If Chomsky is correct, your wonderful leader of Ukraine did not have to be put in this horrible situation in the first place. Encroaching NATO, lack of communication between the US and Russia. Not to mention the US running biodefense labs in Ukraine (yes, it is a fact).
The last claim is just patently false, and if Chomsky actually repeated that falsity, he's just parroting Putin propaganda and loses any and all credibility on this issue.
He's also wrong with regard to NATO. NATO was never a threat to Russia beyond the Cold War. Other countries *joined* NATO - precisely because they did not want to be in Ukraine's position.
I've posted it elsewhere but since the esteemed Chomsky seems to be making the argument, I'll post this again:
The "threat" the West represents is not, nor was it ever, to Russia. It's absurd to believe that the West has any interest in actually invading, occupying, or otherwise attacking Russia. We spent decades literally doing everything we could to avoid doing that. Yes, we competed against Russia for global influence, and we still do, but competing for global influence doesn't constitute threatening behavior. And I've said this with respect to the U.S. and China as well: the fact that China competes with us for global influence doesn't in and of itself represent a threat to us.
The "threat" that the West poses is to the corrupt Russian regime that robs its own people blind and murders anyone who starts pointing that fact out. A majority of Ukrainians wanted to move away from having a Russian-backed regime of oligarchy and corruption, and more toward a Western democratic regime in which voters could participate and hold their leaders accountable. They wanted to become a stable, functional Western-style democratic, free market nation-state, independent of Russian influence.
To Putin that was unacceptable, but look at his behavior and you'll see the true reason why. Putin didn't attempt to invade and commit genocide in Ukraine when Ukraine had a pro-Russia regime. Ukraine had long declared its independence from Russia and he tolerated it. Putin's position on Ukrainian sovereignty changed when ordinary citizens finished the revolution that was started earlier and made it clear that he could no longer control Ukraine. Putin recognized this as a direct threat to his regime, because there's the risk that people in Russia would see that Ukraine would be an example of a country transitioning from the Cold War into something better. Putin feared that Ukraine would show Russians what Russia could become - that it doesn't have to tolerate its rampant corruption and economic inequality. That's what people inside Russia like Alexei Navalny have risked their lives to fight for. They want that kind of system, and they know Russia's capable of having it, and Putin knows Ukraine would have influenced more and more Russians to fight against Putin's regime.
Chomsky's real bottom line has always been that the United States has too much power. I don't recall Noam Chomsky making the argument that the United States had the right to invade and occupy Iraq or any other country simply because it felt "threatened"; in fact I seem to recall quite the opposite. Every political opinion that Chomsky has seemingly starts and ends with the premise that the world would be a better place if the United States had less power and regimes like China and Russia had power equal to the United States. It's a patently absurd and naive position.
His intentions are good, and he genuinely means what he says. I don't doubt his sincerity and I even agree with Chomsky on a few things, but there are times when his capacity is stretched and I think this is one of those times.
