The other day, the U.K. Guardian ran an article by Noam Chomsky, a man celebrated in much of Europe as one of the world's foremost intellectuals, which turned on a mind—boggling premise.

Mr. Chomsky alleged with palpable personal satisfaction that people of some Latin American and Asian countries are finally becoming free by breaking away from America's imperialistic influence. Venezuela, China, and Cuba were some of the nations of whose exploits he spoke in congratulatory accents.

But here is the problem: Many of those whose freedom Mr. Chomsky celebrates live under the tyranny of leftist dictators. And in some of those countries — like Cuba and China for example — this tyranny often assumes an inhuman and brutal form.

All of this world's oppressed invariably yearn for freedom, and most of them look beseechingly in America's direction hoping thence it shall one day arrive. Notwithstanding the cynical propaganda of their tyrants, most of the downtrodden instinctively know where true liberty and goodness live. This is why so many of them run away to America every year.

When oppressed people read Mr. Chomsky's article, they are bound to be deeply confused. For how are they going to reconcile the harrowing fact of their subjugation with the celebration by a famous western intellectual of their supposed freedom on the pages of a respectable British daily?

How can anyone among us explain to these poor souls the meaning of Mr. Chomsky's monstrous claim?

The truth is we can't. Mr. Chomsky's anomalous reasoning is the symptom of a psychological condition for which there is no simple rational explanation. Still, there is a little something we can do. We can at least define it.

I would hereby like to coin the term "Chomsky Paradox." The Chomsky Paradox is a singular phenomenon which takes place in the brain of a western leftist when he looks at an oppressed people and thinks they are free.

I am aware that it is nearly impossible to conceive how anyone could see the world in this way, but apparently there are such people and Mr. Chomsky is one of them. Long, indeed, is the stretch from un—free to free as the two are diametrical opposites. Logic, reason and language fail us when we try to understand the thought process which led Mr. Chomsky to arrive at his conclusion, but now we at least have a term by which to call it.

As someone who lived under communism I can tell Mr. Chomsky that oppressed is in fact not free. I am also eternally grateful that not all Americans belabor under the sway of the Chomsky Paradox. If they did, there would have been no Cold War and no Ronald Reagan. There also would have been no freedom for the hundreds of millions liberated from the yoke of communist tyranny by the United States.

Mr. Chomsky has not only betrayed reason and truth, but also those countless browbeaten who look toward America as their hope for ending the outrage in which they live. With a straight face he lied about their situation and thus belittled the untold pain and injustice they have endured and are enduring still.

In his piece Mr. Chomsky warmly noted the benevolence of Fidel Castro who sent a team of 1,000 medics to help with the aftermath of the earthquake in Pakistan. In a dig at his own, he remarked that they remained under harsh conditions even 'after western aid teams had been withdrawn.'

It apparently never occurred to Mr. Chomsky that those Cubans may have preferred to stay in the freezing mountains of Pakistan under the semi—benevolent Musharraf to going back to sun—drenched Havana under the brutal Castro. I wonder how many of them did not return to Cuba at all. Having had an opportunity to travel there recently, I can vouch that it truly is a most miserable place to live, especially if you happen to be Cuban.

His article in the Guardian leaves no doubt that Mr. Chomsky has fallen prey to one of the most pathetic conditions that can afflict the human mind: He has become a sad victim of the Chomsky Paradox.

Vasko Kohlmayer defected from Communist Czechoslovakia at the age of 19. He lives in London and works in the publishing industry. He can be contacted at vasko_kohlmayer@msn.com.