Forum

David C

Oliver Kamm's open letter: http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2008/02/open-letter-to.html

Our response just sent:

Dear Oliver

Many thanks for your email. We particularly appreciated the polite tone:

“Forgive my ungraciousness in pointing this out...”

And:

“Despite my criticisms of your behaviour towards David Thomson and my expressed views on your competence to engage in this debate, I’m glad that you have extended your researches beyond the popular history of Howard Zinn.” (Email to Media Lens, February 9, 2008)

It’s curious, though, that you would choose to write so reasonably now when you must know that we, and many people reading your comments, have read your earlier blogs. In these, you described David Cromwell as “an ignoramus” responsible for a “farrago of nonsense”. (http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2008/02/media-lens-trie.html) Media Lens is “sub-Chomskyite”, “an extreme, unsavoury and unrepresentative organisation whose function is the aggressive and often abusive targeting of working journalists.” You even commented: “Genocide denial is the organisation's orthodoxy.” It’s quite a claim. Your evidence?

“... one of its [Media Lens’] regular contributors is a blogger called David Peterson, a leading light in a disgusting outfit devoted to debunking the supposed ‘highly inflated casualty figures’ of the Srebrenica massacre.” (http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2008/01/media-lens-trie.html)

We do have great respect for David Peterson’s work, but that isn’t the point here. The point is that you are willing to describe him as a “regular contributor” to Media Lens on the basis that we post links to his blog on our message board. Thousands of Comment is Free posters will be delighted to learn that they are “regular contributors” to the Guardian. But beyond even that, we are to believe that posting links to Peterson’s work means that “Genocide denial” is our orthodoxy. This kind of analysis - basing extreme claims on flat zero evidence - is standard in your work, and is so unreasonable that we have steered clear of engaging with you in the past.

Your work is also characterised by a tendency to instant self-contradiction. For example, you commented on your letter to film critic David Thomson:

“I wrote to Thomson myself to assure him that his unsolicited correspondent [Cromwell] was a historical ignoramus who was best ignored.” (http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2008/01/media-lens-trie.html)

You wrote in the same piece: “I don't recommend spending time on this...”

And yet these comments appeared in a 1,430-word blog noting, “this post, long as it is, is merely a preamble to my examination of Cromwell's purported ‘cogitation’.”

The “examination” was 3,591 words long. This just doesn’t make sense.

You similarly observed that Cromwell is “not to be taken seriously as a commentator on the Pacific War”. But on your own website you commented: “you're right that I enjoy no mastery of this subject; I go purely by the secondary literature”.

Like you, neither of us has ever claimed mastery of the subject. How could you imagine that we were attempting to present ourselves as expert commentators on the Pacific War? In our Media Alerts we aim to provide rational, compassionate analysis of the media. But the founding assumption of our work has always been that there is no good reason why anyone should take on trust the opinion of a couple of unknown writers on the internet. That’s why we always base our work on carefully referenced credible sources. If we talk about climate change, we reference leading climate scientists. If we talk about the effects of sanctions on Iraq, we reference the senior UN diplomats who ran the ‘oil-for-food’ programme, and so on. If some people take us seriously, it’s because we offer credible sources and rational arguments. It’s certainly not because we set ourselves up as authorities on the complex subjects we discuss.

In our Cogitations, we try to branch out and tackle less media-related issues of particular personal interest. But, again, we do not feign mastery of the subjects. Edwards likes to write Cogitations discussing the Buddhist philosophy of compassion. He cites highly experienced Buddhist practitioners and teachers, but is himself no Buddhist monk. Cromwell likes to write about brain plasticity, but he is no neuroscientist.

In our January 6, 2004 Media Alert on the terrible atomic bomb attacks on Japan, we cited a highly respected historian - Howard Zinn. We quoted Zinn from a book published in 1997:

"The +end+ of dropping the bomb seems, from the evidence, to have been not winning the war, which was already assured, not saving lives, for it was highly probable no American invasion would be necessary, but the aggrandisement of American national power at the moment and in the post-war period...” (http://www.medialens.org/alerts/04/040106_Hiroshima_BBC.HTM)

This is the key argument we have always sought to highlight - that the bombings were not necessary for achieving the stated aims. In support of this claim, as you point out, we have written to journalists along the following lines:

"I wonder if you are aware that the US Strategic Bombing Survey interviewed 700 Japanese military and political officials after the war, and came to this conclusion: 'Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.'" (ibid)

In his recent Cogitation, Cromwell explored the issues in more depth:

“The ‘United States Strategic Bombing Survey’, based on postwar interviews with hundreds of Japanese military and civilian leaders, concluded that Japan would have surrendered before November 1 – the date set for the U.S. invasion of Japan - without the atomic bombs and without Soviet entry into the war. For years, this conclusion underpinned the arguments of revisionist historians who stated that the atomic bombs were not necessary for Japan’s surrender.

