[captioning made possible amy: this is democracy now. today, noam chomsky for the hour on the twin threats of nuclear war and climate change, the election of the far-right former army captain jair bolsonaro in brazil and how u.s. foreign policy in latin america has led to the migrant crisis. >> there's an incredible charade in which the world is looking

at these poor, miserable people fleeing from terror and repression, for which we are responsible, and in reaction, they are sending thousands of t troops to t the border. amy: we will also talk to noam chomsky about ththe deadly attack on thehe pittsburgrgh synagogu, the crisis in gaza and the u.s-backed saudi war in yemen. all that and more coming up. welcome to democracy now, democracy now.org, the war and peace report. i amam amy goodman. today we spendnd the hourr with noam m chomsky, the worlrld renowned professor, linguist and dissident. nermeen shaikh and i recently s spoke to him from t tucson, aririzona,

wherere he now teachches at the university of arizona. he is also institute professor emeritus at the massachusettsts institute of technology, where hehe has taught for 50 years. i began by asking himm about president trump's national security adviser john bolton's recent praise of brazil's newly elected far-right president jair bolsanaro, a former army captain who has embraced brazil's former military dictatorship and has a history of making racist, misogynistic and homophobic comments. noam: it is entirely natural for bolton to welcome bolsonaro. bolsonaro is definitely his kind of guy, vicious, brutal, a strong and enthusiastic supporter of torture. he was a little bit critical of the military dictatorship

because it did not kill enough people. he thought it should kill 30,000. it was one of the worst u.s. backed dictatorships in latin america. he wants to throw the country open to investors and turn brazil into kind of a caricature of a country. this includes opening up the amazon to agribusiness supporters. that would be a serious blow, if not a death knell, virtual genocide for the indigenous population. according to bolsonaro, they don't deserve a square centimeter. but by and large, he is the kind of guy that bolton would admire. nermeen: among the cabinet ministers bolsonaro is likely to appoint,

could you say something about his chief financial advisor, the head of the so-called super ministry? combining the current planning, finance, anand induststry ministrieies. what is his background? noam: again, this is an ultra-right wing icago econonomist. he has spent time in pinochet's chile. he has been very frank and open with the brazilian press about his plans. it's very simple. as he puts it, privatize everything, everything, infrastructure, anything you can think of. the reason, the motive is to pay off the debt owed by the predatory financial institutions

that have been robbing the country blind. they will give away the resources of the country for the future. as i i mentiononed, this goes ag with his f favorite program of opening the amazon to agribusiness. he is exactly the kind of person who succeeded in driving chile's economy to utter disaster in only a few years. when the chicago boys took over the pinochet economy, they had every conceivable advantage. there could not be any dissent. torture chambers took care of that. they had the advice of the top stars of the chicago right-wing economic system..

they were clever enough not to nationalize -- privatize the -- one of the major bases of the chilean economy, a highly efficient, nationalized copper corporation, the biggesest in the world. ththey could ilk them. they had every conceivable advantage. within abobout five years, they had created such an economic disaster that the state had to take over the economy. people as a joke used to call it the chicago road to socialism. they have left the residue which is pretty bitter. the pension system doesn't work. the educational system has collapsed. this is a man, one of the great admirers is taking over the brazilian economy. it will be a heyday for investors.

the stock market will think they will be able to rob freely in brazil and brazil does have enormous wealth and resources. which they will be glad to get their hands on. for the future of brazil, it's a disaster, i think. for the region, quite harmful. one of the g guests has alreready saidid, they may pull brazil out of the south american trade system ththat had been esestablished and pushed f forward, and for the world, it will also be a potential disaster. if they proceed to destroy the amazon, that is very serious. but again, that's just in line with bolton, trump,

and exactly what they are doing right here. it's a counterpart to recently opening up huge areas of the west for further exploitation of fossil fuels to accelerate the race to disaster, which is not very far off. agagain, two peas in a a pod, they should get along fine. amy: during an interview with a brazilian tv program in 1999, bolsonaro said, ththrough the e vote, you will c change nothing, absolutely nothing. it will only change, unfortunately, when one day we start a civil war here and do the work the military regime did not do, killing some 30,000. not kicking them out, killing. if some innocent people are going to die, fine.

