John Chuckman
COMMENTS – RECENT BITS AND PIECES – VOLUME SEVEN
“NATO ready for peace with Moscow…or confrontation,
Stoltenberg claims after ordering funding boost for troops on Russian border”
Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of NATO, has to be the
worst possible advertisement for tourism to Norway.
Who on earth would want to go to a place this bizarre and confusing man might be said to fairly represent?
Europe has had peace with Russia for decades.
And not because of NATO’s spending more money or sending more troops or soliciting more members.
What Stoltenberg’s NATO is really doing is securing America’s hold on the continent. It’s America’s mechanism for continuing to occupy Europe, a potential world competitor.
America feels that is more necessary than ever because Putin’s Russia is attractive and ready to do business with anyone. America doesn’t want new economic relationships forming which could strengthen Europe and weaken America’s relative position.
That’s why America wanted all those insignificant new members with old grudges against Russia to join. They can outvote the old stable members who might want change.
The new states have little to contribute to any alliance, either militarily or economically, but additional risks and liabilities. However, they put NATO threateningly right on Russia’s border, and they are very grateful to the United States for wanting them to join, almost like homely girls being asked on a date by a football hero.
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“Troops in Washington Are Disaster Waiting to Happen”
The military, always and everywhere, represents exactly the opposite of good government, human and democratic values, and rule of law.
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“WHO experts slam NYT for twisting, misquoting their words on virus origins probe”
For those who’ve followed international events closely over the years, the New York Times’ reputation for integrity is not high, and in recent years of intense American efforts abroad, it has only declined.
The Times has even been discovered in the past with CIA associates on its staff.
Some of its regular staff writers, people like, say, Thomas Friedman, might just as well be members of the security service. Tliey literally eat and breathe the American Gospel in everything they say and write. It’s appalling stuff to an open-minded outsider.
The Times’ reputation for being “liberal” is a mystery, at least when it comes to foreign affairs and matters of the American empire.
I think it is only by comparison with an American press that is mostly Right-wing. The Times has supported the United States in every ugly war, coup, and dirty trick it has ever been involved with. It regularly has beat the drum leading to war – no matter how unjust.
The Times is a fierce defender of Israel and everything it does, much of it being illegal and inhumane. Israel is, of course, in reality a de facto American colony in the Middle East, and it was the foundation cause of all America’s many recent wars in the region, a set of wars which killed a couple of million people, injured millions more, and made refugees of many millions more. It also reduced several well-run societies, like Libya, to chaos.
And, please remember, all of these imperial wars - often collectively called the Neocon Wars - involved immense lies and deception, just like the lies being hurled at China. And immense wars like Vietnam were nothing but a tissue of destructive lies.
Many years ago, an old CIA publicity/propaganda specialist spoke about sitting down to his giant Wurlitzer organ and hitting the keys to “get the story out there,” the keys on the organ being certain cooperative key media outlets.
The New York Times has always been one of those keys, perhaps the first one hit.
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“Biden calls on Congress to ban assault weapons, pass gun control laws’
Why stop with the US?
The world would a happier place if the US banned its weapons from the streets of all the other countries where they are used to intimidate and threaten people.
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“New UN Report: Millions of Yemeni Children Face Acute Malnutrition”
You could end this savagery, Joe Biden, in a heartbeat.
Stop playing games about this filthy war America helped start and has supplied and supported.
All you have done is try to improve America’s public-relations profile, not end the slaughter.
Get on the phone and tell the Prince it is to stop, immediately. Good God, it is American weapons they mainly use. You could sign an executive order halting all sales.
But I know you won’t do that.
You are a fifty-year veteran of supporting America’s brutality abroad and its alliances with human monsters like the Crown Prince and the Generalissimo of Egypt and the war criminal Prime Minister of Israel.
And I don’t recall a single act of courage in your career.
Politicians like you are a big part of what is wrong with America.
The games being played here I am afraid presage future events in the Middle East.
Just as the other day, the pirate American soldiers in Syria apparently secretly brought in a new supply of weapons to secure their illegal occupation and theft of resources – all intended, of course, to keep Syria weak and in ruins and its millions of refugees painfully scattered.
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“US hard to form anti-China choir in G7 summit; China engine for world economy rather than challenge: experts”
It is the height of folly to speak of forming anti-groups
against a country that is, by a huge measure, the most important in its region.
