John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN PRESS TV

 

“How stupid have we been: Trump on US Mid East adventurism”

“We spent 8 trillion dollars in the Middle East, that’s with a “t”,… eight trillion. But if you need to fill a pothole, oh, we can’t do that. How stupid have we been, just stupid!”

 

What he says is, of course, absolutely true, but as so often with Trump, it is confusing and inconsistent.

He’s the one making trouble in the region right now.

What’s he’s done just to Iran is terrible. Iran has hurt no one. Iran has started no wars. Iran was absolutely meeting its obligations under the international nuclear agreement for over four years.

Yet Trump just suddenly ripped up the agreement, started imposing all kinds of (illegal) sanctions, and sent war machines to threaten the country. He then assassinated a national hero, one who had taken no action against America.

Sanctions always, even in normal times, hurt the poor and the weak in a society, the better-off and privileged managing to insulate themselves. That is just what they do anywhere. So, they are reprehensible, but at a time of world pandemic, with Iran being hit hard, it just despicable to keep sanctions on the country.

Trump does all this for one reason only, to please some American oligarchs who, in return, will give his re-election campaign large donations and perhaps other support.

Elections in America are about money, and the country’s foreign policy is essentially for sale. Just an awful state of affairs. A totally corrupt society.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP GIRALDI IN THE UNZ REVIEW

 

“Who Targeted Ukraine Airlines Flight 752? Iran Shot It Down but There May be More to the Story”

 

https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/who-targeted-ukraine-airlines-flight-752-iran-shot-it-down-but-there-may-be-more-to-the-story/#comment-3664167

 

Just a terrific piece of informed speculation.

Quite plausible.

It suggests, too, as with the turning off of everyone’s electricity in Venezuela, how powerful and dangerous cyber-warfare can be.

And secretive. Certainly, something which appeals to an imperial power which has long used all kinds of proxies and false-flag operations, the United States.

John Chuckman

COMMENT ON AMERICA’S ACTIONS AGAINST IRAN AND OTHER STATES

“It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

I can’t imagine better words to describe Trump’s actions against Iran – all of them, from tearing-up the working international nuclear treaty to imposing war-like sanctions, which indeed hurt millions of children and poor people, and  to threatening with warships and nuclear-capable bombers, and now to assassinating the second-most important man in the country, a national hero, a vicious act that demands a response.

Is it even possible to conceive of a more passionately destructive set of actions, unprovoked and without reason except to satisfy an urge to tell others what to do? How on earth can a nation call itself “great,” as America so frequently does, when that is how it behaves?

In what way did any of it make any part of the world’s people better off or safer? It added only pain and suffering and fear to a great many lives and created threats of war that hadn’t existed. And it hugely decreased the future capacity of the world’s nations to trust the word and good faith of the United States.

Of course, that set of acts is only the worst of a bad lot. There was the desperate attempt to topple a twice-elected government in Venezuela, going to such extremes as turning off everyone’s electricity a couple of times, blockading the country including its receipt of medical necessities, working to collapse its major industries, and literally stealing many of the country’s assets abroad.

Almost at the same time, another coup, a successful one, was staged in Bolivia, toppling a popular, elected government, one elected multiple times.

New threats and warnings were issued to Nicaragua and Cuba, both countries which have suffered horribly under past American belligerence.

A number of other horrors from the past decade go right on generating death and misery, too – misery in the broken ruins of Libya, once the best place in Africa to live with all public amenities from good water to education supplied free, misery in the never-recovered catastrophe of Iraq, in poor Yemen, and in the beautiful land of Syria plagued by paid outsiders, mercenaries, supplied with many terrible weapons, who kill and destroy on a large scale.

And everyone in Ukraine and in the rest of Europe pays a price for America’s coup there – a civil war has killed thousands, the country’s economy collapsed under an incompetent installed government, its population has seriously declined as people leave for jobs elsewhere, huge sets of war-like sanctions have cut billions in healthy trade between Europe and Russia, regular threatening military displays and large-scale exercises are conducted right on Russia’s border – these last supposedly over a Russian “invasion” of Ukraine which never occurred.

