ADVANCE PRAISE FOR
Chomsky and Dershowitz:
On Endless War and the End of Civil Liberties
With unfailing accuracy, Howard Friel has shown why he is nearly without peer in analyzing the ideological conflicts of the day, from the news medias coverage of war-making to climate change. Here he examines the Chomsky-Dershowitz rivalry and a myriad of important issues with the eyes of a teacher and a journalist who seeks truth.
Marcus G. Raskin, co-founder, Institute for Policy Studies
Howard Friel has drawn a fascinating contrast between the scholarship of MITs Noam Chomsky and Harvards Alan Dershowitz. Friel traces Dershowitzs transformation from a civil libertarian in the 1960s and 1970s to a supporter today of national ID cards, preventive detention, roving wiretaps, extra-judicial killing, and torture in extreme cases. This book is a must read for those who seek to understand some of the most critical issues of our time.
Marjorie Cohn, professor, Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former president of the National Lawyers Guild
Howard Friel has written with courage and conviction about two major figures in American intellectual lifeNoam Chomsky and Alan Dershowitz. Friels constructive polemics provide nuance and detail that could surprise readers into re-thinking the positions they hold on crucial concerns, from the Israel-Palestine conflict and human rights to perpetual war and civil liberties.
Robert F. Barsky, Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Vanderbilt University
Howard Friels Chomsky and Dershowitz is a forensic dissection of the intellectual complicity of one American intellectualAlan Dershowitzand the courage and conviction of anotherNoam Chomsky. The book provides a full assessment of building careers on behalf of power (Dershowitz) and askance of power (Chomsky). The test cases here are U.S. foreign policy, Israel-Palestine, international law, and civil liberties.
Vijay Prashad, George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies, Trinity College
PRAISE FOR HOWARD FRIELS
The Lomborg Deception:
Setting the Record Straight about Global Warming
Facts, John Adams once said, are stubborn things. Unfortunately for Bjorn Lomborg, this book is full of them. The Lomborg Deception sets the record straight with a rigorous, readable body blow to climate complacency.
Senator John Kerry
The Lomborg Deception by Howard Friel presents a troubling history of how a cleverly contrived claimthat hundreds of scientists and dozens of scientific institutions have gotten climate change and environmental science badly wrong over several decadesis way off base, unlike the well-established conclusions hammered out over decades in peer-reviewed assessments. Bjorn Lomborgs claims that environmental scientists mislead society into wasting money on nonexistent problems is based on hundreds of citations taken out of context, dozens of straw men, selective inattention to inconvenient science, and the illusion of careful scholarship. Friel documents this deception brilliantly.
Stephen M. Schneider, Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies and Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University
For those interested in the future of polar bears and Arctic sea ice, The Lomborg Deception by Howard Friel clearly documents the inaccurate and utterly inadequate arguments that Bjorn Lomborg uses to erroneously suggest climate warming will have little negative impact on this bellweather mammal. The far greater tragedy is that misleading presentations such as those proffered by Lomborg may help to foster uncertainty in the public at large about the severity of the human causes of climate warming, and thus further delay the urgent need for the entire world to respond quickly to reduce our collective output of greenhouse gases.
Ian Stirling, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Research Scientist Emeritus, Environment
Scientific discourse, born of the honest skepticism and unquestioned integrity of its participants, has been the lifeblood of scientific inquiry for centuries. False scientific debate over well-established results, born of the repeated interventions by voices whose skepticism is not honestly articulated, can be extremely dangerousboth to the conduct of scientific research and to the well-being of a planet that depends on responsible stewardship for its very existence. Since this danger is particularly acute for issues like climate change that have been politicized beyond reason, one can only hope that Howard Friels careful documentation of persistent and pervasive misrepresentations will diminish significantly the credibility and thus the influence of Lomborgs assertions.
Gary Yohe, Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics, Wesleyan University
In this work, Howard Friel does what nobody has done before, namely to systematically examine Lomborgs work citation by citation. This is no small task, so it is not surprising that this has not been undertaken until now... Friel has used real scholarship to reveal the flimsy nature of the scholarly foundation of Lomborgs work.
Thomas Lovejoy, Biodiversity Chair, The H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment
Friels book should give satisfaction not just to those who would like to see Lomborg marooned on a shrinking ice floe but to anyone who believes that scientific debate should be bound by scientific evidence.
Richard Girling, The Times (London)
Friel uses a detailed analysis of the systematic misrepresentations and partial accounting that are at the core of climate skepticism to reveal an enlightening pole-to-pole review of some of todays most urgent climate concerns.
Environmentalist
CHOMSKY AND DERSHOWITZ
On Endless War and the End of Civil Liberties
by HOWARD FRIEL
First published in 2013 by
OLIVE BRANCH PRESS
An imprint of Interlink Publishing Group, Inc.
46 Crosby Street, Northampton, Massachusetts 01060
www.interlinkbooks.com
Copyright Howard Friel, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Friel, Howard, 1955
Chomsky and Dershowitz : on endless war and the end of civil liberties / by Howard Friel.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-56656-942-2 -- ISBN 978-1-56656-974-3 -- ISBN 978-1-62371-035-4 1. Chomsky, Noam--Political and social views. 2. Dershowitz, Alan M.--Political and social views. 3. Politics and war. 4. Politics and war--United States. 5. Civil rights. 6. Civil rights--United States. 7. Carter, Jimmy, 1924- 8. Falk, Richard A. 9. Goldstone, Richard. I. Title.
P85.C47F75 2013
940.53'2443091767--dc23
2013023663
Cover design: Pam Glaven, Impress, Northampton, MA
Front cover illustration: Luke Jaeger
Book design and production: Pam Fontes-May
To request our complete 48-page, full-color catalog, please call us toll free at 1-800-238-LINK, visit our website at www.interlinkbooks.com, or send us an e-mail: info@interlinkbooks.com
CONTENTS
INDEX