Archive for the ‘DEMOCRACY’ Tag

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: DID HARPER’S GOVERNMENT DRAG ITS FEET ON MUBARAK? OF COURSE AND THE REASON IS CLEAR ENOUGH   Leave a comment


JOHN CHUCKMAN

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

Did Ottawa drag its feet on Mubarak?

Of course it did.

Why?

Well, hasn’t our thirty-percent prime minister declared himself one of the world’s chief defenders of Israeli interests and entered the lists as a crusader against anti-Semitism, regardless of how chimerical it may be?

And never mind all the other nasty forms of prejudice and oppression in this world: that one is special and requires his personal attention.

One only has to read the articles coming from Israel and from the Israeli apologists elsewhere during the brave demonstrations in Cairo to perceive an emotional crisis over the possible disappearance of a dictator Israel has depended on closely for thirty years.

Some of the pieces are remarkably revealing in their total self-interest and even paranoia and all of them lack regard for the larger principles of human rights and democracy.

That set of facts completely explains Harper’s silence.

Harper is a highly selective advocate of human rights and democratic values.

And his behavior through a genuinely historic crisis marks another sad act in the busy work of dismantling Canada’s international reputation for fairness and decency.
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From another reader:

“Stupid title from an uneducated twit.”

Now, surely, there’s the mark of an educated man, using language like that.

I do think someone who throws names around the way this anonymous person suits them far better than Jeffery Simpson, who, in general, is one of Canada’s most perceptive and astute columnists.

We haven’t seen democracy in Egypt yet?

Well, part of the reason is Israel’s support and dependence upon a dictator like Mubarak. Its constant efforts, day and night, to prop him up and use him.

Often unsaid, but nevertheless true, is the fact that Israel has been a major drag on the flowering of democracy in the Arab world.

Everything which happens within a thousand miles of Israel must be viewed through the lens of Israel’s narrow and often paranoid interests.

Iraq, previously the most advanced country in the Arab world, was unquestionably one with its previously growing middle class on the way to developing democracy after Hussein (who just happened to be a good buddy of the same United States Israel leans on until he took a turn against American policy).

Now it remains a hopeless wreck: a million dead, countless injured, treasures destroyed, and an economy in depression for a generation. And just who is it that insisted on attacking Hussein and whose narrowly-defined interests did that assault serve?

Only Israel and its apologists in the United States.

God, look at Gaza. A genuine free election, cleaner than the election of George Bush, and what does Israel do?

Arrests members of the government, threatens the leader with assassination – no idle threat coming from Murder Incorporated – refuses to even talk, breaks innumerable international laws by breaking off mail and funds to Gaza, imposes a brutal blockade designed to starve people out, pressures its friend Mubarak to build walls, and kills unarmed humanitarians on the high seas.

My, there’s a set of responses which certainly demonstrate great respect for democracy and human rights.

The entire tone of this person’s comment, as well as its almost complete lack of logic, demonstrates exactly what I addressed in my previous comment. Israel’s apologists know almost no bounds in their demands and pleadings for Israel’s self-defined interests.

Israel can only be a normal country if it behaves like one, and it is difficult to see one act or policy which in sixty years reflects normal national behavior, including respect for neighbors, respect for laws, respect for international obligations, and respect for democratic values and human rights – this last particularly involving anyone outside the borders of Israel’s own peculiar democracy, defined, as it is, to serve only one ethnic/religious group.
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To another reader:

How can things get worse in Egypt?

They cannot.

And you repeat the historical fallacy of comparing today’s Egypt to 1978’s Iran.

For a dozen reasons, too long to list, that is completely inaccurate.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE BLOODY AND POINTLESS IRAQ WAR AS LIBERAL INTERVERVENTIONISM? GOOD GOD WHAT A SHABBY EFFORT BY MARGARET WENTE TO DISGUISE MASS MURDER   Leave a comment


JOHN CHUCKMAN

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

“The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 is a classic case of doing bad by trying to do good. We can’t rescue people from themselves.”

Another thoughtless piece, packed with frightful ethical concepts, from Ms Wente, the Globe’s reigning champion in churning out such stuff.

“Liberal interventionism” is a created term to make America’s unacceptable behavior seem more appropriate.

There can never be anything “liberal” – in the truest historic meaning of the word – about dropping cluster bombs on people or using white phosphorus on people or torturing prisoners.

You cannot bomb people into democracy. Just steady economic growth and a growing middle class are the requirements for democracy as centuries of history clearly demonstrate, and Iraq was on that path with one of the most prosperous and advanced economies in the Arab world. Now, instead, it is a shambles.

America’s intention never was to “rescue” Iraqis.

Iraq was invaded to eliminate Israel’s most implacable foe, hardly the business of the United States. The invasion decision was unquestionably influenced too by Bush Junior’s psychological need to top what Bush pere had done – a lifelong theme for the pathetic Bush and the kind of motivation that all serious readers of history know plays a role in events.

There was the matchless opportunity of the cover provided by the invasion of Afghanistan too, offering an opportunity to blur facts and operate in public confusion. After all, Hitler used the chaos of the invasion of Russia to begin the Holocaust.

The invasion was covered also by the Nazi-like ideas of Condi Rice with her “We’re hearing the birth pangs of a new Middle East,” amidst the screams of hundreds of thousands dying and their country and culture being destroyed.

An entire generation of Iraqis are doomed to live with no jobs, little electricity, and poor water plus a million pounds of depleted uranium dust.

All thoughtful people knew they were being lied to at the time.

Ms. Wente herself was very much a booster for the bloody effort, a big booster, and you’d be hard put to find any columnist who like her is a regular apologist for Israel’s excesses who didn’t sing hymns to America’s blood bath.

All as pointless as the three million murdered in Vietnam.

Again, for readers who’ve nor seen it, here is the reality of Ms. Wente at the time of the mass murder in Iraq:

http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/the-iraq-wars-trashiest-piece-of-propaganda/