in any war, innocents die. that is a quote from 20 years ago. for in brazil right now -- for decades, he has openly praised the country's former military dictatorship, once saying the dictatorship should have killed 30,000 more people, as we just heard. he also has a history of making racist, misogynistic and homophobic comments. he has spoken in favor of torture. he has threatened to destroy, imprison, or banish his political opponents. he told police to kill suspected drug dealers. he told the female lawmaker she was too ugly to rape. he also said he would rather hear his son had died in a car crash than learn his son was gay. you were recently in brazil. you were able to visit lula in jail. you u are one of the few people able to do that. talk about who bolsonaro is.

are you u afraid the country will descend into a military dictatorship and where lula stands in all of this today. noam: let's start with lula. there has been a long, slow, right-wing, what is often called a soft coup. one step was with impeaching the president in 2013. a parliament of thieves called for her impeachment. the most dramatic vote for impeachment was in fact bolsonaro. he dedicated his vote to the chief torturer of the military regime.

the next step was to ensure that lula would be put out of commission. he was a popular figure in brazil, so they needed to get rid of him. he wasas sento prison for 12 years. solitary confinement, barreded from rereceiving presess or journal, and not permitted to make a public statement, unlike say, a convicted murderer.

so he is silenced. put away. then comes the next step, huge, a major -- in fact, i think he should be regarded as o o of thmostst importantnt political prisoners in the world today. there had been, for years by the media, and oligopoly, a demonization of his party. lula's party. towards the end of the campaign, there was a massive increase in the demonization and lies over social media, which is where mosost brazilians get their information. so, and it was -- i should say that you should look

at the charges against lula, for which he was sentenced and put in prison for permanent silencing. he was charged in an accusation of plea bargain, already dubious, of having an a apartment he did not live n and to which he did not have a key.. the sentence was utterly disproportionanate to the nature of the alleged crime, and that, given the timing, makes it pretty clear, i think, that he should be regarded as a political prisoner. i should say he gave an opportunity to others.

we should recogngnize that they years of lula's tenure in office were called a golden decade, a unique time in brazil's history in which there was enormous progress in reducing poverty, social inclusion, new opportunities for the press. so that whole decade has been completely suppressed. at the same time, regrettably, there were not significant changes in the structural system under which brazil and much of latin america has suffered for a long time. elites in latin america simply have no respoponsibility for the welfare of the country. they don't pay taxes.

the import of luxury goodsds is radically different from east asia. they also did nothing -- to open up more possibilities for less monopolized media. unfortunately, they fell prey to the corruption which is endemic in the brazilian political class. not toto the extent of theheir accusers, but bad enough. all of thihis provided an opportunity for the far right to carry out this process, which leads to the election of the most malicious and vicious creatures in the current range

of pretty ugly characters we see around the world. nermeen: john bolton just gave a speech on latin american policy. he described a troika of tyranny, saying it was because of immense human suffering, the impetus of regional instability and the genesis of the sorted cradle of communism in the western hemisphere. professor chomsky, can you respond to that, troika of tierney, says john bolton. noam chomsky: well, that, of course, immediately brings to mind the "axis of evil" speech of george bush back in 2002, which was the prececursor, laying the groundwork, for the invasion of iraq, the worst crime of this century,

with h horrendous consequences for iraq, eliciting ethnic conflicts that are tearing the region apart -- a major atrocity. john bolton was behind that. and his new troika -- i doubt that the u.s. will dare to do something similar, but that's what it brings to mind. it's kind of interesting to see this hysterical raving alongside of another astonishing propaganda campaign thatat bolton and his colleagues are carryiying out with regard to the caravan of poor and miserable people

fleeing from severe oppression, violence, terror, extreme poverty from three countries. honduras -- mamainly honduras. secondarily guatemala the escort them all up. third, el salvador. not to nicaragua, incidentally. three countries that have been under harsh u.s. domination, way back, but particularly since the 1980's, when reagan's terror wars devastated particularly el salvador and guatemala, secondarily hondururas. nicaragua was attackeded by reagan, of course, but nicaragua was the one country which had an army to defend the population. in the other countries, the army were the state terrorists, backed by the united states.

