Blog post

Noam Chomsky interviewed by our own Matt Kennard

Intern Verso22 February 2013

Matt Kennard, author of Irregular Army: How the US Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members and Criminals to Fight the War on Terror, recently interviewed linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky, who had a thing or two to say about the media:

"My impression in general is that the business press is more open, more free, often more critical, less constrained by external power and external influences."

Latin America:

"Latin Ameirca has begun to address its horrendous internal problems. This is an area of the world that ought to be pretty rich and successful. [...] Compare it with East Asia which is far poorer in resources, many faced with hostile powers and internal conflicts, which South America isn't - but it's grown extensively and developed."

and US-backed coups:

"The first was in Venezuela in 2002 when the US quite openly backed a coup attempt which was successful for a few days but was then overturned. [...] The second was in Haiti in 2004 when the traditional torturers of Haiti, France and the US, combined to give not-so-tacit support to a military uprising, and intervened to kidnap the elected president and send him off to central Africa [...] The third case was Honduras, where the elected president, Zelaya, was expelled by the military."

Visit the FT to read the interview in full.