Just because I have a sadistic streak when it comes to folks like Chomsky, I'd love to see his discourse as to why America is the greatest country in the world.
I have read enough of Chomsky to know that Bennett is right: His books do in fact attempt to justify the attacks, despite his statement at the beginning that they cannot be justified. At the same time, you will not see that done explicitly. Chomsky is a specialist in Semantics, which is the formal studiy of the literal and emotional meaning of words. As a result, he is an expert at writing strings of words that mean literally one thing, and emotionally quite the opposite. Thus, you won't catch him saying out loud that 9/11 is justified, but he will have said it, all the same. His text has to be read with the precision associated with rigourous study - which is exactly how it is not intended to be read!
If you ever look at Chomsky's work, he is very capable of shocking. His favourite technique is simply to consider the bad things we have done, without reference to the bad things our opponents have done. So, when talking about the Israelis and Palastinians, he would talk about savage Israeli attacks on innocent Palastinians, while omitting the Palastinian suicide bombings that provoked them. This can make any nation with a military look bad.
Unfortunately, these two people are so different in their world views that it's virtually useless to have them in the same room together, which in one sense is a pity; I think it would be quite a show to see each one actually have to answer the others' question directly.
D