John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

Sorry, David, but I do think Jeremy Corbyn likely understands exactly what ISIS represents.

It really is you, David, who pretends not to understand.

After all, you support American policy in the region, don’t you, David, even though, if I may be permitted to say, you do so with just a trifle too much groveling?

American policy is about using filth like ISIS and al Qaeda to destroy the beautiful land of Syria. America helped round up this collection of human trash from many places, including Benghazi, and along with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, it armed, trained, and supported them in their murderous rampage.

Of course, the Americans do not say that openly, David, but anyone who does just a little thinking can see the pattern. Those who do not see it, choose not to see it.

The U.S. drops bombs in the desert and on Syrian infrastructure, pretending to attack ISIS. The bombing of so-called terrorists you want to do, David, is clearly of the “Me too, Mr. Obama, Sir!” kind.

You really are so transparent, David, quite an ineffective puff-ball of a Prime Minister trying to sound stern and heroic. But then you have no one to answer to, do you, with a “majority” government representing 35% of British voters? Not your fault, is it, that Britain’s election system has such a built-in democratic deficit?

By all accounts, that horrible tyrant Assad is somehow strangely supported by a substantial majority of Syrians owing to his policies of secularism and protection of religious minorities. Then there’s the fact that he accepted at least a million refugees fleeing the American-British invasion of Iraq which killed about a million people, but he’s not fooling you, is he, David? He’s a heartless tyrant who must go. After all, he didn’t listen to you about getting out of town.

I’m just waiting to see how you’ll wiggle your little trotters and oink (sorry for the reference, David, but I couldn’t resist) after Putin’s air force has sent the American-organized cutthroats running for home. There are already reports of some fleeing. Maybe you’ll take them in, David? But I understand you’re not that fond of refugees.

Putin just proves what amazing things can happen when you actually aim for the enemy you claim you are aiming at. In their first 60 sorties, Putin’s boys did more damage to ISIS than America’s claimed 6,000 or so. But then that could be because Americans spend so much effort bombing things like hospitals, or don’t you agree, David?

David, there is one thing I wish you’d clear up for all us lowly, ordinary citizens. What do Rebekah and Rupert think about ISIS? Surely, you discuss the subject on your country weekends?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Terrorism?

What a joke.

The United States just murdered a number of innocent Yemenis with a drone strike.

That is indeed terror, state terror.
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There is not, and never has been, an organization called al Qaeda.

We have the words of several important statesmen, including a former British foreign minister, that the word was only used inside the American government as a catch-all for “bad guys” in certain regions of the world.

The word actually means “hole” or “sewer.” Can you imagine a secret fierce group calling itself “sewer”?

Yet the continued use of the term – repeated over and over in the press – undoubtedly lends weight to vague assertions about threats, and that is precisely why Washington continues to use this ridiculous language.

So why does the press keep repeating the nonsense?

The answer is found in the degree of genuine independence of thought and investigation exhibited by our mainline press, and that is simply not much.

It is not an organization. It does not send e-mails. It does not write press releases. If indeed it were an organization and it did these things from time to time, does any thinking person not understand that NSA and others would locate them quickly, causing the launch of drones in minutes?

But there are some pretty nasty people out there in the world. The United States has cynically used some of them again and again to get something it wants, the latest being the effort to topple the government of Syria.

It used them in Afghanistan – twice: once to fight the Russians in the 1980s, and a second time to defeat the Taleban government and carry out acts of terror like the murder of thousands of Taleban prisoners – and in Libya and in other places.

The United States in using these people and heavily assisting them – aided by its friends Israel and Turkey – is responsible for more terror in Syria alone than any so-called terrorist group could conceive of doing on its own anywhere.

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Poor al Qaeda has no imagination at all I guess.

All they have to do is mass produce their underpants – they could get them done cheaply in China – and label them as Stansfield’s or Fruit of the Loom.

Then flood the market with them at discount prices. Tens of thousands of unknowing guys wearing explosive underpants on airplanes.

But then we do have the word of a former British Foreign Minister, as well as several other well-known figures, that there is in fact no such thing as al Qaeda – the term is a American one used as a catch-all for “bad guys.”

But we do know the CIA exists and we know that it has done and does a lot of stupid and expensive stunts.

This entire farce is just another example of someone at Langley hitting the keys of their “great Wurlitzer,” as they are wont to call their set of contacts in the media for planting stories.

http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/why-the-cia-always-will-be-a-costly-flop/

http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/why-must-the-right-wing-sound-so-brutally-stupid/
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“http://www.islam-watch.org

“This is a good site.”

Good for what?

Confirming your prejudices?
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“Karl Marx: everything happens twice. The first time is tragedy. The second time is farce.”

The person commenting seems unaware that here Marx sounds like the late wit, Oscar Levant, all cleverness and style with no real meaning.

