Excellent! I always wanted to read a completely unbiased (and totally not cherry-picked and wasn't compiled by a fanatical detractor) resource on Chomsky's collected works.
G-d forbid you read something critical that changes your mind. Much better to hide behind 'criticism is written by people who dislike him, so not worth reading' defense. Perhaps you should consider that they dislike him for a reason.
What I can tell you is that the man is vile - read up on his excuses for Pol Pot, Stalin and the like.
His further assertion that Noam Chomsky attributed the deaths of the Pol Pot era to ''nothing but'' a war-induced famine is an outright lie. Mr. Chomsky (and the present writer, who was co-author with Mr. Chomsky of his published works on Cambodia) went to great pains to stress that there was no doubt that the Khmer Rouge was committing serious crimes, although we took no position on their scale (which was very uncertain at the time).
The point is rather is not that he is pro ONE particular horrible regime. Rather that he is quick to support ANY (or most) regimes that are anti-american, regardless of what it's actually like - such as Mao's China (in the middle of madness of Cultural Revolution), USSR, etc. The last article you quoted says exactly that - he is quick to support any 'underdog', regardless of if they are good or bad guys.
Bear in mind, though, that "having made statements that, in some way, support X" and "being predominately in favor of X" are two radically different things, if you're trying to get at truth and not just score political points. I am not in favor of dictatorship just because I observe that Stalin correctly believed that 2+2=4. I have not seen anything that leads me to believe that Chomsky is wrong substantially more frequently, or in substantially worse ways, than others who pontificate on the global situation, so I try to challenge his arguments where I disagree with them and don't brush off the person - he is clearly an intelligent man.
<Quote>
Excellent! I always wanted to read a completely unbiased (and totally not cherry-picked and wasn't compiled by a fanatical detractor) resource on Chomsky's collected works.
Clearly, this is it.
</quote>
Well, clearly you will also want to read the criticisms leveled against the hokey "logic" and arguments employed by Bogdanor himself. It is difficult to take Bogdanor seriously as a contribution to the body of knowledge on the topics covered by Chomsky over decades and decades of in-depth study when Bogdanor argues from an unabashedly pro-Israeli nationalist point of view. Views often basted with copious amounts of neo-con jingoism.
This site is a collection of articles written by scores of writers of various political persuasions over decades.
I would expect Chomsky supporters with an iota of critical thinking to be able to read them and see for themselves how reliable they are (and not just jump to wikipedia to check who assembled them).
Right. Since we are all in favour of being critical (which is all good), can we only look at some of the main points Bogdanor compiles against Chomsky which he parades them as hoaxes. This in order to see who the true hoaxer is (Chomsky or Bogdanor?):
Your article main point is that 'Chomsky's lies are not lies - they are things that reasonable men can disagree about'. As someone who actually grew up in USSR and knows a lot about its history, I can tell you that reasonable men (ie historians) do not disagree about these things.
The more time passes from each issue, the more clear it becomes - which is why he's not taken seriously anymore. His excuses for tyrannical regimes just because they were anti-American are blatant.
We should all be thankful that we don't live in a world he wishes were true - that was already done on massive scale in Russia and millions have suffered as a result.