John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CRAIG MURRAY IN CONSORTIUM NEWS

 

“The USA’s Slavish Saudi Allegiance Against Iran

“The assassination of a top Iranian general reflects a U.S. foreign policy tied to Saudi interests”

 

I like Craig Murray as a writer, but this piece comes as quite a disappointment.

It focuses on Saudi Arabia as being at the center of America’s hostility towards Iran. Israel gets slight mention.

I believe Mr. Murray has put the cart before the horse.

The attention America lavishes on Saudi Arabia has much to do with Saudi Arabia’s special relations with Israel, relations which have no long history. Saudi Arabia, before 9/11 was the source of a lot of hostility towards Israel, in everything from publications and speeches to support for various groups.

You find none of that now. It began to quiet down after 9/11 when the Saudi Royals realized how vulnerable they were to American invasion, a much more attractive invasion prospect than the hardscrabble land of Afghanistan. America could easily have manipulated facts like the (purported) nationalities of many of the plane hijackers (Saudi) into a reason to invade and steal the greatest quantity of oil ever stolen.

The Crown Prince took the new direction in Saudi international affairs even further. He made it his focus, recognizing opportunities for personal aggrandizement. Nothing good happens to anyone in the Middle East who does not happily support American policy, and that includes supporting America’s privileged imperial colony at the east end of the Mediterranean.

As we’ve seen in the Neocon Wars, those deemed not adequately warm towards Israel tend to get bombed and paved over.

As an interesting side note, Trump, the candidate who sensibly spoke against the wars in the Middle East, has now so completely compromised himself serving Israel’s special interests – interests often in conflict both with America’s own long-term interests and with the rule of international law – that it seems just impossible America can be extricated from the mess. Indeed, we now have the real possibility of the biggest war of all breaking out, and what has happened was completely avoidable.

Just look at Israel making no objection to the biggest arms deal in history recently between the Crown Prince and Trump. That could not have happened years ago. Israel’s influence wouldn’t have allowed the deal even to be proposed. Israel dearly loves the Crown Prince, and that has a lot to do with Trump’s smiling, back-slapping support for the tyrant.

The Crown Prince earned his bloody laurels with projects largely related to Israeli interests, projects such as the terror in Syria, with his generous support of mercenary, fake-jihadi outfits like al-Nusra and ISIS, groups whose main purpose has been to attack governments the United States and Israel wanted hurt.

Genuine jihadi types would, of course, instead be attacking Israel and the corrupt feudal princes of Saudi Arabia, but, somehow, magically, they never do.

Projects like bombing Yemen or arresting the visiting Prime Minister of Lebanon and forcing his resignation. Saudi Arabia frequently finances American schemes in the region, and I’m sure that whenever Netanyahu needs a tidy sum under the table for a dirty project, he has only to ask.

The real reason for Israel’s seething, relentless hatred of Iran comes from the fact that that country, with a population the size of Germany’s, is just naturally at the center of the region’s affairs and arrangements, a position Israel arrogantly regards as its rightful place. After all, it does represent the American empire, doesn’t it?

The immense blunder of America’s Iraq invasion, heavily lobbied for by Israel’s Ariel Sharon, ended up making Iran relatively even more important in the region by eliminating a strong adversary. Saddam Hussein was secular in his viewpoint. Now Iraq is dominated by the politics of a population which is about two-thirds Shia Muslim.

There are influential Israelis who would just love to see America go to war with Iran. Trump’s series of hostilities and humiliations towards Iran for more than a year does tend to work in that direction, or, at least, to create situations where a “happy” accident might happen. Wars do often happen by something being tipped over at a risky moment.

Remember, Iran was the last country listed on the secret Pentagon document General Wesley Clark spoke of seeing years ago, countries that were to be toppled in upcoming years.

The assassination of Iran’s General Soleimani is called an Israeli project by several reliable observers. There is a report that the very target coordinates for the drone were given to its operator by an Israeli. Likely Trump had very little time to make this monumentally stupid decision, having been advised that a brief window of opportunity was open.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CRAIG MURRAY IN CONSORTIUM NEWS

 

“The Simple Explanation for the Betrayal of Britain’s Envoy

“Craig Murray has a strong hunch about why someone would leak Kim Darroch’s scathing comments about Trump”

 

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/07/10/the-simple-explanation-for-the-betrayal-of-britains-envoy/?unapproved=374384&moderation-hash=9e2db8191c3309ba52faed708becf841#comment-374384

 

Very interesting little article.

The portrait here of Kim Darroch is so different than what we see in the mainline British press, it is actually a bit startling.

His newspaper portrait in Britain, at least in the press I read, is of an extremely able man, a classy diplomat.

But what we have here is a kind of British Trump, a crude loud-mouth and abusive man.

This is a terrific example of how a story can be made to appear almost unrecognizably different.

The truth? I am not sure when it comes to government and foreign policy anymore we ever get any truth.

Deception and misrepresentation are the norms simply because governments like those of the United States and Britain are engaged full-time in so many dark imperial projects all over the world.

The people never voted for much of what is being done in their name and might well not support much of it, if only they knew.

I’m afraid this is just one more fragment of evidence – along with such matters as what really has happened in Syria, what really is going on with Iran, why the United States never acts to rein in Israel and impose a fair settlement, day-and-night Russophobia, the assault on China, and so much more – telling us what a dreamworld we now live in. Perhaps “nightmare” is a more fitting word than “dream.”

Almost nothing in our press and from our politicians is real anymore. There’s an entire world of government activity that goes unreported and unexamined. If one insists on using the unattractive term “fake news,” – unattractive because of the class of people who regularly use it – its main application should be to Western governments.

Obviously, under such circumstances, references to “democracy” or even “democratic” are meaningless. The people are simply not aware of what their “elected” governments are doing.

Whatever Kim Darroch’s character really is and whatever the motivation for someone leaking his embarrassing past confidential observations of Donald Trump, the observations, of course, remain valid. We know that from the best possible source, our own regular observations.

Trump is indeed an emperor without any clothes. An embarrassingly obvious man in his words and acts. But, as with so many things in Washington, you are really not allowed to say that.