XPost: alt.politics, soc.rights.human   
   From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net   
      
   Noam Chomsky: A Left Response to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine   
      
   Noam Chomsky speaks with Bill Fletcher, Jr. about the geopolitical   
   stakes of the war in Ukraine and how the left must respond   
      
   April 8, 2022. The Real News Network.   
      
   The ongoing war in Ukraine is a humanitarian disaster with tremendous   
   geopolitical, economic, social, and climate-related repercussions that   
   are being felt throughout the world. How have these horrific events   
   come to pass? What will the short-term and long-term effects be on the   
   people of Ukraine, the people of Russia, and on the global political   
   order? And what does a principled, internationalist, anti-imperialist   
   left response to the war in Ukraine look like?   
      
   In this special discussion, world-renowned linguist and analyst Noam   
   Chomsky speaks with legendary activist and socialist Bill Fletcher,   
   Jr. about the roots of Russian aggression in Ukraine, the background   
   to the conflict, the US role, and how the Left can respond.   
      
   Bill Fletcher Jr.: Greetings. My name is Bill Fletcher, and I want to   
   welcome you to what I know is going to be a fantastic discussion.   
   We’re going to have a discussion, an exchange with Dr. Noam Chomsky   
   about the Ukraine war, the impact on the left in the United States,   
   and where do we go from here? And I want to thank you for taking the   
   time to join us for this program.   
      
   This program is brought to you by Liberation Road. Additional sponsors   
   include the Institute of the Black World 21st Century, Legacy of   
   Equality, Leadership, and Organizing in Seattle, the Committees of   
   Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, the Center for Global   
   Justice, the International Marxist-Humanist Organization, Global   
   Studies Association of North America, Communist Party USA, LeftRoots,   
   the Working Families Party, Grassroots Global Justice, Malcolm X   
   Grassroots Movement, the Canadian Socialist Project, and the   
   Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis. And a special thanks to   
   Convergence magazine and The Real News Network, without whom this   
   would not be possible. And we’re very, very gratified for their   
   involvement.   
      
   We wanted to have a discussion with Noam Chomsky, an internationally   
   known iconic figure, and someone who has brought great wisdom and   
   analysis in looking at the international situation, and has been   
   outspoken on the Ukraine crisis and the Russian invasion. But we want   
   to probe a little bit deeply this evening and look at some issues that   
   go beyond what’s often covered in the media.   
      
   So let me just start with a few stipulations that Noam Chomsky and I   
   came to, in the interest of time. One is that we stipulate that NATO   
   is not a defensive alliance. We further stipulate that when the Warsaw   
   Pact was dissolved, NATO should have itself been dissolved. And we   
   finally stipulate that the expansion of NATO, particularly with Bill   
   Clinton and George W Bush, was wrong and provocative. Those are the   
   three important stipulations in the interest of getting right into   
   some central questions that many of us on the left seem to be   
   avoiding. With no further ado I want to welcome you, Noam, to this   
   discussion. Thank you very much for doing this.   
      
   Noam Chomsky: Well, I think these stipulations are correct, and I   
   would like to add another which I think is also beyond discussion.   
   Whatever the explanation for the Russian invasion, an important,   
   crucial question, the invasion itself was a criminal act, a criminal   
   act of aggression, a supreme international crime on par with other   
   such horrific violations of international law and fundamental human   
   rights like the US invasion of Iraq, the Hitler-Stalin invasion of   
   Poland, and all too many other examples.   
      
   So why did it happen? Well, there is a background. The background is   
   what you’d begun to discuss. If we go back to the early 1990s when the   
   current issue begins to develop, the Soviet Union collapsed, President   
   George HW Bush, his secretary of state James Bakker, and negotiated   
   with Mikhail Gorbachev, Russian leader. In the background were the   
   major German political figures: Hans Genscher, Helmut Kohl. Germany   
   was directly involved in this. And they reached an agreement. The   
   agreement was, it was a firm, explicit agreement. There’s been a lot   
   of provocation about this. So if you want the details, I’d simply   
   suggest looking at the authoritative National Security Archive, which   
   has the original documents easily accessible.   
      
   The agreement was that Russia would agree to allowing Germany to be   
   unified and to join NATO, which is quite a commitment on the part of   
   Russia if you look back to the history of the 20th century. But they   
   agreed on the condition, the explicit formal condition, that NATO   
   would not expand one inch to the east. That commitment was adhered to   
   by President Bush. Bush number one. The early years of Clinton   
   followed for a couple of years, he kept to it too. By 1994, he was   
   already talking from two sides of his mouth. I’m now quoting and   
   paraphrasing Ambassador Chas Freeman, one of the most astute, highly   
   respected American diplomats who was directly involved in all of these   
   issues at the time and has been since.   
      
   As Freeman points out, Clinton started talking out both sides of his   
   mouth. To Russia, he was saying we’ll live up to the agreement. In the   
   United States domestically, addressing ethnic minorities like the   
   Polish population and with an eye on domestic votes, he was saying   
   we’ll do something to bring frontline states like Poland, Hungary,   
   Slovenia into NATO. He was getting harsh condemnation of this from his   
   close friend, supposedly Boris Yeltsin, who he helped keep in power by   
   direct interference in Russian elections. Yeltsin was strongly   
   objecting, objected again in 1996, 1997. Clinton went ahead anyway and   
   broke the agreement to Gorbachev.   
      
   He invited Poland, Hungary, Slovenia into NATO. The Russians objected,   
   but didn’t do much about it. 1999, it’s a complicated story, can’t go   
   into the details, but the Clinton administration decided to bomb   
   Serbia, a close Russian ally, didn’t even bother informing the   
   Russians. There was a pretext. The pretext was to stop Serbian   
   atrocities in Kosovo. A slight problem with that pretext. It requires   
   inverting the chronology. It wasn’t a pleasant place, but the   
   atrocities were the predicted and anticipated consequence of the   
   bombing. There is no ambiguity about that. There’s been a lot of lying   
   about it, inverting the chronology, but it’s very firmly established.   
   Well, that was, first of all, a crime in itself, but also it   
      
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