[Aloisius]

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.

[foobarqux]

> 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.

[Aloisius]

> 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.

[foobarqux]

> 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.