the most extreme source of migrants right now is honduras. why honduras?? well, it was always bitterly oppressed, but in 2009, honduras had a mildly reformist president, mel zelaya. the honduran powerful, rich elite couldn't tolerate that. a military coup took place, expelled him from the country. it was harshly condemned all through the hemisphere, with one notable exception -- the united states. the obama administration refused to call it a military coup, because if they had, they would have been compelled by law to withdraw military funding from the military regime, which was imposising a regime of brutal terror. honduras became the murdrder capital of t the world. a fraudulent election took place under the military junta.

again, harshly condemned all over the hemisphere, most of the world,d, bubut not by the united states. the obama administration praised honduras fofor carrying outut an electioion, moving towardsds democracy and soso on. now people are fleeing from the misery and horrors for which we are responsible. and you have this incredible charade taking place, which the world is looking at with utter astonishment. poor, miserable people, families, mothers, children, fleeing from terror and repression, for which we are responsible, and in reaction, they're sending thousands of troops to the border. the troops being sent to the border outnumber the children who are fleeeeing.

and with a remarkable pr campaign,n, theyey're frightening much o of the country into believing that we're just on the verge of an invasion by, you know, middle eastern terrorists funded by george soros, so on and so forth. i mean, it's all kind of reminiscent of something that happened 30 yearsrs ago. you may recall, in 1985, ronald reagan strapped on his cowboy boots and called -- got in front of television, called a national emergency, because the nicaraguan army was two days' march from harlingen, texas, just about to overwhelm and destroy us. and it wororked. i mean, , this spectacle is almost indedescribable. even apart from noticing where they're coming from,

the countries that we e have crcrucially been involveved in destroying, it's -- the ability to carry this off repeatedly is quite an amazing commentary on much of the popular culture. but the troika, just like the "axis of evil," are those who justst don't t obey u.s. orders. colombia, for example, has the worst human rights record in the h hemisphere for years, but they're not part of the troika of tyrananny. all of this rings very familiar bells. it's a long -- it's been a long-standing element of the u.s. propaganda system on the -- mostly on the far right, but not only,, which goeses way back

anand which is a kind of pathological feature of the dominant political culture that should be understood, analyzed and dismantled. amy: the world renowned professor, linguist and d dissidentnt noam chomsmsky. we wilill return t to him in a moment to talk abouout the twinin thres of c climate change and nuclear war.r.

  amy: thihis is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we continue our conversationon with the world renowned professor, linguist and dissident nonoam chomsky. nermeen shaikh and i recentlyly spoke to himm and d asked him to talk about the twin threats of climate change and nuclear war. we spoke i in the wake of a n new report by nature that the world has massively underestimated the amount of heat absorbed by our oceans and president trump's decision to pull the united states out of the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty, knowown as the inf. noam chomsmsky began by y talkig about the significicance of the lanandmark nuclear arms pact with russia.

noam chomsmsky: well, the inf treaty was a very important development. you may recall that in that period, in the early and mid-1980's, the short -- this has to do with short range nuclear missiles. they were being installed in western europe, pershing ii missiles in western europe, which had a few minutes' flight time to moscow. if you think what that means, the russian detection systems are, first of all, far more primitive than ours, but even sophisticated -- if they had had sophisticated detection systems, it would have given them barely a few minutes' warning before a possible heavy nuclear strike, even a decapititation strike, against moscow.

