Legitimatcy of the Russell's International War Crimes Tribunal

Taeus wrote a response to my “Chomsky’s anarchism skin-deep” note which reads, “I think the IWCT concerninge the US:s war in Vietnam was a good thing - what do you think?”

Taeus, you have provided me with your conclusion but left me in the dark as to your assumptions and reasoning. What do you base your conclusion upon?

I took the Bertrand Russell created “International War Crimes Tribunal” of 1967 as a Left-Wing stunt. Look who (per Wikipedia) was on the tribunal:

· Bertrand Russell (Tribunal Honorary President)- Peace Activist; Philosopher; Mathematician

· Jean-Paul Sartre (Tribunal Executive President)- Philosopher;

· Vladimir Dedijer (Tribunal Chairman and President of Sessions)- M.A. Oxon., Doctor of Jurisprudence; historian

· Wolfgang Abendroth- Doctor of Jurisprudence; Professor of Political Science, Marburg University

· Gunther Anders- Writer and philosopher

· Mehmet Ali Aybar- International lawyer; Member of Turkish Parliament; President, Turkish Workers’ Party

· James Baldwin- African American novelist and essayist

· Julio Cortázar (writer) Writer, novelist and essayist

· Lelio Basso- International lawyer; Deputy of Italian Parliament and Member of the Commission of Foreign Affairs; Professor, Rome University. President of PSIUP (Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity).

· Simone de Beauvoir- Writer and philosopher

· Lázaro Cárdenas- Former President of Mexico

· Stokely Carmichael- Chairman, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

· Lawrence Daly- General Secretary, UK National Union of Mineworkers. Socialist.

· David Dellinger- American pacifist; Editor, Liberation; Chairman, Fifth Avenue Parade Committee.

· Isaac Deutscher- Historian

· Haika Grossman- Jurist; Jewish liberation fighter

· Gisele Halimi- Paris lawyer; attorney for Djamila Bouhired; author of works on French repression of Algeria

· Amado V. Hernandez- Poet Laureate of the Philippines; Chairman, Democratic Labor Party; Acting President, National Organization of Philippine Writers.

· Melba Hernandez- Chairman, Cuban Committee for Solidarity with Viet Nam, now the Cuba-Viet Nam Friendship Association

· Mahmud Ali Kasuri- Member National Assembly of Pakistan, Senior Advocate Supreme Court of Pakistan

· Sara Lidman- Swedish Writer

· Kinju Morikawa Attorney; Vice-Chairman, Japan Civil Liberties Union, a human rights organization.

· Carl Oglesby- Past President, Students for a Democratic Society; playwright; political essayist.

· Shoichi Sakata- Professor of Physics

· Laurent Schwartz- Professor of Mathematics, Paris University.

Left-wingers of all stripes were doing what they could do to hamper America’s efforts in Vietnam and this IWCT is what Bertrand Russell could do. I’ve described Chomsky’s very mild disapproval of the Soviet Union as compared to his virulent hatred of the U.S. Russell was said to be disapproving of certain aspects of Stalinism. He was a Socialist and admired Marxism but thought Lenin had “hijacked” Russian Socialism. Sartre hung onto his admiration of Stalinism long after it had been abandoned by many of his friends, especially Camus.

On an absolute objective scale of war-crimes perpetrators, if anyone could create one, the Soviet Union would be high up on the list of culpable nations. Their “strategy” was criminal. America’s strategy, coming to the aid of an ally and resisting Communist aggression was not criminal.

Now, tactics in any war may turn out to be “criminal,” but America has standing laws against such criminality, making an International tribunal redundant and unnecessary. If a Lieutenant Calley goes misunderstands his orders and orders the destruction of a village at Mai Lai, he is arrested and court-martialed. What the Soviet Union did was to order the large scale assassination of “potential enemies,” as they did against Polish officers, for example.

In the case of the U.S., it had a strategy for opposing Communist aggression. This strategy proved finally successful during the Reagan administration. Insofar as we could afford it, we would go to the defense of nations being attacked by Communist aggression. I was in the first such war of that nature, the Korean War, and I have no misgivings about the American involvement there.

In the case of the tactics carried out during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations in Vietnam, they were inept to be sure. Johnson was not the right president for carrying out an effective war against a Communist enemy, but is ineptitude criminal? When presidents prove to be inept, our course of action is to vote them out of office or, if we are in a hurry, impeach them.

FURTHER COMMENT:

A better question to ask would be are War Crimes Tribunals ever legitimate and if so, under what circumstances. Most of those convicted at Nuremberg argued that they were enduring a trial by the victors of the vanquished, and there is justification in their complaint. There was not then and there isn’t now an internationally objective body capable of being above the fray and also capable of enforcing its decisions. If a Tribunal isn’t capable of enforcing its determinations, then what it produces is “opinion” and not “judgment.”

