“We certainly want to reduce the level of terror, certainly not escalate it,” says renowned linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky. “There is one easy way to do that and therefore it is never discussed. Namely stop participating in it. That would automatically reduce the level of terror enormously. But that you can’t discuss.”

Noam Chomsky has never been accused of being blindly patriotic. The MIT professor says the United States itself shares in the blame for the September 11th attacks. It is terrorism carried out by the U.S. (which is never called terrorism) that created the anti-American sentiment that led to the attacks on New York and Washington last fall, Chomsky asserts. It was also U.S. training and support of Osama bin Laden back in the 1980s that led to the formation of the al Qaeda network.

The solution to the rise in anti-American terrorism? A radical rethinking of America’s foreign and economic policy.

This hour, Noam Chomsky on terrorism, America’s own religious fundamentalism, and the U.S.’s need to stay out of other country’s affairs.

Guests:

Noam Chomsky, noted linguist and political philosopher

professor of Linguistics, Linguistic Theory, Syntax, Semantics, Philosophy of Language at MIT