and ththe russians wewere doing the same. theyey were buildingng short-term missiles aimed at western europe. notice -- not at the united states. this was internal l to europop, short-term, shshort range e missiles. wellll, the 1987 i inf treaty ended that extreme perilil, sharply reduced it. mimissiles were rereduced and s. this w was an important step forward. breaking the treaty reinstates that system. now, there's an obvious way to deal l with the problem. namely it's called -- it's kind of a bad word, may be i should spell it. it's called diplomacy. there have been -- the way to deal with the problem is quite straightforward,, do what has not been done as yet, have technical experts from both sides,

and neneutral ones, investigigate the claiaims thate beining made by bothth sides, and determine if they're valid. and to the extent that there are, negotiate a way to overcome these violations of the treaty, and then enforce the treaty even further. carry it further. we should be moving towards eliminatating nuclear weapons. remember that the new start treaty is coming up for renewal. that's a very important one. start has led to the sharp reduction of nuclear weapons -- by no means s anywhere near far enough, but nevertheless quite significant. we should also recall that trump's pulling out of the inf treaty has a precursor, namely, the nuclear posture review of the trump administration, which alreready called for developing newew weapons,

tactical nuclear weapons, which themselves greatly increase the threat of a possible war. a target of these missiles can't know whether they're conventional or nuclear, or whether they're short-rangege or much more powerful missiles. you have a f few minutes' wawarn time to o make these decisions. yoyou look over the history of the nuclear age, and it is practically miraculous that we've survived this far. there's been case after case where we came very --- both sides came very close to making a dedecision to launch nuclear weapons, which means basically terminating human civilization..

in miracles like that can't go on forever. and enhancing the threat is just beyond insanity. ending the inf treaty not only opens the door for the united states and russia to develop more dangerous lethal weapons, but, of course, for others to join in, as well, greatatly increasingg the hazazard to all of us. and there are diplomatic o optis that have not been pursued. and they are the ones that -- they arere the ones ththat shoululd be uppermosts, not vastly endangering ourselves and everyone else. trump also brought up the fact that china is nonot a partner to t the inf. yeah, they're not. well, that's because of their particular geostrategic position and their defensive posture in the western eurasia-eastern eurasia.

so, the way to deal with that proboblem isis to bring emem into the treaty, not to break the treaty and greatly increase the danger tthe world.d. we should bear in mind that the bulletin of atomic scientists, which has established, since 1947, beginning of the nuclear age, it has established the doomsday clock, where the minute hand is a certain distance from midnight. midnight means goodbye, termination of all of us. at the beginning, 194747, it was seven minutetes to midnight. it's oscillated up and back since. last january, after a year of the trump administration,

it moved to two minutes to midnight. that's the closest it's been to terminal disaster ever, with one exception, 1953. the united states, then the soviet union, exploded thermonuclear weapons, demonstrating that,, in our ingngenuity,, we had devised the means to destroy everything. at that point, the clock did move to two minutes to midnight. hasn't gone that close to disaster since.e. but it did last januarary. and now it's worse. the nuclclear posture review, the revelation, since that time, that the u.s. actually has developed a firsrst-strike potential, which h could prevent -- could eliminate any deterrent to a first strike, then t trump's nuclear posture review,

which calls for extending the nuclear threat, and now this latest step. this is a march to disaster, which is only paralleled by the moves of the administration to race towards the e cliff ofnvirironmental d destruction with eyes open.. they know exactly what they're doing. trump himself is a firm believer in global warming. the others as well. but just in order to fill a couple of overstuffed pockets with more dollars, they're willing to threaten the existence of organized human life. a couple of weeks ago, the ipc see, an international group of scientists monitoring climate change, came out with a very ominous report w warning

that the world has maybe a decade or two to basically end its reliance on fossil fuels if we're to have any hope of controlling global warming below the level of utter disaster. and that, incidentally, is a conservative estimate. it's a consensus view. there are -- repeatedly, over the years, it has been shown that the ipcc analyses are much less alarmist than they shouould be. now comes this report in nature that you mentioned, a couple of days ago, which shows that there has been a serious underestimate of the warming of the oceans. and they conclude that if these results hold up, the so-called carbon budget,

the amount of carbon that we can spew into the atmosphere and still have a survival environment, has to be reduced by about 25%. thatat's over and above the ipcc report. and the opening up of the amazon to further exploitation will be anotheher serious blow at the prospects of survival of organized human society. i should -- at the same time, the e trump administration, righght now, is opening up new areas of the west for fracking, for inincreasing the use of fossil fuels. you have probably seen and may be discussed one of the most amazing documents i have ever seen.

