Yeah for sure, he has been anti-communist for as long as I've known him. Sometimes it's done in more subtle ways that people may not pick up on, but if you've read or listened to enough his work you can definitely tell he isn't the ally that many leftists think he is.

This article has a handful of valid points, but it also has some misrepresentation and some points which are like, not even points at all. I'm just going to point to a couple points that I thought were particularly bad, because this is a work day and I'm a bit busy, don't have time to write a whole essay

On political language itself:

[long Chomsky quote]

This just sounds like Sam Harris.

What? This is a non-point. I don't even know what is supposed to be meant by that.

Or later on:

Consider how he draws objectively incorrect conclusions from bad analysis in 2012:

Guantanamo is still open, but it’s unlikely that serious torture is going on at Guantanamo. There is just too much inspection. There are military lawyers present and evidence regularly coming out so I suspect that that’s not a torture chamber any more.

Is this objectively incorrect? Chomsky says that he thinks there is no longer torture happening in Gitmo in 2012, and that they are doing the torture in other places instead. The full quote (left out by the author of this blog post) makes it obvious that Chomsky believes the US was still torturing people at other locations.

There have been some presidential orders expressing disapproval of the most extreme forms of torture, but Bagram remains open and uninspected. That’s probably the worst in Afghanistan. Guantanamo is still open, but it’s unlikely that serious torture is going on at Guantanamo. There is just too much inspection. There are military lawyers present and evidence regularly coming out so I suspect that that’s not a torture chamber any more, but it still is an illegal detention chamber, and Bagram and who knows how many others are still functioning. Rendition doesn’t seem to be continuing at the level that it did, but it has been until very recently. Rendition is just sending people abroad to be tortured.

Without the clipped portions (esp the ones I've bolded), it makes it sound like Chomsky was saying that he didn't think the US tortures anymore. The author merely says that it is "objectively incorrect". Is it? Do we have evidence that torture was happening at Gitmo in 2012? And was that evidence available when Chomsky said this (in 2012)?

A bit later on:

Not content with trashing contemporary domestic resistance, Chomsky uncritically indulges in atrocity propaganda in order to condemn — with absurd and shameless hyperbole — the self-defense strategies of nations on the US State Department’s hit list:

…so maybe it’s the worst government in human history…

…so the crazy North Koreans started producing missiles and nuclear weapons again…

…so yeah, maybe the most horrible regime in human history, but the fact of the matter is the regime does want to survive, and it even wants to carry out economic development — there’s pretty general agreement about this — which it cannot do in any significant way when it’s pouring resources, very scarce resources, into weapons and missile production. So, yeah, maybe the most horrible regime in human history.

To be frank, here, this is like a complete and willfully negative and uncharitable interpretation of what he's saying. And, again, it's obvious if you read what he said. It's beyond obvious that he is not "condemning the self-defense strategy" of NK. And isn't engaging in "atrocity propaganda". The only atrocities he talks about in any detail at all is the atrocities of the US against the people in NK. Talk of NK being a brutal regime (the deceptively quoted sections) is waved off as irrelevant to the topic at hand.

And I really urge people who haven’t done it to read the official American military histories, the Air Quarterly Review, the military histories describing this. They describe it very vividly and accurately. They say, “There just weren’t any targets left. So what could we do?” Well, we decided to attack the dams, the huge dams. That’s a major war crime. People were hanged for it at Nuremberg. But put that aside. And then comes an ecstatic, gleeful description of the bombing of the dams and the huge flow of water, which was wiping out valleys and destroying the rice crop, on which Asians depend for survival—lots of racist comment, but all with exaltation and glee. You really have to read it to appreciate it. The North Koreans don’t have to bother reading it. They lived it. So when nuclear-capable B-52s are flying on their border, along with other threatening military maneuvers, they’re kind of upset about it. Strange people. And they continue to develop what they see as a potential deterrent that might protect the regime from—and the country, in fact—from destruction. This has nothing at all to do with what you think about the government. So maybe it’s the worst government in human history. OK. But these are still the facts that exist.

So, why is the United States unwilling to accept an agreement which would end the immediate threats of destruction against North Korea and, in return, freeze the weapons and missile systems? Well, I leave that to you.

So here he is saying that the self-defense strategy of the DRPK is actually not crazy and is entirely driven by rational self-interest, and whether or not the government is brutal or not is irrelevant. Obv Chomsky is an anarchist and thus, prob not a fan of Juche. The DPRK being "brutal" is brought up by him only to dismiss it because it is the obvious counterpoint that will predictably be brought up by most people who aren't extremely online leftists.

Calling them "crazy" is obviously sarcasm.

There was actually an agreement in 2005 that North Korea would completely dismantle its nuclear weapons and missile systems, end them, finish, dismantle them, in return for a nonaggression pact from the United States, an end to threats, provision by the West—that means by the United States—of a light-water reactor, which can’t produce nuclear weapons but could produce—be used for peaceful purposes, research, medical, other purposes. That was basically the agreement, 2005. Didn’t last very long. The Bush administration instantly undermined it. It dismantled the consortium that was supposed to provide the reactor. And it immediately imposed—pressured—and when the U.S. pressures, it means it happens—banks to block North Korean financial transactions, including perfectly legitimate trade. So the crazy North Koreans started producing missiles and nuclear weapons again. And that’s been the kind of record all the way through.

The obvious implication here by anyone with basic reading comprehension: The DPRK is not actually crazy, but was behaving rationally in response to the fact that the US broke that 2005 deal. A sarcastic comment that is exactly in line with the above comment where he calls them ""strange people"" who don't like nuclear bombers flying near their borders.