John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY HAMZA ABU AL-TARABEESH IN MONDOWEISS
"Five years on, a reporter from Gaza remembers the 2014 war"
Just a note on words.
Sorry, but I can't help it, I am always offended when anyone calls one of Israel's periodic savage attacks on Gaza a "war."
"War" generally implies two forces of at least some rough equivalence. Otherwise, no conflict would take place, as the greatly weaker side would avoid a fight and retreat.
But you can't retreat when your home and neighborhood are being assaulted. And where do you run to when you live in a giant open-air prison surrounded by fences and automated machine-gun towers?
No, you cannot dignify Israel's ruthless assaults on Gaza with the word "war."
One side has jets, guided missiles, tanks, artillery, armored soldiers, and satellite intelligence while the other has hand-held weapons?
That is the work of the worst kind of cowards, the work of heavily-armed men who kill trapped opponents and women and children and who blow-up homes.
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: NEW IRANIAN-RUSSIAN NAVAL COOPERATION AGREEMENT MAYBE OFFERS A LITTLE OPTIMISM AGAINST AN AMERICAN-LAUNCHED DISASTER IN IRAN - WHAT EXACTLY IS IT THAT AMERICA IS DOING IN IRAN AND JUST WHY IS IT DOING IT?
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY TOM O’CONNOR IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Iran to Hold Naval Drills with Russia, Signed ‘Unprecedented’ Agreement to Expand Military Ties — Iranian Admiral
“Drills to be held soon in the Indian Ocean at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz”
I'm glad to read of such expanded cooperation between Iran and Russia. Friends and allies are so important when threats approach. Maybe there’s room for a little optimism.
The United States seems determined to upset the Gulf region and perhaps tip it into war. When you create enough risk and uncertainty in a place, war can happen even if you had not intended it.
It is all so unnecessary, so destructive, and just plain unreasonable. What possibly is America’s motive for ripping up a working international agreement, imposing severe and illegal sanctions, and sending warships and bombers to intimidate a country following its legal obligations and attacking no one?
Analyzed calmly, there are no genuine American interests at risk in Iran. But Israel deeply resents Iran's regional influence and wants it reduced, and it doesn’t much care how that is achieved or what terrible conditions are imposed on Iran’s eighty-or-so million citizens.
Israel’s attitude towards Iran has nothing to do with threats. That claim is just emotion-laden propaganda to help Israel get what it wants. There never has been a real threat from Iran, a country which has started no wars or hostilities in its modern history. And besides, since when do non-nuclear states seriously threaten nuclear ones? It just doesn’t happen.
The sudden new hostilities, wave after wave of them, hurled at Iran have only to do with Israel's drive to dominate its region, to be its most influential country, with no one around to disagree or object to what it does.
Israel strives to be a miniature replica in the Middle East of what America is in the world. Hardly a worthy or admirable goal for anyone else concerned. It’s just plain old imperialism, all dressed-up as something else.
It wouldn’t happen were there anyone to restrain Israel, but there isn’t. Just as no one has ever insisted Israel get back to its original borders. In case you hadn’t noticed, Israel is a rather odd state with absolutely no defined borders, somewhat resembling an ever-spreading puddle.
It is a state which works constantly to increase the area under its control. It is what historically we would call an “aggressor nation,” but there is no one around with any authority to make that charge and give it force.
So, Israel takes land from Palestinians, from Syrians, and, in the near past, from Lebanon, and it promotes hostilities it regards as advantageous to its interests, such as those against Iraq and Syria or now those against Iran.
The United States has never seriously played the role of restraining Israel or insisting on its borders, and it doesn’t allow anyone one else, such as the United Nations, to do so either. Indeed, for decades, the United States has attacked and diminished the United Nations. It has many reasons for doing so, but Israel’s situation is a big one.
Israel’s insistence that it should have more influence in the region than Iran rather resembles Luxemburg feeling it should have more influence in Europe than Germany. The population ratios are not dissimilar, but of course, when you are a special colony of the United States, you speak with a much louder voice.
Israel very much is a de facto colony of the United States. It does some of America's dark tasks and provides an American pied-a-terre in the Middle East. It is subsidized by a huge flow of American public and private funds plus many special advantages it has been granted, from free trade and the flow of technology to the receipt of very large contracts and easy access to the highest officials.
The hard-nosed establishment in Washington – people who have killed many millions in meaningless colonial wars since WWII, variously estimated at 8 to 20 million – are hardly the types to be influenced by biblical tales or sentimental considerations.
And they are hardly the types to protect people for humanitarian reasons, as they’ve proved a number of times by standing back from authentic genocides in Rwanda, in Indonesia, and in Cambodia, just letting the killing go on until it stopped.
The establishment employs sentimental tales to look like good guys while carrying on with what pretty much is ruthless colonial work. Of course, those tales motivate ordinary citizens of Israel, and motivated citizens are useful.
The closest historical equivalent we have to what we see with the United States and Israel perhaps was the past relationship between France and Algeria. Algeria actually became a legal part of metropolitan France.
But Israel’s location, both in the very heart of the Middle East and on the Mediterranean Sea, makes it more geopolitically significant than Algeria could be to France, especially since America itself is so very far away.
Israel’s population - its influential people and their investments are able to move freely between the two places almost as though Israel were a state of the union - also endows it with special properties, including heavy influence back in the “mother country.”
It furthers ties and connections that the population is mainly of European and North American descent. There’s nothing Middle Eastern about schmaltz or gefilte fish or bagels or long black overcoats and fedoras.
How ironic it is that the invasion of Iraq – always an Israeli project, having nothing to do with oil, but a great deal to do with the tireless advocacy of Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu - destroyed what was in many ways the Middle East's most advanced society, leaving room for Iran to increase its influence and connections instead.
The people who advocate playing with the lives of millions of others in imperial wars and coups often have no idea what the final outcome of their acts will be, which is just one of many arguments against America’s violent imperial practices.
America has done little else but make an unholy mess of country after country with its wars in the Middle East. From Israel’s cynical point of view, making messes of those countries is just fine since it means removing their influence for many years to come.
So now, Israel wants something done about Iran. What a truly destructive force Israel has been and continues to be.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY TOM O’CONNOR IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Iran to Hold Naval Drills with Russia, Signed ‘Unprecedented’ Agreement to Expand Military Ties — Iranian Admiral
“Drills to be held soon in the Indian Ocean at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz”
I'm glad to read of such expanded cooperation between Iran and Russia. Friends and allies are so important when threats approach. Maybe there’s room for a little optimism.
The United States seems determined to upset the Gulf region and perhaps tip it into war. When you create enough risk and uncertainty in a place, war can happen even if you had not intended it.
It is all so unnecessary, so destructive, and just plain unreasonable. What possibly is America’s motive for ripping up a working international agreement, imposing severe and illegal sanctions, and sending warships and bombers to intimidate a country following its legal obligations and attacking no one?
Analyzed calmly, there are no genuine American interests at risk in Iran. But Israel deeply resents Iran's regional influence and wants it reduced, and it doesn’t much care how that is achieved or what terrible conditions are imposed on Iran’s eighty-or-so million citizens.
Israel’s attitude towards Iran has nothing to do with threats. That claim is just emotion-laden propaganda to help Israel get what it wants. There never has been a real threat from Iran, a country which has started no wars or hostilities in its modern history. And besides, since when do non-nuclear states seriously threaten nuclear ones? It just doesn’t happen.
The sudden new hostilities, wave after wave of them, hurled at Iran have only to do with Israel's drive to dominate its region, to be its most influential country, with no one around to disagree or object to what it does.
Israel strives to be a miniature replica in the Middle East of what America is in the world. Hardly a worthy or admirable goal for anyone else concerned. It’s just plain old imperialism, all dressed-up as something else.
It wouldn’t happen were there anyone to restrain Israel, but there isn’t. Just as no one has ever insisted Israel get back to its original borders. In case you hadn’t noticed, Israel is a rather odd state with absolutely no defined borders, somewhat resembling an ever-spreading puddle.
It is a state which works constantly to increase the area under its control. It is what historically we would call an “aggressor nation,” but there is no one around with any authority to make that charge and give it force.
So, Israel takes land from Palestinians, from Syrians, and, in the near past, from Lebanon, and it promotes hostilities it regards as advantageous to its interests, such as those against Iraq and Syria or now those against Iran.
The United States has never seriously played the role of restraining Israel or insisting on its borders, and it doesn’t allow anyone one else, such as the United Nations, to do so either. Indeed, for decades, the United States has attacked and diminished the United Nations. It has many reasons for doing so, but Israel’s situation is a big one.
Israel’s insistence that it should have more influence in the region than Iran rather resembles Luxemburg feeling it should have more influence in Europe than Germany. The population ratios are not dissimilar, but of course, when you are a special colony of the United States, you speak with a much louder voice.
Israel very much is a de facto colony of the United States. It does some of America's dark tasks and provides an American pied-a-terre in the Middle East. It is subsidized by a huge flow of American public and private funds plus many special advantages it has been granted, from free trade and the flow of technology to the receipt of very large contracts and easy access to the highest officials.
The hard-nosed establishment in Washington – people who have killed many millions in meaningless colonial wars since WWII, variously estimated at 8 to 20 million – are hardly the types to be influenced by biblical tales or sentimental considerations.
And they are hardly the types to protect people for humanitarian reasons, as they’ve proved a number of times by standing back from authentic genocides in Rwanda, in Indonesia, and in Cambodia, just letting the killing go on until it stopped.
The establishment employs sentimental tales to look like good guys while carrying on with what pretty much is ruthless colonial work. Of course, those tales motivate ordinary citizens of Israel, and motivated citizens are useful.
The closest historical equivalent we have to what we see with the United States and Israel perhaps was the past relationship between France and Algeria. Algeria actually became a legal part of metropolitan France.
But Israel’s location, both in the very heart of the Middle East and on the Mediterranean Sea, makes it more geopolitically significant than Algeria could be to France, especially since America itself is so very far away.
Israel’s population - its influential people and their investments are able to move freely between the two places almost as though Israel were a state of the union - also endows it with special properties, including heavy influence back in the “mother country.”
It furthers ties and connections that the population is mainly of European and North American descent. There’s nothing Middle Eastern about schmaltz or gefilte fish or bagels or long black overcoats and fedoras.
How ironic it is that the invasion of Iraq – always an Israeli project, having nothing to do with oil, but a great deal to do with the tireless advocacy of Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu - destroyed what was in many ways the Middle East's most advanced society, leaving room for Iran to increase its influence and connections instead.
The people who advocate playing with the lives of millions of others in imperial wars and coups often have no idea what the final outcome of their acts will be, which is just one of many arguments against America’s violent imperial practices.
America has done little else but make an unholy mess of country after country with its wars in the Middle East. From Israel’s cynical point of view, making messes of those countries is just fine since it means removing their influence for many years to come.
So now, Israel wants something done about Iran. What a truly destructive force Israel has been and continues to be.
Sunday, July 28, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: JAPAN AND KOREA OFFERED AS HISTORICAL EXAMPLES OF HOW DIFFERENTLY THE UNITED STATES CAN TREAT TWO FORMER OPPONENTS - WE SEE MANY EXAMPLES TODAY OF NATIONAL SITUATIONS TREATED AS VASTLY DIFFERENT BY THE UNITED STATES WHEN FACTS DO NOT SUPPORT IT - WHY?
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PETER LEE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“80 Years of Injustice: The Joint, Serial, and Ongoing Betrayal of Korea by the United States and Japan”
Good summary with many tidbits people might not be aware of.
I suggest America's different treatment of Japan and Korea came down to what we see America doing still today in other parts of the world.
The President of Syria is completely unacceptable to Washington while the creepy prince running Saudi Arabia is just fine, as is the brutal Generalissimo running Egypt.
And, of course, the war criminal running Israel, a man whose brutality we've all witnessed for years, is also just fine.
Syria's Assad, while not democratically elected, remains fairly popular despite years of imposed war and hardship. And by most standards, he is a reasonable ruler, showing, for example, a great deal of tolerance for religious differences, of which there are many in Syria.
How the United States chooses to treat any two given nations clearly has little to do with principles like democracy, human rights, or even decency.
It has only to do with how important the state is in America's geo-political calculations and plans, and it has to do with how independent-minded the countries' leaders are. Do they put good old American interests first or not?
Oh, there is one way that America treated Japan and Korea almost the same.
In its bombing.
During the time each of them was an opponent, they were ruthlessly bombed.
While Japan suffered the two atomic attacks (twelve were planned until Japan offered unconditional surrender), setting a terrible precedent for future wars, the fire-bombing of Japan was actually on a still grander scale.
They not only ran out of "primary targets," there weren't any "secondary" ones left towards the end. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not important targets.
North Korea suffered 3 solid years of carpet bombing. By the Pentagon's own estimates, twenty percent of the country's entire population was killed.
This is not a widely known fact, but it sure explains why North Korea would want some nukes.
The effort in North Korea served as a model for Vietnam. Keep it non-nuclear – although nuclear weapons were considered in both wars – but bomb the crap out of them.
The United States killed about 3 million people in Vietnam by various horrible methods - carpet bombing, napalm, and cluster bombs, apart from all the landmines and Agent Orange. "Hero" pilot John McCain, for example, was bombing civilians on the day he was shot down.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PETER LEE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“80 Years of Injustice: The Joint, Serial, and Ongoing Betrayal of Korea by the United States and Japan”
Good summary with many tidbits people might not be aware of.
I suggest America's different treatment of Japan and Korea came down to what we see America doing still today in other parts of the world.
The President of Syria is completely unacceptable to Washington while the creepy prince running Saudi Arabia is just fine, as is the brutal Generalissimo running Egypt.
And, of course, the war criminal running Israel, a man whose brutality we've all witnessed for years, is also just fine.
Syria's Assad, while not democratically elected, remains fairly popular despite years of imposed war and hardship. And by most standards, he is a reasonable ruler, showing, for example, a great deal of tolerance for religious differences, of which there are many in Syria.
How the United States chooses to treat any two given nations clearly has little to do with principles like democracy, human rights, or even decency.
It has only to do with how important the state is in America's geo-political calculations and plans, and it has to do with how independent-minded the countries' leaders are. Do they put good old American interests first or not?
Oh, there is one way that America treated Japan and Korea almost the same.
In its bombing.
During the time each of them was an opponent, they were ruthlessly bombed.
While Japan suffered the two atomic attacks (twelve were planned until Japan offered unconditional surrender), setting a terrible precedent for future wars, the fire-bombing of Japan was actually on a still grander scale.
They not only ran out of "primary targets," there weren't any "secondary" ones left towards the end. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not important targets.
North Korea suffered 3 solid years of carpet bombing. By the Pentagon's own estimates, twenty percent of the country's entire population was killed.
This is not a widely known fact, but it sure explains why North Korea would want some nukes.
The effort in North Korea served as a model for Vietnam. Keep it non-nuclear – although nuclear weapons were considered in both wars – but bomb the crap out of them.
The United States killed about 3 million people in Vietnam by various horrible methods - carpet bombing, napalm, and cluster bombs, apart from all the landmines and Agent Orange. "Hero" pilot John McCain, for example, was bombing civilians on the day he was shot down.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A REMARKABLE EXAMPLE OF THE SUBTLE POISON THAT THE MAINLINE PRESS CONSTANTLY DRIPS INTO ITS COVERAGE OF EVENTS - POLICE AND DEMONSTRATORS IN MOSCOW - I COMPARE TORONTO 2010
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Russian police crackdown on protesters was largest in Moscow this decade
“Almost 1,400 people detained during opposition protest”
I do like to have a little perspective in such matters.
Moscow's population is 12.19 million, or just about four times that of Metro Toronto.
In the 2010, G20 street protests in Toronto, more than 1,100 people were arrested, some in quite nasty fashion, as one man who had his artificial leg pulled off violently by a policeman. There were a number of protests and complaints about police brutality.
This article seems to me unnecessarily inflammatory, using as it does, expressions like "some quite brutally," "crackdown on protesters," "largest this decade."
All expressions which tend to zip things up. In fact, most weren't even arrested. They were briefly detained, and, in all, it was proportionately a much smaller event than what we saw in Toronto.
Maybe, a bit of Russophobia creeping in here?
I note it is a Reuters news report, an agency, although it has changed hands, which had quite a reputation during the Cold War as one of the CIA’s outlets for “getting things out there.”
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Russian police crackdown on protesters was largest in Moscow this decade
“Almost 1,400 people detained during opposition protest”
I do like to have a little perspective in such matters.
Moscow's population is 12.19 million, or just about four times that of Metro Toronto.
In the 2010, G20 street protests in Toronto, more than 1,100 people were arrested, some in quite nasty fashion, as one man who had his artificial leg pulled off violently by a policeman. There were a number of protests and complaints about police brutality.
This article seems to me unnecessarily inflammatory, using as it does, expressions like "some quite brutally," "crackdown on protesters," "largest this decade."
All expressions which tend to zip things up. In fact, most weren't even arrested. They were briefly detained, and, in all, it was proportionately a much smaller event than what we saw in Toronto.
Maybe, a bit of Russophobia creeping in here?
I note it is a Reuters news report, an agency, although it has changed hands, which had quite a reputation during the Cold War as one of the CIA’s outlets for “getting things out there.”