Thus, (and leaving aside the matter of criminality) is it a valid “opinion” that we didn’t fight the war effectively in Vietnam? Yes, I’d say so. Our tactics were inappropriate to the terrain and the nature of the war. But we have learned from that war and have improved our tactics. Anyone interested in how we have improved them should read Bevin Alexander’s The Future of Warfare.

Chomsky's anarchism skin-deep

With great relief I finished At War With Asia, which can be summarized as page after page of anti-Americanism. In his last chapter Chomsky sympathetically reviews Bertrand Russell’s support for having America hauled before the International war Crimes Tribunal of 1967. On page 307 Chomsky has his chance to demonstrate his non-aligned anarchism by comparing the crimes of the U.S. to those of the Soviet Union. This would demonstrate that what he told Peck 15 years later was accurate and that he opposed “State Communism” as much as he opposed “State Capitalism.” But here is what he wrote:

“. . . It would be . . . difficult to argue that American policy is not comparable to that of fascist Japan, or of Germany prior to the ‘final solution.’ There may be those who are prepared to tolerate any policy less ghastly than crematoria and death camps and to reserve their horror for the particular forms of criminal insanity perfected by the Nazi technicians. Others will not lightly disregard comparisons which, though harsh, may well be accurate.

“Nazi Germany was sui generis, of that there is no doubt. But we should have the courage and honesty to face the question whether the principles applied to Nazi Germany and fascist Japan do not, as well, apply to the American war in Vietnam. . . .”

This was the time, if what Chomsky told Peck was correct, to group the Soviet Union in there. To compare what the U.S. did in Vietnam not just with Nazi German and Fascist Japan but Soviet Russia, but he doesn’t do it. He leaves Russia out.

Interestingly, at the very end of his book, in the very last paragraph, he writes, “The [War Crimes] Tribunal, or another like it, should turn to Czechoslovakia, to Greece, to a dozen other countries that are suffering in the grip of the imperialist powers or the local forces that they support and maintain.”

Czechoslovakia had its “Prague Spring”; then “On the night of August 20–21, 1968, Eastern Bloc armies from four Warsaw Pact countries — the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary—invaded the ČSSR." [Wikipedia] So it was undoubtedly to this suppression (my word not Chomsky’s) that he was referring, but in view of the devastating effect this had on Communist efforts in France and elsewhere, this is extremely mild. No desire to bring the USSR before any war crimes tribunal either for the atrocities committed during the Stalinist period of any subsequent atrocities. Czechoslovakia was in the news while Chomsky was writing At War With Asia; so he makes a very, very, slight acknowledgment to the idea that some nation unnamed may have done something a slightly bit naughty there.

If it weren’t for the fact that so many Leftists love Chomsky I would write him off as a crackpot. . . let me rephrase that. I do write Chomsky off as a crackpot, but I continue to wonder why so many Leftists love him. However, I’ve wondered about what motivates Leftists for a long time and doubt that spending too terribly much time with Chomsky is going to satisfy my curiosity.

John Patric, my favorite anarchist

http://www.schlaikjer.net/reviews/047.htm

http://olyblog.net/hugo-n-frye

Sometime after I got out of the Marine Corps (1955) and before I started work at Douglas Aircraft Company (1959) I read Yankee Hobo in the Orient by the anarchist, John Patric, and was so powerfully impressed by it that I sent him a letter of appreciation. If I recall correctly, he invited people to write him, but said he wouldn’t respond because he didn’t have the money for stamps.

I suspect most people today would agree that John Patric (who once ran against Scoop Jackson) was a crackpot. He had a sort of do-it-yourself-ideology I found appealing at the time – but I was only in my 20s, and he probably didn’t make a permanent impression on me.

Chomsky -- ad hominem considerations

While ad hominem attacks are never acceptable in debate, in fact they comprise a fallacious approach to argumentation in that instead of attacking the evidence and conclusion, the attacker attacks the person advancing the argument, it is useful to examine an opponent’s presuppositions. Chomsky was a grammarian, a linguist, but I wonder to what extent he examined hermeneutics. Ian Robinson, in The New Grammarians’ Funeral, A Critique of Noam Chomsky’s Linguistics, suggests that Chomsky’s knowledge or acceptance of hermeneutics was limited. Robinson was inspired to write his book, to some extent by reading Collingwood. And if we turn to Collingwood’s approach and attempt to ferret out Chomsky’s “constellations of presuppositions,” we suspect that he probably never gave Liberal Democracy a chance. He was prejudiced against it from his youth, much of which was spent in Leftist pursuits and considerations. Also, he claims to have begun reading Anarchist writers in the early 40s. That seems especially interesting in that he was born in December of 1928 which would have made him 11 through most of 1940.