the trump department of highway stanandards, whatever it's call, just issued a long report, hundred-page report, urging that all regulations on automotive emissions should be ended. and they had a very logical argument. they said if we extrapololate current trends by the end of the century, the climate will have warmed several degrees centigrade, meaning a huge rise in sea level, which they underestimate. so, basically, we're going over the cliff anyway, and automotiveve emissions rereally don't add much to this, so there's no point cutting them back. the assumption of the department is that everyone in the world is as criminally insane as we are,

and isn't going to do anything about it. and since -- on the assumption, yeah, lelet's just rob while the planet burns, putting nero into ththe shade -- he onlnly fiddled while rome b burned. i cacan't think of anything like this in human history. you just can't find words to describe it. and at the peak of the monstrosity is, in fact,t, the trump administstration. we should recall t that trump himsmself, as i mentioned, is a a firm believer in global warming. recently, he applied to the government of ireland for permission to build a huge wall, one ofof his famous walls, this one to prototect a golf course of his in ireland, which, as his plea indicates, is threatened by sea level rise

as a result of global l warming. you take a look at the big banks, jpmorgan chase and the others. they're increasing their investments in fossil fuel development. the energy corporations are working all over the world to try to find new resources that destroy the environment. the media are focusing on real l outrages, like the ludicrorous military preparation for this wave of mothers and children planning to invade us and destroy usus, you know, they're concentrating on that, but take a look at their coverage of these things. so, there was a big report, long front-page report, in the new york times a couple days ago about the opening up of the west to further fossil fuel extraction. discussed everything you can think of.

did mention some of the negative consequences, like i it might harm water resources. it might makake things harderr for ranchers. not one phphrase, one phrase in this long report, on the effecect on the environment. in the politicical campaign going on, every -- all kinds of issues are e not discussed, but not the two existential threats that human beings face, threats that have never arisen in human history. we have to m make decisions now which will literally determine whether organized human life can survive in any decent form. you can just imagine what thehe world wouldld be lie if thehe sea levevel rises, sasay, 10 or 2020 feet or even higher, which is witithin the range -- easily within the range of predictions.

i mean, the consequences are unimaginable. but it's as if we're kind of like the proverbial lemmings just hapappily marching off the cliff, led by leaders who understand very well what they're doing, but are so dedicated to enriching themselves and their friends in the near future that it simply doesn't matter what happens to the humanan species. there'e's nothing like this in all of human history. there have beeeen plenty of monsters in the past, plenty of them. but you can't find one who was dedicated, with passion, to destroying the prospects for organized human life. hitler was horrible enough, but not that. amy: the world renowowned professor, linguist and dissident noam chomsky. we will l return to him in a momenent to talk abouout the synagogue attack in pittsburgh,

the crisis in gaza and the u.s.-backed saudi war in yemen..   amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman.

we continue our conversation with gnome chomsky. nermeen shaikh and i spoke to him on november 1, just days after a gunman shot dead 11 jewish worshipers at a synagogue in pittsburgh, in the d deadliest anti-semitic attack in u.s. history. i asked noam to talk about anti-semitism and his own jewish upbringing in pennsylvania. his fatherer was a hebrew linguguist. noam: when i was a child, the threat that fascism might take over much of the world was not remote. it was much h worse than what we are facing now. my own locale happened to be very anti-semitic. we were the only jewewish family

in a german irisish catholic neighborhoodod, so we could see e it better on the ground. what we are seeing is a revival of hate, anger, fear, much of it encouraged by the rhetorical excesses of the leadership, which are stirring up passions of terror, even the ludicrous claims about the nicaraguan armrmy and the caravan of miserable people planning to attack us all. all of these things, praising somebodyy who body slammed a reporter, one thing after another, all of this raises the level of anger and fear,

which has roots -- the roots lie in what has happened to the general population over the past 40 years. people have had significant distress. the astonishing fact about the united states is that life expectancy is declining. that doesnsn't t happppen in ded societies aside from major war or huge famine, but this i is happening because of social distress. and not necessarily impoverishment. people who are demonstrating this fear and resentment arare moderately affluent, but what we see is they are stagnating. in the past, you had the stream. you worked hard.d.

