John Chuckman

COMMENT ON STILL MORE LEAKS FROM FORMER BRITISH AMBASSADOR KIM DARROCH’S CONFIDENTIAL NOTES TO HIS GOVERNMENT

 

We have today yet more revelations in leaked documents written as advisory notes to the British government by Sir Kim Darroch, its recent former Ambassador to the United States.

Darroch called Trump’s tearing-up of the Iran nuclear agreement an act of “diplomatic vandalism.” Now, that is a characterization completely on the mark. It is difficult to see what anyone would even find objectionable in it, beyond the fact of its being leaked by someone unknown.

After all, every government in Western Europe and other major states like Russia and China and major world organizations publicly expressed their opposition to Trump’s rash action. All agreed that Iran had kept to its commitments and that the agreement had worked well for about four years.

Darroch went on to explain that tearing up the agreement was done to spite his predecessor, Barack Obama.

Yes, there is no question Trump has been out to destroy or undo everything that he can that was ever done by Barack Obama. He literally hates the man. We’ve seen that in a number of matters, including Obamacare.

But there is another reason for Trump’s dangerous blundering in Iran, a far more powerful one, one completely ignored by Darroch. I’ll come back to it after a few more words about Trump’s loathing for Obama.

I do believe Trump’s hatred for Obama is deeply tinged with racism. I can see no other explanation for it. There simply are no genuine liberal qualities in Obama for anyone on the political right to dislike, but there is the glaring fact of his being the first black president.

No one, examining the record of Obama’s eight years as president, can sensibly accuse him of being a liberal. In anything, except in the occasional vacuous and soon forgotten political speech. I know the Alt-right press regards Obama as a liberal, one of the most hated ever, but it’s a silly accusation from some extreme people. And that crowd, if you read through their stuff on the Internet, oozes with racism.

Obama led eight years of ugly American colonial wars, from invading Libya to getting the endless horrors of Syria going. From secretly supporting a coup to overthrow Egypt’s first-ever democratic government, one to which Israel had taken serious objection, to staging a coup against an elected government in Ukraine and pitching that country into turmoil, including civil war, all for the sake of intimidating Russia. From increasing ugly pressures on Venezuela to starting the tanks rolling up against Russia’s borders, there is no liberalism to be found in Obama’s activities abroad.

At home, we find the same thing. How can a man be regarded as liberal who passed no significant social legislation? And he did absolutely nothing to help his own people, the people to whom he appealed in the rhythms of a black preacher reciting the slogan, “Yes, we can!” He did nothing for the squalid, broken-down realities of vast stretches of urban America. His Obamacare legislation was a nasty, confusing, corporate-serving piece of work that a liberal can find just as hateful as a right-winger.

Further, Obama also did almost nothing to reform a financial system badly in need of reform, a system that had created a disastrous world-affecting financial crash. He signed off on all major military and security legislation. He actually started the shameful American system of extrajudicial killing abroad by hi-tech drone. And it was under Obama that the secretive NSA began expanding into an information-sucking monstrosity with its new constellation of secret buildings packed with super-computers and spying on literally everyone and everything.

Trump’s activities in Iran are about Israel’s interests, as they are communicated and pressed through the many channels of the American Israel lobby. Trump felt afraid and vulnerable about the future of his office at one period, and he turned to some extremely wealthy American oligarchs for support and money. These were men whose most burning concern is Israel, and several of them are on intimate terms with Netanyahu.

I am sure Trump got the support he sought, but all such support comes at a price. Trump’s price is readily seen in a whole series of acts, from putting the American Embassy into Jerusalem to recognizing Israel’s illegal annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights. From appointing a series of extremely ideologically committed men, genuinely fanatical men, like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo to important posts to slashing support for a number of organizations whose work in any way supported the Palestinians.

It’s been a dramatic wave of events over a short period, and they reflect no authentic interests of the United States, and they certainly have nothing to do with Obama. They all increase tensions and hostilities and commit the United States to ignoring the rule of law. Matters in Iran are part and parcel of that activity.

Netanyahu has made years of insane claims about Iran and the security of Israel, all of them groundless, none of them supported by any evidence, and, indeed, in a number of cases, being directly contradicted by solid evidence. But he just continues his harangues and crusade against a country that has started absolutely no conflicts in its modern era, a fact, as it happens, totally the opposite of Israel’s own record of close-to continuous war.

Netanyahu has long wanted Iran to be hurt or reduced for the temerity of having some influence in the Middle East. Israel wants all of that influence with no one around to in any way oppose or question it. Netanyahu was intensely busy in just the same way during Obama’s time, but Obama ignored him, which is the only way he ever achieved the nuclear agreement.