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BORIS JOHNSON RESEMBLES A NEW INFECTION SPREADING QUICKLY - A REMARKABLY SIMILAR MAN TO DONALD TRUMP ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ATLANTIC
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHANNA ROSS IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“UK Buckles Up for Ride with Unpredictable New PM
“From Brexit to Scottish independence and escalating tension with Iran, Boris Johnson has his work cut out as PM. Has he got what it takes?”
Boris Johnson is Donald Trump with an Eton accent and schoolboy looks.
The actual content of what comes out of his mouth and his attitudes and prejudices are very close in spirit, including insulting numerous individuals and groups.
He’s actually a rather creepy figure because it is possible, if you aren’t familiar with him, to take some of his clowning around as good-natured.
And who doesn’t welcome some jokes in politics, it’s mostly such a dreary business?
But this is a clown resembling something from a Stephen King story or Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors.
It is rather disturbing that two such figures would emerge at the same time, thousands of miles apart.
Like a new infection spreading quickly.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHANNA ROSS IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“UK Buckles Up for Ride with Unpredictable New PM
“From Brexit to Scottish independence and escalating tension with Iran, Boris Johnson has his work cut out as PM. Has he got what it takes?”
Boris Johnson is Donald Trump with an Eton accent and schoolboy looks.
The actual content of what comes out of his mouth and his attitudes and prejudices are very close in spirit, including insulting numerous individuals and groups.
He’s actually a rather creepy figure because it is possible, if you aren’t familiar with him, to take some of his clowning around as good-natured.
And who doesn’t welcome some jokes in politics, it’s mostly such a dreary business?
But this is a clown resembling something from a Stephen King story or Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors.
It is rather disturbing that two such figures would emerge at the same time, thousands of miles apart.
Like a new infection spreading quickly.
Friday, July 26, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: NEW INFORMATION ON BRITISH TANKER SEIZED BY IRAN - EVEN THE LEAST-BENT OF BRITAIN'S EMBARRASSINGLY PREJUDICED MAINLINE NEWS SOURCES, THE INDEPENDENT, INDULGES THE COUNTRY'S ALMOST DIRECTIONLESS GOVERNMENT WITH DOUBTFUL JOURNALISM - THE THANKS BRITAIN GETS FOR ITS ROLE AS FAITHFUL HOUSEHOLD SERVANT IN THE "SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP" WITH AMERICA
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Relatives of crew onboard captured UK-flagged tanker say they have 'no idea' when they will see them again”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/uk-oil-tanker-stena-impero-captured-iran-crew-relatives-return-a9021196.html
Your headline is exaggerated and really inappropriate. Effectively, it is disinformation.
Most of the Indian crew members of the previously-seized Panama-flagged tanker are reported as having already been released. Three are held since a possible crime was committed.
And, as your own words reveal, a relative of the second British-connected, Liberia-flagged tanker was early-on allowed contact.
Also, importantly, the Indian crew members of the second tanker were given Indian consular access.
Which is far more than the British government permits in the case of two Russian citizens held virtually incommunicado for many months.
The Iranians also early released video showing no real violence took place in the capture and that crew members were okay. It was all handled skilfully.
Iran also reported that this tanker was ordered to change its course but failed to do so before being seized.
The Iranians have demonstrated as much goodwill as possible under the circumstances.
Please remember that it is Britain which started the needless conflict on the seas, dutifully following suggestions from possibly the most twisted and dangerous man on earth, Washington’s John Bolton, instead of setting its own independent course.
And, of course, the President of Iran has offered the idea of a peaceful swap of the tankers.
Iran wants peace, but it insists on being treated fairly and as an equal, not as some constant target of prejudice, hatred, and violence.
It is not at all clear to me what Britain wants.
FURTHER NOTE:
"In a new twist on this issue, we now know that Gibraltar changed its law underpinning the seizure just one day before it occurred. This adds weight to reports in Spain quoting government sources that the UK carried out the seizing of the tanker under U.S. instructions."
https://www.salon.com/2019/07/21/the-uks-dubious-role-in-the-new-tanker-war-with-iran_partner/
AND IN ANOTHER STORY:
“Iran oil tanker crisis: Mike Pompeo says ‘responsibility falls to UK to take care of its ships’”
'This isn’t because of American sanctions, this is because the theocracy, the leadership in Iran, their revolutionary zeal to conduct terror'
Gee, with friends like that…
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Relatives of crew onboard captured UK-flagged tanker say they have 'no idea' when they will see them again”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/uk-oil-tanker-stena-impero-captured-iran-crew-relatives-return-a9021196.html
Your headline is exaggerated and really inappropriate. Effectively, it is disinformation.
Most of the Indian crew members of the previously-seized Panama-flagged tanker are reported as having already been released. Three are held since a possible crime was committed.
And, as your own words reveal, a relative of the second British-connected, Liberia-flagged tanker was early-on allowed contact.
Also, importantly, the Indian crew members of the second tanker were given Indian consular access.
Which is far more than the British government permits in the case of two Russian citizens held virtually incommunicado for many months.
The Iranians also early released video showing no real violence took place in the capture and that crew members were okay. It was all handled skilfully.
Iran also reported that this tanker was ordered to change its course but failed to do so before being seized.
The Iranians have demonstrated as much goodwill as possible under the circumstances.
Please remember that it is Britain which started the needless conflict on the seas, dutifully following suggestions from possibly the most twisted and dangerous man on earth, Washington’s John Bolton, instead of setting its own independent course.
And, of course, the President of Iran has offered the idea of a peaceful swap of the tankers.
Iran wants peace, but it insists on being treated fairly and as an equal, not as some constant target of prejudice, hatred, and violence.
It is not at all clear to me what Britain wants.
FURTHER NOTE:
"In a new twist on this issue, we now know that Gibraltar changed its law underpinning the seizure just one day before it occurred. This adds weight to reports in Spain quoting government sources that the UK carried out the seizing of the tanker under U.S. instructions."
https://www.salon.com/2019/07/21/the-uks-dubious-role-in-the-new-tanker-war-with-iran_partner/
AND IN ANOTHER STORY:
“Iran oil tanker crisis: Mike Pompeo says ‘responsibility falls to UK to take care of its ships’”
'This isn’t because of American sanctions, this is because the theocracy, the leadership in Iran, their revolutionary zeal to conduct terror'
Gee, with friends like that…
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: DEMOCRACY AND THE TYRANNY OF A MAJORITY - ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS - USING UGLY NAME-CALLING TO SILENCE LEGITIMATE CRITICISM OF UNFAIRNESS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
“Jews are being used as human shields in the war of words over anti-Semitism”
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190726-jews-are-being-used-as-human-shields-in-the-war-of-words-over-anti-semitism/
In the photo at the top of this article, a woman holds a sign saying, "Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism."
That should not even need saying. It is simply a truism. A platitude. Not much different in its analytical content than saying the sun will rise tomorrow.
But it does need saying. Very much so.
Why?
Because we have a vigorous and well-financed group claiming otherwise, and doing so incessantly.
The group has its own reasons for saying so, but those reasons have absolutely nothing to do with human rights or prejudice or fairness or even decency.
It is a well understood principle that when you make enough noise about anything, it has an effect.
It is accepted in advertising and in political propaganda, a branch of the same persuasive art as advertising, that “if you throw enough crap at the wall, some of it will stick.”
That unpleasant reality is just part of our human condition. Fanatical or unscrupulous people will always seek to exploit it. Always.
There is a close-to-exact historical parallel for this controversy of labelling people as anti-Semitic because they criticize Israel, one which I think clarifies things considerably.
Was criticizing the old Soviet Union evidence of hatred for Russians, what has today become known as Russophobia?
Of course, it was not.
There was a great deal to criticize about the Soviet Union, about the way it treated people, its own and others, about its readiness to use brute force to reinforce its position, about its respect for human rights and freedom.
And exactly the same is true today of Israel. Almost down to the last detail, just all on a smaller scale of millions rather than tens of millions.
Israel is a state, not a religion or an ethnicity, not a museum exhibit about events from another continent three-quarters of a century ago. It is a place where millions of people try to live their lives, try to have families, try to become educated, try to get ahead, try to build hopes for the future.
More than one kind of people. Millions of another kind of people.
And those millions are absolutely blunted in their basic human drives.
All states are capable of wrongdoing, of abusing others, of misuse of force, of ignoring human rights and even humanity. Such is the nature of states if viewed as tools for a purpose, as they frequently are.
Democracy or claims of democracy are no defense because a majority of people determined to be unfair can, in fact, prevail indefinitely.
Efforts are made in many democratic states to prevent an ill-intentioned “tyranny of a majority” with Bills or Charters of Rights, documents which define basic rights for all and with legal force to redress injustice through the courts.
But Israel has no such minority-protecting document, nor can it ever expect to have one, given the unusual nature of its founding principles.
If a majority of the residents in a state want to be unfair in some way, the state gives them the machinery to enforce the unfairness in perpetuity. This is precisely what we see in Israel.
It is nothing new. We’ve seen it in many historical examples, from the Soviet Union to Nationalist South Africa and to the old American Confederacy.
Those just happen to be examples of what contemporary Israel represents. I’m sure it is not comfortable to be told so, but who ever claimed that truth is always comfortable? Indeed, we know to a certainty that it often is not.
And right-minded people, people who love human liberty and justice, people who uphold classical Western liberal principles, must speak up in such situations, even though it automatically condemns them to be called names and insulted.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
“Jews are being used as human shields in the war of words over anti-Semitism”
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190726-jews-are-being-used-as-human-shields-in-the-war-of-words-over-anti-semitism/
In the photo at the top of this article, a woman holds a sign saying, "Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism."
That should not even need saying. It is simply a truism. A platitude. Not much different in its analytical content than saying the sun will rise tomorrow.
But it does need saying. Very much so.
Why?
Because we have a vigorous and well-financed group claiming otherwise, and doing so incessantly.
The group has its own reasons for saying so, but those reasons have absolutely nothing to do with human rights or prejudice or fairness or even decency.
It is a well understood principle that when you make enough noise about anything, it has an effect.
It is accepted in advertising and in political propaganda, a branch of the same persuasive art as advertising, that “if you throw enough crap at the wall, some of it will stick.”
That unpleasant reality is just part of our human condition. Fanatical or unscrupulous people will always seek to exploit it. Always.
There is a close-to-exact historical parallel for this controversy of labelling people as anti-Semitic because they criticize Israel, one which I think clarifies things considerably.
Was criticizing the old Soviet Union evidence of hatred for Russians, what has today become known as Russophobia?
Of course, it was not.
There was a great deal to criticize about the Soviet Union, about the way it treated people, its own and others, about its readiness to use brute force to reinforce its position, about its respect for human rights and freedom.
And exactly the same is true today of Israel. Almost down to the last detail, just all on a smaller scale of millions rather than tens of millions.
Israel is a state, not a religion or an ethnicity, not a museum exhibit about events from another continent three-quarters of a century ago. It is a place where millions of people try to live their lives, try to have families, try to become educated, try to get ahead, try to build hopes for the future.
More than one kind of people. Millions of another kind of people.
And those millions are absolutely blunted in their basic human drives.
All states are capable of wrongdoing, of abusing others, of misuse of force, of ignoring human rights and even humanity. Such is the nature of states if viewed as tools for a purpose, as they frequently are.
Democracy or claims of democracy are no defense because a majority of people determined to be unfair can, in fact, prevail indefinitely.
Efforts are made in many democratic states to prevent an ill-intentioned “tyranny of a majority” with Bills or Charters of Rights, documents which define basic rights for all and with legal force to redress injustice through the courts.
But Israel has no such minority-protecting document, nor can it ever expect to have one, given the unusual nature of its founding principles.
If a majority of the residents in a state want to be unfair in some way, the state gives them the machinery to enforce the unfairness in perpetuity. This is precisely what we see in Israel.
It is nothing new. We’ve seen it in many historical examples, from the Soviet Union to Nationalist South Africa and to the old American Confederacy.
Those just happen to be examples of what contemporary Israel represents. I’m sure it is not comfortable to be told so, but who ever claimed that truth is always comfortable? Indeed, we know to a certainty that it often is not.
And right-minded people, people who love human liberty and justice, people who uphold classical Western liberal principles, must speak up in such situations, even though it automatically condemns them to be called names and insulted.
Thursday, July 25, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SOME BIG QUESTIONS AROUND THE MUELLER REPORT AND MUELLER'S PATHETIC TESTIMONY IN CONGRESS - DID THE REPORT SERVE ANY PURPOSE? DO AMERICANS EVER LEARN ANYTHING ABOUT HOW THEIR GOVERNMENT OPERATES? HERE'S JUST ONE MORE EXAMPLE, A SMALLER ONE, OF THE WARREN COMMISSION OR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE DOWNING OF TWA FLIGHT 800 OR INDEED THE INVESTIGATION OF 9/11
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Mueller Testimony an Absolute Trainwreck - Check Out These Liveblog Headlines to Get a Taste”
It's hard to understand why the Democrats pushed ahead with this testimony.
Surely, just in conversations with Mueller, leaders should have known he wouldn't make a great impression, and the Russia Insider impression of his genuine feebleness is confirmed by various other news sources.
I do wish, though, people would get over the "well, it's all proven there's nothing on Russia" syndrome.
No, I don't say that because I believe Russia officially was in any way involved. I’ve always regarded that notion as having no substance, as feeding off Washington’s dank atmosphere of Russophobia, and I don’t believe Russia had any real incentive for being involved, that last consideration being especially important for a strategic-thinking pragmatist like Putin.
But Russia is a big country with all kinds of individuals doing things which have nothing to with the government, just as is the case for the United States.
There are areas of connection with Russian figures and Trump that Mueller did not investigate. If any connections, no matter how obscure, were his central mandate, why not?
Second, there are definitely, both by Mueller's words and by the those of the report, areas of concern over obstruction of justice by Trump.
That is important, it represents a serious crime, surely an impeachable offence, but it tends to get washed away with all the noise about Russia.
All in all, Mueller's report appears a mighty thin piece of work.
There was no examination at all of the technical evidence showing the Wikileaks DNC material having been a leak, not a hack, by Russia or anyone else. Numerous true experts have said that is the case. Wouldn’t it have been nice to have this one shibboleth laid to rest?
Mueller conducted no examination of Democrats' computers, despite numerous reasons for doing so.
He made no effort to get testimony from Julian Assange or other central figures to the matter of Russia and leaks. No effort to look into the murder of Seth Rich and into the very doubtful circumstances of the local DC Police investigation of it.
That investigation remains more riddles than facts, and we should always remember that Congress holds the ultimate authority for governing DC under the United States Constitution. DC has no state government. In other words, all local events there are influenced, and distorted, by national politics.
Perhaps most concerning, in light of the fact that it is something which occurred only as a result of his own efforts, Mueller did not pursue, and follow-up on, obstruction of justice by the President, a rather serious crime.
That failure quickly gets us into the double-bind that if there were no issues involved in relations with (at least some) Russians or perhaps other dark matters, why would Trump be concerned enough to risk obstructing justice? “Hands entirely off” would have been the wisest policy. Of course, I realize that this is not a wise man we are discussing.
There is also some reason to believe that Theresa May's ugly Skripal Affair may have been connected in some way, now that we have learned from Putin himself, in an interview with Oliver Stone, that Skripal had wanted to return to Russia.
There's reason to believe that Skripal may been involved with ex-M16 agent Christopher Steele who ran a small, for-hire, high-end “detective” agency that produced "the dossier” on behalf of American customers, but that too is not explored by Mueller.
There’re some terribly interesting possibilities, but the Mueller Report touches none of them. It really represented a mighty effort, with plenty of noise and publicity, for the birth of a mouse.
Readers may be interested in the following articles related to official investigations in America and the reasons that they virtually all fail:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/john-chuckman-comment-a-survivor-says-even-the-simplest-questions-around-911-have-not-been-answered-by-government-yes-and-some-disturbing-truths-around-those-events-the-saudi-arabian-nonsense/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/john-chuckman-comment-the-first-genuine-information-in-the-kennedy-assassination-records-release-to-give-us-some-genuine-information-about-what-happened/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/02/18/john-chuckman-comment-recent-revelations-of-crappy-behavior-by-the-fbi-come-as-no-surprise-if-you-know-something-of-its-past-it-has-a-good-reputation-only-in-its-own-mind/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/19/john-chuckman-comment-there-are-too-many-today-blaming-either-one-party-or-a-newspaper-for-dark-events-we-see-but-the-root-of-the-problem-is-americas-establishment-which-includes-both-parties-and/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/john-chuckman-comment-on-re-opening-the-kennedy-assassination-investigation-why-it-would-be-a-waste-of-time-the-nature-of-truth-where-empire-or-great-power-is-involved-some-truth-about-the-fbi/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/the-dreadful-record-of-the-fbi/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/why-the-cia-always-will-be-a-costly-flop/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2014/12/30/america-stumbles-through-another-year-spreading-chaos-and-trivia-everywhere-in-its-path/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/john-chuckman-essay-the-enduring-reality-of-government-by-wealth-and-some-of-its-consequences/
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Mueller Testimony an Absolute Trainwreck - Check Out These Liveblog Headlines to Get a Taste”
It's hard to understand why the Democrats pushed ahead with this testimony.
Surely, just in conversations with Mueller, leaders should have known he wouldn't make a great impression, and the Russia Insider impression of his genuine feebleness is confirmed by various other news sources.
