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Chomsky is by no liberal by any meaning of the word. He may be an idiot when it comes to domestic policy, but he is no liberal. Chomsky has even stated that he considers himself to be a conservative (Chomsky's Politics, p. 188, note Ch.6 #24), presumably of the Classical liberal variety. He spoke out against Clinton as much or maybe even more than he does about GW. He is critical of state ownership and state control of the economy. Chomsky describes himself as an anarcho-syndicalist, libertarian socialist, and anti-Bolshevik. In the '60s, when he was getting into politics, the one thing that interested him was the vietnam war. He joined with the student protesters at MIT and began to write books. It would only make sense with this kind of start in politics that he would be most vocal in foreign policy issues. That is the one place where I can really agree with him. He has criticized the US government for its involvement in the Vietnam War and the larger Indochina conflict; its interference in Latin American affairs in countries like Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua, and Argentina; and its military support of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.
Chomsky gives horrible interviews, even if his books are much more coherant. He has a bad habit of stating the obvious, like in this interview, and then also sprinkling some radical views along with them. For example, if you ask anyone with a fair knowledge about recent US foreign policy about which country America would most likely liberate next, if they chose to do so, the majority would probably say Syria, because it has been metioned as a target, or Iran, because its part of the Axis of Evil and has large oil reserves. Anyone in their right mind knows we won't go after N. Korea as long as there is a chance that they have nuclear weapons. Now Chomsky states Syria and Iran, but he goes on to talk about Latin America as a possible target when there is little to no proof of anything of the sort. He says that we might go in to reestablish American superiority in the region. That is bullshit and he knows it. He is playing to his Argentine audience and telling them what they want to hear. He does this alot.
Chomsky is a genius in many areas, linguistics, psychology and in many of his books he does say alot of truth. Manufacturing Consent is a good example of this. But alot of crap does come out of his mouth and much like any other political thinker, you have to be careful to take the good and avoid the bad.
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