JOHN CHUCKMAN

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

Stark warning?

Tony Blair, mass murderer and liar, walks freely about, scooping up bags of money from special interests.

George Bush, mass murderer and liar and extraordinary ignoramus, sits peacefully on his porch, swilling beer.

Dick Cheney, mass murderer and vile abuser of his office, shoots his ugly mouth off regularly.

Nothing has happened to mass murderer Donald Rumsfeld.

Benjamin Netanyahu continues bullying and threatening, stealing and murdering.

Ehud Olmert, murderer of 400 children among other accomplishments, is retired in comfort.

Ariel Sharon, who spent a lifetime killing people and launching unwarranted wars, was only felled by natural causes.

Henry Kissinger, a war criminal as great as any tried at Nuremberg, still lurks in the shadows whispering advice to the influential.

The totality of those gentlemen’s handiwork makes Charles Taylor look a piker at murder.

I don’t see Taylor’s trial as anything more than the powers-that-be getting an old enemy.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY MATTHEW NORMAN IN THE INDEPENDENT

Now?

Where has Matthew Norman been the last thirty years or so?

The Republican Party has long been a breeding ground for hate and stupidity.

Spiro Agnew’s many ridiculous and shabby words at a time he was taking brown paper bags of money in his vice-presidential office?

Phil Gramm and all his dumb talk about what his mama used to say about “gettin’ down outta the wagon to he’p push the wagon”?

Nixon and wife Pat’s “Republican” cloth coat and their little dog?

Nixon’s filthy, vicious first Congressional campaign won by insulting an honest and capable woman?

Every word ever uttered by that dense chunk of sod, Bush?

Dick Cheney’s organized programs of murder, hate, and denial of rights?

Rumsfeld’s murder of 3,000 prisoners in Afghanistan?

Dan Quayle and everything he ever said?

The late Senator Roman Hruska and his claim that the Supreme Court should reflect all groups, including mediocrity?

Lamar Alexander and his ridiculous custom-made red lumber-jack shirts and his ideas about having a part-time government?

The absurd former Senator Bob Smith and his claim that Clinton was running a “damned concentration camp” when they rescued that poor Cuban boy Elian from his hateful kidnappers in Miami.

Tom Delay and his name-calling and spitting venom while all the time running a crooked fund-raising scheme?

Pat Robertson’s claims that natural disasters were God’s vengeance on America for immoral ways plus just about everything else ever uttered by Robertson?

Newt Gingrich and his “family values” crap while divorcing a wife dying of cancer?

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.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY SOUMAYA GHANNOUSHI IN THE GUARDIAN

The Islamic Threat is the creation of American Neo-cons.

That fact alone should serve to convince any thoughtful person that it is utter nonsense.

But if you are unconvinced, here are a few facts to give some real perspective.

The American annual death rate is roughly today 8.27 per 1000 population. With a population of about 300 million people, roughly 2 1/2 million Americans will die this year.

The top causes of death, according to recent historical statistics, will be approximately as follows:

Tobacco 435,000
Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity 365,000
Alcohol 85,000
Microbial Agents 75,000
Toxic Agents 55,000
Motor Vehicle Crashes 26,347
Adverse Reactions to Prescription Drugs 32,000
Suicide 30,622
Incidents Involving Firearms 29,000
Homicide 20,308
Sexual Behaviors 20,000

There will be dozens killed by such insignificant events as bicycle accidents. The lingering effects of asbestos will take about 10,000. Sheer medical incompetence will kill many thousands.

What is the expected outcome from terror, of any kind? Zero.

What was the outcome from terror last year? Zero.

Going all the way back to 2001, what was the number owing to terror? Less than 3,000, a totally insignificant fraction of American deaths in that year.

Yet that one over-dramatized event catapulted the United States into an insane and meaningless War on Terror. No one even knows just how many hundreds of billions of dollars will be wasted in total, enough at any rate to help destabilize the American economy.

At the same time, the United States has invaded and occupied two countries, and it regularly threatens two more, Iran and Pakistan. It has murdered over half a million just in Iraq and maimed countless thousands, all while destroying the most advanced economy in the Arab world, one which would have soon reached Western modernity.

It started the human-rights disgraces of Guantanano, Abu Ghraib, and the CIA’s Torture Gulag. It passed horribly repressive laws within the United States.

All for what? Because 19 men, all dead in the act, were responsible for 9/11.

The irony is that the men were Saudis, yet no harm has come to Saudi Arabia. Not only no harm to Saudi Arabia, but Bush and Cheney saw to that members of the Saudi Royal Family living in the U.S. were all safely and secretly shipped home.

Not only that, but the brutal injustices of Israel have received encouragement and support as never before. Invade Lebanon and kill 1,500 civilians? No problem. Drop a million cluster-bomb bomblets to cripple and kill for years to come? No problem. Lay siege to Gaza because you don’t like its government? No problem. Kill more than 400 people in Gaza while you do this? No problem.

And the war goes on, a war against, not an army or a regime, but against method and or a set of beliefs. It is a War against Sanity.