I do wish, though, people would get over the "well, it's all proven there's nothing on Russia" syndrome.
No, I don't say that because I believe Russia officially was in any way involved. I’ve always regarded that notion as having no substance, as feeding off Washington’s dank atmosphere of Russophobia, and I don’t believe Russia had any real incentive for being involved, that last consideration being especially important for a strategic-thinking pragmatist like Putin.
But Russia is a big country with all kinds of individuals doing things which have nothing to with the government, just as is the case for the United States.
There are areas of connection with Russian figures and Trump that Mueller did not investigate. If any connections, no matter how obscure, were his central mandate, why not?
Second, there are definitely, both by Mueller's words and by the those of the report, areas of concern over obstruction of justice by Trump.
That is important, it represents a serious crime, surely an impeachable offence, but it tends to get washed away with all the noise about Russia.
All in all, Mueller's report appears a mighty thin piece of work.
There was no examination at all of the technical evidence showing the Wikileaks DNC material having been a leak, not a hack, by Russia or anyone else. Numerous true experts have said that is the case. Wouldn’t it have been nice to have this one shibboleth laid to rest?
Mueller conducted no examination of Democrats' computers, despite numerous reasons for doing so.
He made no effort to get testimony from Julian Assange or other central figures to the matter of Russia and leaks. No effort to look into the murder of Seth Rich and into the very doubtful circumstances of the local DC Police investigation of it.
That investigation remains more riddles than facts, and we should always remember that Congress holds the ultimate authority for governing DC under the United States Constitution. DC has no state government. In other words, all local events there are influenced, and distorted, by national politics.
Perhaps most concerning, in light of the fact that it is something which occurred only as a result of his own efforts, Mueller did not pursue, and follow-up on, obstruction of justice by the President, a rather serious crime.
That failure quickly gets us into the double-bind that if there were no issues involved in relations with (at least some) Russians or perhaps other dark matters, why would Trump be concerned enough to risk obstructing justice? “Hands entirely off” would have been the wisest policy. Of course, I realize that this is not a wise man we are discussing.
There is also some reason to believe that Theresa May's ugly Skripal Affair may have been connected in some way, now that we have learned from Putin himself, in an interview with Oliver Stone, that Skripal had wanted to return to Russia.
There's reason to believe that Skripal may been involved with ex-M16 agent Christopher Steele who ran a small, for-hire, high-end “detective” agency that produced "the dossier” on behalf of American customers, but that too is not explored by Mueller.
There’re some terribly interesting possibilities, but the Mueller Report touches none of them. It really represented a mighty effort, with plenty of noise and publicity, for the birth of a mouse.
Readers may be interested in the following articles related to official investigations in America and the reasons that they virtually all fail:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/john-chuckman-comment-a-survivor-says-even-the-simplest-questions-around-911-have-not-been-answered-by-government-yes-and-some-disturbing-truths-around-those-events-the-saudi-arabian-nonsense/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/john-chuckman-comment-the-first-genuine-information-in-the-kennedy-assassination-records-release-to-give-us-some-genuine-information-about-what-happened/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/02/18/john-chuckman-comment-recent-revelations-of-crappy-behavior-by-the-fbi-come-as-no-surprise-if-you-know-something-of-its-past-it-has-a-good-reputation-only-in-its-own-mind/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/19/john-chuckman-comment-there-are-too-many-today-blaming-either-one-party-or-a-newspaper-for-dark-events-we-see-but-the-root-of-the-problem-is-americas-establishment-which-includes-both-parties-and/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/john-chuckman-comment-on-re-opening-the-kennedy-assassination-investigation-why-it-would-be-a-waste-of-time-the-nature-of-truth-where-empire-or-great-power-is-involved-some-truth-about-the-fbi/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/the-dreadful-record-of-the-fbi/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/why-the-cia-always-will-be-a-costly-flop/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2014/12/30/america-stumbles-through-another-year-spreading-chaos-and-trivia-everywhere-in-its-path/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/john-chuckman-essay-the-enduring-reality-of-government-by-wealth-and-some-of-its-consequences/
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BRITAIN SENDING A NUCLEAR SUB TO THE GULF? - IT JUST DOESN'T GET MORE FOOLISH - WHAT HAS HAPPENED BETWEEN IRAN AND BRITAIN EXPLAINED CLEARLY - HOW EASILY IT MIGHT BE SETTLED - WHERE WE CAN SEE REASON HERE
John Chuckman
COMMENT TO A REPORT THAT THE BRITISH NAVY IS RUSHING A NUCLEAR SUBMARINE TO THE PERSIAN GULF AMID GROWING TENSIONS WITH IRAN
This is a very stupid step taken by Britain, sending a nuclear attack submarine to the Gulf. It adds only risk and uncertainty to a dangerous situation, one for which Britain has herself to blame.
Britain’s act of hijacking an Iranian tanker near Spain earlier served no legitimate purpose and represented lawlessness trying to pass for law enforcement.
According to solid information, that act was undertaken at the request of the United States. Nothing like committing piracy at the request of a friend, now, is there? High principles indeed, but such are the times in which we live.
And such a friend! One who ripped up a valid working legal contract – the Iranian international nuclear agreement – which involved the direct interests of seven other nations as signatories, all of whom were just swept aside as though they didn’t matter.
That act of vandalism was followed by the laying on of harsh economic sanctions, pretty much undeclared and illegal acts of war intended to cripple a major economy and hurt its tens of millions of people.
Then we have whole fleets of warships and bombers sent to a place where there is no war, their sole purpose being to intimidate. And during all these hostile acts, we have a series of truly vicious threats coming from a President who freely uses words like “obliterate.”
Well, the British pirating of an Iranian tanker near Spain was yet another log tossed on the flames. Yet when we hear the British government talk about the situation, it’s the Iranians who act badly.
Of course, this all suggests the possibility that the United States may be seeking to provoke Iran into doing something that could be used as a casus belli.
One desperately hopes not. Our Western news sources and politicians continue to minimize the seriousness of starting a war with Iran. Apart from the very real moral and ethical considerations of starting a war against law-abiding people just because you are prejudiced against them, it would be very wise to remember this is no push-over country, as are so many of those the United States chooses to bully and threaten and overthrow. And it has important and powerful friends in Russia and China.
This is a country with a population about the size of Germany’s, a country which has experienced something unlike anything the United States has experienced. It was battle-hardened in a vicious, eight year-long war during the 1980s.
The bloodiness of that war was comparable to parts of WWII in Europe, but the Iranians endured. That was a war the United States secretly encouraged. It even assisted Saddam’s Iraq with intelligence and war materiel.
Saddam used chemical weapons extensively, on an immensely greater scale than the inaccurate claims made about Syria recently, weapons the United States and its allies saw to it that he receive. They wanted Iran bled.
Because of the awful experience of the Iran-Iraq War and the open and unceasing hostility of the United States for decades, Iran has prepared itself militarily, creating many formidable conventional weapons, including a whole range of missiles.
It has anti-ship missiles lining parts of its shores, and what prize targets a couple of aircraft carriers would make.
We saw the effectiveness of Iran’s anti-aircraft missiles with the downing of America’s largest and most sophisticated drone, a thing the size of an airliner, packed with electronic gear, flying high at night with signals turned off.
We saw the accuracy of Iran’s ground-to-ground missiles a while back when they hit some terrorist mercenaries in Iraq without touching nearby American forces.
What utter insanity it would be to start a war. I feel confident that if it were only up to Iran, there could be no war. It has started no hostilities in its entire modern history, despite being threatened many times and openly attacked more than once. It completely met its obligations under the international nuclear agreement Trump wantonly tore-up.
But it is not just Iran involved, represented as it is by impressive and highly rational figures such as President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif, it is the likes of Bolton and Pompeo and Haspel and Trump and Netanyahu who are involved – violence-prone and dishonest people every one of them.
Elements of the British government, at the time of the piracy near Spain were enmeshed in a political battle for the succession to Theresa May as Prime Minister, and some may have considered it a good show to put on for influencing Conservative Party opinion.
Belligerence is always big in such circles. Just look at Trump. Belligerence is the only act he has in his repertoire.
I don't blame the Iranians in the least for the actions they’ve taken. They were all in response to things done first to them, and they were all measured and proportionate.
Indeed, in every step responding to American threats, the Iranians have shown admirable restraint. They do just enough to make the United States, and now Britain, understand that they cannot act arbitrarily without consequences.
And doing a tit-for-tat by capturing the British oil tanker in the Strait, an action involving no harm or violence, was about as reasonable as can be expected when someone is dealing with unreasonable people, people who claim higher authority and legitimacy for their acts on no basis whatsoever.
The only thing needed to restore peace in the Gulf is for the United States to withdraw its threatening forces and let the local people go on about their business.
Then, if it really wants to talk to Iran, as it claims it does, it might restore the solemn contract it destroyed, so that Iran feels it comes to the table as an equal national state, not as Czechoslovakia being terrorized by the Third Reich in the Munich Crisis of 1938.
That might just restore some credibility to the United States, too. I don’t know how anyone expects to reach any future agreements with anyone after proving its past word was worthless.
Iran’s Rouhani has hinted at a possible swap of the seized tankers. That sure makes a lot more sense to me than sending a nuclear attack submarine. It points towards where reason is to be found in these matters.
COMMENT TO A REPORT THAT THE BRITISH NAVY IS RUSHING A NUCLEAR SUBMARINE TO THE PERSIAN GULF AMID GROWING TENSIONS WITH IRAN
This is a very stupid step taken by Britain, sending a nuclear attack submarine to the Gulf. It adds only risk and uncertainty to a dangerous situation, one for which Britain has herself to blame.
Britain’s act of hijacking an Iranian tanker near Spain earlier served no legitimate purpose and represented lawlessness trying to pass for law enforcement.
According to solid information, that act was undertaken at the request of the United States. Nothing like committing piracy at the request of a friend, now, is there? High principles indeed, but such are the times in which we live.
And such a friend! One who ripped up a valid working legal contract – the Iranian international nuclear agreement – which involved the direct interests of seven other nations as signatories, all of whom were just swept aside as though they didn’t matter.
That act of vandalism was followed by the laying on of harsh economic sanctions, pretty much undeclared and illegal acts of war intended to cripple a major economy and hurt its tens of millions of people.
Then we have whole fleets of warships and bombers sent to a place where there is no war, their sole purpose being to intimidate. And during all these hostile acts, we have a series of truly vicious threats coming from a President who freely uses words like “obliterate.”
Well, the British pirating of an Iranian tanker near Spain was yet another log tossed on the flames. Yet when we hear the British government talk about the situation, it’s the Iranians who act badly.
Of course, this all suggests the possibility that the United States may be seeking to provoke Iran into doing something that could be used as a casus belli.
One desperately hopes not. Our Western news sources and politicians continue to minimize the seriousness of starting a war with Iran. Apart from the very real moral and ethical considerations of starting a war against law-abiding people just because you are prejudiced against them, it would be very wise to remember this is no push-over country, as are so many of those the United States chooses to bully and threaten and overthrow. And it has important and powerful friends in Russia and China.
This is a country with a population about the size of Germany’s, a country which has experienced something unlike anything the United States has experienced. It was battle-hardened in a vicious, eight year-long war during the 1980s.
The bloodiness of that war was comparable to parts of WWII in Europe, but the Iranians endured. That was a war the United States secretly encouraged. It even assisted Saddam’s Iraq with intelligence and war materiel.
Saddam used chemical weapons extensively, on an immensely greater scale than the inaccurate claims made about Syria recently, weapons the United States and its allies saw to it that he receive. They wanted Iran bled.
Because of the awful experience of the Iran-Iraq War and the open and unceasing hostility of the United States for decades, Iran has prepared itself militarily, creating many formidable conventional weapons, including a whole range of missiles.
It has anti-ship missiles lining parts of its shores, and what prize targets a couple of aircraft carriers would make.
We saw the effectiveness of Iran’s anti-aircraft missiles with the downing of America’s largest and most sophisticated drone, a thing the size of an airliner, packed with electronic gear, flying high at night with signals turned off.
We saw the accuracy of Iran’s ground-to-ground missiles a while back when they hit some terrorist mercenaries in Iraq without touching nearby American forces.
What utter insanity it would be to start a war. I feel confident that if it were only up to Iran, there could be no war. It has started no hostilities in its entire modern history, despite being threatened many times and openly attacked more than once. It completely met its obligations under the international nuclear agreement Trump wantonly tore-up.
But it is not just Iran involved, represented as it is by impressive and highly rational figures such as President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif, it is the likes of Bolton and Pompeo and Haspel and Trump and Netanyahu who are involved – violence-prone and dishonest people every one of them.
Elements of the British government, at the time of the piracy near Spain were enmeshed in a political battle for the succession to Theresa May as Prime Minister, and some may have considered it a good show to put on for influencing Conservative Party opinion.
Belligerence is always big in such circles. Just look at Trump. Belligerence is the only act he has in his repertoire.
I don't blame the Iranians in the least for the actions they’ve taken. They were all in response to things done first to them, and they were all measured and proportionate.
Indeed, in every step responding to American threats, the Iranians have shown admirable restraint. They do just enough to make the United States, and now Britain, understand that they cannot act arbitrarily without consequences.
And doing a tit-for-tat by capturing the British oil tanker in the Strait, an action involving no harm or violence, was about as reasonable as can be expected when someone is dealing with unreasonable people, people who claim higher authority and legitimacy for their acts on no basis whatsoever.
The only thing needed to restore peace in the Gulf is for the United States to withdraw its threatening forces and let the local people go on about their business.
Then, if it really wants to talk to Iran, as it claims it does, it might restore the solemn contract it destroyed, so that Iran feels it comes to the table as an equal national state, not as Czechoslovakia being terrorized by the Third Reich in the Munich Crisis of 1938.
That might just restore some credibility to the United States, too. I don’t know how anyone expects to reach any future agreements with anyone after proving its past word was worthless.
Iran’s Rouhani has hinted at a possible swap of the seized tankers. That sure makes a lot more sense to me than sending a nuclear attack submarine. It points towards where reason is to be found in these matters.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE MH17 AIRLINE SHOOT-DOWN OVER UKRAINE COMES ROARING BACK WITH SENSATIONAL STUFF ON EVIDENCE TAMPERING BY INVESTIGATORS - STUFF YOU WON'T SEE IN YOUR LOCAL PAPER OR ON TV - REVELATIONS FROM HIGH MALAYSIAN SOURCES IN NEW FILM DOCUMENTARY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN HELMER IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“MH17 Evidence Tampering Revealed by Malaysia – The Dutch Covered-Up Forged Telephone Tapes, Ukraine Hid Radar Records
“The FBI attempted to seize black boxes, and witness testimony was misreported”
https://www.checkpointasia.net/mh17-evidence-tampering-revealed-by-malaysia-the-dutch-covered-up-forged-telephone-tapes-ukraine-hid-radar-records/#disqus_thread
There's some pretty sensational stuff here, especially that coming from the Malaysians.
I've seen some East Ukraine witnesses before, and they are convincing, but except for a recent general statement by the Malaysian Prime Minister, I was aware of none of the Malaysian testimony.
Of course, it was suspicious from the start when the Malaysians were not given a pivotal role in the investigation. It was their plane.
I take an interest in the MH17 story whenever something new comes up because the original event instantly raised all kinds of questions.
Why were there no American photos or radar tracks produced?
American Keyhole spy satellites have cameras resembling the Hubble Space Telescope.
They operate around the clock.
And, of course, because this part of Ukraine was such an area of conflict, you can bet the farm that there was American attention focused there.
But not a scrap of evidence was ever produced by the United States. And it would be the kind of evidence one assumes might well have clinched the case they promoted from the start.
And then there were all the delays in collecting physical evidence plus many instances of pieces of the aircraft not even collected, reflecting a carelessness we just do not see in such investigations.
I remember at Lockerbie, Scotland, the way the ground was scoured for every last tiny bit of this or that.
That just did not happen in Ukraine. Instead pieces of things were still scattered about long after the event as I’ve seen in other video.
Readers may enjoy some earlier observations:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/07/09/john-chuckman-comment-a-few-thoughts-on-the-downing-of-flight-mh-17-over-ukraine-and-a-shabby-investigation-of-it-by-the-dutch-under-american-pressure/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/john-chuckman-comment-latest-installment-of-the-years-long-foot-dragging-investigation-into-the-downing-of-flight-mh-17-over-ukraine-raises-old-concerns/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN HELMER IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“MH17 Evidence Tampering Revealed by Malaysia – The Dutch Covered-Up Forged Telephone Tapes, Ukraine Hid Radar Records
“The FBI attempted to seize black boxes, and witness testimony was misreported”
https://www.checkpointasia.net/mh17-evidence-tampering-revealed-by-malaysia-the-dutch-covered-up-forged-telephone-tapes-ukraine-hid-radar-records/#disqus_thread
There's some pretty sensational stuff here, especially that coming from the Malaysians.
I've seen some East Ukraine witnesses before, and they are convincing, but except for a recent general statement by the Malaysian Prime Minister, I was aware of none of the Malaysian testimony.
Of course, it was suspicious from the start when the Malaysians were not given a pivotal role in the investigation. It was their plane.
I take an interest in the MH17 story whenever something new comes up because the original event instantly raised all kinds of questions.
Why were there no American photos or radar tracks produced?
American Keyhole spy satellites have cameras resembling the Hubble Space Telescope.
