Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Hitchens on Chomsky

Hitchens dissects a Chomsky post on the killing of bin Laden.

Here is the original Chomsky post.

One thing I would differ with Hitchens on. Chomsky states that the US naming an aircraft "The Apache" is like the Nazis naming one of their weapons "The Jew" or "The Gypsy".

Now I have given up being ruffled by the left's admonitions to never make a Hitler analogy (unless it is about the US), but the point being made here is just wrong I believe. The salient fact about the Jews is that they were not allowed to fight, that they were overwhelming murdered as civilians. The salient fact about the Apaches is that they not only fought they fought extremely well. They were admired and hated for their fighting abilities and forced the US Army to drastically alter its tactics and ultimate reform parts of itself in their enemy's image.

This is not to dismiss or minimize the killing of Apache civilians (or of US or white civilians) but the Apaches thought of themselves as warriors, not victims. It is the left that wants to transform them into victims above all. That is why the controversies about American Indian (or Native American) sports mascots often leads to controversy between the Advocates and the "Advocatees" on many occasions. The Native Americans seem on the whole to favor the team names taken from Indian tribes. These are taken out of admiration for the fighting qualities the tribes exhibited in the fact of overwhelming odds.

The correct analogy, if one insists on using the Nazis, would be the Nazis naming a plane the "RAF" or the US Marines, no?

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