I think that if we study the Leftism of the 40s and 50s we don’t find that much of it was anarchist in nature. But we do find that all of it was hostile toward the U.S. And this is what I have thus far encountered in reading Chomsky: He is from the Left and his emphasis is overwhelmingly hostile toward the U.S. As to his anarchism playing a major role, I would need to see some evidence of that in his early writings. I am suspicious of his claims to have opposed anti-American Communist forces as much as he subsequently wrote that he did. We know that the Russians are engaging in revisionist history when they write about Stalin. Perhaps Chomsky has engaged in a bit of that when he writes about himself. Perhaps we all do that to some extent. We hope that something we said or did wasn’t really as bad as it probably was. And if we are forced to describe something embarrassing from our past, we dress it up a little.

As a kind of disclaimer, I’ll repeat that my approach when reading something is not to wait until the end and write a review, but to think (in print) about what I read as I read it – which severely limits my ability to dress up early misapprehensions, if I should happen to have had any.

Chomsky supporting state-socialism

I do recall now that Chomsky called himself an anarchist of some sort, but his arguments opposed Liberal Democracy and at the very least coincided with State-Socialism. It is like old Dave saying he never drank, but me seeing him staggering out of a bar several times a week. And then when I referred to Dave as a bit of a drunk someone saying, “hey. That can’t be true. Dave says he doesn’t drink.” It takes more than saying something to make it true.

Also, I mentioned awhile back a longshoreman acquaintance who tried to recruit me into Communism in the early 60s. He wasn’t up to any serious debates, but he brought me book after book to read. He would also tell me things his Communist guru told him. He would tell this guy what I said and then relay the response back to me. One day he told me that he was henceforth going to call himself a “Philosophical Anarchist.” I assumed he got this from his guru. This was described to me as a ruse to keep the authorities from cracking down on them. Longshoremen were paranoid about being arrested. Yeah, they might crack down on Communists, but certainly not on Philosophical Anarchists. This is just an anecdote and I am not using it to say this is what Chomsky is doing. I am using it to indicate something in my own background that makes it difficult for me to accept someone saying he embraces anarchism.

Earlier I said that I was reading At War With Asia, because it was the only book by Chomsky I had that addressed the Cold War, but it isn’t the only book by Chomsky that I own. Believing that one day I would have to study him more thoroughly, I have been accumulating books by and about him. One book I have is The Chomsky Reader (published in 1987). It is edited by James Peck, who seems to be a Chomsky acolyte. Peck begins his book with a very long interview of Chomsky. On page 26 I found Chomsky addressing the very point that came up recently, the fact that Chomsky supported State Socialism in At War With Asia, which annoyed another acolyte who faulted me for not acknowledging that Chomsky was an Anarchist. Here is what Chomsky says to Peck:

“Take the Vietnam War. It was clear by the end of the sixties that the United States had achieved its primary objectives. It had effectively destroyed the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the Pathet Lao in Laos, ensuring, as I wrote at the time that only the harshest and most authoritarian elements in Indochina would survive, if any would. This was a major victory for U.S. aggression. Principled opponents of the U.S. war were therefore in the position of, in effect, helping to defend the only surviving resistance in Vietnam, which happed to be highly authoritarian state-socialist groups. . . .”

COMMENT:

I suspect that Chomsky wishes he had provided disclaimers in such books as the one I’ve been reading to the effect that while he is defending “highly authoritarian state socialist groups,” he does not truly support them; although I’m not sure how that might be phrased without detracting from the meat of his books, at least the one I’ve been reading. For Chomsky, the U.S. is the bad guy and the authoritarian state socialist groups the good guys. And if the “good guys” (state socialist groups) do anything bad it is because the bad guys (the U.S.) forced them into it. I suspect the Chomsky acolyte that popped onto my blog with a series of insults wasn’t as familiar with Chomsky’s works as he thought he was.

I am not quite half-way through At War With Asia and he is already boring the heck out of me. In the Peck interview Chomsky describes his educational background and in the process indicated that he studied logic. But his referenced “evidence” falls woefully short of being substantial or convincing. He doesn’t seek “the best authorities” for a given view. He would undoubtedly say that he disagrees with “the best authorities” and that they are running dogs of Liberal Democracy, but he must have some criteria for his selection. If it is anything other than someone, no matter how unknown and obscure, who happens to agree with some point he wants to make, I can’t tell what it is.