They operate around the clock.
And, of course, because this part of Ukraine was such an area of conflict, you can bet the farm that there was American attention focused there.
But not a scrap of evidence was ever produced by the United States. And it would be the kind of evidence one assumes might well have clinched the case they promoted from the start.
And then there were all the delays in collecting physical evidence plus many instances of pieces of the aircraft not even collected, reflecting a carelessness we just do not see in such investigations.
I remember at Lockerbie, Scotland, the way the ground was scoured for every last tiny bit of this or that.
That just did not happen in Ukraine. Instead pieces of things were still scattered about long after the event as I’ve seen in other video.
Readers may enjoy some earlier observations:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/07/09/john-chuckman-comment-a-few-thoughts-on-the-downing-of-flight-mh-17-over-ukraine-and-a-shabby-investigation-of-it-by-the-dutch-under-american-pressure/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/john-chuckman-comment-latest-installment-of-the-years-long-foot-dragging-investigation-into-the-downing-of-flight-mh-17-over-ukraine-raises-old-concerns/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE NEW YORK TIMES REVERSES ITSELF ABOUT TRUMP AND RUSSIA - I THINK THERE ARE TWO REASONS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY GRAHAM DOCKERY IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
After Peddling Russophobia for Years the NYT Editorial Board Now Wants to Lure Russia From China
The New York Times proposes a reverse Nixon
“President Trump is correct to try to establish a sounder relationship with Russia and peel it away from China”
Yes, your point is well taken, but I do think this is about more than just Russia.
The once-despised Trump has been the greatest benefactor Israel has seen since Lyndon Johnson or Harry Truman.
Trump is now reaping his reward by having the top of the mainline press invent ways to praise him.
I actually predicted this kind of thing would happen when he moved the American embassy to Jerusalem.
It took a little time, but there's quite a creative process required, plus a little time interval for credibility, to praise a politician you'd so despised.
(Do remember that The Times is a paper which has admitted that every story that it gets concerning Israel is passed by the official Israeli censor before being published.)
See my essay of the time:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2017/12/06/what-trump-is-doing-in-jerusalem-and-why-he-is-doing-it/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY GRAHAM DOCKERY IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
After Peddling Russophobia for Years the NYT Editorial Board Now Wants to Lure Russia From China
The New York Times proposes a reverse Nixon
“President Trump is correct to try to establish a sounder relationship with Russia and peel it away from China”
Yes, your point is well taken, but I do think this is about more than just Russia.
The once-despised Trump has been the greatest benefactor Israel has seen since Lyndon Johnson or Harry Truman.
Trump is now reaping his reward by having the top of the mainline press invent ways to praise him.
I actually predicted this kind of thing would happen when he moved the American embassy to Jerusalem.
It took a little time, but there's quite a creative process required, plus a little time interval for credibility, to praise a politician you'd so despised.
(Do remember that The Times is a paper which has admitted that every story that it gets concerning Israel is passed by the official Israeli censor before being published.)
See my essay of the time:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2017/12/06/what-trump-is-doing-in-jerusalem-and-why-he-is-doing-it/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: VERY DOUBTFUL STUFF ABOUT IRAN - AND IT'S NOT EVEN FROM A MAINLINE NEWS SOURCE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PATRICK LAWRENCE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Brighter US-Iran Prospects
“Despite the seemingly escalating risks of war, last week also produced an unexpected drift toward the mahogany table”
I just do not agree.
The starting point for any effort at “mahogany tables” is the United States renouncing its insane destruction of the nuclear agreement.
Iran not only has said that, but logic leads us to that conclusion.
So, what are the chances of Trump and Company eating a large serving of crow in public?
Please, how can there be any kind of “negotiations” with a country which doesn’t keep its word? And that is precisely what the United States has proven itself to be.
A country which publicly rips up a legal and binding contract that not only worked for four years but involved the interests of other signatories, China, Russia, France, Britain, Germany, the EU , and Iran? All just ignored in a fit of infantile fury?
Iran would be foolish to do anything else but demand that as a starting point, and Iran has proved it is anything but foolish.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PATRICK LAWRENCE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Brighter US-Iran Prospects
“Despite the seemingly escalating risks of war, last week also produced an unexpected drift toward the mahogany table”
I just do not agree.
The starting point for any effort at “mahogany tables” is the United States renouncing its insane destruction of the nuclear agreement.
Iran not only has said that, but logic leads us to that conclusion.
So, what are the chances of Trump and Company eating a large serving of crow in public?
Please, how can there be any kind of “negotiations” with a country which doesn’t keep its word? And that is precisely what the United States has proven itself to be.
A country which publicly rips up a legal and binding contract that not only worked for four years but involved the interests of other signatories, China, Russia, France, Britain, Germany, the EU , and Iran? All just ignored in a fit of infantile fury?
Iran would be foolish to do anything else but demand that as a starting point, and Iran has proved it is anything but foolish.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE TINY MEMBERSHIP OF A POLITICAL PARTY GETS TO PICK BRITAIN'S NEW PRIME MINISTER UNDER PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY - AND IT SELECTS A MAN OF TRUMP'S VIEWS AND POOR TASTE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Boris Johnson wins Conservative leadership, to become U.K. PM
“Party members voted Tuesday morning to give Brexit champion the top job, replacing Theresa May on Wednesday”
That's parliamentary democracy for you.
Tiny Conservative Party membership decides next Prime Minister.
And that following years of dangerous blundering foolishness, as with BREXIT and Iran, from David Cameron and Theresa May.
By the way, I often refer to Boris as Donald Trump with an Eton accent and schoolboy looks.
His views truly are quite close to those of the man making a mess of the world from Washington.
And he has often indulged in insulting individuals and groups in public.
Very reassuring.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Boris Johnson wins Conservative leadership, to become U.K. PM
“Party members voted Tuesday morning to give Brexit champion the top job, replacing Theresa May on Wednesday”
That's parliamentary democracy for you.
Tiny Conservative Party membership decides next Prime Minister.
And that following years of dangerous blundering foolishness, as with BREXIT and Iran, from David Cameron and Theresa May.
By the way, I often refer to Boris as Donald Trump with an Eton accent and schoolboy looks.
His views truly are quite close to those of the man making a mess of the world from Washington.
And he has often indulged in insulting individuals and groups in public.
Very reassuring.
Monday, July 22, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: INTERESTING NEW FACT ON SALISBURY ENGLAND'S SKRIPAL AFFAIR - WHY THE OFFICIAL BRITISH VERSION IS FALSE - IT HAS HAS NEVER MET THE TEST OF REASON
JOHN CHUCKMAN
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN MOON OF ALABAMA
“Putin Confirms: Sergei Skripal Wanted to Go Back To Russia
“Filmmaker Oliver Stone recently interviewed the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin”
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/07/putin-confirms-that-sergei-skripal-wanted-to-go-back-to-russia.html#more
Terribly interesting item on the Skripal Affair. Thanks.
And it is difficult to know just what to make of it.
I have never for a moment believed Theresa May's storyline, and for a host of reasons, a number of which you'll find here:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/09/06/john-chuckman-comment-the-skripal-affair-dramatically-returns-with-supposed-surveillance-photos-of-the-assassins-just-one-very-serious-problem-with-a-pair-of-the-photos-they-appear-to-be-frauds/
One of her aims may well just have been to make an excuse to smash-up Russia's intelligence networks in the West, sending all the experienced agents packing, but of course the same countries lost theirs in Russia in the tit-for-tat.
For some unknown reason, that may still have appeared a worthwhile trade-off. And it came with the added benefit of more noxious anti-Russian publicity. It came also just before a missile attack on Syria over yet one more phony chemical-weapons claim against President Assad. Assad, years ago, gave up all his chemical weapons under international supervision, something the United States itself still hasn’t done.
Anyway, the chemicals that have been found to have been used in small quantities in Syria a few times, by some unknown parties trying to incite intensified war, chemicals such as Chlorine gas, are things you could make in your basement at home.
I'm glad to see you mentioned fentanyl as a possibility for what hurt the Skripals. It was suggested by first-responders at the time. They said overdoses were common in the town of Salisbury and that this case sure resembled one.
The use of a nerve agent has always been an absurd claim. Nerve agents kill too fast. The antidotes must be given within minutes. And when you start just by finding two very sick people on a public bench with no evidence of any kind, such as a container, to go by, nerve agent would be one of the last things any doctor would think of.
But if a doctor somehow did happen think of it, which agent would it be and where would he quickly obtain the antidote? Yes, Britain has a highly secret chemical weapons lab, something resembling a set of massive bunkers, not too far away, at Porton Down.
It is almost nine miles from Salisbury, and in the case of nerve agents, just the time needed to drive that far, estimated to be between ten and fourteen minutes on the winding rural road, would condemn a genuine victim to death, let alone all the time required for communication, certain identification of the agent, searching for stored antidote, and other matters.
And if, by some miracle, a doctor had guessed the cause, why wasn’t the area immediately evacuated and shut down? Nerve agent is seriously deadly stuff, like almost nothing else you can name, yet no effort was made to protect the population? Indeed, even without knowing what it was, why was no real effort to protect the population?
The official story has always seemed contrived and not well thought through.
But, then, we see a lot of matters these days that seem contrived and not thought through, owing to the high stakes of American imperial affairs driving so many dark and secretive activities.
Here’s another interesting sidelight from a while back:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/04/25/john-chuckman-comment-head-of-opcw-reveals-there-was-no-material-that-can-be-identified-as-russian-involved-in-skripal-affair-notorious-brilliant-pranksters-get-him-on-the-phone-thinking-it-is-the/
And here are some additional previous thoughts and observations:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/04/21/john-chuckman-comment-is-salisbury-safe-after-skripal-affair-of-course-u-k-government-behavior-parallels-americas-following-the-kennedy-assassination-a-commenter-raises-the-case-of-dr-kel/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/10/28/john-chuckman-comment-blood-soaked-american-ally-saudi-arabia-actual-death-toll-in-yemen-only-circumstances-where-washington-attacks-tyrants-compare-the-glaring-hypocrisy-of-the-khashoggi-and-s/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/09/28/john-chuckman-comment-bellingcats-claims-about-a-gru-colonel-and-the-skripal-affair-remember-what-bellingcat-is-just-a-front-organization-for-british-security-service-mi6-no-substitute-for-ev/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/04/14/john-chuckman-comment-the-missile-attack-on-syria-more-on-the-related-skripal-poisoning-affair-in-britain-and-reflections-on-the-kind-of-world-into-which-we-have-been-thrust-no-rule-of-law-no/
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN MOON OF ALABAMA
“Putin Confirms: Sergei Skripal Wanted to Go Back To Russia
“Filmmaker Oliver Stone recently interviewed the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin”
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/07/putin-confirms-that-sergei-skripal-wanted-to-go-back-to-russia.html#more
Terribly interesting item on the Skripal Affair. Thanks.
And it is difficult to know just what to make of it.
I have never for a moment believed Theresa May's storyline, and for a host of reasons, a number of which you'll find here:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/09/06/john-chuckman-comment-the-skripal-affair-dramatically-returns-with-supposed-surveillance-photos-of-the-assassins-just-one-very-serious-problem-with-a-pair-of-the-photos-they-appear-to-be-frauds/
One of her aims may well just have been to make an excuse to smash-up Russia's intelligence networks in the West, sending all the experienced agents packing, but of course the same countries lost theirs in Russia in the tit-for-tat.
For some unknown reason, that may still have appeared a worthwhile trade-off. And it came with the added benefit of more noxious anti-Russian publicity. It came also just before a missile attack on Syria over yet one more phony chemical-weapons claim against President Assad. Assad, years ago, gave up all his chemical weapons under international supervision, something the United States itself still hasn’t done.
Anyway, the chemicals that have been found to have been used in small quantities in Syria a few times, by some unknown parties trying to incite intensified war, chemicals such as Chlorine gas, are things you could make in your basement at home.
I'm glad to see you mentioned fentanyl as a possibility for what hurt the Skripals. It was suggested by first-responders at the time. They said overdoses were common in the town of Salisbury and that this case sure resembled one.
The use of a nerve agent has always been an absurd claim. Nerve agents kill too fast. The antidotes must be given within minutes. And when you start just by finding two very sick people on a public bench with no evidence of any kind, such as a container, to go by, nerve agent would be one of the last things any doctor would think of.
But if a doctor somehow did happen think of it, which agent would it be and where would he quickly obtain the antidote? Yes, Britain has a highly secret chemical weapons lab, something resembling a set of massive bunkers, not too far away, at Porton Down.
It is almost nine miles from Salisbury, and in the case of nerve agents, just the time needed to drive that far, estimated to be between ten and fourteen minutes on the winding rural road, would condemn a genuine victim to death, let alone all the time required for communication, certain identification of the agent, searching for stored antidote, and other matters.
And if, by some miracle, a doctor had guessed the cause, why wasn’t the area immediately evacuated and shut down? Nerve agent is seriously deadly stuff, like almost nothing else you can name, yet no effort was made to protect the population? Indeed, even without knowing what it was, why was no real effort to protect the population?
The official story has always seemed contrived and not well thought through.
But, then, we see a lot of matters these days that seem contrived and not thought through, owing to the high stakes of American imperial affairs driving so many dark and secretive activities.
Here’s another interesting sidelight from a while back:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/04/25/john-chuckman-comment-head-of-opcw-reveals-there-was-no-material-that-can-be-identified-as-russian-involved-in-skripal-affair-notorious-brilliant-pranksters-get-him-on-the-phone-thinking-it-is-the/
And here are some additional previous thoughts and observations:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/04/21/john-chuckman-comment-is-salisbury-safe-after-skripal-affair-of-course-u-k-government-behavior-parallels-americas-following-the-kennedy-assassination-a-commenter-raises-the-case-of-dr-kel/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/10/28/john-chuckman-comment-blood-soaked-american-ally-saudi-arabia-actual-death-toll-in-yemen-only-circumstances-where-washington-attacks-tyrants-compare-the-glaring-hypocrisy-of-the-khashoggi-and-s/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/09/28/john-chuckman-comment-bellingcats-claims-about-a-gru-colonel-and-the-skripal-affair-remember-what-bellingcat-is-just-a-front-organization-for-british-security-service-mi6-no-substitute-for-ev/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/04/14/john-chuckman-comment-the-missile-attack-on-syria-more-on-the-related-skripal-poisoning-affair-in-britain-and-reflections-on-the-kind-of-world-into-which-we-have-been-thrust-no-rule-of-law-no/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A FEW MORE THOUGHTS ON CLIMATE CHANGE - YES, CHANGE IS AN ESTABLISHED CERTAINTY - AND, NO, THE CAUSE IS NOT - YOU DON'T LEAP INTO "SOLUTIONS" WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING THE CAUSE - ESPECIALLY WHERE COSTS IN THE TRILLIONS ARE AT STAKE AND THE PRECIOUS RESOURCES MAY BE NEEDED FOR ADAPTING OVER TIME
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY KEVIN ZEESE AND MARGARET FLOWERS IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“As Costs of Climate Crisis Grow, Protest Movement Escalates
“Long term campaigns to decarbonize the economy and demand emergency climate policies are getting stronger”
Yes, climate change is happening, but can we do anything about it (other than adapt) and are our actions causing it?
I 've never been convinced on those last two ideas.
And a new serious study tends to agree, finding virtually no role for humans.
https://sputniknews.com/environment/201907111076211867-study-sees-no-solid-evidence-for-man-made-climate-change/
It isn't the first time something has pointed this way either.
I know we face problems with the very real threats of climate change, but I do think overturning our entire lives and societies and spending trillions of dollars in a desperate effort to "do something" is pretty damned foolish.
Particularly when you consider that the other, more certain, and perhaps more realistic option, that of adapting over time to changes, is also going to be very costly.
I regard the loud and incessant calls for immediate and massive changes to our economies and societies as a form of religious enthusiasm and not sound responses to science.
And it is so easy, when you do not really understand and still rush ahead, to do the wrong thing.
For example, several serious studies have pointed to electric-powered vehicles being more detrimental than petroleum-powered ones when their entire life cycle and the production of raw materials are accounted for.
And that, as any genuine expert will tell you, is the only way to make valid comparisons. With full cycle costs and costs of producing inputs as well as of disposing of trash at the end.
How have past societies dealt with the many, many instances of climate change earth has experienced? My God, it was only about ten thousand years ago that the Great Lakes, containing one-fifth of the planet’s entire fresh water supply, even were created by the receding of massive Ice Age glaciers taller than any skyscrapers.
And Tacitus, roughly two thousand years ago, wrote of North Africa as "the granary of Rome."
Look at the drifting sands that cover all the land around ancient Egypt's great monuments to its ancient civilization. Once those were lush places. The wealth from organized early agriculture on them is what made Egypt into an impressive society.
And we've found the fossils of some dinosaurs who once roamed Antarctica.
The semi-desert Canadian Province of Alberta was a large inland sea tens of millions of years ago with large sea creatures swimming in it.
Nothing ever stays the same in our universe. There really is no such thing as keeping some landscape or environment or species as though it were a display in a huge museum dedicated of some arbitrarily selected period of time in history.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY KEVIN ZEESE AND MARGARET FLOWERS IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“As Costs of Climate Crisis Grow, Protest Movement Escalates
“Long term campaigns to decarbonize the economy and demand emergency climate policies are getting stronger”
Yes, climate change is happening, but can we do anything about it (other than adapt) and are our actions causing it?