you could geget ahead. life children would be a little betetter. and it has stopppped. it has stopped for the last 40 years due to very spspecific socioeoeconomic policies which were designed to sharply concentrtrate wealth into the hands of corporate power. that has immediate effects on the political system for perfectly obvious ways, to the pointnt were lobbyists literally y write legislation. this onslaught has literally cast a bunch of the populatation asa. they are stagnating. they are not moving forward. they see no prospects. and they are bitter and angry about it. amy: could you talk specifically about the targeting of the jewish worshipers and the clear connection that the shooter made

between this temple and the hebrew immigrant aid society, a group that has h helped to resesettle refugees of any religion for well over 100 years, and he repeated words that trump has begun using more and more about helping the invaders come in. if you could respond specifically to that. noam: i think it's pretty clear hehe is whipping up terror about invasions, people pouring across the border who want to destroy us all. you take people who are already somewhat disturbed and living under harsh conditions, and it insights violence against targets like the jewish templel.

also against african-americans, immigrants, any vulnerable population that is easy to target for lotsts of cultural and historical reasons. it's being amplified by the loudspeaker in the white house. it helps create the conditions under which you can get something like an attack on a synagogue. amy: i want to turn to the israeli ambassador to the united states, ron dermer, who was interviewedd soon after the massacre.

ron dermer: to simply say that this is because of one person or it only comes on one side is to not understand the e history of anti-semitism or the reality of ananti-semiti. one of the big f forces in colle cacampuses t today is anti-semi. and those antiti-semites are usually not neo-nazis on college campuses. they're coming from the radical left. amy goodman: this is right after ththe white supremacist attack on the synagogue, and the israeli ambassador to the u.s. is now i injecting, sayingng this comes from both sides. if you could respond to this? interestingly, two days later, whenen trump and his family went to pittsburgh, the only -- and this is pointed out in the new york times -- the only public official standing there to greet him was israel's ambassador to the united states, ron dermer. people like the pittsburgh mayor and the others said this was not the time to come.

noam chomsky: well, i think it's quite easy to understand. there is an alliance of reactionary repressive states developing under the u.s. aegis. israel is a leading member of it. saudi arabia is another, one of the most brutal, regressive, harsh states in the world. united arab emirates, egypt under the harsh, brutal dictatorship, the united states, israel, and the united states, of course, very -- especially under this -- the alignment goes way back, but the trump administration has gone way out of itits way to lend support to israeli crimes, israeli expansion, and the israeli right wing, of course, which is increasingly dominant, is delighted. so, the fact that, say,

the israeli i ambassador would cocome out and say that is really no more surprirising than the fact that john bolton would praise the election of a strong advocate of torture, murder and repression. itit all fits the same patternr. amy goodman: this issue of the number of people who died this weekend, the horrific massacre, 11 jews died. the momodel of the coverage, of knowing who each peon w was, hearing their names, their life stories, their ages, who their families were, knowing when thehe funerals are taking place through the week -- what about this being a model for what's happening in gaza? i mean, for example, on, i think it was, friday, six palestinians were killed, with those ongoing protests near the separation wall. israraeli military has gunned dn more than 200 palestinians.

that was friday. six palestinians died. and on sunday, three palestinian teenagers were killed in an israeli airstrike on the gaza strip. your thoughts on dermer trying to make this connection to get away from the issue of white supremacy and, somehow, someway, blame the left? noam chomsky: well, remember, all of this in gaza is being done with overwhelming u.s. support, even u.s. weapons, literally. gaza is on the verge of becoming , literally, uninhabitable. the international monitors, the u.n. and others, have warned that within just a few years,

it may be literally unlivable. i mean, right now, there's virtually no potable water. the sewage pours into the sea, because israel has bombed and destroyed the power plants and the sewage plant. back in 2005, when israel withdrew its illegal settlers in gaza and moved them to illegal settlements in the west bank, it imposed a siege on gaza. the official terms for that -- official, not making this up -- are, "we have to impose a diet on gaza, not harsh enough so they will all live" -- implication being that would nonot look very good -- "but harsh enough so that they can barely survive."

