John Chuckman
SERIES OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MATT KWONG ON CBC NEWS
“John Bolton, the Saudis and the hawkish forces pushing the White House toward a war with Iran
“Bolton, the president's national security adviser, once endorsed a plan to 'bomb Iran'”
John Bolton and Donald Trump - folks whom our astonishing Foreign Affairs team have such solid relations with that they appear often to mimic their words and policies, as in trying to overthrow an elected government in Venezuela.
In the case of Saudi Crown Prince bin Salman, the team sells him lots of stuff and smiles and smiles, it seems. The stuff we sell him in quantity - a kind of armored car or very light tank, is likely quite useful in the horrors he perpetrates in Yemen and at home against the Shia Muslim minority he brutally oppresses.
So much for the memories of Pearson and Pierre Trudeau and some of the other fine people who gave Canada our international reputation with worthy deeds in the 20th century. We don't in the least deserve it now.
By the way, if you want additional insight as to why Trump keeps Bolton, see this:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/05/11/john-chuckman-comment-why-trump-doesnt-rein-in-bolton-dismal-bolton-pompeo-and-abrams-are-part-of-the-price-trump-paid-for-political-support-against-threats-he-felt-and-getting-a-big-pile-of-ca/
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Response to a comment saying, “The U.S. is the most warring nation on earth. Of it's 239 years in existence, it's been in a war 222 of those years”:
The wonderful Jimmy Carter reminded us of that only recently.
Please note how Jimmy Carter – a truly decent and conscientious man and likely the most intellectually-gifted man of the century to be President - is regarded generally in the United States
as a failure. That tells us something profound about the country.
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Response to a comment saying, “No country should have too much power, globally. The age of Trump is showing us why”:
Yes, a profound truth but still one a good many fail to grasp.
If a dictator in one country is so awful, as most people agree is the case, what then is to be said of a global dictator?
And note how these same people have attacked and weakened virtually every international organization that provides platforms for the 95% of human voices who are not Americans.
They attacked the UN many times, including often not paying their dues until they get what they want and literally leaving UNESCO. Of course, with their wars and coups, they've seriously violated the UN Charter many times.
They've openly threatened judges at the ICC. They've publicly deprecated the WTO. The OPCW, who monitor poison gas matters globally, has been significantly compromised so that it won't speak against false American claims, as in Syria.
And there's a whole lot more from our aspiring global dictator, who, these days, is constantly threatening, illegally sanctioning, or openly at war.
The day of a multi-polar world is on its way unavoidably as American power and authority decline relative to many other nations rising. America is doing everything that it can to fight and avoid that reality too, but it is inevitable. It can't come too soon, but for now we have to live with a world bully.
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Response to a comment saying, “…the USA is intent on attacking Iran while BiBi pretends he has no part in this gong show; it is why Europe is playing along”
Netanyahu, yes, the dark presence behind the curtain. A face that should at the top of this article along with the others being discussed.
The leader of a country with about one one-thousandth of the world's population speaks on the phone virtually daily to American Presidents, as Obama told us in an off-mic incident with the President of France a few years back. There's nothing else quite like it in world affairs.
Bolton is virtually a worshiper at the throne, a true Neocon who has supported America's fifteen years of wars in the region "to give birth to a new Middle East," by killing about two million people, making refugees of millions more, and producing chaos in several previously well-governed states, such as Libya.
And Trump has worked very hard - as with giving away what's not his to give, Jerusalem and the Golan - so that American lobbies in favor of Israel, as AIPAC and some extremely wealthy Americans who are totally focused on Israel, like Sheldon Adelman, fill his campaign coffers for 2020.
America's chaotic campaign finance and lobbying laws are responsible for this completely inappropriate influence.
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Response to a comment saying, “The US and Iran are not going to war. lots of words but actions will be bad for both sides. Trump's style of 'negotiating' and Iran leaders pumping up the troops. and Putin will meddle as well for stature”:
A number of wars have been started just by bringing to bear great standing armies, and then we have an accident or a deliberate false flag operation. That's how WWI started, and, of course, that war’s unfinished business gave us WWII.
Everyone should note an important fact about the "attack" on Saudi oil tankers, something generally overlooked by the press.
Apart from one picture of the rear of one ship with such minor damage that it might well have been caused by bumping into a dock, we have seen no pictures and no evidence at all that such an attack even happened.
We have the word of the Saudis, supported by an investigation team from the US military.
That last is like sending firefighters who start fires instead of putting them out.