I 've never been convinced on those last two ideas.
And a new serious study tends to agree, finding virtually no role for humans.
https://sputniknews.com/environment/201907111076211867-study-sees-no-solid-evidence-for-man-made-climate-change/
It isn't the first time something has pointed this way either.
I know we face problems with the very real threats of climate change, but I do think overturning our entire lives and societies and spending trillions of dollars in a desperate effort to "do something" is pretty damned foolish.
Particularly when you consider that the other, more certain, and perhaps more realistic option, that of adapting over time to changes, is also going to be very costly.
I regard the loud and incessant calls for immediate and massive changes to our economies and societies as a form of religious enthusiasm and not sound responses to science.
And it is so easy, when you do not really understand and still rush ahead, to do the wrong thing.
For example, several serious studies have pointed to electric-powered vehicles being more detrimental than petroleum-powered ones when their entire life cycle and the production of raw materials are accounted for.
And that, as any genuine expert will tell you, is the only way to make valid comparisons. With full cycle costs and costs of producing inputs as well as of disposing of trash at the end.
How have past societies dealt with the many, many instances of climate change earth has experienced? My God, it was only about ten thousand years ago that the Great Lakes, containing one-fifth of the planet’s entire fresh water supply, even were created by the receding of massive Ice Age glaciers taller than any skyscrapers.
And Tacitus, roughly two thousand years ago, wrote of North Africa as "the granary of Rome."
Look at the drifting sands that cover all the land around ancient Egypt's great monuments to its ancient civilization. Once those were lush places. The wealth from organized early agriculture on them is what made Egypt into an impressive society.
And we've found the fossils of some dinosaurs who once roamed Antarctica.
The semi-desert Canadian Province of Alberta was a large inland sea tens of millions of years ago with large sea creatures swimming in it.
Nothing ever stays the same in our universe. There really is no such thing as keeping some landscape or environment or species as though it were a display in a huge museum dedicated of some arbitrarily selected period of time in history.
Friday, July 19, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE DIFFICULTIES OF UNDERSTANDING WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN THE NEWS - THE MOTIVES OF NEWS ORGANIZATIONS - THE GREAT COST OF GOOD INFORMATION - THE MOTIVES OF GOVERNMENT AND ESPECIALLY WHERE THE STAKES ARE HIGH AS IN A WORLD EMPIRE
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Iran denies U.S. destroyed an Iranian drone near Persian Gulf
“Trump previously said an Iranian drone got too close to a U.S. warship”
____________________________
Response to a comment saying, “AP is not a credible news organization. It's very difficult to figure out when they are telling the truth”:
Yes, but can you give us the name of even one consistently credible mainline news organization?
I'm not aware of any, and I read a lot.
You can only get at (an approximation of) what really has happened, especially in complex or very important matters, by reading differing points of view - and then interpreting and interpolating. All news sources have biases, every one, including the alternate and foreign press.
And certainly no one can guarantee you the truth in any story or from any source, as various new Internet outfits now pretend to do, outfits which all are not part of a solution to “fake news,” but are indeed themselves a new part of the problem.
They claim authority and expertise and impartiality which are simply impossible for them to have. And impossible, even if they had them, to offer everyone for free. They proclaim having truth much as a tent preacher thumping his Bible while weeping theatrical tears claims having it, and they are just about as credible.
You must do the job of uncovering truth yourself. There is no other way. It is the job of a juror, as in a big court case. Hearing the cross examination of witnesses remains a key method. Judging and weighing the relative credibility of witnesses is another. Listening for contradictions. Judging motivations.
Especially in these days of 24-hour-a-day deception and intrigue and disinformation – all of which have a lot to do with the needs and dark activities of America’s massive empire. Where stakes are great, as in the workings of a world empire, it simply follows that efforts to dissemble and mislead and hide truth are greater.
Things are being done every day which the American government does not want its people, or others, to know about. It does not want to be answerable about its many dark activities. It’s the same for other governments, of course, it’s just that the level of American activity immensely exceeds that of most other governments.
In general, no one ever just gives you truth. Loving mothers and good mates try doing that, but there are many things they themselves do not understand or only partially understand. And they, too, have their biases, as religious or political. If such close and loving people can’t provide you with truth, why would you think strangers, and ones with very complex and little-understood motivations, can do so?
When is the last time any organization or corporation truly gave you anything for free? Whenever we see an ad offering us something for free, the rational response is, what are they really trying to do here? Giving the public things for free is always an advertising or marketing or promotional or information-gathering tool, never a straightforward act.
Do you see information, good sound information, available anywhere for free? Attending university costs a great deal today, and, even there, not everything said or printed is true. Learning the secrets of a trade is costly, requiring a long apprenticeship. Good books are costly. Lectures by notable experts are not free. Travel to places in order to observe is costly.
Even looking-up something on-line is not free. You must have a computer, you must pay an ISP, and you must spend valuable time finding things and negotiating your way around them. Just reading an article requires time and skill and judgment. After all, that’s why traditional academic research requires multiple sources. And why academic journalism teaches having at least two sources for some important claim.
Information, sound reliable information, is not to be had for the price of a newspaper. And certainly not for the flip of a switch. Whether on a television or a computer.
Broadcasters and newspaper publishers are absolutely no different than other enterprises. They have bills to pay. They have obligations to others. They have friends to reward and enemies to punish. They have time and resource constraints. They are not motivated by the theoretical rules of sound journalism day-in, day-out any more than the average company is motivated by the Ten Commandments or the words of Jesus.
Of course, they quote the rules of journalism in public utterances, just as politicians or heads of corporations quote rules of ethics or morality. They may even truly hold them as guiding ideals. But live by them in their every action, day and night? You have to be naïve to believe that.
And we must remember economic realities. Information is costly to obtain, both for news organizations and news followers. There are no free rides.
Apart from many built-in biases, news organizations can't even afford the resources anymore to attempt to get at truth in all their stories. The entire traditional news industry, print and broadcast, is in relative decline owing to the effects of the Internet on revenues. We have a kind of technological revolution underway, and it affects everyone.
Foreign correspondents? Very few of them left anywhere. They are a mighty expensive luxury. Same for foreign bureaus.
Investigative journalism? Who does that anymore? At least in a serious way.
It costs too much. Just imagine, maintaining even one intelligent and capable reporter for weeks or months, burning through expenses, to pursue the fine points of just one story? It always was a terribly costly proposition, but these days, it almost cannot be done. And it isn’t.
A good second source for all important assertions? Not very likely. Even if possible, it costs too much.
Take a great deal of time to check out what sounds like a sensational scoop? There’s a cost to doing that, and there’s the risk that in the meantime another news source will run the story first.
And then there is the simple and obvious service to government that all news organizations offer. They can’t afford, for many reasons, to make an enemy of government.
Government is the source of approval for mergers and acquisitions in news organizations. It is the source for valuable leaks and various information. It is influential on other corporations and advertisers. It is even a source of advertising itself, in everything from legal notices to employment ads. What corporate news organization has any motivation for alienating government?
The movie-mystery notion of a news source working hard, battling for truth against the powers and interests of government is pretty close to pure fantasy. Not all that different from a Batman movie.
And who wants to be identified publicly as opposing his own country, as it were? This is especially true in a powerful, hyper-patriotic place like the United States. Every major news source there supports every dumb and destructive colonial war you can name. So, do you think you can really trust what they report on the details of those wars? Or their true causes? Or much about the nature of the opponent?
Try finding even one major American news source whose history includes opposition to major destructive policies like Vietnam or the invasion of Iraq. You can’t. At least not until a war like that in Vietnam was well along, and its foolishness and failure were becoming apparent. News sources all close ranks to support the government when the power establishment makes a major move. And the notion of a liberal bias in the American press is absurd for that reason alone, although there are many other reasons too.
And if you look back at history and biography, you find something important. You find motivation. Do you think great news moguls like Hearst or Murdoch or Black were motivated in building their empires by the desire for truth or providing excellent information? No, apart from profits, they want to influence people and governments. Indeed, having influence over a good number of people is itself a negotiable thing, a source either of profit or of even further influence.
Political parties, too, historically, either owned a newspaper or owned the loyalty of one or a number of them. Influence and promotion were the motivations, not the dissemination of truth. And it is no different on the Internet, no matter how large or small the source, no matter whether independent or not. There are undoubtedly some sincere exceptions, but it will take effort on your part to discover them.
A purpose is always being served, and you must do the work of sorting through it all to genuinely learn anything. Of course, you will never learn “the complete truth.” Not only is that a costly notion, it can no longer be supported philosophically. Science teaches us we live in a stochastic universe. We do not have “scientific laws,” as we once thought we had, we have possible outcomes, we have probabilities, we have always, it appears, a degree of uncertainty.
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Iran denies U.S. destroyed an Iranian drone near Persian Gulf
“Trump previously said an Iranian drone got too close to a U.S. warship”
____________________________
Response to a comment saying, “AP is not a credible news organization. It's very difficult to figure out when they are telling the truth”:
Yes, but can you give us the name of even one consistently credible mainline news organization?
I'm not aware of any, and I read a lot.
You can only get at (an approximation of) what really has happened, especially in complex or very important matters, by reading differing points of view - and then interpreting and interpolating. All news sources have biases, every one, including the alternate and foreign press.
And certainly no one can guarantee you the truth in any story or from any source, as various new Internet outfits now pretend to do, outfits which all are not part of a solution to “fake news,” but are indeed themselves a new part of the problem.
They claim authority and expertise and impartiality which are simply impossible for them to have. And impossible, even if they had them, to offer everyone for free. They proclaim having truth much as a tent preacher thumping his Bible while weeping theatrical tears claims having it, and they are just about as credible.
You must do the job of uncovering truth yourself. There is no other way. It is the job of a juror, as in a big court case. Hearing the cross examination of witnesses remains a key method. Judging and weighing the relative credibility of witnesses is another. Listening for contradictions. Judging motivations.
Especially in these days of 24-hour-a-day deception and intrigue and disinformation – all of which have a lot to do with the needs and dark activities of America’s massive empire. Where stakes are great, as in the workings of a world empire, it simply follows that efforts to dissemble and mislead and hide truth are greater.
Things are being done every day which the American government does not want its people, or others, to know about. It does not want to be answerable about its many dark activities. It’s the same for other governments, of course, it’s just that the level of American activity immensely exceeds that of most other governments.
In general, no one ever just gives you truth. Loving mothers and good mates try doing that, but there are many things they themselves do not understand or only partially understand. And they, too, have their biases, as religious or political. If such close and loving people can’t provide you with truth, why would you think strangers, and ones with very complex and little-understood motivations, can do so?
When is the last time any organization or corporation truly gave you anything for free? Whenever we see an ad offering us something for free, the rational response is, what are they really trying to do here? Giving the public things for free is always an advertising or marketing or promotional or information-gathering tool, never a straightforward act.
Do you see information, good sound information, available anywhere for free? Attending university costs a great deal today, and, even there, not everything said or printed is true. Learning the secrets of a trade is costly, requiring a long apprenticeship. Good books are costly. Lectures by notable experts are not free. Travel to places in order to observe is costly.
Even looking-up something on-line is not free. You must have a computer, you must pay an ISP, and you must spend valuable time finding things and negotiating your way around them. Just reading an article requires time and skill and judgment. After all, that’s why traditional academic research requires multiple sources. And why academic journalism teaches having at least two sources for some important claim.
Information, sound reliable information, is not to be had for the price of a newspaper. And certainly not for the flip of a switch. Whether on a television or a computer.
Broadcasters and newspaper publishers are absolutely no different than other enterprises. They have bills to pay. They have obligations to others. They have friends to reward and enemies to punish. They have time and resource constraints. They are not motivated by the theoretical rules of sound journalism day-in, day-out any more than the average company is motivated by the Ten Commandments or the words of Jesus.
Of course, they quote the rules of journalism in public utterances, just as politicians or heads of corporations quote rules of ethics or morality. They may even truly hold them as guiding ideals. But live by them in their every action, day and night? You have to be naïve to believe that.
And we must remember economic realities. Information is costly to obtain, both for news organizations and news followers. There are no free rides.
Apart from many built-in biases, news organizations can't even afford the resources anymore to attempt to get at truth in all their stories. The entire traditional news industry, print and broadcast, is in relative decline owing to the effects of the Internet on revenues. We have a kind of technological revolution underway, and it affects everyone.
Foreign correspondents? Very few of them left anywhere. They are a mighty expensive luxury. Same for foreign bureaus.
Investigative journalism? Who does that anymore? At least in a serious way.
It costs too much. Just imagine, maintaining even one intelligent and capable reporter for weeks or months, burning through expenses, to pursue the fine points of just one story? It always was a terribly costly proposition, but these days, it almost cannot be done. And it isn’t.
A good second source for all important assertions? Not very likely. Even if possible, it costs too much.
Take a great deal of time to check out what sounds like a sensational scoop? There’s a cost to doing that, and there’s the risk that in the meantime another news source will run the story first.
And then there is the simple and obvious service to government that all news organizations offer. They can’t afford, for many reasons, to make an enemy of government.
Government is the source of approval for mergers and acquisitions in news organizations. It is the source for valuable leaks and various information. It is influential on other corporations and advertisers. It is even a source of advertising itself, in everything from legal notices to employment ads. What corporate news organization has any motivation for alienating government?
The movie-mystery notion of a news source working hard, battling for truth against the powers and interests of government is pretty close to pure fantasy. Not all that different from a Batman movie.
And who wants to be identified publicly as opposing his own country, as it were? This is especially true in a powerful, hyper-patriotic place like the United States. Every major news source there supports every dumb and destructive colonial war you can name. So, do you think you can really trust what they report on the details of those wars? Or their true causes? Or much about the nature of the opponent?
Try finding even one major American news source whose history includes opposition to major destructive policies like Vietnam or the invasion of Iraq. You can’t. At least not until a war like that in Vietnam was well along, and its foolishness and failure were becoming apparent. News sources all close ranks to support the government when the power establishment makes a major move. And the notion of a liberal bias in the American press is absurd for that reason alone, although there are many other reasons too.
And if you look back at history and biography, you find something important. You find motivation. Do you think great news moguls like Hearst or Murdoch or Black were motivated in building their empires by the desire for truth or providing excellent information? No, apart from profits, they want to influence people and governments. Indeed, having influence over a good number of people is itself a negotiable thing, a source either of profit or of even further influence.
Political parties, too, historically, either owned a newspaper or owned the loyalty of one or a number of them. Influence and promotion were the motivations, not the dissemination of truth. And it is no different on the Internet, no matter how large or small the source, no matter whether independent or not. There are undoubtedly some sincere exceptions, but it will take effort on your part to discover them.
A purpose is always being served, and you must do the work of sorting through it all to genuinely learn anything. Of course, you will never learn “the complete truth.” Not only is that a costly notion, it can no longer be supported philosophically. Science teaches us we live in a stochastic universe. We do not have “scientific laws,” as we once thought we had, we have possible outcomes, we have probabilities, we have always, it appears, a degree of uncertainty.
INTERESTING FOOTNOTE:
After American claims of having shot down an Iranian drone
that was approaching a warship, Iran denied the claims and even joked that maybe
America had mistakenly shot down one of its own. At this writing, Iran has
published video proving they are correct, video of the American warship from a
drone with the video’s timing marks proving the American claims false.
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: DONALD TRUMP AND CNN AND RUSSIA - SOME CLARITY - AMERICA'S ESTABLISHMENT AND ITS LASTING HATRED FOR RUSSIA - LIBERAL PRESS AND MEDIA IN AMERICA? - LIBERALS OF ANY KIND IN AMERICA?
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“CNN Continues to Implode After RussiaHoax, It's Much Worse Than People Realize
“They're paying the price for lying relentlessly about the RussiaHoax, and a lot of other things”
CNN has always been both incompetent and dishonest.
I haven’t seen it in many years, but I can think of a number of prominent examples from the 1990s or the early 2000s.
As when it ran a truly idiotic piece of fraudulent video about Osama bin Laden’s supposed scientific laboratories in the mountain caves of Afghanistan where he was said to be developing poison agents for use as “weapons of mass destruction.”
It literally was a laughable piece of work by one intelligence outfit or another, and CNN’s using it showed no journalistic integrity or judgment at all. It was just gung-ho support for war.
Osama’s caves were, in fact, primitive, uncomfortable places of refuge and hiding, not fantastic and well-equipped places resembling scenes from Flash Gordon’s 1936 movie serial.
CNN did many such clownish stunts, and not just ones involving foreign affairs. Its work, for example, on the Richard Jewell affair, following the Atlanta Olympics bombing, was about as shabby and worthless as it comes. CNN always tried to fill airtime by spending almost no money or resources. Journalism had almost nothing to do with its activities of filling airtime and selling advertising spots, whose appeal was juiced-up with anything controversial.
For some reason, the network never was seriously attacked, as it is being attacked now, attacked for supposedly being part of the political Left, but CNN’s countless past idiocies had nothing to do with the political Left or Right. They stood on their own.
It seems that only with the failure of Special Counsel Mueller’s report to astonish anyone are CNN’s deficiencies being proclaimed, at least by a certain segment of those concerned with public affairs on the Internet. But of course, Mueller’s investigation was problematic from the start.