“However, some historians, notably Bart Bernstein, have argued that the survey’s conclusion is not supported by its own evidence. Bernstein has shown that the evidence is, in places, contradictory and cautions that the ‘Survey’ is ‘an unreliable guide.’[32] For example, Prince Konoe Fumimaro, Hirohito’s envoy to Moscow, had stated in his postwar interrogation that the war would probably have gone on throughout 1945 (i.e. beyond the anticipated U.S. invasion date of November 1) if the atomic bomb had not been dropped on Japan.” (http://www.medialens.org/cogitations/080115_racing_towards_the.php)

As you note, this does indeed challenge evidence supporting the key argument that the bombings were not required for the stated aims. But you go much further:

“Cromwell has thus casually knocked away the ‘evidence’ he previously relied on. I'm not clear if he even realises what he's done, so I'll helpfully point out to him that he's just destroyed every previous comment made by Media Lens on this subject. If Cromwell were possessed of a modicum of intellectual honesty, he would immediately write a letter of apology to the film critic he so impudently lectured. Will Media Lens also be issuing an ‘alert’ withdrawing the claim that Cromwell no longer wishes to advance? Reader, you know the answer as well as I do.” (http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2008/02/media-lens-trie.html)

In fact, Cromwell had highlighted that one +part+ of the evidence for the key argument had been subject to challenge. That challenge certainly has not “destroyed every previous comment” we’ve made on the subject. Again, this is a good example of your approach to debate, which involves exaggeration to the point of absurdity. As Cromwell made clear in his Cogitation, the fundamental argument remains intact: the primary aim of the atomic bomb attacks cannot have been winning the war, nor avoiding a costly invasion, but was instead “the aggrandisement of American national power at the moment and in the post-war period”. As Cromwell noted, given the decisive impact of Soviet entry into the war, Japan’s surrender could have been achieved before any US invasion. The historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa comments:

"If Truman had no choice but to use the A-bomb in order to save lives, why did he consciously avoid two alternatives that might have hastened Japan's surrender: (1) to assure Soviet entry into the war; and (2) to revise the unconditional surrender demand in such a way to assure the retention of the emperor system?" (Email to Media Lens, December 5, 2007)

You described Cromwell as an “ignoramus” for having the intellectual honesty to highlight academic criticism that partially challenges what we had previously written on the subject. How, then, are we to describe your own performance? In your blog, you have misrepresented Hasegawa’s case which, in fact, +does+ strengthen the view that Japanese surrender could have been achieved without dropping the A-bomb. You quote Hasegawa correctly:

"Without the twin shocks of the atomic bombs and the Soviet entry into the war, the Japanese never would have accepted surrender +in August+." (http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2008/02/media-lens-trie.html, emphasis added by us)

But you conveniently skip over his argument that Japanese surrender could have been secured +before the US invasion that was planned for November 1+. Your selective quoting gives the impression that the A-bomb attacks were necessary.

Moreover, you have outrageously accused Hasegawa of “manipulation of source material“. Readers can see for themselves Hasegawa’s response to his critics here: http://hnn.us/articles/24566.html

We can add any number of similar gaffes. In April 2003, you wrote in a letter to the Sunday Telegraph:

“Julian Barnes challenges supporters of the war in Iraq to state whether we believe, first, that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein has made Britain and America safer from the threat of terrorism, and, second, that North Korea must now be ‘dealt with’.
‘Yes’ and ‘yes‘. What is his point?” (Letter to Sunday Telegraph, April 20, 2003)

You suggest that we should write to the New Statesman apologising for our work on Hiroshima. We doubt you will be writing to the Guardian to apologise for misleading readers about Saddam Hussein’s non-existent WMD and non-existent links to al Qaeda two years before Britain was hit by its first ever suicide bomb attacks - atrocities prompted by our invasion of Iraq.

You wrote in the Times in September 2004:

“Tony Blair's support for the Iraq war was far from being, as Lib Dems claimed last week, the biggest foreign policy blunder since Suez. It was the most strategically far-sighted and noble British stance since the founding of Nato.

“Its importance lay - just as Mr Blair said - in weapons of mass destruction: not because Saddam had them, but because he did not have them and wanted them.” (Kamm, ‘Blair's noble stance,’ The Times, September 30, 2004)

What is this if not a “farrago of nonsense”?

Finally, on your blog, you write:

“It's notorious that Media Lens, which makes much of holding journalists and media organisations to account, refuses to subject its own claims to scrutiny and debate, and you may form your own judgement on why this should be.” (http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2008/02/media-lens-trie.html)

Again, your evidence for this claim is minimal: a single comment on a BBC blog about our rejection of offers to appear on Newsnight in 2006. There is other evidence aplenty, however: namely, 2,400 pages of archived Media Alerts stretching back to 2001 (http://www.medialens.org/alerts/archive.php) in which anyone can see that we have always sought out exactly the kind of debate with senior editors and journalists you claim we are trying actually to avoid. Our book, Guardians of Power, is packed full of these debates. But for you they don’t exist because they do not serve your purpose.

