From: drk@melodian.cs.uiuc.edu (Dave Kohr)
Subject: Re: Usual Libels against Chomsky
Organization: CS Dept., Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 04:34:22 GMT

In article <JMC.92Aug22213934@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
writes:
>In article <1992Aug22.224535.7716@m.cs.uiuc.edu> drk@melodian.cs.uiuc.edu
>(Dave Kohr) writes:
>   In article <JMC.92Aug21201408@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
>   writes:
>   >Very likely Eisenhower was wrong about the 80 percent or his experts
>   >were contaminated by sympathy to Asian communists.
>
>   Would you care to substantiate this?

Once again, would you care to substantiate this?

>   >Long before the communists conquered South Vietnam, it was clear which
>   >way the refugees were going.
>
>   Yes, they were fleeing away from the rural villages being demolished by
>   US in South Vietnam and toward the cities.  Do you have some example in
>   mind to actually support your case?
>
>Leftists make that claim,

Are you disputing it then?

>but what about the refugees who continued to flee after the communists had
>Vietnam to themselves.

*You* were talking about refugees fleeing *before* the South fell.  I am
aware of only one major incident of this sort, during roughly 1954-5 when
the borders between North and South were opened, and large numbers
(hundreds of thousands) of Northern Catholics fled to the South, incited to
at least some extent by a propaganda campaign run by US Col. Landsdale. 
Are you talking about something else?

>   >I admit you Chomskyans interpret matters so that the U.S. is
>   >responsible when the communists kill somebody
>
>Anthony Lewis, the leftist NYT columnist made that point when the Khmer
>Rouge atrocities came out.  He said they were maddened by the U.S.
				     ^^^^
[The Khmer Rouge, I take it.]

>bombing of the Cambodian border areas with Vietnam, which had been
>taken over by the North Vietnamese.

What does Lewis' interpretation have to do with Chomsky's?  (You were the
one who brought up "Chomskyans".)

In any case, to my knowledge Chomsky does not claim the US is "responsible"
(without qualification), he says the US bombing caused such damage to the
country that it helped push them toward their ultra-radical programs. 
Whether or not this is accurate is debatable, but in any case Chomsky does
not place sole blame on the US.

>In 1967 I attended an "anti-war" demonstration in San Francisco.  [....]
>However, when I saw the people at the head of the demonstration carrying
>placards reading "Ho, ho, Ho Chi Minh, NLF gonna win" and also
>chanting the slogan, I realized that I wasn't marching in an anti-war
>demonstration but in demonstration in support of a communist victory.
>[....]  Some people told me that the people in front were just a fringe
>group, but this fringe group was never criticized by the "mainstream"
>"anti-war" movement or prevented from dominating their demonstration.

So what was the rest of the crowd chanting?  And what does this have to do
with the rest of the anti-war movement?

>I think all these people bear some of the moral responsibility for the
>crimes of the people they supported.

This is quite silly: one incident hardly generalizes to the entire
movement.

>Certainly the U.S. has borne moral responsibility when people we support
>commit crimes.

Do you have some examples in mind?
-- 
Dave Kohr     CS Graduate Student     Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Work: 3244 DCL, (217)333-6561  Home: (217)359-9350  E-mail: drk@cs.uiuc.edu
                   "One either has none or not enough."