What Trump represented for many in America’s establishment had little to do with Russia, although the establishment’s enduring hatred of Russia provided a convenient tool for getting at him. I don’t know, but perhaps the people plotting the efforts against Trump were influenced in their choice of Russia by the fact that, long ago, Trump was helped through some of his real estate messes by Russian oligarchs extending financial assistance. It had nothing to do with politics or election campaigns.
The American public was, after all, brainwashed and harangued - in magazines, books, movies, television shows, speeches, and even prayers - about Russia for decades of the Cold War, and following the collapse of the Soviet Union, no effort was ever made to detoxify a poisoned environment. That environment remains a nurturing place for all things Russo-phobic, Russia-gate being just one example. America’s establishment wants it that way because America’s establishment hates Russia.
You do not have to be a Trump supporter or a conservative to see the fraud in Russia-gate. It has always been pretty clear from the early rhetoric of people like CIA Director John Brennan. His words were silly, and just the fact that a CIA Director would speak out in that fashion on a domestic political matter told you a big game was being played. CIA Directors simply don’t do that.
The so-called Steele Dossier lacked respectability and believability from the start, and the people who pushed it were insincere. After all, you don’t pay big fees to a private agency like Steele’s if you want reliable confidential information. What are America’s seventeen security agencies in the business of doing? Steele’s private agency resembles an international-intrigue version of a shabby, old-fashioned detective agency, manufacturing dirt for a living. Again, from the statements of various people, it was clear the FBI was involved in the big game.
Now, when senior people from the FBI and the CIA behave the way they did, it can only mean that the president himself is sitting back in approval. It could not happen otherwise. Obama had served the establishment faithfully for eight years and had been richly rewarded for doing so, leaving the White House a man worth tens of millions of dollars after having entered it as a man of fairly ordinary middle-class means.
He was serving the same interests again when Russia-gate was devised and implemented.
The Special Counsel’s Report continued the game to the end. It investigated nothing worth investigating, such as Julian Assange’s receipt of leaks or the death of Seth Rich or a number of other eyebrow-raising events, and it just assumed Russia had been at work in shadowy ways. It looked only for evidence connecting Trump to those shadowy efforts and found none.
As far as calling CNN liberal or Left because of the slant of this or that host or commentator on prospects for the Mueller Report in the months before its publication, that claim is no more accurate than CNN's own reporting is. The hosts’ efforts were just the same cheap trick of juicing things up to sell ad spots for months and months.
The network is not from the political Left, but it has been anti-Trump. Lots of people in the political Center and even a number of traditional, sound conservatives hate Trump and regret his being in office.
And, as we saw with Obama’s CIA and FBI, some who disliked Trump tried to prevent him from ever taking office. That, of course, is a serious matter warranting investigation, but it will never happen. How can you investigate America’s establishment, the power behind the throne? It cannot be done, any more than troops in the field can investigate Pentagon brass.
Virtually the entire American corporate press in the United States has shared the same viewpoint. They are embarrassed by Trump, as they should be. But originally, and far more importantly, they feared a few things that he might attempt as a political maverick, although those are no longer a concern.
Please note that when Trump acts in the establishment’s clear interests, he is supported. And that includes very much activities against Russian and Chinese interests. For America’s establishment, Russia remains the hated thing that it was in 1952. Only the words used and the volume of the rhetoric have changed.
It cannot be overemphasized that the one country that can obliterate the United States - China not quite having arrived at that point, although it is fast approaching it with new weapons such as longer-range ICBMs - and necessarily stands in the way of America’s doing some things, is not going to be warmly embraced by a class of people trying to have their own way with everyone everywhere.
Trump has his own game that he has played, a game of survival. Whether it was ever genuine or just a vote-getter designed for segments of voters, he has abandoned entirely the role of political maverick, one who just might shake-up parts of the establishment. He has become instead its most ardent supporter. He’s noisy, rude, and gauche in the way he does it, but that’s just fine as long as he does the right things.
People will go a long way to get what they want in politics, to accommodate someone they believe will give it to them, a stunning example being Trump’s Christian fundamentalist supporters. They ignore the fact that the man is not a Christian, something usually important to evangelical Christians. They ignore his long record of immoral and treacherous behaviour with everyone from staff and business associates to his wife. They ignore his incessant lying in almost every task he undertakes. They ignore his rudeness and name-calling. They ignore his ready use of threats and violence. They ignore, in other words, much of what their own faith supposedly represents, just so that can obtain a few other things they value highly.
With the power establishment, as with any large group or organization, there are differences within their ranks, but those differences must never be confused with fundamental disagreements. When it comes to what it is that America actually represents today – maintaining or expanding its empire, conducting its colonial wars, supporting the Pentagon generously, never questioning the dirty operations of the CIA, and pursuing deep and destructive involvement in the Middle East – all individuals and parties are united and with no distinctions of liberal or conservative.
Oh, sure, Trump can still be seen as a maverick in his outbursts of outrageous language, but he cannot be seen that way in his actions. And he can be disliked for his words and manners, but words and manners aren’t what count where serious power is concerned. They can be tsk-tsked and effectively tolerated, so long as his actions are in keeping with the order of things, and with Trump, they very much are.
The Middle East remains on fire, hundreds of thousands having died and millions having been made refugees. America’s military and security services get their cups filled to overflowing. The Pentagon and CIA never had it so good. In the case of Obama’s massive extrajudicial killing enterprise with drones and missiles, for example, Trump even told the CIA that it can decide who dies. He doesn’t need to sign-off on “kill lists.” Countries like Venezuela that were under covert assault from Obama for years remain under assault, only the effort is even more intense and out in the open, as is so often the case with Trump. The mess Obama made of Ukraine remains a mess.
Some of the very people Trump has appointed, such as John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, are such loud and crude operators that they make little effort to hide what they do. They are proud of their ugly behavior, the kind of psychopathic behavior we see with serial killers keeping trophies of their victims.
The appointment of those men was directly influenced by the desires of Israel, as expressed through lobbyists and apologists in the United States to whom Trump turned for support against all the hostility he felt working against him. Israel now gets everything it asks for, including violent, unwarranted acts against Iran, and the genuine threat of war. And you don’t find Democrats opposing or criticizing any activities related to Israel. That just never happens.
And now, China very much shares in receiving hatred once mainly reserved for Russia, and that is owing to its new influence and prestige in the world, its increasing military might, its technological advances, its competitiveness, and its new associations with Russia. Those are all bad things in the eyes of people who work aggressively to tighten their hold on the world’s affairs, having experienced an unpleasant sense of impending loss through America’s relative economic decline over recent decades.
As he has amply demonstrated during his last two years in the spotlight, Trump is a loathsome man, a man without ethics or morals, a man of no principle beyond that of self-advancement, and a man without understanding in a great many matters, one who is literally at work disturbing the entire planet. But so long as he is disturbing it in ways that largely coincide with establishment interests, he is under no threat.
CNN has always been pro-establishment. Always been pro-American empire. Always been pro-Pentagon. To call it liberal or Left is absurd, but then much the same is true for any assertions about liberals and leftists in America. There are none. And when a few do appear, they are attacked tirelessly and viciously, as we see right now with a small group of junior Congresswomen.
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“CNN Continues to Implode After RussiaHoax, It's Much Worse Than People Realize
“They're paying the price for lying relentlessly about the RussiaHoax, and a lot of other things”
CNN has always been both incompetent and dishonest.
I haven’t seen it in many years, but I can think of a number of prominent examples from the 1990s or the early 2000s.
As when it ran a truly idiotic piece of fraudulent video about Osama bin Laden’s supposed scientific laboratories in the mountain caves of Afghanistan where he was said to be developing poison agents for use as “weapons of mass destruction.”
It literally was a laughable piece of work by one intelligence outfit or another, and CNN’s using it showed no journalistic integrity or judgment at all. It was just gung-ho support for war.
Osama’s caves were, in fact, primitive, uncomfortable places of refuge and hiding, not fantastic and well-equipped places resembling scenes from Flash Gordon’s 1936 movie serial.
CNN did many such clownish stunts, and not just ones involving foreign affairs. Its work, for example, on the Richard Jewell affair, following the Atlanta Olympics bombing, was about as shabby and worthless as it comes. CNN always tried to fill airtime by spending almost no money or resources. Journalism had almost nothing to do with its activities of filling airtime and selling advertising spots, whose appeal was juiced-up with anything controversial.
For some reason, the network never was seriously attacked, as it is being attacked now, attacked for supposedly being part of the political Left, but CNN’s countless past idiocies had nothing to do with the political Left or Right. They stood on their own.
It seems that only with the failure of Special Counsel Mueller’s report to astonish anyone are CNN’s deficiencies being proclaimed, at least by a certain segment of those concerned with public affairs on the Internet. But of course, Mueller’s investigation was problematic from the start.
What Trump represented for many in America’s establishment had little to do with Russia, although the establishment’s enduring hatred of Russia provided a convenient tool for getting at him. I don’t know, but perhaps the people plotting the efforts against Trump were influenced in their choice of Russia by the fact that, long ago, Trump was helped through some of his real estate messes by Russian oligarchs extending financial assistance. It had nothing to do with politics or election campaigns.
The American public was, after all, brainwashed and harangued - in magazines, books, movies, television shows, speeches, and even prayers - about Russia for decades of the Cold War, and following the collapse of the Soviet Union, no effort was ever made to detoxify a poisoned environment. That environment remains a nurturing place for all things Russo-phobic, Russia-gate being just one example. America’s establishment wants it that way because America’s establishment hates Russia.
You do not have to be a Trump supporter or a conservative to see the fraud in Russia-gate. It has always been pretty clear from the early rhetoric of people like CIA Director John Brennan. His words were silly, and just the fact that a CIA Director would speak out in that fashion on a domestic political matter told you a big game was being played. CIA Directors simply don’t do that.
The so-called Steele Dossier lacked respectability and believability from the start, and the people who pushed it were insincere. After all, you don’t pay big fees to a private agency like Steele’s if you want reliable confidential information. What are America’s seventeen security agencies in the business of doing? Steele’s private agency resembles an international-intrigue version of a shabby, old-fashioned detective agency, manufacturing dirt for a living. Again, from the statements of various people, it was clear the FBI was involved in the big game.
Now, when senior people from the FBI and the CIA behave the way they did, it can only mean that the president himself is sitting back in approval. It could not happen otherwise. Obama had served the establishment faithfully for eight years and had been richly rewarded for doing so, leaving the White House a man worth tens of millions of dollars after having entered it as a man of fairly ordinary middle-class means.
He was serving the same interests again when Russia-gate was devised and implemented.
The Special Counsel’s Report continued the game to the end. It investigated nothing worth investigating, such as Julian Assange’s receipt of leaks or the death of Seth Rich or a number of other eyebrow-raising events, and it just assumed Russia had been at work in shadowy ways. It looked only for evidence connecting Trump to those shadowy efforts and found none.
As far as calling CNN liberal or Left because of the slant of this or that host or commentator on prospects for the Mueller Report in the months before its publication, that claim is no more accurate than CNN's own reporting is. The hosts’ efforts were just the same cheap trick of juicing things up to sell ad spots for months and months.
The network is not from the political Left, but it has been anti-Trump. Lots of people in the political Center and even a number of traditional, sound conservatives hate Trump and regret his being in office.
And, as we saw with Obama’s CIA and FBI, some who disliked Trump tried to prevent him from ever taking office. That, of course, is a serious matter warranting investigation, but it will never happen. How can you investigate America’s establishment, the power behind the throne? It cannot be done, any more than troops in the field can investigate Pentagon brass.
Virtually the entire American corporate press in the United States has shared the same viewpoint. They are embarrassed by Trump, as they should be. But originally, and far more importantly, they feared a few things that he might attempt as a political maverick, although those are no longer a concern.
Please note that when Trump acts in the establishment’s clear interests, he is supported. And that includes very much activities against Russian and Chinese interests. For America’s establishment, Russia remains the hated thing that it was in 1952. Only the words used and the volume of the rhetoric have changed.
It cannot be overemphasized that the one country that can obliterate the United States - China not quite having arrived at that point, although it is fast approaching it with new weapons such as longer-range ICBMs - and necessarily stands in the way of America’s doing some things, is not going to be warmly embraced by a class of people trying to have their own way with everyone everywhere.
Trump has his own game that he has played, a game of survival. Whether it was ever genuine or just a vote-getter designed for segments of voters, he has abandoned entirely the role of political maverick, one who just might shake-up parts of the establishment. He has become instead its most ardent supporter. He’s noisy, rude, and gauche in the way he does it, but that’s just fine as long as he does the right things.
People will go a long way to get what they want in politics, to accommodate someone they believe will give it to them, a stunning example being Trump’s Christian fundamentalist supporters. They ignore the fact that the man is not a Christian, something usually important to evangelical Christians. They ignore his long record of immoral and treacherous behaviour with everyone from staff and business associates to his wife. They ignore his incessant lying in almost every task he undertakes. They ignore his rudeness and name-calling. They ignore his ready use of threats and violence. They ignore, in other words, much of what their own faith supposedly represents, just so that can obtain a few other things they value highly.
With the power establishment, as with any large group or organization, there are differences within their ranks, but those differences must never be confused with fundamental disagreements. When it comes to what it is that America actually represents today – maintaining or expanding its empire, conducting its colonial wars, supporting the Pentagon generously, never questioning the dirty operations of the CIA, and pursuing deep and destructive involvement in the Middle East – all individuals and parties are united and with no distinctions of liberal or conservative.
Oh, sure, Trump can still be seen as a maverick in his outbursts of outrageous language, but he cannot be seen that way in his actions. And he can be disliked for his words and manners, but words and manners aren’t what count where serious power is concerned. They can be tsk-tsked and effectively tolerated, so long as his actions are in keeping with the order of things, and with Trump, they very much are.
The Middle East remains on fire, hundreds of thousands having died and millions having been made refugees. America’s military and security services get their cups filled to overflowing. The Pentagon and CIA never had it so good. In the case of Obama’s massive extrajudicial killing enterprise with drones and missiles, for example, Trump even told the CIA that it can decide who dies. He doesn’t need to sign-off on “kill lists.” Countries like Venezuela that were under covert assault from Obama for years remain under assault, only the effort is even more intense and out in the open, as is so often the case with Trump. The mess Obama made of Ukraine remains a mess.
Some of the very people Trump has appointed, such as John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, are such loud and crude operators that they make little effort to hide what they do. They are proud of their ugly behavior, the kind of psychopathic behavior we see with serial killers keeping trophies of their victims.
The appointment of those men was directly influenced by the desires of Israel, as expressed through lobbyists and apologists in the United States to whom Trump turned for support against all the hostility he felt working against him. Israel now gets everything it asks for, including violent, unwarranted acts against Iran, and the genuine threat of war. And you don’t find Democrats opposing or criticizing any activities related to Israel. That just never happens.
And now, China very much shares in receiving hatred once mainly reserved for Russia, and that is owing to its new influence and prestige in the world, its increasing military might, its technological advances, its competitiveness, and its new associations with Russia. Those are all bad things in the eyes of people who work aggressively to tighten their hold on the world’s affairs, having experienced an unpleasant sense of impending loss through America’s relative economic decline over recent decades.
As he has amply demonstrated during his last two years in the spotlight, Trump is a loathsome man, a man without ethics or morals, a man of no principle beyond that of self-advancement, and a man without understanding in a great many matters, one who is literally at work disturbing the entire planet. But so long as he is disturbing it in ways that largely coincide with establishment interests, he is under no threat.
CNN has always been pro-establishment. Always been pro-American empire. Always been pro-Pentagon. To call it liberal or Left is absurd, but then much the same is true for any assertions about liberals and leftists in America. There are none. And when a few do appear, they are attacked tirelessly and viciously, as we see right now with a small group of junior Congresswomen.
Monday, July 15, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: KILLING WOMEN AND CHILDREN - THE ORWELLIAN MEANING OF "FREEDOM" IN AMERICA.
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DANIEL LARISO IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Empire’s Sanctions Are Now Driving Venezuela Toward Famine
“The country grows only a third of its food, and oil sanctions will cost it 94 percent of what it spent on imports last year”
It's terrible, but of course it is nothing new for America.
It hurts and kills women and children in a number of places, by one means or another. Sanctions always hurt the defenseless. That's just how they work.
Yemen. Syria. Iran. Libya. Somalia. Gaza (where it does nothing to rein-in the vicious settlers of its Mideast colony).
I'm sure the child victims of massive American bombing in Vietnam and in North Korea numbered in the tens of thousands.
And recall the ghastly horror of Iraq in the period after the First Gulf War and before the final invasion.
There were Madeleine Albright's unforgettable Nazi-like words in a television interview when asked about the thousands of kids dying in Iraq under an extreme American embargo, "We think it's worth it."
You know, she was awarded the "Presidential Medal of Freedom" for her distinguished efforts at the State Department, like Vice president Joe Biden, whose big achievement was getting America's industrial-scale extrajudicial killing program going.
"Freedom" has a genuinely Orwellian meaning in the United States.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DANIEL LARISO IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Empire’s Sanctions Are Now Driving Venezuela Toward Famine
“The country grows only a third of its food, and oil sanctions will cost it 94 percent of what it spent on imports last year”
It's terrible, but of course it is nothing new for America.
It hurts and kills women and children in a number of places, by one means or another. Sanctions always hurt the defenseless. That's just how they work.
