MOSCOW, Sept 4: The famous philosopher contended that the US media was focusing on marginal stories and argued that there are much more serious issues being swept under the rug. This comes amid an ongoing FBI investigation into alleged Russian interference in the US presidential election and the Trump campaign's purported collusion with Moscow.
In an interview with non-commercial news program Democracy Now, luminary Noam Chomsky criticized the "overwhelming concern" in the media over alleged Russian meddling in the US presidential election, claiming that Israel's impact on the US has been far bigger.
Trump backs Putin on election meddling at summit, stirs fierce...
"Whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly, and with enormous support," he said, referring to Israel.
The 89-year-old linguist and philosopher mentioned Israeli PM Netanyahu's controversial address to US Congress in 2015, in which he spoke about the threat of the Iran nuclear deal. "Did Putin come to give an address to the joint sessions of Congress trying to call on them to reverse U.S. policy, without even informing the president?" he quizzed.
The American thinker went on to say that "taking a look at Russian hacking is absolutely the wrong place to look," calling it an "extremely marginal question."
Chomsky added that Donald Trump is "perfectly right when he says we should have better relations with Russia." Moreover, Russia, he believes, should refuse to deal with the US because the latter had carried out what he called "the worst crime of the century," referring to the Iraq war, which is "much worse than anything Russia has done."
The interview comes at a time when the FBI is probing alleged Russia meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. Moscow has been accused of hacking Hillary Clinton's emails in a bid to sway votes in favor of rival candidate Donald Trump. Both Russia and Trump have repeatedly denied the allegations, claiming that no evidence of collusion has been provided so far.