The press and political speeches are filled with threatening rhetoric and demands for big new spending on the means of destruction – all in the face of no threat and indeed a situation in Russia everyone in the West would have deliriously cheered back in the 1970s, a reasonable, temperate government ready to do business with anyone and call them “partner.” But Europe and Russia can’t do so basic and necessary a thing as buy-and-sell a commodity like natural gas without immense pressures being brought against them by the United States.

We have a vicious trade war with China, predicated on no more principle than that “We think you’ve been far too successful in your stunning rise [the rise of China being the greatest and most important human achievement of our age], and we want different arrangements which take some of that success away from you, and we’ll hit you with every sanction and tariff we can think of until you give them to us.”

That marks greatness being displayed by America?

There is not one of those activities that the world would not be better off without. Safer, more prosperous, more secure, happier, holding more optimism for the future – in other words, virtually all of the activity abroad by the United States for years represents a dead-weight loss for humanity and the community of nations. That’s quite an achievement. And the cost in dollars has been colossal.

Of course, I blame Trump, but, as I’ve said before, it certainly is not the work of just Trump, as hopeless and vicious and ignorant as he is. There have been no efforts by other branches of America’s government to halt or hinder the craziness. They are all complicit.

Please note, the candidates for the Democratic Presidential nomination, none of them except one unlikely one, even recognize this terrible problem or how to address it. So, for sure, as is usual in the costly stage shows called American elections, when it’s over, no matter which side wins, you will find the same situation prevailing. Just more rude noise and bellowing with Trump, and less without Trump.

America seeks what is not possible given its relative decline in the face of global growth and change and progress. And it seeks it fired by a burning, fanatical belief that it holds an exceptional place in God’s creation.

I fear that deadly combination of American delusions has the potential to do far greater harm than it already has.

John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOE LAURIA IN CONSORTIUM NEWS

 

“Fear of a Major Mideast War

“Fears of a major war in the Middle East exploded Thursday night with the U.S. assassination of arguably the second most powerful man in Iran” [General Qassem Soleimani] 

 

It appears Trump has given Israel control of some portion of the American military in addition to major parts of Palestine.

This is classic Israeli extrajudicial killing, an Israeli practice for over seventy years (a recent book claimed Israel is responsible for more than 2,700 of them), but now America takes responsibility on its behalf.

Just as with the Neocon Wars, all for Israel’s benefit and all done so that Israel does not have to take direct blame for the immense violence it generates in the region.

Hard to know what Trump’s thinking here is. War before an election does not seem a good idea, especially if you are a candidate who has failed so far to achieve anything of substance around past promises to reduce America’s involvement in Mideast wars.

Remember that a crucial slice of the votes that put the man into office was not from his prime political base, the “pick-up truck and Jesus” set, but from those concerned with peace and better relations with Russia.

But prodding Iran to attack could allow Trump to play commander-in-chief defending the country. And Americans just instinctively support even the worst possible presidents at war. You might call it the George Bush Effect. The frightened puppy grabbing the nearest pantleg after a loud noise.

Of course, now when it comes to campaign contributions from American Oligarchs whose chief political concern is what Israel wants, Trump’s coffers will be overflowing.

I suspect Iran will take its time and carefully plan a response, and that response may not be clear and unambiguous, and it might be multi-faceted and done over time.

The men running Iran are careful men, none of them impetuous. Chess players. The United States has more than forty years of bellowing, open hostility towards the country, and we have not seen Iran’s leaders act foolishly in all that time despite many provocations.

I do not believe Iran will be driven to war – that would be playing the Israeli-American game with Israeli-American rules.

Clandestine and hybrid efforts, that is what Iran is best at. They have serious capabilities these days, and the United States, with all its bases abroad, has great vulnerabilities.

Of course, there’s also the option of Iran’s just leaving the nuclear agreement (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) that Trump idiotically tore-up and proceeding quietly with weapons development. Iran, despite Israel’s dishonest claims, never has pursued weapons development, only efficient use of nuclear power and legitimate scientific research. Perhaps it is time to reconsider that policy

Iran has substantial deposits of uranium, and the enriched-uranium bomb is simpler to build than the plutonium bomb. Maybe there is some possibility for covert assistance from North Korea, another country treated like crap by Trump’s Washington Braintrust?