Yemen. Syria. Iran. Libya. Somalia. Gaza (where it does nothing to rein-in the vicious settlers of its Mideast colony).
I'm sure the child victims of massive American bombing in Vietnam and in North Korea numbered in the tens of thousands.
And recall the ghastly horror of Iraq in the period after the First Gulf War and before the final invasion.
There were Madeleine Albright's unforgettable Nazi-like words in a television interview when asked about the thousands of kids dying in Iraq under an extreme American embargo, "We think it's worth it."
You know, she was awarded the "Presidential Medal of Freedom" for her distinguished efforts at the State Department, like Vice president Joe Biden, whose big achievement was getting America's industrial-scale extrajudicial killing program going.
"Freedom" has a genuinely Orwellian meaning in the United States.
Sunday, July 14, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: STILL MORE REVELATIONS IN LEAKS FROM THE CONFIDENTIAL NOTES OF BRITAIN'S RECENT FORMER AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES - MORE CHARACTERIZATIONS OF TRUMP BUT I THINK THEY CONTAIN A SERIOUS MISJUDGMENT ABOUT TRUMP'S MOTIVES CONCERNING IRAN
John Chuckman
COMMENT ON STILL MORE LEAKS FROM FORMER BRITISH AMBASSADOR KIM DARROCH’S CONFIDENTIAL NOTES TO HIS GOVERNMENT
We have today yet more revelations in leaked documents written as advisory notes to the British government by Sir Kim Darroch, its recent former Ambassador to the United States.
Darroch called Trump’s tearing-up of the Iran nuclear agreement an act of “diplomatic vandalism.” Now, that is a characterization completely on the mark. It is difficult to see what anyone would even find objectionable in it, beyond the fact of its being leaked by someone unknown.
After all, every government in Western Europe and other major states like Russia and China and major world organizations publicly expressed their opposition to Trump’s rash action. All agreed that Iran had kept to its commitments and that the agreement had worked well for about four years.
Darroch went on to explain that tearing up the agreement was done to spite his predecessor, Barack Obama.
Yes, there is no question Trump has been out to destroy or undo everything that he can that was ever done by Barack Obama. He literally hates the man. We’ve seen that in a number of matters, including Obamacare.
But there is another reason for Trump’s dangerous blundering in Iran, a far more powerful one, one completely ignored by Darroch. I’ll come back to it after a few more words about Trump’s loathing for Obama.
I do believe Trump’s hatred for Obama is deeply tinged with racism. I can see no other explanation for it. There simply are no genuine liberal qualities in Obama for anyone on the political right to dislike, but there is the glaring fact of his being the first black president.
No one, examining the record of Obama’s eight years as president, can sensibly accuse him of being a liberal. In anything, except in the occasional vacuous and soon forgotten political speech. I know the Alt-right press regards Obama as a liberal, one of the most hated ever, but it’s a silly accusation from some extreme people. And that crowd, if you read through their stuff on the Internet, oozes with racism.
Obama led eight years of ugly American colonial wars, from invading Libya to getting the endless horrors of Syria going. From secretly supporting a coup to overthrow Egypt’s first-ever democratic government, one to which Israel had taken serious objection, to staging a coup against an elected government in Ukraine and pitching that country into turmoil, including civil war, all for the sake of intimidating Russia. From increasing ugly pressures on Venezuela to starting the tanks rolling up against Russia’s borders, there is no liberalism to be found in Obama’s activities abroad.
At home, we find the same thing. How can a man be regarded as liberal who passed no significant social legislation? And he did absolutely nothing to help his own people, the people to whom he appealed in the rhythms of a black preacher reciting the slogan, “Yes, we can!” He did nothing for the squalid, broken-down realities of vast stretches of urban America. His Obamacare legislation was a nasty, confusing, corporate-serving piece of work that a liberal can find just as hateful as a right-winger.
Further, Obama also did almost nothing to reform a financial system badly in need of reform, a system that had created a disastrous world-affecting financial crash. He signed off on all major military and security legislation. He actually started the shameful American system of extrajudicial killing abroad by hi-tech drone. And it was under Obama that the secretive NSA began expanding into an information-sucking monstrosity with its new constellation of secret buildings packed with super-computers and spying on literally everyone and everything.
Trump’s activities in Iran are about Israel’s interests, as they are communicated and pressed through the many channels of the American Israel lobby. Trump felt afraid and vulnerable about the future of his office at one period, and he turned to some extremely wealthy American oligarchs for support and money. These were men whose most burning concern is Israel, and several of them are on intimate terms with Netanyahu.
I am sure Trump got the support he sought, but all such support comes at a price. Trump’s price is readily seen in a whole series of acts, from putting the American Embassy into Jerusalem to recognizing Israel’s illegal annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights. From appointing a series of extremely ideologically committed men, genuinely fanatical men, like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo to important posts to slashing support for a number of organizations whose work in any way supported the Palestinians.
It’s been a dramatic wave of events over a short period, and they reflect no authentic interests of the United States, and they certainly have nothing to do with Obama. They all increase tensions and hostilities and commit the United States to ignoring the rule of law. Matters in Iran are part and parcel of that activity.
Netanyahu has made years of insane claims about Iran and the security of Israel, all of them groundless, none of them supported by any evidence, and, indeed, in a number of cases, being directly contradicted by solid evidence. But he just continues his harangues and crusade against a country that has started absolutely no conflicts in its modern era, a fact, as it happens, totally the opposite of Israel’s own record of close-to continuous war.
Netanyahu has long wanted Iran to be hurt or reduced for the temerity of having some influence in the Middle East. Israel wants all of that influence with no one around to in any way oppose or question it. Netanyahu was intensely busy in just the same way during Obama’s time, but Obama ignored him, which is the only way he ever achieved the nuclear agreement.
Netanyahu also, like Trump, has a deep dislike for Obama. He showed this openly a number of times, coming close to expressions of public contempt. I assume his hatred is based on Obama’s ignoring him over Iran largely, although racism, too, could well play a role. Netanyahu’s Israel has been extremely hostile to black Jews from Africa and to black refugee claims. Netanyahu actually had a scheme to bribe some distant African states to take refugees off Israel’s hands.
At any rate, the shared distaste for Obama only makes the same years-old job of selling the threat Iran is supposed to represent, and there’s no need to sell it to those American oligarchs to whom Trump desperately turned for political help. They are onboard with about every outrageous claim Netanyahu ever made.
We should note that that nuclear agreement was signed by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and the United States - plus Germany and the European Union. They all still strongly support it, except, of course, for Donald Trump’s United States. Everyone, except Netanyahu’s Israel and Trump’s United States, agrees that it is a solid agreement and that Iran has conscientiously followed its obligations. All international technical experts and inspectors support that view too.
But along comes Trump suddenly to toss the agreement to the wind, ignoring everyone else. The only people with input and support for his rash behavior are Netanyahu and Trump’s American oligarch political supporters, close friends of Netanyahu.
Essentially, what we have is a man, Trump, who, in the interest of his campaign war chest for the 2020 election or against any attempt at his impeachment before that, is putting the entire world at risk of a serious war. He is threatening and economically crushing a law-abiding nation of more than eighty million souls for no other reason. Millions of ordinary Iranians are hurt by his severe and unwarranted sanctions. As is always the case with sanctions, they hurt mainly ordinary people. They are a blunt instrument, much like massive bombing.
COMMENT ON STILL MORE LEAKS FROM FORMER BRITISH AMBASSADOR KIM DARROCH’S CONFIDENTIAL NOTES TO HIS GOVERNMENT
We have today yet more revelations in leaked documents written as advisory notes to the British government by Sir Kim Darroch, its recent former Ambassador to the United States.
Darroch called Trump’s tearing-up of the Iran nuclear agreement an act of “diplomatic vandalism.” Now, that is a characterization completely on the mark. It is difficult to see what anyone would even find objectionable in it, beyond the fact of its being leaked by someone unknown.
After all, every government in Western Europe and other major states like Russia and China and major world organizations publicly expressed their opposition to Trump’s rash action. All agreed that Iran had kept to its commitments and that the agreement had worked well for about four years.
Darroch went on to explain that tearing up the agreement was done to spite his predecessor, Barack Obama.
Yes, there is no question Trump has been out to destroy or undo everything that he can that was ever done by Barack Obama. He literally hates the man. We’ve seen that in a number of matters, including Obamacare.
But there is another reason for Trump’s dangerous blundering in Iran, a far more powerful one, one completely ignored by Darroch. I’ll come back to it after a few more words about Trump’s loathing for Obama.
I do believe Trump’s hatred for Obama is deeply tinged with racism. I can see no other explanation for it. There simply are no genuine liberal qualities in Obama for anyone on the political right to dislike, but there is the glaring fact of his being the first black president.
No one, examining the record of Obama’s eight years as president, can sensibly accuse him of being a liberal. In anything, except in the occasional vacuous and soon forgotten political speech. I know the Alt-right press regards Obama as a liberal, one of the most hated ever, but it’s a silly accusation from some extreme people. And that crowd, if you read through their stuff on the Internet, oozes with racism.
Obama led eight years of ugly American colonial wars, from invading Libya to getting the endless horrors of Syria going. From secretly supporting a coup to overthrow Egypt’s first-ever democratic government, one to which Israel had taken serious objection, to staging a coup against an elected government in Ukraine and pitching that country into turmoil, including civil war, all for the sake of intimidating Russia. From increasing ugly pressures on Venezuela to starting the tanks rolling up against Russia’s borders, there is no liberalism to be found in Obama’s activities abroad.
At home, we find the same thing. How can a man be regarded as liberal who passed no significant social legislation? And he did absolutely nothing to help his own people, the people to whom he appealed in the rhythms of a black preacher reciting the slogan, “Yes, we can!” He did nothing for the squalid, broken-down realities of vast stretches of urban America. His Obamacare legislation was a nasty, confusing, corporate-serving piece of work that a liberal can find just as hateful as a right-winger.
Further, Obama also did almost nothing to reform a financial system badly in need of reform, a system that had created a disastrous world-affecting financial crash. He signed off on all major military and security legislation. He actually started the shameful American system of extrajudicial killing abroad by hi-tech drone. And it was under Obama that the secretive NSA began expanding into an information-sucking monstrosity with its new constellation of secret buildings packed with super-computers and spying on literally everyone and everything.
Trump’s activities in Iran are about Israel’s interests, as they are communicated and pressed through the many channels of the American Israel lobby. Trump felt afraid and vulnerable about the future of his office at one period, and he turned to some extremely wealthy American oligarchs for support and money. These were men whose most burning concern is Israel, and several of them are on intimate terms with Netanyahu.
I am sure Trump got the support he sought, but all such support comes at a price. Trump’s price is readily seen in a whole series of acts, from putting the American Embassy into Jerusalem to recognizing Israel’s illegal annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights. From appointing a series of extremely ideologically committed men, genuinely fanatical men, like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo to important posts to slashing support for a number of organizations whose work in any way supported the Palestinians.
It’s been a dramatic wave of events over a short period, and they reflect no authentic interests of the United States, and they certainly have nothing to do with Obama. They all increase tensions and hostilities and commit the United States to ignoring the rule of law. Matters in Iran are part and parcel of that activity.
Netanyahu has made years of insane claims about Iran and the security of Israel, all of them groundless, none of them supported by any evidence, and, indeed, in a number of cases, being directly contradicted by solid evidence. But he just continues his harangues and crusade against a country that has started absolutely no conflicts in its modern era, a fact, as it happens, totally the opposite of Israel’s own record of close-to continuous war.
Netanyahu has long wanted Iran to be hurt or reduced for the temerity of having some influence in the Middle East. Israel wants all of that influence with no one around to in any way oppose or question it. Netanyahu was intensely busy in just the same way during Obama’s time, but Obama ignored him, which is the only way he ever achieved the nuclear agreement.
Netanyahu also, like Trump, has a deep dislike for Obama. He showed this openly a number of times, coming close to expressions of public contempt. I assume his hatred is based on Obama’s ignoring him over Iran largely, although racism, too, could well play a role. Netanyahu’s Israel has been extremely hostile to black Jews from Africa and to black refugee claims. Netanyahu actually had a scheme to bribe some distant African states to take refugees off Israel’s hands.
At any rate, the shared distaste for Obama only makes the same years-old job of selling the threat Iran is supposed to represent, and there’s no need to sell it to those American oligarchs to whom Trump desperately turned for political help. They are onboard with about every outrageous claim Netanyahu ever made.
We should note that that nuclear agreement was signed by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and the United States - plus Germany and the European Union. They all still strongly support it, except, of course, for Donald Trump’s United States. Everyone, except Netanyahu’s Israel and Trump’s United States, agrees that it is a solid agreement and that Iran has conscientiously followed its obligations. All international technical experts and inspectors support that view too.
But along comes Trump suddenly to toss the agreement to the wind, ignoring everyone else. The only people with input and support for his rash behavior are Netanyahu and Trump’s American oligarch political supporters, close friends of Netanyahu.
Essentially, what we have is a man, Trump, who, in the interest of his campaign war chest for the 2020 election or against any attempt at his impeachment before that, is putting the entire world at risk of a serious war. He is threatening and economically crushing a law-abiding nation of more than eighty million souls for no other reason. Millions of ordinary Iranians are hurt by his severe and unwarranted sanctions. As is always the case with sanctions, they hurt mainly ordinary people. They are a blunt instrument, much like massive bombing.
Saturday, July 13, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WHAT EVERY CANADIAN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT CANADA'S FOREIGN MINISTER, CHRYSTIA FREELAND - AND WHAT JUSTIN TRUDEAU'S SAD LEGACY AS PRIME MINISTER WILL BE
John Chuckman
COMMENT ON WHAT EVERY CANADIAN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT CHRYSTIA FREELAND
The following recent revelations are things of which every Canadian should be aware:
‘The US State Department boasted in a declassified memo in March 2017 that Canada had adopted an “America first” foreign policy.
‘The cable was authored just weeks after the centrist government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Chrystia Freeland as foreign minister.
‘The State Department added that Trudeau had promoted Freeland “in large part because of her strong U.S. contacts,” and that her “number one priority” was working closely with Washington.’
While I hadn't seen the reference before, I had concluded as much just from the actions of Chrystia Freeland and Justin Trudeau, but there is nothing quite like cold, hard facts from an important source.
Justin Trudeau is a rather weak and inept leader, not overly bright, qualities he has demonstrated an embarrassing number of times. His success in the last national election depended on handsome looks, a smile, rather overly-precious Millennialist attitudes, and a famous name. Name recognition in politics is something as important as it is in sales of dish soap.
It didn’t hurt, too, that his main opponent was someone Canadians had grown pretty tired of after a long run, Conservative Stephen Harper, a man whose government was more right-wing than anything Canada experienced in its modern history.
Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre, was one of the most memorable and independent-minded leaders Canada ever had, and, decades later, the name has resonance for many Canadians. A lawyer with a Jesuitical mind and a politician of many substantial achievements, including effectively opposing such terrible American policies as those against Cuba and that creating a holocaust in Vietnam.
There’s an old saying about strong fathers often having weak sons. I am not sure that I subscribe to it, but this is an instance that couldn’t be clearer.
Justin's weakness means he depends a great deal on the unpleasant Freeland. She is definitely quite bright and far more hard-nosed than he is. He is photographed with her more than with any other minister. However, history is loaded with examples which tell us that brightness is no defense against evil.
It's pretty obvious with every word coming from her mouth where her loyalties are, and they very much are not with the values that gave Canada its international reputation in the 20th century. The values of Pierre Trudeau, Lester Pearson, Jean Chrétien, and Paul Martin have been put away in on the shelves of an unused closet to be forgotten.
After all, Freeland’s previous big job was as an editor for Reuters News Agency. That requires brightness, but it very much requires something else. Reuters had a reputation right through the Cold War of being in the CIA’s hip pocket, of being one of a number of journalistic outlets it used for “getting stuff out there,” the stuff being suggestions, slants, propaganda, and disinformation.
In those Cold War days, of course, “the stuff” was largely against the former Soviet Union, but do we observe in American society, and in that of Western Europe under America’s intense influence, any real change? They use different words now, but the intent is much the same.
The USSR and the Red Army and the Soviet Empire have long disappeared, so we don’t hear about “commies” and “Reds,” very common words in the 1950s and 1960s, but we still receive daily tales about Russian influence and Russian interference and even Russian aggression.
Russophobia has replaced the old anti-commie stuff, and how very easy it was to make the replacement. After all, America went through decades of what can only be called the bitterest, most hateful cult campaign during the Cold War, and nothing has ever been done to exorcise that awful spirit.
None of the accusations about Russia today ever come with evidence or even serious analysis. Indeed, sources of clear evidence are ignored. For example, no one in Washington has ever even tried to interview Julian Assange about where the 2016 WikiLeaks material on the Democratic Party came from.
We know from world-class experts outside of government that the material was not hacked, by Russia or anyone else, that it was a straightforward leak of copied material from someone with inside access. But what we hear from the corporate press and politicians are constant variations on the themes of Russian hacking and Russian interference in elections.
It’s especially annoying for those who make an effort to be informed because the accusation comes from the world’s greatest meddler in the affairs of other states, the United States, a nation which very much goes beyond simple meddling to open threats and violent overthrows and black operations regularly.
