AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org,
The War and Peace Report.
I’m Amy Goodman.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has invited
President Trump to Moscow just days after
the White House postponed a planned summit
between the two leaders in Washington until
after the midterm elections.
To talk more about U.S.-Russian relations
and much more, we’re spending the hour with
the world-renowned political dissident, author
and linguist, Noam Chomsky.
He is now laureate professor in the Department
of Linguistics at the University of Arizona,
and professor emeritus at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, where he taught for
more than 50 years.
His recent books include Global Discontents:
Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy
and Requiem for the American Dream: the Ten
Principles of Concentration of Wealth and
Power.
He joined us from Tucson, Arizona, last week.
I asked him about the recent Trump-Putin summit
in Helsinki and played for him a short pinwheel
of U.S. media coverage of the summit.
ANDERSON COOPER: You have been watching perhaps
one of the most disgraceful performances by
an American president at a summit in front
of a Russian leader, certainly that I’ve
ever seen.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: All of you who are
watching today will be able to tell your friends,
family, your children, your grandchildren,
you were watching a moment of history.
It may not be for the right reasons.
NORAH O’DONNELL: This Helsinki summit was
one for the history books.
President Trump’s refusal to challenge the
Russian strongman drew widespread condemnation
from members of his own party and administration.
The summit that might have been about U.S.
condemnation instead ended with President
Putin giving President Trump a soccer ball
from the World Cup and Mr. Trump handing Putin
a gift of absolution.
AMY GOODMAN: So that was CBS’s Norah O’Donnell,
George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, and CNN’s
Anderson Cooper reporting after the July 16th
joint press conference with Trump and Putin.
I asked Noam Chomsky for his response to the
Helsinki summit.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Trump has basically one principle:
me first.
That’s almost all of his policies, and wild
statements and so on are perfectly well explicable
within—under the assumption that that’s
what’s driving him.
Now, that—crucially, for him, he has to
ensure that the Mueller investigation is discredited.
Whatever they come up with, if it implicates
him in any way, the way the media and political
culture function, that will be considered
of enormous significance, much more significance
than his pursuing policies on the environment
which may destroy human civilization.
But given that, those highly skewed circumstances,
he has to make sure that the Mueller investigation
is discredited.
And that was the main core part of his interview
with Trump.
Putting aside the way he behaved—you know,
the soccer ball, which apparently had a listening
device embedded in it and so on—yes, that
was strange and unpleasant and so on.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, actually, that World—that
soccer ball, that particular ball has that
little device in it, and that’s how it’s
sold.
It was a World Cup soccer ball, and that’s
what it—that’s one of its attributes that
people like, that they can put their iPhone
next to it and get information.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah, well, Putin was plainly
treating Trump, more or less, with contempt,
so whatever you think about that.
Nevertheless, his main concern was pretty
obvious, and that was the central part of
the Putin-Trump interviews.
And so, yeah, I think—I just don’t see
the great significance of his acting in a
silly and childish way in an interview.
OK, let’s—he did.
Now let’s go to the important issues which
are not being discussed.
The issue of improving relations with Russia
is of overwhelming significance as compared
with the remarks saying, “Well, I don’t
know whether to trust my own intelligence
agencies.”
Saying that for perfectly obvious reasons:
to discredit the Mueller investigation and
to ensure that his fervently loyal base stays
supportive.
That’s not an attractive policy, but we
can understand very easily what he’s doing.
AMY GOODMAN: Those intelligence agencies—former
CIA Director John Brennan tweeted, “Donald
Trump’s press conference performance in
Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold
of 'high crimes & misdemeanors.'
It was nothing short of treasonous.
Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic,
he is wholly in the pocket of Putin.
Republican Patriots: Where are you???”
Again, the former CIA Director John Brennan’s
tweet.
Noam?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, his remarks were certainly
incorrect.
Whatever you think of Trump’s behavior,
it has nothing to do with high crimes and
misdemeanors or treason.
That’s just not true.