A country that is growing rapidly, offering new opportunities to everyone, and is soon to become the most important in the world.
And, importantly, a country which is engaged in no serious hostilities and certainly no wars.
A country that is setting a new global standard of partnership and cooperation with the BRI and other efforts.
And just who is it trying to organize destructive efforts against it?
A country which has been almost continuously at war since the end of WWII.
A country whose primary national purpose is telling others what to do and even what they may buy or not buy.
A country which thinks nothing of starving and depriving others of necessities to get what it wants – as we’ve seen amply demonstrated in Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Yemen, Palestine, and many other places.
A country noted for helping no one without hefty charges, a place where cooperation and genuine partnership are treated as words sissies use.
If ever an idea was doomed to fail from the start, this is it.
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“US sanctions on Venezuela have failed to achieve anything but needless death and misery. Against all reason, they are set to stay”
So much for the public-relations garbage about a kinder,
gentler Joe Biden.
But so much, too, for the morals and ethics of Europe, conscienceless, do-nothing states who stand by and watch human misery.
Remember poor, brave little Cuba? America beat it to a pulp for sixty years, achieving nothing but the satisfaction of a sadistic bully.
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“Russian prosecutors demand fine against Navalny in slander trial”
In the United States, with its hyper-patriotic excesses,
insulting a war veteran can get you a punch in the nose, or worse.
Russia fought the bloodiest war in all of human history, losing 27 million people to Germany’s invasion.
Yet Navalny feels entitled to insult an old WWII veteran just because he supports Putin, the leader of the country?
The incident only reveals further what an idiot Navalny truly is.
Of course, his entire “poisoning” adventure was a charade choreographed by western security services. There is not an ounce of proof provided to support any of it. (See my site, Chuckman’s Comments on WordPress for some analysis)
Cooperating with western security services, as he did, could certainly be viewed as betraying his country in light of the fact that they are working very hard with the US to hurt or topple a peaceful Russia.
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Agreed. But when did logic ever count with people who don’t think?
Justin Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister, has a long record of acting without thinking.
From his “blackface” minstrel routines as a school drama coach to his numerous serious scandals in political office and his embarrassing, farcical antics abroad, as famously on a trip to India, and, worst of all, his thoughtless echoing of Donald Trump’s every vicious and inhumane foreign policy.
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What a disappointment Sweden has become.
It was once admirably independent, much like Switzerland.
Today, it follows American imperial policy like a baby duckling waddling after its mother.
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“Rouhani tells Merkel: Adding anything to nuclear deal ‘impossible’”
Germany’s Chancellor Merkel is just carrying out a task
assigned by the United States and Israel, something she sadly has done a great
many times. A woman of great natural talent – she has a doctorate in physics
and an agreeable temperament, and she leads a powerful country – has often
acted the part of a flattering courtier.
The US and Israel are especially interested in attacking Iran's marvelous missile defenses, leaving the country open to two states which have demonstrated only hostility and hatred for over forty years, states which have committed many acts of terror, including murder and sabotage.
The idea she presents, expanding the JCPOA, is a non-starter. The concept of the nuclear agreement (JCPOA) was about nuclear matters, and Iran faithfully kept its obligations for almost four years until the lunatic Trump decided suddenly to tear up a working treaty, an act which earned him praise from Israel’s war-criminal Prime Minister, Netanyahu, and, undoubtedly, additional political donations from fanatical supporters of Israel in the US, American foreign policy in the Middle East being virtually for sale.
Indeed, Iran, at the highest level of government, has recently renewed its commitment to never pursue nuclear weapons, although technologically it would be perfectly capable of doing so. The country’s current nuclear work is more open than that of anyone else, being subject to regular close international inspection. There are no secrets, quite unlike the case of Israel.
It is the United States which must bring matters back to the status quo ante, a statement which summarizes Iran’s reasonable position.
In addition, the co-signatories to the nuclear agreement, including Germany, have done virtually nothing since Trump unilaterally destroyed a treaty which included half a dozen others. Germany and France and Britain and the EU have done nothing worth talking about to fulfill their obligations as co-signatories.
And now, they attempt to put new obligations on Iran. I believe the fact vividly demonstrates what complete servants they are of American empire. They show no independent thought, no sense of keeping their obligations, and not even any decent sense of pride.
How is it now that Iran, and Iran alone, is suddenly obligated to new steps? It is an illogical and unfair position.
President Rouhani gave her just the right answer.