All of the Russia “stuff” represents a constant effort to “poison the well” of public opinion. There’s an old principle in political and corporate marketing, “Throw enough crap at the wall, and some of it will stick.” That, truly, is the level on which the capital establishment of the world’s most powerful country works. It’s pathetic and repulsive at the same time.
For America’s establishment, Russia has long represented “Carthago delenda es” simply because it was the only country capable of totally destroying the United States. China, with its new wealth and increasing military capacity has joined the same rank.
Well, if you have heard Washington on Russia or China or Syria or Venezuela or Iran or Saudi Arabia, there’s no need to waste time listening to Freeland. She is saying the same things, only with less bluster and overt harshness, a delivery calculated to appeal to another market segment, if you will.
It has been disturbing to see. I do blame Trudeau because he should have known he was too weak and lacking in hard skills to be a national leader when the Liberal Party insiders tried luring him from his previous career as school drama teacher with other stints as camp counselor and snow-board instructor.
He put off the decision a while, a fact which leads me to conclude he had his own private doubts, and how could he not, given the things we’ve seen, not just in foreign policy but in domestic affairs and horrific, embarrassing blunders on trips abroad, as on his one to India. He literally made a fool of himself.
But the Party insiders were determined to get him because of the magical name. They won him over and did win the election, but what a mistake. Here’s an example of a win in seats in Parliament which literally represents a loss for the nation.
You see, with someone like Conservative Stephen Harper in office, we expect complete subservience to American interests, but the Liberal Party has long represented something else. A number of its more capable leaders have given Canadians something of which to be proud. But Justin Trudeau, and his Igor-like assistant, Chrystia Freeland, have suffocated that tradition.
Trudeau is likely to lose the next election in October, so frequent have been the scandals and embarrassments coming from his efforts to play leader. The Conservatives have no alternative who will change Canadian foreign policy, and our third major party, the NDP, which has sometimes come up with remarkable leaders, has let us down with an extremely weak choice.
So, the net effect of Justin Trudeau’s time in office will have been the removal of even a touch of independence in Canada’s foreign affairs, one of the substantial things his party represented for decades.
For those concerned about a world where one nation, one with less than five per cent of the world’s population, claims the right to tell almost every other nation and every international organization what it is to do, one that claims the right to apply its own domestic, narrow-interest legislation as though it had international legitimacy, one that even interferes at the level of telling other nations what to buy and where to buy it, it is distressing to have Chrystia Freeland representing Canada to the world.
Her behavior in office diminishes Canada and the fine reputation it enjoyed over much of the 20th century. And what can I say about the Prime Minister who put her in that position, one who frequently makes a public fool of himself while supporting her in activities like trying to help the United States overthrow a democratic government in Venezuela or echoing Washington’s ugly name-calling of Russia or Iran or getting Canada mired in a completely-avoidable ugly mess with China?
AFTERNOTE:
Here is a very perceptive discussion of Chrystia Freeland and what she represents, one written some months after my comments:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/11/26/freelands-new-role-as-deputy-prime-minister-puts-2nd-command-titanic/
COMMENT ON WHAT EVERY CANADIAN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT CHRYSTIA FREELAND
The following recent revelations are things of which every Canadian should be aware:
‘The US State Department boasted in a declassified memo in March 2017 that Canada had adopted an “America first” foreign policy.
‘The cable was authored just weeks after the centrist government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Chrystia Freeland as foreign minister.
‘The State Department added that Trudeau had promoted Freeland “in large part because of her strong U.S. contacts,” and that her “number one priority” was working closely with Washington.’
While I hadn't seen the reference before, I had concluded as much just from the actions of Chrystia Freeland and Justin Trudeau, but there is nothing quite like cold, hard facts from an important source.
Justin Trudeau is a rather weak and inept leader, not overly bright, qualities he has demonstrated an embarrassing number of times. His success in the last national election depended on handsome looks, a smile, rather overly-precious Millennialist attitudes, and a famous name. Name recognition in politics is something as important as it is in sales of dish soap.
It didn’t hurt, too, that his main opponent was someone Canadians had grown pretty tired of after a long run, Conservative Stephen Harper, a man whose government was more right-wing than anything Canada experienced in its modern history.
Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre, was one of the most memorable and independent-minded leaders Canada ever had, and, decades later, the name has resonance for many Canadians. A lawyer with a Jesuitical mind and a politician of many substantial achievements, including effectively opposing such terrible American policies as those against Cuba and that creating a holocaust in Vietnam.
There’s an old saying about strong fathers often having weak sons. I am not sure that I subscribe to it, but this is an instance that couldn’t be clearer.
Justin's weakness means he depends a great deal on the unpleasant Freeland. She is definitely quite bright and far more hard-nosed than he is. He is photographed with her more than with any other minister. However, history is loaded with examples which tell us that brightness is no defense against evil.
It's pretty obvious with every word coming from her mouth where her loyalties are, and they very much are not with the values that gave Canada its international reputation in the 20th century. The values of Pierre Trudeau, Lester Pearson, Jean Chrétien, and Paul Martin have been put away in on the shelves of an unused closet to be forgotten.
After all, Freeland’s previous big job was as an editor for Reuters News Agency. That requires brightness, but it very much requires something else. Reuters had a reputation right through the Cold War of being in the CIA’s hip pocket, of being one of a number of journalistic outlets it used for “getting stuff out there,” the stuff being suggestions, slants, propaganda, and disinformation.
In those Cold War days, of course, “the stuff” was largely against the former Soviet Union, but do we observe in American society, and in that of Western Europe under America’s intense influence, any real change? They use different words now, but the intent is much the same.
The USSR and the Red Army and the Soviet Empire have long disappeared, so we don’t hear about “commies” and “Reds,” very common words in the 1950s and 1960s, but we still receive daily tales about Russian influence and Russian interference and even Russian aggression.
Russophobia has replaced the old anti-commie stuff, and how very easy it was to make the replacement. After all, America went through decades of what can only be called the bitterest, most hateful cult campaign during the Cold War, and nothing has ever been done to exorcise that awful spirit.
None of the accusations about Russia today ever come with evidence or even serious analysis. Indeed, sources of clear evidence are ignored. For example, no one in Washington has ever even tried to interview Julian Assange about where the 2016 WikiLeaks material on the Democratic Party came from.
We know from world-class experts outside of government that the material was not hacked, by Russia or anyone else, that it was a straightforward leak of copied material from someone with inside access. But what we hear from the corporate press and politicians are constant variations on the themes of Russian hacking and Russian interference in elections.
It’s especially annoying for those who make an effort to be informed because the accusation comes from the world’s greatest meddler in the affairs of other states, the United States, a nation which very much goes beyond simple meddling to open threats and violent overthrows and black operations regularly.
All of the Russia “stuff” represents a constant effort to “poison the well” of public opinion. There’s an old principle in political and corporate marketing, “Throw enough crap at the wall, and some of it will stick.” That, truly, is the level on which the capital establishment of the world’s most powerful country works. It’s pathetic and repulsive at the same time.
For America’s establishment, Russia has long represented “Carthago delenda es” simply because it was the only country capable of totally destroying the United States. China, with its new wealth and increasing military capacity has joined the same rank.
Well, if you have heard Washington on Russia or China or Syria or Venezuela or Iran or Saudi Arabia, there’s no need to waste time listening to Freeland. She is saying the same things, only with less bluster and overt harshness, a delivery calculated to appeal to another market segment, if you will.
It has been disturbing to see. I do blame Trudeau because he should have known he was too weak and lacking in hard skills to be a national leader when the Liberal Party insiders tried luring him from his previous career as school drama teacher with other stints as camp counselor and snow-board instructor.
He put off the decision a while, a fact which leads me to conclude he had his own private doubts, and how could he not, given the things we’ve seen, not just in foreign policy but in domestic affairs and horrific, embarrassing blunders on trips abroad, as on his one to India. He literally made a fool of himself.
But the Party insiders were determined to get him because of the magical name. They won him over and did win the election, but what a mistake. Here’s an example of a win in seats in Parliament which literally represents a loss for the nation.
You see, with someone like Conservative Stephen Harper in office, we expect complete subservience to American interests, but the Liberal Party has long represented something else. A number of its more capable leaders have given Canadians something of which to be proud. But Justin Trudeau, and his Igor-like assistant, Chrystia Freeland, have suffocated that tradition.
Trudeau is likely to lose the next election in October, so frequent have been the scandals and embarrassments coming from his efforts to play leader. The Conservatives have no alternative who will change Canadian foreign policy, and our third major party, the NDP, which has sometimes come up with remarkable leaders, has let us down with an extremely weak choice.
So, the net effect of Justin Trudeau’s time in office will have been the removal of even a touch of independence in Canada’s foreign affairs, one of the substantial things his party represented for decades.
For those concerned about a world where one nation, one with less than five per cent of the world’s population, claims the right to tell almost every other nation and every international organization what it is to do, one that claims the right to apply its own domestic, narrow-interest legislation as though it had international legitimacy, one that even interferes at the level of telling other nations what to buy and where to buy it, it is distressing to have Chrystia Freeland representing Canada to the world.
Her behavior in office diminishes Canada and the fine reputation it enjoyed over much of the 20th century. And what can I say about the Prime Minister who put her in that position, one who frequently makes a public fool of himself while supporting her in activities like trying to help the United States overthrow a democratic government in Venezuela or echoing Washington’s ugly name-calling of Russia or Iran or getting Canada mired in a completely-avoidable ugly mess with China?
AFTERNOTE:
Here is a very perceptive discussion of Chrystia Freeland and what she represents, one written some months after my comments:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/11/26/freelands-new-role-as-deputy-prime-minister-puts-2nd-command-titanic/
Thursday, July 11, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BRITAIN'S KIM DARROCH AFFAIR - A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TAKE - SOMETHING WHICH PROVIDES INSIGHT INTO OUR MANUFACTURED WORLD OF NEWS - DONALD TRUMP AS THE EMPEROR WITH NO CLOTHES ON
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CRAIG MURRAY IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The Simple Explanation for the Betrayal of Britain’s Envoy
“Craig Murray has a strong hunch about why someone would leak Kim Darroch’s scathing comments about Trump”
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/07/10/the-simple-explanation-for-the-betrayal-of-britains-envoy/?unapproved=374384&moderation-hash=9e2db8191c3309ba52faed708becf841#comment-374384
Very interesting little article.
The portrait here of Kim Darroch is so different than what we see in the mainline British press, it is actually a bit startling.
His newspaper portrait in Britain, at least in the press I read, is of an extremely able man, a classy diplomat.
But what we have here is a kind of British Trump, a crude loud-mouth and abusive man.
This is a terrific example of how a story can be made to appear almost unrecognizably different.
The truth? I am not sure when it comes to government and foreign policy anymore we ever get any truth.
Deception and misrepresentation are the norms simply because governments like those of the United States and Britain are engaged full-time in so many dark imperial projects all over the world.
The people never voted for much of what is being done in their name and might well not support much of it, if only they knew.
I'm afraid this is just one more fragment of evidence - along with such matters as what really has happened in Syria, what really is going on with Iran, why the United States never acts to rein in Israel and impose a fair settlement, day-and-night Russophobia, the assault on China, and so much more - telling us what a dreamworld we now live in. Perhaps “nightmare” is a more fitting word than “dream.”
Almost nothing in our press and from our politicians is real anymore. There's an entire world of government activity that goes unreported and unexamined. If one insists on using the unattractive term “fake news,” – unattractive because of the class of people who regularly use it - its main application should be to Western governments.
Obviously, under such circumstances, references to "democracy" or even "democratic" are meaningless. The people are simply not aware of what their "elected" governments are doing.
Whatever Kim Darroch’s character really is and whatever the motivation for someone leaking his embarrassing past confidential observations of Donald Trump, the observations, of course, remain valid. We know that from the best possible source, our own regular observations.
Trump is indeed an emperor without any clothes. An embarrassingly obvious man in his words and acts. But, as with so many things in Washington, you are really not allowed to say that.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CRAIG MURRAY IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The Simple Explanation for the Betrayal of Britain’s Envoy
“Craig Murray has a strong hunch about why someone would leak Kim Darroch’s scathing comments about Trump”
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/07/10/the-simple-explanation-for-the-betrayal-of-britains-envoy/?unapproved=374384&moderation-hash=9e2db8191c3309ba52faed708becf841#comment-374384
Very interesting little article.
The portrait here of Kim Darroch is so different than what we see in the mainline British press, it is actually a bit startling.
His newspaper portrait in Britain, at least in the press I read, is of an extremely able man, a classy diplomat.
But what we have here is a kind of British Trump, a crude loud-mouth and abusive man.
This is a terrific example of how a story can be made to appear almost unrecognizably different.
The truth? I am not sure when it comes to government and foreign policy anymore we ever get any truth.
Deception and misrepresentation are the norms simply because governments like those of the United States and Britain are engaged full-time in so many dark imperial projects all over the world.
The people never voted for much of what is being done in their name and might well not support much of it, if only they knew.
I'm afraid this is just one more fragment of evidence - along with such matters as what really has happened in Syria, what really is going on with Iran, why the United States never acts to rein in Israel and impose a fair settlement, day-and-night Russophobia, the assault on China, and so much more - telling us what a dreamworld we now live in. Perhaps “nightmare” is a more fitting word than “dream.”
Almost nothing in our press and from our politicians is real anymore. There's an entire world of government activity that goes unreported and unexamined. If one insists on using the unattractive term “fake news,” – unattractive because of the class of people who regularly use it - its main application should be to Western governments.
Obviously, under such circumstances, references to "democracy" or even "democratic" are meaningless. The people are simply not aware of what their "elected" governments are doing.
Whatever Kim Darroch’s character really is and whatever the motivation for someone leaking his embarrassing past confidential observations of Donald Trump, the observations, of course, remain valid. We know that from the best possible source, our own regular observations.
Trump is indeed an emperor without any clothes. An embarrassingly obvious man in his words and acts. But, as with so many things in Washington, you are really not allowed to say that.
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SHOCK AND AWE AND ENDURING SHAME - THE EFFORT TO RECLAIM THE MANY ANTIQUITIES LOOTED FROM IRAQ AFTER AMERICA'S INVASION - BUT MANY IRREPLACEABLE ANTIQUITIES FROM THIS CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION AS IMPORTANT AS ANCIENT EGYPT WERE DESTROYED TOO THANKS TO RECKLESS AMERICAN BEHAVIOR
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY RICHARD HALL IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Inside the hunt for Iraq’s looted treasures
“Decades of war and instability made Iraq a thief’s paradise”
I wish Wafaa Hassan the very best in her efforts to reclaim stolen antiquities. She seems extremely able and dedicated.
I do think, though, the writer’s sentence about “decades of war,” whether intended to do so or not, softens responsibility for what happened. It was right in the wake of the American invasion that the worst savageries swept Iraqi museums.
It was a time when normal Iraqi society and supervision of institutions had been scattered to the winds. Remember how the Pentagon promised that it would produce, “shock and awe” in Iraq? And it did, with no provision made to protect one of the world’s greatest collections of irreplaceable ancient treasures.
The mindless looting and destruction of Iraq's antiquities was a highly disturbing addition to the invasion.
One of the things Saddam had been quite good at doing was preserving Iraq's archeology and art. He made a huge state effort, and many wondrous ancient things were in Iraq’s museums and at its many preserved and restored ancient sites.
Iraq was one of the great early centers of human civilization, one just as important as ancient Egypt.
All of its surviving archeology and art had been cared for and organized to foster study and scholarship.
It was simply disgraceful the way the invaders allowed so many important things to be destroyed and stolen.
While the stolen items may be recovered eventually through the work being done in Iraq, the large amount of material wantonly destroyed cannot be. It truly smacked of "the barbarians at the gates."
But then what can one say about an illegal invasion which ended up killing at least a million people and reduced what was in many ways the Arab world’s most advanced society to piteous ruins, ruins where clean water and electricity and employment would disappear for years.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY RICHARD HALL IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Inside the hunt for Iraq’s looted treasures
“Decades of war and instability made Iraq a thief’s paradise”
I wish Wafaa Hassan the very best in her efforts to reclaim stolen antiquities. She seems extremely able and dedicated.
I do think, though, the writer’s sentence about “decades of war,” whether intended to do so or not, softens responsibility for what happened. It was right in the wake of the American invasion that the worst savageries swept Iraqi museums.
It was a time when normal Iraqi society and supervision of institutions had been scattered to the winds. Remember how the Pentagon promised that it would produce, “shock and awe” in Iraq? And it did, with no provision made to protect one of the world’s greatest collections of irreplaceable ancient treasures.
The mindless looting and destruction of Iraq's antiquities was a highly disturbing addition to the invasion.
One of the things Saddam had been quite good at doing was preserving Iraq's archeology and art. He made a huge state effort, and many wondrous ancient things were in Iraq’s museums and at its many preserved and restored ancient sites.
Iraq was one of the great early centers of human civilization, one just as important as ancient Egypt.
All of its surviving archeology and art had been cared for and organized to foster study and scholarship.
It was simply disgraceful the way the invaders allowed so many important things to be destroyed and stolen.
While the stolen items may be recovered eventually through the work being done in Iraq, the large amount of material wantonly destroyed cannot be. It truly smacked of "the barbarians at the gates."
But then what can one say about an illegal invasion which ended up killing at least a million people and reduced what was in many ways the Arab world’s most advanced society to piteous ruins, ruins where clean water and electricity and employment would disappear for years.
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