Agree with you. Too dark is why i couldn't read him so much for so much for so long. As i said i thought he expressed more hope in the end there that i had felt from him before. He certainly had a different take on young people than that B402 has expressed. And the article helped me too.
Try Gore Vidal, who's experience involved having actually been there in the room, and knowing many of the principals. He's a lot lighter than Chomsky, but knowledgeable of the material with a more first-hand experience. Gore Vidal was actually born to the US aristocracy.
I'd recommend "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace" and "Dreaming War". They're collections of essays. There's a third one in the series, "Imperial America", which I just remembered I've been meaning to read also.