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA

 

“US: Anyone Touching Iran Tanker Risks Sanctions

“Permission to dock will be treated as “support for terrorism” on the part of Greece”

 

Can you imagine a highly-paid and prestigious outfit like the American State Department with nothing better to do than track and check up on how an oil tanker is being treated by the world?

There really is a genuinely absurd side to America’s current hyper-aggression.

But look at that cast of lead characters – Bolton, Pompeo, Trump. Derangement is etched into the expressions on every one of those faces.

_____________________

Response to a comment which said, “I wouldn’t put it past the US/Israel to sink the Tanker if it turns to go into Greece”:

We can put nothing past the United States anymore.

Things really have come to that.

Remember, they thought nothing of turning off all the fridges and life-saving machines in Venezuela several times.

John Chuckman

 

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS

 

“Trump threatens ‘obliteration’ should Iran attack ‘anything American’”

 “Iran calls new U.S. sanctions ‘outrageous and idiotic'”

 

And Iran is right.

At a big meeting in Jerusalem involving Russia, the United States, and Israel, Russia revealed that it has additional proof, apart from that already supplied by Iran, that the drone was shot down over Iranian territory.

Since when is it a crime to shoot down a hostile machine, barging into your territory, flying very high up, with its transponder signals turned off, at night, and responding to no attempts at contact?

Moreover, a hostile machine sent by people surrounding you with a naval armada and with nuclear-capable bombers stationed nearby, sent by people who use similar machines, week-in, week-out, to kill innocent people in a dozen places?

America’s behavior is seriously threatening a nation guilty of no illegality and with not a single incident of aggression in its modern history.

And then it just keeps lying about what it’s doing.

____________________

Response to a comment saying if only we didn’t have oil and religious differences endangering us:

Actually, both oil and religious differences have very little to do with this whole affair, which I follow closely.

You left out what is, by far, the biggest problem, American arrogance and exceptionalism in trying to tell everyone on the planet what to do.

Backed up by a Frankenstein military establishment whose budget the country can’t even afford.

__________________

Response to another comment:

Iran has said countless times it never worked towards a bomb.

They are backed by experts from other countries, including experts from the United States.

And no one has been able to contradict them with any real proof, although the loony Netanyahu, who loves war as much as John Bolton, once pretended he had some. It was a shameful fraud, now quite forgotten, even by Netanyahu.

There are important reasons other than weapons for developing some uranium-enrichment technology.

John Chuckman

COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

 

‘Iran seeks to annihilate Israel, it seeks to conquer the Middle East, it threatens Europe, it threatens the West, it threatens the world. And it offers provocation after provocation’

Thus, the fetid imaginings of a proven street thug, thief, murderer, and serial liar (Presidents of two major Western countries having so described him a few years back).

Thus, Iran, which has attacked no one in its entire modern history, is characterized by the sick leader of a country which has attacked every neighbor that it has, some more than once.

Iran, which has been busy truly fighting ISIS alongside Russia, while we know Israel has always secretly supported the terrorists in Syria.

Iran, which knows full well, just as we all do, that Israel possesses a totally illegal nuclear arsenal which it uses to intimidate the entire Middle East, only seeks with its missiles to defend itself.

Were the Israel Lobby not so important in British and American politics, Netanyahu would be laughed out the door for making such insane, ranting claims.

We know also that Netanyahu was ready to strike Iran with no declaration of war some while back. Israel spent a lot of time and money practicing just that.

He was reportedly only stopped by Obama telling him he’d shoot Israel’s planes out of the sky if they attacked in one of Obama’s few sound moves in foreign policy.

_____________________________

Response to another reader:

Your bundling the names together is simply wrong.

Well, Trump Farage and Le Pen have yet to kill a single person.

Netanyahu has literally killed thousands, including hundreds of Palestinian children.

Trump Farage and Le Pen have yet to steal so much as a basket of apples.

Netanyahu has brazenly stolen the homes and farms of thousands.

______________________________

 Response to another reader:

Iran is hated by Israel for one simple reason.

It is a large country which happens to be Muslim, and it is potentially a powerful and influential one.

Israel, bristling with weapons out of all proportion to its economy or population, strives to be the miniature replica of the United States in the Middle East.

It wants to tell everyone in the region what to do and to keep anyone who does not agree with it intimidated.