And how very odd to see Right Wing extremist quoting Marx.

Of course, you didn’t get the quote quite right, but that’s okay.

Anyone educated in modern science knows that Marx had it completely wrong.

You can never repeat the same set of events.

The ancient quote – variously attributed – had it right: Time is like a river. You cannot touch the same water twice.
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One simply cannot avoid the mental image of a man blowing off his own “vitals.”

It could well be that the CIA contrivers of this silly story intended that as a little inside joke.

Any clever twelve-year old could come up with several more damaging ways of doing harm to the West than fizzling underpants on a plane.

Please don’t forget that in the first Gulf War the United States government commissioned an ad agency to come up with the nonsense about Kuwaiti babies being ripped from their respirators.

That was to make people feel good about B-52s dropping 30-ton loads on poor Iraqi peasant recruits huddled in sand piles on the desert. The numbers killed – tens of thousands certainly – were never released, and their bodies bulldozed into mass graves.

Of course there were the brave American jet jockeys who while they strafed retreating Iraqis outside Kuwait City gave us such memorable moments as our hearing pilot chatter along the lines of, “Wee, this is like shootin’ fish in barrel!”

And of course all of that was the direct result of the U.S. giving a deliberate false signal to Saddam to go ahead with his wishes. It doesn’t get more cynical and brutal.
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“Good of Obama to put his Nobel Peace Prize down for a minute so he could order a revenge assassination.

“I’m sure liberals are outraged at this Bush war mongering.”

No, it is not liberals who are outraged; it is all decent, ethical human beings.

You clearly exclude yourself from that group and try kicking up dirt with pointless talk of liberal versus conservative.

No, the distinction couldn’t be more clear: it is ethical, civilized people versus savages.

And Obama never had to put his Peace Prize down because he has demonstrated that he is in the complete control of the Pentagon/intelligence agency/Israeli Lobby from day one.

The most disappointing man in memory for certain.

He never deserved that prize. Its award was an act of futile hopes in Europe.
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Does a double-agent underwear bomber require two sets of underwear to use depending on which side he is at any time?
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“Now we know why they check children and the infirm, I wouldn’t put it past al Qaeda to use a bomb diaper or depends.”

Don’t you just love that “I wouldn’t put it past…?”

But then again, here’s a further development of my idea for a line of men’s explosive underwear to be sold to the unwitting at discount.

You could have a factory in China do a knock-off of Pampers or Depends complete with secret explosive formula.

Horrors, just imagine some poor souls like actors in a Depends ad – someone with the sweet smile of June Allyson – suddenly having their groins flash and smoke and fizzle?

What an evil plot.

Well, there’s just one answer for it: never use another Pamper or Depends diaper without taking it in for X-rays first.

Would Medicare cover the X-ray costs I wonder in the interests of health and safety?

This is a threat surely that outweighs all of Israel’s illicit arsenal of nuclear and chemical weapons, wouldn’t you say?

The great threating shadow over our generation, exploding underpants and diapers!

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO AN EDITORIAL IN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

No, you have it wrong.

It is not that Britain’s reputation for free speech has been “ruthlessly exploited.”

It is now that is the genuine test of free speech.

Pieces like this one are in fact saying free speech is fine when times are fat and easy, but free speech needs control when they are not.

I could not agree less.

People are in fact never hurt by speech (genuine liable excluded), they are hurt by acts, acts which include the diminution of free speech.

And your use of the words, “enemy within,” is very revealing. That was a catch phrase during the American witch hunts of the 1950s.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.

We know perfectly well that America has been using drones and Hellfire missiles to kill many people, without charge or trial or conviction of anything.

Remember, too, Rumsfeld’s bloody Nazi-like words about killing or walling away America’s al Qaeda prisoners in Afghanistan.

It wasn’t long after that that 3,000 prisoners disappeared.

They are said to have been loaded into trucks and driven out into the desert to suffocate, then being buried in mass graves. This was done by one of the warlord’s men while American soldiers watched and picked their noses.

And let’s not forget the war crime of the Iraq invasion. A million killed, a couple of million refugees created, a modern society set back for decades. Results no different to having used a few nuclear weapons against a people who did absolutely nothing against America.

So why would there be any hesitation over this? The American establishment has demonstrated a lawless disregard for international law for eight years.

Of course, there wasn’t, and I’d bet it was that ghastly Dick Cheney who headed the operation and perhaps the new commander in Afghanistan who managed it.

America has no claim to any kind of ethics or democratic values in light of recent years.

The election of Obama has not changed this position at all, other than offering a friendly smile and a good mind in place of a pathetic lump.

A great deal of effort will be required to restore America’s tattered reputation, and I see no efforts indicating that effort is underway.