Abstract

Counterpunch, November 23, 2009 In his wild and slanderous "Open Letter to Amnesty International" (signed, fittingly, "Yours, in disgust and despair"),[2] The Guardian - Observer's veteran reporter Ed Vulliamy explains that two "main concerns" motivated him to draft his repudiation of AI's choice of Noam Chomsky to deliver this 2009 Stand Up For Justice lecture: One is that the "pain" individuals such as Chomsky are alleged to cause the "survivors and the bereaved" of the wars in the former Yugoslavia is "immeasurable," and Vulliamy feels some kind of need to help mitigate this pain; the other, apparently, is that the "historical record" as it pertains to these wars is too precious and too fragile to be left in the wrong pair of hands. "For Amnesty International, of all people, to honour this man is to tear up whatever credibility they have estimably and admirably won over the decades, and to reduce all they say hitherto to didactic nonsense," Vulliamy writes. "By inviting Chomsky to give this lecture, Amnesty condemns itself to ridicule at best, hurtful malice at worst -- Amnesty joins the revisionists in spitting on the graves of the dead.".