there is little doubt that real Chomsky would have ripped it apart as American Imperialist propaganda. Sadly, neither he nor his apologists hold his writings to the standards he held others.
> Yes it was an example of one of Chomsky's half-truths.
Except he himself explicitly says that there were killings multiple times.
> Neither Cazaux nor Shanberg were cited as evidence for the passage quoted.
I don't understand what you are trying to say. Chomsky claims Cazaux wrote that '“not a single corpse was seen along our evacuation route,” and that early reports of massacres proved fallacious', that seems to provide a conflicting account of the "passage quoted" (i.e. "virtually everybody saw...").
> This was an example of Chomsky dishonest borrowing of authority
As I said maybe you could argue that if he didn't explicitly describe the evidence and the source at length in the very next paragraph.
> an article that stated (correctly) that there were a million civilian deaths.
What we are arguing about is whether there was a basis for those figures. I can't find the Economist article online at the moment but as far as I know the only source of those high figures at the time was Lacouture which Chomsky showed to be fabricated. I assume if you knew of another source you would have cited it already.
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I will re-iterate that the key issue is not any of the above but that the most important piece of evidence, the Lacouture number, was fabricated and would have failed the most basic fact-checking, yet was loudly promoted. In contrast the US government's own numbers, which conflicted with La Couture, were ignored. These hard figures were the most important pieces of evidence and the fact they were treated as they were is what proves Chomsky's point about distortion of information, the Cambodia case being only one example.