But again, the same point I’ve been trying
to make throughout—we are focusing on issues
of minor significance and putting aside problems
of enormous importance and significance, whether
we’re thinking of how to deal with immigration
or whether we’re dealing with the question
of survival of organized human life on Earth.
Those are the topics we should be thinking
about, not whether Trump misbehaved in a press
conference.
AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, I wanted to ask
you about NATO.
President Trump has questioned a key provision
of the NATO military alliance, the mutual
defense of NATO member countries.
He made this remark during an interview with
Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
He made his remarks during an interview with
Tucker Carlson just a week ago.
TUCKER CARLSON: Why should my son go to Montenegro
to defend it from attack?
Why is that…?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I understand what
you’re saying.
I’ve asked the same question.
Montenegro is a tiny country with very strong
people.
TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I’m not against Mont…or
Albania.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No.
By the way, they’re very strong people.
They’re very aggressive people.
They may get aggressive, and congratulations,
you’re in World War III.
AMY GOODMAN: There is President Trump questioning
the whole idea of NATO.
Well, if you could specifically address this.
Interesting he chose Montenegro, where, well,
many months ago, when he was with the G7,
the G8, he pushed aside the prime minister
of Montenegro.
But the bigger point about—well, he wasn’t
making this point, but I’d like to ask you—about
whether you feel NATO should exist.
NOAM CHOMSKY: That’s the crucial question,
not whether Trump made an ugly and demeaning
comment about a tiny country.
But what is NATO for?
From the beginning, from its origins, we had
drilled into our heads that the purpose of
NATO was to defend us from the Russian hordes.
We can put aside for the moment the question
whether that was accurate.
But in any event, that was the dominant theme,
overwhelming, in fact, unique theme.
OK, 1991, no more Russian hordes.
So, the question is: Why NATO?
Well, what happened was very interesting.
There were negotiations between George Bush,
the first; James Baker, secretary of state;
Mikhail Gorbachev; Genscher and Kohl, the
Germans, on how to deal with the—this was
after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the
beginning of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev made an astonishing concession.
Astonishing.
He agreed to allow Germany, now unified, to
join NATO, a hostile military alliance.
Just look at the history of the preceding
years.
Germany alone had practically destroyed Russia,
at an extraordinary cost, several times during
the preceding century.
But he agreed to allow Germany to—a rearmed
Germany to join NATO, a military alliance
that was set up to counter Russia.
There was a quid pro quo, namely that NATO
not—meaning NATO means basically U.S. forces—not
expand to East Berlin, to East Germany.
Nobody talked about anything beyond that.
Baker and Bush verbally agreed to that.
They didn’t put it in writing, but they
essentially said, “Yeah, we will”—in
fact, the phrase that was used was “not
one inch to the east.”
Well, what happened?
NATO immediately moved to East Germany.
Under Clinton, other countries, former Russian
satellites, were introduced into NATO.
Finally, NATO went so far, as I mentioned
before, 2008, again in 2013, to suggest that
even Ukraine, right at the heartland of Russian
strategic concerns—any Russian president,
no matter who it was, any Russian leader—that
they join NATO.
So, what’s NATO doing altogether?
Well, actually, its mission was changed.
The official mission of NATO was changed to
become to be—to control and safeguard the
global energy system, sea lanes, pipelines
and so on.
And, of course, on the side, it’s acting
as an intervention force for the United States.
Is that a legitimate reason for us to maintain
NATO, to be an instrument for U.S. global
domination?
I think that’s a rather serious question.
That’s not the question that’s asked.
The question that’s asked is whether NATO
made—whether Trump made some demeaning comment
about Montenegro.
It’s another example of what I was talking
about before: the focus of the media and the
political class, and the intellectual community
in general, on marginalia, overlooking critical
and crucial issues, issues which do literally
have to do with human survival.
AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, now linguistics
professor at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
Coming up, we will talk to him about climate
change, nuclear weapons, Israel, Gaza and
more.
