Versión inglesa (y reducida) del post "Chomsky contra Hitchens (II parte, 2011)", publicado en Znet con la vana esperanza de propiciar un debate entre ambos autores.
It’s obvious that they maintain antithetic political positions. It was not so obvious when Hitchens was comfortable on the left side of the political spectrum, but that started to change around 9-11, more or less. But the discussion between these two giants of the political analysis is not about an important topic, but to one single comparison made by Chomsky after 9-11. One single sentence is used by Hitchens all these years, to argue with Chomsky. Because of this “hysterical rant”, Chomsky refuses to answer Hitchens. It´s a pity that we could not see a debate between the two writers about the real important things they disagree, and not about the two big egos discussing the point and consequences of one single sentence. This article starts from that beginning, but continues to more relevant issues arising from it. These relevant issues and much more could arise from a Chomsky-Hitchens public debate, where their respective “extreme views” could be tested, so we could learn even what those different approaches have in common.
BACKGROUND
Less than 24 hours after 9-11, Noam Chomsky wrote an article named “A quick reaction” in which he wrote
“The September 11 attacks were major atrocities. In terms of number of victims they do not reach the level of many others, for example, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and probably killing tens of thousands of people (no one knows, because the US blocked an inquiry at the UN and no one cares to pursue it). Not to speak of much worse cases, which easily come to mind. But that this was a horrendous crime is not in doubt.”
Hitchens accused him of saying Sudan bombing was worse than 9-11, generally speaking, and to use moral equivalence to excuse terrorists. A few exchanges of mails took place then. They keep on disagreeing on the same sentence, turning this single bombing into the core of a debate that would deserve more attention.
TEN YEARS AFTER
When Bin Laden was shot, Chomsky compared again the crimes of US, this time with the Bin Laden´s, and he said referring to Bush: “his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s”. So Hitchens accuses him again of establishing “moral equivalence” in order to hide his hate of USA, portraying his country as an evil of such dimensions that whatever crime is committed against it is always less than other crimes committed by it. In other words, tacitly excusing terrorists when they commit crimes against USA, like 9-11, as if USA should had deserved such kind of crimes. And explicitly, Hitchens writes that Chomsky is stupid, ignorant and foolish. Hitchens infers all this from the two previous comparisons, the first 10 years ago, and the second on May 2011.
What is the Chomsky’s answer? Chomsky, as in 2001, was reluctance to give any answer, but finally, in a response to a public question in a conference, he said that was Hitchens, not him, the one who said that Sudan’s bombing was worse than 9-11. In this response he actually said that it was not the first time he said this, he had quoted it before.
The video of Chomsky saying that you can watch it in you tube
The video of Chomsky saying that you can watch it in you tube
