Noam Chomsky defends his criticism of U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia and contextualizes several arguments put forth in his work "American Power and the New Mandarins." Buckley ascribes a self-righteous tenor to Chomsky's views and chides him for omitting Vietcong terror in his book. They debate whether a state can behave disinterestedly in the international arena and whether the United States is an imperialist power.