Noam Chomsky on Trump's Russia Policy

OMFG … what’s going on here? We expected that a sensible, well-informed professor like Stephen Cohen would offer some much needed perspective about Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

But, who would have expected the same from radical leftist firebrand, and world renowned linguist, Noam Chomsky. To be fair, Chomsky is not a liberal or a progressive. He is a proud radical….

So, Chomsky was on the radio with Amy Goodman the other day. Here is  transcript of some of his remarks.

On Russian election meddling, the cause du jour:

It’s a pretty remarkable fact that—first of all, it is a joke. Half the world is cracking up in laughter. The United States doesn’t just interfere in elections. It overthrows governments it doesn’t like, institutes military dictatorships. Simply in the case of Russia alone—it’s the least of it—the U.S. government, under Clinton, intervened quite blatantly and openly, then tried to conceal it, to get their man Yeltsin in, in all sorts of ways. So, this, as I say, it’s considered—it’s turning the United States, again, into a laughingstock in the world.

On the Democratic obsession with Trump’s Russia policy and Trump’s diplomatic outreach to Putin, Chomsky says this:

So why are the Democrats focusing on this? In fact, why are they focusing so much attention on the one element of Trump’s programs which is fairly reasonable, the one ray of light in this gloom: trying to reduce tensions with Russia? That’s—the tensions on the Russian border are extremely serious. They could escalate to a major terminal war. Efforts to try to reduce them should be welcomed. Just a couple of days ago, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Jack Matlock, came out and said he just can’t believe that so much attention is being paid to apparent efforts by the incoming administration to establish connections with Russia. He said, "Sure, that’s just what they ought to be doing."

Chomsky strongly opposes the Trump agenda, with one exception, Russia policy:

So, you know, yeah, maybe the Russians tried to interfere in the election. That’s not a major issue. Maybe the people in the Trump campaign were talking to the Russians. Well, OK, not a major point, certainly less than is being done constantly. And it is a kind of a paradox, I think, that the one issue that seems to inflame the Democratic opposition is the one thing that has some justification and reasonable aspects to it.

Why are Democrats obsessing about the election? You will not be too shocked to read this:

Well, you can understand why the Democratic Party managers want to try to find some blame for the fact—for the way they utterly mishandled the election and blew a perfect opportunity to win, handed it over to the opposition.

Have a nice day!