Banality of evil. This is indispensable, 14000 words every one of them necessary.
Indispensable in what way? 14k words is a big time investment to support a conclusion of the type "extreme radical idealist often uses untruth to support worldview." Seems self-evident that such must be the case. The crimes of the Khmer Rouge have been well documented in the last decade or two, and a few of their leaders have even been prosecuted. In 1977 when the article was written, it must have seemed unbelievable that anything on the order of what was happening could have been true. To those who had an ideological bent toward supporting Stalinist style communism (and, really, what other kind is there?), I can imagine all sorts of contortions that they could make to invent a set of circumstances in which they could chalk the stories up to "corporate media" or something of the like. But anyway, I wish I had time to read through this today, but likely will not. Any synopsis you could give that might be a substitute?
"Indispensable" as a memorial to ultra-far left apologetics, and as a reminder that ideologues of any stripe just can't be trusted. If Chomsky can rationalize away 2+ million human deaths by torture and starvation, he can and will say anything. This, one of the five or so most famous and cited intellectuals of the 20th century. Where the hell did we go wrong? My recommendation, if you don't have time for the whole thing, read the left side of the table straight down. That's the Chomsky article -- you don't need to read the rebuttal (unless you want to see someone drop the hammer on a fatuous ass), because we all know what happened in Cambodia. Just read the article with what really happened in the back of your mind. You'll probably want to throw up. I will say this should be required reading for anyone who has ever respected Chomsky, any communist sympathizer, and most people who think our government was entirely to blame for what went down in Indochina. Partially? Yep. But the more blame you apportion to the US and France, the less you reserve for Pol Pot and some of the most evil men in world history. But that's aimed more at anyone who might be less familiar with the timeline of Vietnam etc.