<story><title>Noam Chomsky: “We’re approaching the most dangerous point in human history”</title><url>https://www.newstatesman.com/encounter/2022/04/noam-chomsky-were-approaching-the-most-dangerous-point-in-human-history</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>qsort</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s completely irrelevant that a promise was or wasn&amp;#x27;t made. NATO is a defensive alliance whose members join voluntarily, we don&amp;#x27;t go around planting flags with the Safari icon by right of conquest.&lt;p&gt;Hinting at a moral equivalence -- because let&amp;#x27;s be honest, that&amp;#x27;s what&amp;#x27;s happening here -- between Russian expansion and NATO &amp;quot;expansion&amp;quot; is at the very least intellectually dishonest.</text></item><item><author>TaupeRanger</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re just flat wrong about the Khmer apologist thing...a common attempt at character assassination by anti-Chomsky fanatics with no relevance at all to the subject at hand.&lt;p&gt;Chomsky didn&amp;#x27;t say it was written down or announced. But there&amp;#x27;s no argument here - Baker simply DID say that there would be no eastward movement. It&amp;#x27;s not even remotely controversial.</text></item><item><author>clarionbell</author><text>I didn&amp;#x27;t expect anything from Chomsky (notorious Khmer Rogue apologist) and he didn&amp;#x27;t disappoint:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;“What about Nato expansion? There was an explicit, unambiguous promise by [US secretary of state] James Baker and president George HW Bush to Gorbachev that if he agreed to allow a unified Germany to rejoin Nato, the US would ensure that there would be no move one inch to the east. There’s a good deal of lying going on about this now.”&lt;p&gt;No such promise was made, ever, it was floated but it was never written down in any treaty or even publicly announced. It&amp;#x27;s putins propaganda and if Chomsky had any shame he would be ashamed for parroting it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>speeder</author><text>As someone living in a country that had a democratic leader toppled down by NATO Aircraft carrier threatening to bomb our most populous city at the time... I disagree with you.&lt;p&gt;I am sure people in Iraq (that had nothing to do with 11 of September and had no mass destruction weapons), Libyan negros (that were hunted down and their city razed with NATO air support) and many, many others would agree with me.&lt;p&gt;It is not even a matter of blaming only USA that drags the rest of NATO with them, Libya for example the country that started the shenanigans was France.&lt;p&gt;Then there are the aggressive actions of individual NATO members that are ignored by the rest of the alliance, like Turkey bombing Armenians using drones until Russia stepped in.</text></comment>
<story><title>Noam Chomsky: “We’re approaching the most dangerous point in human history”</title><url>https://www.newstatesman.com/encounter/2022/04/noam-chomsky-were-approaching-the-most-dangerous-point-in-human-history</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>qsort</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s completely irrelevant that a promise was or wasn&amp;#x27;t made. NATO is a defensive alliance whose members join voluntarily, we don&amp;#x27;t go around planting flags with the Safari icon by right of conquest.&lt;p&gt;Hinting at a moral equivalence -- because let&amp;#x27;s be honest, that&amp;#x27;s what&amp;#x27;s happening here -- between Russian expansion and NATO &amp;quot;expansion&amp;quot; is at the very least intellectually dishonest.</text></item><item><author>TaupeRanger</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re just flat wrong about the Khmer apologist thing...a common attempt at character assassination by anti-Chomsky fanatics with no relevance at all to the subject at hand.&lt;p&gt;Chomsky didn&amp;#x27;t say it was written down or announced. But there&amp;#x27;s no argument here - Baker simply DID say that there would be no eastward movement. It&amp;#x27;s not even remotely controversial.</text></item><item><author>clarionbell</author><text>I didn&amp;#x27;t expect anything from Chomsky (notorious Khmer Rogue apologist) and he didn&amp;#x27;t disappoint:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;“What about Nato expansion? There was an explicit, unambiguous promise by [US secretary of state] James Baker and president George HW Bush to Gorbachev that if he agreed to allow a unified Germany to rejoin Nato, the US would ensure that there would be no move one inch to the east. There’s a good deal of lying going on about this now.”&lt;p&gt;No such promise was made, ever, it was floated but it was never written down in any treaty or even publicly announced. It&amp;#x27;s putins propaganda and if Chomsky had any shame he would be ashamed for parroting it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>causi</author><text>Indeed. Complaining about one lie from decades ago in view of the torrent of lies every day from the Russian government is like complaining about a grain of sand in an ocean of piss.</text></comment>