Thanks for taking the trouble to write; we wish you well.

Sincerely
David Edwards & David Cromwell
Editors, Media Lens
www.medialens.org

David C

We received this on email last night:

To the Editors at Media Lens:

Thanks for the kind words (i.e., "We do have great respect for David Peterson’s work,…": http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9187#9187 ).

Judging by Oliver Kamm's February 8 Open Letter to you guys, however (http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2008/02/open-letter-to.html ), and by his designation of me as one of Media Lens's "regular contributors," his familiarity with me is minimal, and his comments about me likely betray second- or third-hand information derived from one or more of the many hyperlinked websites that belong to the Bosnia Genocide Lobby. (He said, only partly with tongue-in-cheek.)

But -- fear not. When in the past I have looked over Oliver Kamm's work, it struck me that the blogger in question suffered from a chronic case of Chomsky-itis, and was therefore badly in need of a Chomsky-ectomy.

(See, e.g., "Oliver Kamm," ZBlogs, December 13, 2005: http://www.zcommunications.org/blog/view/653 ; and "Oliver Kamm," Media Lens, May 30, 2006: http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1578&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 .)

So: On the assumption that surgeons have removed the hypertrophied Chomsky from Oliver Kamm's back, maybe he's now grown a hypertrophied Media Lens in its place?

It's hard to say. Only time will tell.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

David C

From the messageboard today.

===

Re: I think Lenin has written the guide you are after
Posted by lenin on April 17, 2008, 8:42 am, in reply to "I think Lenin has written the guide you are after"

Thanks for the plug. I should mention that Kamm is not discussed at any length in the book, although he is mentioned in passing as a minor symptom. I don't agree with giving extremists like him the oxygen of publicity. As Linda Smith said in another context, I'm not sure he should have the oxygen of oxygen.

Still, here is my roughly stated opinion as to why no rebuttal is actually called for. As far as I can determine, Kamm's method appears to consist in haughty denunciation and smear, to which overriding goal every anecdote and citation is subordinated. The 'debunking' in question contains three full paragraphs at the start dedicated to simple abuse based on the dyspeptic testimony of aggravated journalists, and a few highly selective musings on the contents of the message board. That's approximately a third of the post, and it's utterly worthless for the purposes of debate. There is then an obviously self-serving recount of his previous contre-temps with MediaLens editors, which takes up another two paragraphs. Largely worthless too, and larded with irrelevant insults directed at Howard Zinn: the supererogatory relish he obviously takes in flat-footed condescension and vilification is one of his signatures. What follows - inter an awful lot of alia - is a recitation of anti-revisionist scholarship. Not exposition, in the main, just recitation. That uncritical and unreflective narration is larded with asides about the 'tendentious' and 'flawed' nature of all revisionist scholars, the bulk of whose evidence and conclusions he does not deal with. In it, we discover that Hasegawa is criticised by non-revisionist scholars. Truly, Hasegawa is sure to be the object of some criticism, and some of that is likely to be merited, there being no flawless scholarship in the whole world. But Kamm speaks as if being criticised over a highly contentious matter of historical interpretation is itself sufficient for one's conclusions to be dismissed entirely. I'm afraid that none of this points to seriousness of purpose. A serious raising these threadbare observations based on a limited pool of sources and without evidence of any further understanding of the complexity of the debate, or even of having read Hasegawa's book, would have been a great deal more humble and a great deal less prolix. Approximately ten percent of Kamm's post was worth writing, and that ten percent largely consists of regurgitation. In the rest, you can count the logical fallacies for yourself, but I identify: ad hominem (MediaLens is a bunch of kooks); ad populum (everyone says so); hasty generalization (the messageboard contains x, y and z in various places, so ML is defined by x, y and z); the appeal to authority as an adequate ground for acceptance of claims in itself (Hasegawa has been criticised by authorities, therefore it is inappropriate to cite him); the fallacy of composition (some aspects of Hasegawa's work have been criticised, therefore the remainder of his work from premise to conclusion can be dismissed); the suppression of relevant data (literally no effort is made to discuss or rebut the vast majority of material that comprises the revisionist case and which militates against Kamm's preferred conclusions). And so on.

For what it's worth, I believe the editors did patiently try to introduce Kamm's pneumatic assay to reason, but it was in vain. The reason it was in vain is that Oliver Kamm is an Atlanticist whose governing interest is to propagandise on behalf of American power. In this case, his role makes him into an apologist for the premeditated and totally unnecessary nuclear annihilation of hundreds of thousands of non-combatants. And as students of propaganda know, it is never about argument, or debate: one does not try and enter into a reasoned discussion with an advertisement. It is about shaping perceptions, and that is why so much of Kamm's discussion is given over to insulting and denouncing his opponents, assuring the reader of their worthlessness and incompetence, baldly asserting what he knows he has done so little to prove, before he adverting to what turns out to be a limited base of evidence.