Noam Chomsky

KeyWiki: Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky as an opponent of Syrian Revolution

“Chomsky Is No Friend of the Syrian Revolution”

Noam Chomsky as a supporter of Russian colonialism

“ Noam Chomsky is totally wrong. Our government request heavy weapons. Our civil society leaders request heavy weapons. I personally request heavy weapons. Sorry, we don’t want to die and want to be able to defend ourself. Maybe it’s a surprise for some western intellectuals

— Oleksandra Matviichuk

Noam Chomsky as an opponent of Kosovo Decolonization

In April 1999, Chomsky and others signed a manifesto entitled “Academics Against NATO’s War in Kosovo”^[1]. Igor Koršič of the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, has provided critical comments on those statements^[2].

In a 2006 interview with The New Statesman, Noam Chomsky made an inaccurate statement about the NATO 1999 intervention in the Kosovo war of 1998-1999. Speaking of Serbian actions in Kosovo, Chomsky said that “there were terrible atrocities, but they were after the [NATO] bombings” [3] ^[1]. As a matter of fact, in the year 1998 alone, the Serbian police and military had killed some 2,000 Kosovar Albanians while destroying the homes of 400,000. The Western military intervention itself was ultimately triggered by the Reçak/Račak massacre of January 15, 1999, where the Serbian police killed 45 civilians, as established by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. In a response to Chomsky in The New Statesman from June 21, 2006, Roger Lippman said:

“Chomsky’s ethical and political failure is tragic... By legitimizing historical deceit and diminishing the sufferings of the Bosnians and Kosovars, he only succeeds in causing moral and political confusion where authentic principle and political clarity are most needed”.^[2]

Other authors on the left have published similar replies: Michael Bérubé,^[3] David Watson^[4] and Oliver Kamm, who refutes Chomsky’s inaccurate reference to a British parliamentary inquiry.^[5]

In writings and interviews, Chomsky misrepresented statements by a former high Clinton State Department official on the reasons for the Kosovo intervention.^[6]

Chomsky has also expressed his support for Serbian nationalist war crime indictee Vojislav Šešelj,^[7] who set up paramilitary groups to exterminate the Serbian Croats, Kosovo Albanians^[8] and Bosnian Muslims, and establish a theocratic Greater Serbia.^[9] ^[10] When Šešelj’s Serb Radical Party held a rally in Belgrade in December 2006 demanding Šešelj’s release from the Hague Tribunal where he is being tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Noam Chomsky sent a letter of support that was read aloud at the event.^[11] ^[12] ^[13]