JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: INTERDICTION AND SANCTIONS - AMERICAN PIRACY ON THE HIGH SEAS COVERED BY THE FAUX LEGALITY OF SANCTIONS, SANCTIONS WHICH ARE AMERICAN LAWS BEING APPLIED TO PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT AMERICAN – WITH SOME MONUMENTS TO HISTORICAL CRIMES NOW BEING PULLED DOWN, IT WOULD BE NICE TO SEE CONCERN FOR CRIMES BEING COMMITTED RIGHT NOW IN THE NAME OF AMERICANS – THE COUNTRY IS NOT ONLY LOSING ITS RELATIVE ECONOMIC POSITION IN THE WORLD THROUGH NATURAL PROCESSES, IT IS LOSING ITS PRESTIGE AND MORAL AUTHORITY THROUGH CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR – HITLER’S GREAT “PEACE” SPEECH BEFORE WW II AND AMERICA’S ABUSE OF WORDS LIKE “DEMOCRACY” AND “HUMAN RIGHTS” - THE POST-WWII ORDER IS GOING TO SHATTER LIKE A BRONZE STATUE UNDER HAMMERS - A BRAVE NEW WORLD IS ON ITS WAY

John Chuckman


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PATRICK LAWRENCE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS


“Iranian Tankers & the Age of Interdiction”

“Two forms of interdiction — the steady expansion of U.S. sanctions and our stunning drift toward unmasked censorship — have begun to intersect”



"Interdiction" is too neutral-sounding a word for what the United States routinely does now on the high seas and in other people’s waters.

It's simply a form of piracy. Stopping people's trade and commerce by armed threat. Hurting the sick and poor by depriving them of needed supplies.

And the Washington-issued sanctions, giving the piracy a faux legal framework, are nothing more than American laws applied to people who are not Americans, and without any legitimate international authority such as the UN.  Well, it does come from the same gangsters who literally threaten judges of an international court, the ICC.

I think the world is growing rather tired of America’s high-handed, self-serving methods and views. None of them relates to genuine principles, although the words “democracy” and “human rights” often are tossed around. America’s acts violate democratic and human rights and the rule of law.

People should remember that not long before the outbreak of WWII with its unprecedented carnage and destruction, Adolph Hitler gave Germans what some, including journalist/historian William L Shirer, called one of the greatest speeches about peace ever made. The words about principles used by American authorities as they bully the planet much resemble the authenticity of Hitler’s words about peace.

Trump and Pompeo and Bolton and Grenell and Abrams quite literally resemble an old Sicilian Mafia gang enforcing who may or may not live in the villages and territories they dominate and under what conditions and from whom they may purchase their needs. It is a throwback to another era. It is lawlessness posing as law. And they only get away with it through force of arms and economic predation.

As statues to ugly past events are pulled down, it would be nice to see concern from Americans about crimes being committed right now in their name.

When we eventually get through the current storm of disease and economic crisis, America is going to stand hugely diminished in the world’s respect and in its own influence. It has provided no leadership to anyone. It has been seen as selfishly seizing things for its own interests. It has viciously attacked other societies rather than cooperating. And it is even seen busily conducting war against hundreds of millions of people, mostly the poor and the weak, with sanctions and blockades.

Natural evolutionary forces at work over recent decades affecting America’s relative economic decline – as new places emerged as superior competitors – will be mightily reinforced in their effects by the loss of American prestige and moral authority. Much of the post-WWII world order is going to shatter like a bronze statue under hammers. A brave new world is on its way.