Web Kamm. posted by Richard Seymour

I'm sure this is a waste of time. In fact, I know it is, because I've encountered the subject of this post before. Anyway...

Oliver Kamm has laid into Chomsky's blog with a few inept insults and one substantial argument. I'll bring to your attention this one insult:

"I am constantly surprised that an MIT Professor of Linguistics should produce such consistently execrable English prose."

Do I need to point out how stupid this is? Is there any connection between one's theoretical insight into linguistics and one's capacity with the English language? Does it need underlining any further?

But leaving that aside, the core of Kamm's argument - his only argument in fact - boils down to this:

"Look at that enervating prose of Chomsky’s again, and see if you can make sense of the assertion that Iraq’s population should have been ‘given the opportunity to overthrow a murderous tyrant’. It makes you wonder if they ever receive modern communications media in Massachusetts. What does Chomsky suppose the Iraqi Kurds and Shi’ah Muslims were given the opportunity and encouragement to do after the supposed cease-fire agreement that concluded the first Gulf War? Saddam thoroughly bamboozled Coalition forces and the Bush administration, which was far too solicitous of the letter of UN Security Council Resolutions that authorised only the expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait, and put down rebellions both north and south with a brutality that defies the imagination. In a single month (March 1991) he killed an estimated 20,000 Kurds and 30-60,000 Shi’ah. Without the courage and skill of British and American pilots patrolling the no-fly zones for a dozen years he would have slaughtered far more."

This embodies four claims which I will deal with respectively. Not, I hasten to add, with any expectation of an honest reply. Previous dealings with Kamm have revealed him to be highly adept at slander and diversionary tactics. (I discovered, for instance, that I was a plagiarist, a member of an anti-Semitic and totalitarian organisation, and much more besides). Instead, I offer this as an example either of the wilful ignorance of the pro-war lobby, or of their deliberate mendacity.

1 Iraqis were "given the opportunity and encouragement" to overthrow Saddam.

It is true that on February 15, 1991 George Bush Snr. called for Iraqis to rise up against Saddam. However, it seems from subsequent events that these worse were intended for the military. It was feared that if the Shi'ites took power, there would be a pro-Iranian government, and a Kurdish province hostile to Turkey. As one National Security Adviser put it:
"Our policy is to get rid of Saddam, not his regime." .
The United States allowed Iraq to send Republican Guard units into southern cities and to fly helicopter gunships, into the "no-fly zones" which, according to the interpretation of the Allied leaders, was an violation of UN resolutions. U.S. military officials refused to meet with emissaries of the rebels, and when Saddam’s forces dropped firebombs on fleeing rebels near the southern Iraqi city of Kerbala, American planes patrolled high above, surveilling the attack. When the insurgents sought weaponry and equipment in the care of the US, they were denied it, blocked by US troops. (Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, Saddam Hussein: An American Obsession, New York: Harper Collins, 2002, pp. 20-30.)

General Schwartzkopf, leading the coalition delegation [which met Iraqi commanders on 3 March], appeared to have little interest in the civil unrest engulfing southern Iraq. In fact he explicitly agreed, to the surprise of the Iraqi commanders, that Iraq could fly military helicopters - but not fighters or bombers - in areas where there were no coalition forces. This effectively allowed Iraq to use helicopter gunships, along with artillery and groundforces, to crush the rebellions (Graham-Brown, op cit).

The Iraqis were encouraged to revolt, but obstructed by the connivance of the United States with Saddam Hussein.


2 Saddam "thoroughly bamboozled" the Allies.

The Allies knew perfectly well what was happening, and colluded in it. The reason for this has been amply outlined by respectable sources.

Brent Scowcroft admitted at the time of the first Iraq war that when George Bush called for 'the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people' to rise against Saddam, the US actually meant a coup, because it was presumed that a popular uprising
would end with a pro-Iranian government: "We clearly would have preferred a coup. There's no question about that." (Interview on ABC news 26 June 1997 quoted in Sarah Graham-Brown, Sanctioning Saddam. The Politics of Intervention in Iraq (London: I.B. Tauris,1999), p. 19.) This would explain why General Schwarzkopf allowed Iraq to fly helicopter gunships in areas with no coalition forces, effectively freeing them up to crush the uprising. And General Sir Peter de la Billiere obviously understood this when he said: "The Iraqis were responsible for establishing law and order. You could not administer the country without using the helicopters." (Ibid.) John Major put the matter even more succinctly: "I don’t recall asking the Kurds to mount this particular insurrection ….We hope very much that the military in Iraq will remove Saddam Hussein." (John Major on ITN, 4 April 1991)
Another concern voiced by both Scowcroft and Bush Snr. was the possible fragmentation of the Iraqi state: "[N]either the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf." ("Why We Didn't Remove Saddam" by George Bush [Sr.] and Brent Scowcroft, Time, 2 March 1998).
They were not, then, befuddled or out-played but acting specifically to ensure the failure of the uprisings.


3 The Allies were "far too solicitious with the letter of UN Security Council Resolutions".

The Allies were not particularly scrupulous about the UN Security Council Resolutions which, as I've noted, included the "no-fly zones" as an inevitable legal corrollary according to the US and British governments. The reasoning given leaders of the Allied attack for blocking the uprising may have included some adherence to UN Security Council Resolutions, but this is simply not credible.