Edward Said and Noam Chomsky

None of us has time to study everything and I could, like most people, content myself with reading just those I know in advance that I agree with, but I have never been willing to do that. I usually content myself with reading the best authorities on subjects I am interested in. But occasionally some person representing a position I disagree with will draw my attention such that I feel obligated to examine his views with in more detail than hitherto. How do I form an opinion before reading the books? By articles, speeches, etc.

Edward Said was such a person. Back after 9/11 when I first began studying Islamism, etc. I resolved to read those scholars who predicted that Islamism was dangerous. I learned that Edward Said and John Esposito took the view that Islamism was not a danger. Inasmuch as they were obviously wrong, I crossed them off my list and read others. But their names, especially Said’s, came up so often I read his Orientalism. He didn’t favor Islamism, rather, he didn’t take it seriously. He was a Marxist at heart and treated Islamism as the sort of thing Frantz Fanon wrote of in The Wretched of the Earth.

Now in the case of Noam Chomsky, I have heard him speak on several occasions. I have also read some of his articles, but I have referred to him negatively so often, I felt a need to read at least one of his books. Since I have been reading about Leftism in the 60s, the Cold War and Vietnam, his At War with Asia seemed to serve the purpose. As I wrote, he was so clearly wrong in page after page that I checked to see if perchance he had repudiated this book. I discovered to the contrary that he had republished it.

At the time I was reading Edward Said, an acolyte of his was quite sure I had him wrong – much as the fellow did yesterday that thought I had Chomsky wrong. The Said fellow urged me to read more, more, more. I noticed he seemed unable, or perhaps unwilling, to put the ideas of his hero into his own words. I would argue against Said and his acolyte would say, “well how about this,” and quote something he had Googled. I would analyze what he sent me. The acolyte never argued back. He just offered new things for me to read. I have come to suspect this is a characteristic of Leftism, the inability to mount arguments. One is either on their partisan side or not. Evidence, arguments and logic do not enter in to the equation.

Does Chomsky mean what he says? (2)

ON page 27 of At War with Asia, Chomsky writes, “I mean to suggest that the Cold war is highly functional for the American elite as well as for its Soviet counterpart, who, in a similar way, sends its armies into Czechoslovakia to ward off Western Imperialism. It serves to proved an ideology for empire and to mobilize support for the government subsidized system of military state capitalism. It is predictable, then, that opportunities to end the Cold War will be side-stepped, and that challenges to Cold war ideology will be bitterly resisted.”

And then on pages 28 and 29 Chomsky writes, “Senator Arthur Vandenberg, twenty years ago, expressed his fear that the American Chief Executive would become ‘the number one war lord of the earth.’ That has since occurred. The clearest example, perhaps, was President Johnson’s decision to escalate the war in Vietnam in February 1965, in cynical disregard of the expressed will of the electorate. . . .”

COMMENT:

I wrote about Gaddis, 1991 book, The United States and the End of the Cold War, that he had written a recent book on the subject of the Cold War but before I read the new book, I wanted to read this old one I already had, expressing his views at the end of the Cold War. I am more familiar with Gaddis’ books than Chomsky’s, but I happened to have this book of Chomsky’s on the Cold War, and though it was written in 1970, it was not repudiated by him and therefore seemed a good place to start. I must confess that I am not impressed with what I’ve read so far. The above is an example. He has preconceived ideas of our Liberal Democracy and makes a very cynical prediction: The Cold War will go on and on because it supports both Liberal Democracy and Soviet Communism. This predication was proved false with the failure of Soviet Russia in 1989, 19 years after Chomsky wrote his book.

That Chomsky was wrong about the Cold War is unremarkable. The failure of the USSR caught everyone by surprise, but what is unique about Chomsky’s error is that he believed that Capitalistic self-interest would keep the U.S. from wanting to defeat the USSR. Reagan telling Gorbachev, “tear down that wall,” was not on Chomsky’s horizon. Also, the dictatorship of the Proletariat was not as dependent upon the threat of military conflict as Chomsky surmised.

Now as to President Johnson being viewed as “the number one war lord of the earth,” I find that hard to take seriously. Johnson was the not very good at leading a war. His concerns were domestic and not international. The whiz kids he inherited from Kennedy weren’t as helpful as he hoped. He was out of his depth. Aside from it being a ludicrous suggestion, there is nothing that Johnson did in regard to Vietnam that was counter to the Containment Strategy formulated by Kennan. One can with good justification observe that Johnson’s “tactics” weren’t as effective as they should have been, but he didn’t back away from the containment “strategy.”