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Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

independent.co.uk

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Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#331

Post by racional »

xg15 wrote: post #285
crazygringo wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that's a false narrative. There were never any promises, and Putin barely even cared that it resulted in Finland and Sweden joining NATO. Because Russia's stated motivation for invading Ukraine was never Putin's actual reason, which is basically an emotional desire for historical greatness by reclaiming Russia's lost empire, combined with war always being an excellent mechanism for staying in power and…

But how do you know so clearly that the one thing is a lie and the other is the truth? Even if you reject the "encroaching NATO" narrative, what makes "Putin just woke up one day and decided that remaking the Soviet Union and/or the zarist Russian Empire would be a great thing to do in the 21th century" the more plausible hypothesis? What information do you have that Mearsheimer doesn't?

Mearsheimer "has" all the information; it just doesn't fit his preferred narrative ("The U.S needs to stop picking on Russia so they can team up together against China"), so he discards the parts get in the way of that narrative. Such as the long and deep history of Russia's colonial attitude toward Ukraine, for example.

As to a more realistic narrative -- it's a bit more nuanced than the formulation you suggest, but even so -- is pretty much obvious once we look at the things Putin and key people around him have been saying, along with the last 350 years of so of Russia's history vis-a-vis its neighbors and Belarus and Ukraine in particular.

The links in the short comment tree below (which answered essentially the same question from just a few weeks ago) might be useful here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40455815

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#332

Post by roenxi »

_djo_ wrote: post #238
roenxi wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with any of that. But you didn't deal with the "why is their an active land war in Eastern Europe?" question; which is what Chomsky was picking at to get to the NATO expansion point. > Ironically, returning to a might-makes-right global order as envisioned by Russia would mean the United States could behave far worse in future The US could act much worse in the present if it wanted. Only China is rea…

> I don't disagree with any of that. But you didn't deal with the "why is there an active land war in Eastern Europe?" question; which is what Chomsky was picking at to get to the NATO expansion point. Fair enough. To answer that, I’d say the actual trigger wasn’t NATO but the EU, and Ukraine wanting to join it and move out of Russia’s sphere of influence. This was coupled to a wave of new leadership who wanted a mor…

Well, point 1 is NATO and the EU are almost the same entity. Difference of sets and there are only a couple of countries left. The non-EU NATO countries are generally involved in the war (maybe not Turkey? I don't keep an eye on the Turks).

Point 2 is more an observation. Russia is currently taking significant casualties - we don't really know how many - from Ukrainian forces armed with NATO weapons, NATO ammo, NATO intelligence, NATO training in some cases. These NATO activities are being done in service of NATO strategic concerns and appear to be coordinated through NATO headquarters. The CIA - most certainly not an EU institution - has 12 bases in Ukraine [0]. Biden is the person who turns out to have the authority to green light strikes on Russian soil [1]. It would appear superficially that Ukraine is going to join NATO [2].

If the trigger was EU expansion then the Russians made a pretty basic mistake and should have hired Chomsky as a military advisor to warn them about the rather obvious threat to Russian interests posed by NATO and its expansion. Putin obviously figured out that mistake fairly quickly because I'm pretty sure I've read about him talking about NATO in a couple of speech transcripts. The threat to them is NATO #1, EU #several - taking its spot in the queue with China, Russian winters, and coups and whatever other problems might materialise for them in a decade's time.

> A might-makes-right approach can be effective, but it can also lead to world wars which are immensely destructive

That doesn't sound effective. Effective is getting what you want with minimum fuss.

[0] https://www.yahoo.com/news/cia-maintains-12-secret-bases-212...

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/30/politics/biden-ukraine-li...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-secretary-state-blin...

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#333

Post by pineaux »

hollerith wrote: post #325
CamperBob2 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does thinking about nuclear weapons cause most people to think in absolutist terms like this? I don't understand the question. Can you elaborate? How would you go about invading Russia, as a senior NATO commander? Russia's stated policy is to deploy nuclear arms against any invading force. As for a hypothetical sneak attack on Moscow, are you familiar with the concept of the strategic defense triad?

>How would you go about invading Russia, as a senior NATO commander? NATO would have to nuke Russia, then invade. Tank crew are protected from fallout radiation. If they have filtered air, I think they can enter "fallout plumes" right away. Soldiers not protected by tanks will be able to enter in about 3 weeks: weapons fallout is very different in character from the contamination from, e.g., Chernobyl or Fukushima. I…

I think this doesnt really add up. Cause as soon as the US would invaded Russia, not only would Russia nuke the invading armies. They would very probably also start nuking command infrastructure. Which might or might not trigger the MADs doctrine.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#335

Post by objektif »

tim333 wrote: post #324
objektif wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather he chose to understand the point of view from their side. It is extremely difficult to do so and only a few public facing individuals is able to do ( Jeffrey Sachs etc. )

That's kind of the problem. He should have been trying to understand it from the Ukrainians side more than seeing the thing as US vs Russia. It seems a bit of a historical change - in the 19th century view it would be ok for the Russians to get pissed off with the US trying to steal their Ukrainian peasants and associated property. These days you're supposed to let sovereign democracies do their own thing even if the…

Is that how it works? How about letting your ally wipe out a sovereign nation in the ME? Does that count as these days? Or casually kill 2+ mln civilians in Iraq.