4 The "courage and skill" of pilots overseeing the "no-fly zones" prevented other attacks from Saddam Hussein, who "would have slaughtered far more" if not so impeded.

This claim implies, if it does not say outright, that the reason for the "no-fly zones" was to provide safety for Shi'ites in the south and Kurds in the north. It is not so.

"The logic of the longer-term response to the refugee crisis was largely dictated by Turkey. It wanted the Kurds off Turkish soil as soon as possible – but not into a separate Kurdish state. The only alternative was some guarantee of safety for the Kurds within Iraqi borders, as [Turkish] President [Turgut] Ozal pointed out: “We have to get [the Kurds] better land under UN control … and to put those people in the Iraqi territory and take care of them.”" (Lawrence Freedman and Efraim Karsh, The Gulf Conflict 1990-1991.)

US Assistant Secretary of State Robert H. Pelletreau under Clinton, in response to the question ‘Has our policy ever said that we would create a safe haven in the north?’, was blunt:

"That has not been the policy of this administration. There may have been some statements in the previous one." (Quoted in Graham-Brown, op cit).

One Pentagon spokesman insisted "The purpose of establishing a no-fly zone - and I would emphasise it's a no-fly zone, not a security zone - is to ensure the safety of coalition aircraft monitoring compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 688." (Ibid.) And again, Brent Scowcroft is there to set us straight - "Without Turkey factored in, with just television pictures, I don't know what our response would have been. We were very sensitive to Turkey's anxiety about allowing the Kurds to stay. That was fundamentally what motivated us." (Ibid.)

Nevertheless, it would still be possible to accept this and argue that they did provide substantial protection to Iraqis - if the evidence did not suggest otherwise. The already cited Sarah Graham-Brown concludes, on the basis of her time as a Christian Aid worker in Iraq, that "the zone offered no protection whatever from air or ground attacks on northern Iraq from the neighbouring states of Turkey and Iran." She refers to the northern "no-fly zone", but it is worth noting that such a zone in the south became irrelevant as far as protection is concerned as soon as Saddam's tanks and helicopters had smashed the resistance there. As the State Department put it:

"The no-fly zones continue to deter aerial attacks on the marsh dwellers in southern Iraq and residents of northern Iraq, but they do not prevent artillery attacks in either areas, [sic] nor the military's large-scale burning operations in the south." (Quoted in Graham-Brown, op cit).

But why did the northern "no-fly zone" offer "no protection whatever"?

Because the Turkish army used their cover to hunt the Kurds in northern Iraq:

"The first major Turkish incursion was in October '92, when 20,000 troops invaded northern Iraq. In late 1993, Turkish air and ground forces attacked alleged PKK bases in Iraqi Kurdistan. In March '95, 35,000 Turkish troops backed by tanks, helicopters and F-16 aircraft remained in the no-fly zone for almost two months. In May '97, 50,000 Turkish troops invaded the area again, for another extended occupation." (IRAQ CRISIS MARCH 2001
A VOICES IN THE WILDERNESS BRIEFING, March 2001).

"Finally, the air exclusion zone applies only to Iraqi aircraft, not to Turkish or Iranian air forces ... the Turks, pursuing their war with the PKK, continue to use both air and ground troops on a regular basis inside Iraqi Kurdistan, often causing civilian deaths, injuries and destruction of property. The US has never challenged Turkey's incursions -- the latest when 10,000 Turkish troops crossed the border in December 2000 -- though the EU and UN have periodically made ineffectual protests." ( Sarah Graham-Brown, Global Policy Forum, February 20th, 2001 ).

And if Saddam himself has not been able to fly aircraft into these zones, he is quite able to move his tanks in and out of there when he feels like it. For instance, in 1996 he was invited by KDP leader Massoud Barzani to take out his rivals in the PUK controlled region, while the latter was conscripting the assistance of Iran (who in turn were allowed to kill their own Iranian Kurdish opponents seeking refuge in northern Iraq).

In short, on almost every count of his argument, Kamm has either got it flatly wrong or seriously misrepresented the facts. This does some damage to his own complaints about Chomsky being "didactic, tedious, pretentious, hyperbolic and absurd", since didacticism, hyperbole, pretentiousness and tedious absurdity abound in his own prose. He refers to Chomsky's "sophistry" - taking up a favourite Hitchens' buzz-word. Well, it would behoove him to recall the meaning of the word. It is "plausible but fallacious argumentation", about as concise an approximation of Kamm's own output as I can conjure.

UPDATE: Regular visitors to this site, who may now include among themselves the estimable Mr Kamm, will know that my favourite means of attention-grabbing is to try and elicit a brief feud with another blogger (pace Ken McLeod, Norman Geras and Johann Hari). I have a melancholy feeling that this time I won't get anything for my trouble. No sour grapes, no whine, not even a little vinegar. Kamm delights in making use of the comments boxes to make empty supercilious remarks, but has yet to venture even a modest reply to my argument. Oh well. I know he's been hoking around the Tomb for some time, so perhaps he's building up an arsenal of cheap ad hominem points with which to defend his paltry argument. I do hope so.