Netanyahu also, like Trump, has a deep dislike for Obama. He showed this openly a number of times, coming close to expressions of public contempt. I assume his hatred is based on Obama’s ignoring him over Iran largely, although racism, too, could well play a role. Netanyahu’s Israel has been extremely hostile to black Jews from Africa and to black refugee claims. Netanyahu actually had a scheme to bribe some distant African states to take refugees off Israel’s hands.

At any rate, the shared distaste for Obama only makes the same years-old job of selling the threat Iran is supposed to represent, and there’s no need to sell it to those American oligarchs to whom Trump desperately turned for political help. They are onboard with about every outrageous claim Netanyahu ever made.

We should note that that nuclear agreement was signed by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and the United States – plus Germany and the European Union. They all still strongly support it, except, of course, for Donald Trump’s United States. Everyone, except Netanyahu’s Israel and Trump’s United States, agrees that it is a solid agreement and that Iran has conscientiously followed its obligations. All international technical experts and inspectors support that view too.

But along comes Trump suddenly to toss the agreement to the wind, ignoring everyone else. The only people with input and support for his rash behavior are Netanyahu and Trump’s American oligarch political supporters, close friends of Netanyahu.

Essentially, what we have is a man, Trump, who, in the interest of his campaign war chest for the 2020 election or against any attempt at his impeachment before that, is putting the entire world at risk of a serious war. He is threatening and economically crushing a law-abiding nation of more than eighty million souls for no other reason. Millions of ordinary Iranians are hurt by his severe and unwarranted sanctions. As is always the case with sanctions, they hurt mainly ordinary people. They are a blunt instrument, much like massive bombing.

John Chuckman

COMMENT ON WHAT EVERY CANADIAN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT CHRYSTIA FREELAND

 

The following recent revelations are things of which every Canadian should be aware:

 

‘The US State Department boasted in a declassified memo in March 2017 that Canada had adopted an “America first” foreign policy.

‘The cable was authored just weeks after the centrist government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Chrystia Freeland as foreign minister.

‘The State Department added that Trudeau had promoted Freeland “in large part because of her strong U.S. contacts,” and that her “number one priority” was working closely with Washington.’

 

While I hadn’t seen the reference before, I had concluded as much just from the actions of Chrystia Freeland and Justin Trudeau, but there is nothing quite like cold, hard facts from an important source.

Justin Trudeau is a rather weak and inept leader, not overly bright, qualities he has demonstrated an embarrassing number of times. His success in the last national election depended on handsome looks, a smile, rather overly-precious Millennialist attitudes, and a famous name. Name recognition in politics is something as important as it is in sales of dish soap.

It didn’t hurt, too, that his main opponent was someone Canadians had grown pretty tired of after a long run, Conservative Stephen Harper, a man whose government was more right-wing than anything Canada experienced in its modern history.

Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre, was one of the most memorable and independent-minded leaders Canada ever had, and, decades later, the name has resonance for many Canadians. A lawyer with a Jesuitical mind and a politician of many substantial achievements, including effectively opposing such terrible American policies as those against Cuba and that creating a holocaust in Vietnam.

There’s an old saying about strong fathers often having weak sons. I am not sure that I subscribe to it, but this is an instance that couldn’t be clearer.

Justin’s weakness means he depends a great deal on the unpleasant Freeland. She is definitely quite bright and far more hard-nosed than he is. He is photographed with her more than with any other minister. However, history is loaded with examples which tell us that brightness is no defense against evil.

It’s pretty obvious with every word coming from her mouth where her loyalties are, and they very much are not with the values that gave Canada its international reputation in the 20th century. The values of Pierre Trudeau, Lester Pearson, Jean Chrétien, and Paul Martin have been put away in on the shelves of an unused closet to be forgotten.

After all, Freeland’s previous big job was as an editor for Reuters News Agency. That requires brightness, but it very much requires something else. Reuters had a reputation right through the Cold War of being in the CIA’s hip pocket, of being one of a number of journalistic outlets it used for “getting stuff out there,” the stuff being suggestions, slants, propaganda, and disinformation.

In those Cold War days, of course, “the stuff” was largely against the former Soviet Union, but do we observe in American society, and in that of Western Europe under America’s intense influence, any real change? They use different words now, but the intent is much the same.

The USSR and the Red Army and the Soviet Empire have long disappeared, so we don’t hear about “commies” and “Reds,” very common words in the 1950s and 1960s, but we still receive daily tales about Russian influence and Russian interference and even Russian aggression.

