Reply to Stephen Zunes

Edward S. Herman and David Peterson

Stephen Zunes does make a credible case that he has directed the bulk of his work to the critical analysis of U.S. and U.S. client-state abuses and that it is unfair to accuse him of focusing only on governments that are U.S. targets.[1]  We had done this in passing when we quoted an independent blogger who named Zunes as a member of a "clique" (our word) that takes an interest in the "democratic" potential of countries only when the "U.S. wants to bring down a government by military force, attempting to refocus any First World opposition away from opposing imperialism and toward 'bringing down dictators by nonviolent means'."[2]  As the inclusion of Zunes' name in the original version of our text was wholly tangential to the larger case that we made there as well as in

Edward Herman

Edward Samuel Herman (April 7, 1925 – November 11, 2017) .  He wrote extensively on economics, political economy, foreign policy, and media analysis.  Among his books are The Political Economy of Human Rights (2 vols, with Noam Chomsky, South End Press, 1979); Corporate Control, Corporate Power (Cambridge University Press, 1981);  The "Terrorism" Industry (with Gerry O'Sullivan, Pantheon, 1990);  The Myth of the Liberal Media: An Edward Herman Reader (Peter Lang, 1999); and Manufacturing Consent (with Noam Chomsky, Pantheon, 1988 and 2002).  In addition to his regular "Fog Watch" column in Z Magazine, he edited a web site, inkywatch.org, that monitors the Philadelphia Inquirer.