and there have been -- quite apart from the brutal siege, there have been repeated attacks on gaza by the israeli army. gaza is virtually defenseless. thiss s one of thehe strongest armies i in the world, lashing out to devastate gaza. there's always pretexts. there are pretexts for everything. hitler had a pretext for invading poland. he was protecting germany from the wild terror of the poles. and the israelis, with u.s. backing, have concocted pretexts -- no time to go through it here, there's plenty in print about it. every one of them collapses on inspection. it's just a punching bag. and the effect on the people of gaza is to create utter desperation. the current march is just an attempt to somehow

break the siege, makeke life impossibible the problem could be overcome easily, simply by providing them wit ththe opportunities for surviva. that's it. not trying to block every attempt at political unification of the factions. it's often been a pretext for another attack. some of what has gone on, parts of it we have seen, are just grotesque, like when a highly trained israeli sniper murders a young woman far from the border who's trying to help a palestinian volunteer medic, young woman, who's trying to help a wounded man, and a sniper murders her. highly trained snipers. they know what they are doining. the international monitors who have gone through the hospitals

are shocked by t the kinds of wounds they're finding, purposely designed to maim people so they will barely -- not kill them, but maim them, so they won't be able to have -- even take part in the minimal life that exists there. actually, trump had a solution to this, to the misery of gaza and the prospect that 2 million people, half of them children, will soon be in a situation of, literally, beyond the possibility of survival. they had a lifeline, what's called the unrwa support, international support, which was barely keeping them alive. so, trump's reaction is to cut it, cut support for it. and he even had a reason. he said, "they're not being grateful enough to me for my efforts to give them the ultimate deal that i'm planning."

ultimate deal, which means give up all your rights and forget it. i mean, the war in yemen, which finally, at t last, is getting a little bit of atattention, has been a major horror story. the most careful estimates of the killing, that are now just coming out, show t that there may be seven or eight times as high as what has been -- the numbers that have been given. they're on the order of 70,000 or 80,000. the analysis of these saudi-emirate programs, a long study that came out of the fletcher school of international diplomacy at tufts university recently, showed, quite persuasively, that the policies of the attackers are aimed at destroying the food supplies,

making sure the population starves to death. they're also trying to close the port through which some supplies come. all of this is fully backed by the united states. u.s., and brbritain secondarily, supply the arms. the u.s. s supplies the inintelligence for the saudi air force, which is carrying out massive atrocities. all of these things are happening. for years, they've barely been discussed. now, finally, you're seeing pictures on the front page of starving yemeni children, even a c call for a ceasase-rer- much belated. little attention to our cruciail reresponsibility for it. just like our responsibility, which is overwhelming, for the plight of the m miserablele people trying to escape from the troika --

honduras, el salvador, guatemala -- the three countries that have been completely under our thumbb and are suffering bitterly for it, now trying to escape. so we turn them into an invasion mob planning to destroy us. all of this is surreal. it only is overshadowed by the f failure to attend even m minimally to the literal existential threats, that are not remote. amy goodmaman: do you u considr this one of the gravest times, in your lifetime, in u.s. politics, noam? noam chomsky: it's one of the gravest times in human history. humans have been around for 200,000 years. for the first time in their history, they have to decide -- and quickly -- whether organized human society

is going to survive for very long, and that's not in the remote distance. so, is it the most gravest moment in my life question mark yes, but also in all of human history.y. amy: the world-renowned professor, linguist, and dissssident, noam chomsky, professor emeritus at the massachusetts institute ofof technology, where he has taught for 50 years.

i am amy goodman. thanks so much for joining us.