Russophobia has replaced the old anti-commie stuff, and how very easy it was to make the replacement. After all, America went through decades of what can only be called the bitterest, most hateful cult campaign during the Cold War, and nothing has ever been done to exorcise that awful spirit.

None of the accusations about Russia today ever come with evidence or even serious analysis. Indeed, sources of clear evidence are ignored. For example, no one in Washington has ever even tried to interview Julian Assange about where the 2016 WikiLeaks material on the Democratic Party came from.

We know from world-class experts outside of government that the material was not hacked, by Russia or anyone else, that it was a straightforward leak of copied material from someone with inside access. But what we hear from the corporate press and politicians are constant variations on the themes of Russian hacking and Russian interference in elections.

It’s especially annoying for those who make an effort to be informed because the accusation comes from the world’s greatest meddler in the affairs of other states, the United States, a nation which very much goes beyond simple meddling to open threats and violent overthrows and black operations regularly.

All of the Russia “stuff” represents a constant effort to “poison the well” of public opinion. There’s an old principle in political and corporate marketing, “Throw enough crap at the wall, and some of it will stick.” That, truly, is the level on which the capital establishment of the world’s most powerful country works. It’s pathetic and repulsive at the same time.

For America’s establishment, Russia has long represented “Carthago delenda es” simply because it was the only country capable of totally destroying the United States. China, with its new wealth and increasing military capacity has joined the same rank.

Well, if you have heard Washington on Russia or China or Syria or Venezuela or Iran or Saudi Arabia, there’s no need to waste time listening to Freeland. She is saying the same things, only with less bluster and overt harshness, a delivery calculated to appeal to another market segment, if you will.

It has been disturbing to see. I do blame Trudeau because he should have known he was too weak and lacking in hard skills to be a national leader when the Liberal Party insiders tried luring him from his previous career as school drama teacher with other stints as camp counselor and snow-board instructor.

He put off the decision a while, a fact which leads me to conclude he had his own private doubts, and how could he not, given the things we’ve seen, not just in foreign policy but in domestic affairs and horrific, embarrassing blunders on trips abroad, as on his one to India. He literally made a fool of himself.

But the Party insiders were determined to get him because of the magical name. They won him over and did win the election, but what a mistake. Here’s an example of a win in seats in Parliament which literally represents a loss for the nation.

You see, with someone like Conservative Stephen Harper in office, we expect complete subservience to American interests, but the Liberal Party has long represented something else. A number of its more capable leaders have given Canadians something of which to be proud. But Justin Trudeau, and his Igor-like assistant, Chrystia Freeland, have suffocated that tradition.

Trudeau is likely to lose the next election in October, so frequent have been the scandals and embarrassments coming from his efforts to play leader. The Conservatives have no alternative who will change Canadian foreign policy, and our third major party, the NDP, which has sometimes come up with remarkable leaders, has let us down with an extremely weak choice.

So, the net effect of Justin Trudeau’s time in office will have been the removal of even a touch of independence in Canada’s foreign affairs, one of the substantial things his party represented for decades.

For those concerned about a world where one nation, one with less than five per cent of the world’s population, claims the right to tell almost every other nation and every international organization what it is to do, one that claims the right to apply its own domestic, narrow-interest legislation as though it had international legitimacy, one that even interferes at the level of telling other nations what to buy and where to buy it, it is distressing to have Chrystia Freeland representing Canada to the world.

Her behavior in office diminishes Canada and the fine reputation it enjoyed over much of the 20^th century. And what can I say about the Prime Minister who put her in that position, one who frequently makes a public fool of himself while supporting her in activities like trying to help the United States overthrow a democratic government in Venezuela or echoing Washington’s ugly name-calling of Russia or Iran or getting Canada mired in a completely-avoidable ugly mess with China?

AFTERNOTE:

Here is a very perceptive discussion of Chrystia Freeland and what she represents, one written some months after my comments:

Freeland’s New Role as Deputy Prime Minister Put’s Her in 2nd in Command… of the Titanic

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.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

 

“Leaking of UK ambassador memos branding Trump White House ‘inept’ investigated by Foreign Office”

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-memos-ambassador-uk-leaked-investigation-sir-kim-darroch-white-house-a8992826.html

(Note that link is to a follow-up article and not to the original)

 

Well, the diplomatic papers might have been secret, but the Ambassador’s observations are shared by millions.

There really are no secrets here.

I am glad to see a British Ambassador offering such accurate analysis to his government, but then why is British foreign policy cast as though the opposite were true?

Criticizing and laughing in private at Trump is not very helpful if you still follow him in all his dangerous blundering as though he really were a leader.

Just who is the bigger fool then?