The Saudis themselves of course brought you the horrific war in Yemen plus many other bloody deeds. Their word is literally worth nothing because they lie about these deeds daily, just as they have about the brutal murder of Jamal Khoshoggi.
This almost certainly was a relatively weak effort at a false flag to start a war.
But weak doesn't mean it couldn't work. Look at the phony Gulf of Tonkin incident. Evidence was non-existent. Ten years later, three million Vietnamese had been incinerated or blown to bits.
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Response to a comment saying, “Scheer [Conservative leader] would have us all marching into the desert to fill a cup of oil and nine cups of blood”:
Well, Scheer is no sweetheart, but please, open your eyes to Trudeau and Freeland.
Never a cross word for any American atrocities or threats or illegal acts.
Nor any for America's bloody partner, Saudi Arabia. Trudeau even keeps smilingly selling the Saudis light tanks or armored cars, useful in Yemen or in suppressing Shia Muslims at home.
Our current leadership has virtually turned its back on the honorable legacy of people like Pearson and Trudeau pere.
The world no longer sees us in that favorable light, Justin’s smile notwithstanding.
We are increasingly seen, if you read the international press, as loyal helpers for America. A 51st state.
That's quite an achievement by Trudeau and Freeland.
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Response to a comment:
You are right, it is not about oil.
And you are wrong, it is not about religion, not at all.
Here is what it is about:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/23/john-chuckman-comment-series-of-comments-on-american-sanctions-and-iran-why-america-hates-iran-important-details-of-irans-past-treatment-by-the-u-s-real-reason-israel-hates-iran-democracy/
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Response to a comment saying, “15 of the 19 Sept 11th hijackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia”:
That's often repeated, but it clearly is either incomplete or inaccurate information.
Why?
America never gave a thought to attacking Saudi Arabia. Indeed, the Bush family was tightly tucked into bed with the Saudi Royal Family. George had his oil business partly financed by them.
But America did use a sense of vague intimidation relating to 9/11 to bring Saudi Arabia more closely into the fold. After all, invading Saudi Arabia would have been infinitely more profitable than the ludicrous invasion of poor Afghanistan.
The Saudis were secretly paying bin Laden large sums of money, an embarrassing fact which some American politicians, such as Democrat Chuck Schumer, have terribly twisted and abused. They paid bin Laden only as a bribe to keep him out of Saudi Arabia, not to attack anyone else. However, America could easily have deliberately misinterpreted that fact, one I’m sure it understood, to attack the Saudis. They do play such dirty games.
Today, Saudi Arabia has been driven even to function as a close and secret ally of Israel, quite the opposite of the country’s position twenty years ago. Netanyahu literally loves the bloody new Crown Prince. They are kindred spirits. They share efforts in Syria and in Yemen and other places.
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Response to a comment saying, “Just how is this article an analysis? What is being analyzed, John Bolton? Iranian threats to the Middle East? How about this is not an analysis but a propaganda piece for the alt left”:
Well, Iran is no threat to anyone, as a high-ranking British General just publicly said, making Bolton extremely angry.
And when was the last time you saw a non-nuclear country attack a country with a nuclear arsenal? It just does not happen.
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Response to a comment:
The record of the Democrats is appalling.
Truman killed one-fifth of North Korea's people with three years of carpet bombing.
Johnson started a war in Vietnam that would slaughter three million in the next decade, and another million in Cambodia, a country which the US destabilized.
Clinton bombed Serbia and the city of Belgrade.
Obama was bombing somewhere for eight solid years. His reputation as nice guy is based only on a smile and ignorance of recent history.
Biden is the one who convinced Obama to start the CIA's massive extrajudicial killing program with drones and Hellfire missiles and young thugs playing games at computer screens.
Hillary was in charge of a secret program in the destroyed Libya to ship weapons and thugs to Syria to try destroying that country too.
That's what was going on at Benghazi when the Ambassador was killed, something that's been kept secret. We have the world's last great investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, to thank for the information.
The Democrats are absolutely not friends of peace. It's a self-delusion a lot of people share. Only one or two little voices in the party, here or there, have been.
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Response to a comment:
Netanyahu endlessly uses that baloney because he wants to suppress Iran in the region. He hates them as another influence in the region. He wants Israel as the region's prime influence, getting a flow of benefits from the US as its reward.
A country of about eight million should have more influence than one with eighty million? One moreover populated with European-origin people in a region of hundreds of millions of non-Europeans. Sure makes since to me. Rather like Luxembourg telling Germany what to do in the EU.
Well, there's no accounting for that man's arrogance and inclination to violence. A dangerous man altogether.