“These days” also apply to us and our allies and it is an unfortunate part of how things run.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#336

Post by houseplant »

nailer wrote: post #198
houseplant wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> it's truly surreal to hear people say this with their entire chest when the mountains of first-hand evidence proves otherwise. Evidence from the post you are replying to, but did not address: >> Gaza is not under threat from Israel, who pulled out in 2005, and gave Gazans a 250-300M flower export business. You can confirm this from any source you like. Additionally, there should be no need to state that Hamas (whic…

[flagged]

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#337

Post by hollerith »

pineaux wrote: post #333
hollerith wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How would you go about invading Russia, as a senior NATO commander? NATO would have to nuke Russia, then invade. Tank crew are protected from fallout radiation. If they have filtered air, I think they can enter "fallout plumes" right away. Soldiers not protected by tanks will be able to enter in about 3 weeks: weapons fallout is very different in character from the contamination from, e.g., Chernobyl or Fukushima. I…

I think this doesnt really add up. Cause as soon as the US would invaded Russia, not only would Russia nuke the invading armies. They would very probably also start nuking command infrastructure. Which might or might not trigger the MADs doctrine.

Let me try again. The US has about 1400 nuclear weapons or more precisely it has "intercontinental delivery systems" to deliver that many warheads to targets in Russia. (If it is cheating on its obligations under the New START treaty, it could have more.) The US would use most or all of those 1400 warheads on Russia before it starts its invasion. It makes no sense to start an invasion of Russia (e.g., with tanks and trucks) without first thoroughly nuking it (hitting cities, infrastructure and military bases).

(And it makes no sense to nuke Russia without first evacuating US cities and advising Americans to make fallout shelters, which would mostly consist of trenches dug into the ground covered by logs or plywood covered by a plastic sheet to keep out the rain covered by 18 inches of dirt.)

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#338

Post by [deleted] »

crazygringo wrote: post #274
slantedview wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chomsky, for some weird reason, chose to take Russia's side. This is a mischaracterization. He explained Russia's stated motivation for invading Ukraine, that it felt threatened by NATO's continual eastward encroachment and breaking of promises not to do so. That's different than endorsing the invasion, which he did not.

The problem is that's a false narrative. There were never any promises, and Putin barely even cared that it resulted in Finland and Sweden joining NATO. Because Russia's stated motivation for invading Ukraine was never Putin's actual reason, which is basically an emotional desire for historical greatness by reclaiming Russia's lost empire, combined with war always being an excellent mechanism for staying in power and…

[deleted]

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#339

Post by CamperBob2 »

hollerith wrote: post #325
CamperBob2 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does thinking about nuclear weapons cause most people to think in absolutist terms like this? I don't understand the question. Can you elaborate? How would you go about invading Russia, as a senior NATO commander? Russia's stated policy is to deploy nuclear arms against any invading force. As for a hypothetical sneak attack on Moscow, are you familiar with the concept of the strategic defense triad?

>How would you go about invading Russia, as a senior NATO commander? NATO would have to nuke Russia, then invade. Tank crew are protected from fallout radiation. If they have filtered air, I think they can enter "fallout plumes" right away. Soldiers not protected by tanks will be able to enter in about 3 weeks: weapons fallout is very different in character from the contamination from, e.g., Chernobyl or Fukushima. I…

And because that whole Tom Clancy scenario hinges critically on whether the initial NATO missile attack is launched from 523 miles away or 1500, Ukraine should run the white flag up the pole, accept Putin's terms, and get over themselves, already.

Got it.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#340

Post by HatchedLake721 »

hollerith wrote: post #314
CamperBob2 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia is a nuclear-armed state. They have nothing to fear from NATO. They can never be invaded or conquered again, by anyone, ever. Except from within. Disagree? Answer my questions below, and explain exactly how you would go about attacking Russia.

>They can never be invaded or conquered again, by anyone, ever. Why does thinking about nuclear weapons cause most people to think in absolutist terms like this? Maybe Russia was counting on getting a 15-minute warning of ICBMs approaching, but if a hostile military can station missile right on their southwestern border (523 miles from the center of Moscow) their plan goes out the window.

There's no difference in distance between Latvia/Estonia (NATO members) and Ukraine.

NATO threat to Russia is internal fear-mongering propaganda and I have no idea why Mearsheimer and others talk about it with a serious face. We're not in the middle of 20th century anymore.

On one hand we have EU/US/NATO intelligence saying Kiev will fall in 72 hours to the 2nd best army in the world.

And then on the other hand we must believe Mearsheimer that Putin really fears that EU/US/NATO would start a war out of the blue with a country that has 45% of world's nuclear arsenal in the middle of Europe?

Give me a break.

No one sane in Europe is interested to start a war with Russia.

Europe and especially Merkel have spent the last few decades turning Russia into an important trading partner and tying them heavily into the European market. This worked well for them with the economic union post World War 2 (that turned into the European Union) which stopped wars in Europe for almost a century.

Similar approach was taken with Russia, but sadly it didn't work.

Russia has every right to fear NATO and make plans around it. But to say Russia invaded Ukraine because of NATO (or nazis) is nonsense.

I don't believe you'll even find any Russian opposition/anti-government journalist/scientist/economist or politician talk the "NATO threat" reasoning seriously. They know what Putin has been doing to their country for the last 20+ years, and it has nothing to do with NATO.

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