Sunday, August 19, 2007

Chomsky and morality

Here's a good interview with Chomsky where he points out pretty clearly the double standards of morality applied by the west. A pretty blatant and almost funny example is from the Nuremburg trials

So, for example, the bombing of urban concentrations was not considered a crime. The bombings of Tokyo, Dresden, and so on—those aren’t crimes. Why? Because we did them. So, therefore, it’s not a crime. In fact, Nazi war criminals who were charged were able to escape prosecution when they could show that the Americans and the British did the same thing they did. Admiral Doenitz, a submarine commander who was involved in all kinds of war crimes, called in the defense a high official in the British admiralty and, I think, Admiral Nimitz from the United States, who testified that, ‘Yeah, that’s the kind of thing we did.’ And, therefore, they weren’t sentenced for these crimes. Doenitz was absolved.

Interesting too, the comments on the punishment of researchers and journalists. The point being that it is unimaginable that we would ever apply those standards to ourselves.

I must try find someone actually trying to argue against Chomsky. I come across people dissing him and I've heard of people arguing against his misquotes but never anyone arguing anything specific.

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