I'm surprised, because I thought that Chomsky was mostly intelligent person. I've heard that he had very strange political views, but to just repeat Putin seems to manifest his lack of an ability to think for himself.
He was mainly doing what Chomsky always does which is point out the crimes and hypocrisies of various western governments.
But he's always been fairly consistently against authoritarian governments and dictators. I'll have to go digging to see exactly what this letter is responding to.
Some other western leftists do sound like this, though. Yanis Varoufakis did an annoying interview for example.
Even Lula said something similar on a Time interview recently. Brazil is very dependent on Russia's fertilizers and is a big (biggest?) food exporter. Brazilian politicians have been very careful to condemn the war while being light on Putin or the result could mean a significant rise on the price of food and even famine.
Lavrov talks like an anti-imperialist while actually basically being the Mouth of Sauron. The talking face of a failing autocratic petro-state.
He is respectfully old, but this only underscores how remarkable he is, how true to his life-long commitment of exposing the imperialist narratives and giving voice to the oppressed.
However, I guess, russia's war against Ukraine presented a tough topic for him. He is undoubtedly anti-war and in support of people who suffer. Yet he cannot detach this from the fact that indeed the USA, EU, and NATO are in helping position to Ukraine.
This by extension put Mr. Chomsky at odds with Ukraine's struggle, thus all the narratives so familiar from russian propaganda to justify this stance. But by all means, he's not a russia's or putin's proxy. Sadly and predictably, his views are readily weaved into this propaganda, while his name and work is largely irrelevant to most of the russia population.
Ukraine remains the land where Chomsky's father was born. And the present reality is that this land is still being blown and burned on the orders of russia criminal leadership, who gives a damn about Mr. Chomsky's life-long commitment.
In this case the Ukrainian people, their language and culture are the oppressed, historically! So I believe, Mr. Chomsky is on Ukraine's people side too ... just in the depths and breadth of his heart.
Ukraine did not start this war, russia did. Now Ukraine needs every bit of support to withstand and hopefully prevail in this struggle to survive as people and the nation!
Take for example the Bosnian war. People are quick to misrepresent Chomskys views as supporting the Serbs position. He just was against actions which would escalate the conflict. And he was correct. NATO involvement spurred genocide.
His points on Ukraine are nuanced. Ukrainians hate it because they want everyone to just whole-sale support them. True support of Ukraine is pushing for peace. Arming Ukraine is akin to someone encouraging a little kid to fight an older bully. All we will accomplish is the eventual hurt of the kid.
http://goodtimesweb.org/industry-govt-agents/z-chomsky-nato-...
> More important, the U.S. was able to enforce its domination over the strategic Balkans region, ... A destitute Serbia remains the last holdout, probably not for long.
How can you take someone seriously who writes that in the closing paragraphs, and ignores the preceding mass killings with the remark that "it wasn't really genocide, so who cares"? Anyway, the pattern "NATO made them kill" is in that article as well.
Probably they are. I suspect I need to witness them firsthand.
Then, you would understand more what Chomsky is saying.
Source: I spent the last two years+ full time in Ukraine, much of the last decade in Ukraine.
I'm not Ukrainian - I just know reality from theatre.