JOHN CHUCKMAN

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

While I don’t support the death penalty anywhere, I do find it interesting that Harper speaks out so forcefully against Iran in this matter.

I contrast it with Israel’s treatment of a Canadian officer doing his UN observation duty in Southern Lebanon: he was targeted and deliberately killed by Israeli forces during its savage assault of the region.

Harper’s only public response then was the lame asking why the UN had put him there.

In these two events we see with complete clarity the prejudice towards special interests of our foreign policy today.

In one case a man bravely dying at his post in our honorable peacekeeping tradition was not honored by the leader of our country, and, indeed, his killers were never even questioned or in any way challenged.

In the other case, Harper makes big noises about a state which hasn’t yet carried out the verdict of a legal trial.

Unfortunately the death penalty for serious espionage is fairly common practice in the world, so Iran would not be out of line here.

One suspects and hopes they will reduce his sentence, but espionage is not a game. It has serious consequences, and with Iran being unfairly attacked day after day by Israel’s mad leader and by the United States and by a compliant Canada and others under pressure, Iran is naturally more concerned than ever with such acts.

America’s worst modern spy, Jonathon Pollard, who gave away some of America’s crown jewels to Israel, who in turn sold them to Russia – would certainly have been executed but for the Israeli connection.
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‘”…………..Foreign Affairs Department said it is reaching out to “like-minded” countries ….”

‘You mean Israel and the US?’

Well said.

Although I strongly suspect the reaching went in the other direction: Harper is a totally spineless man towards either of these bloody-minded states.
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“But Iran is not a normal country. Think of what Iranians did to the US embassy and its staff.”

The embassy?

That’s a quarter century ago.

Do you characterize any other country by what someone in it did a quarter century ago?
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‘Al Jazeera interview with Israeli Deputy Prime Minister, Dan Meridor, in which Meridor admits that the Israelis misquoted Ahmadinejad’s supposed quote about wiping out Israel. This is a misrepresentation that Netenyahu has used constantly, including speeches made before US legislators, on US cable networks and while in Canada….

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/2012/04/2012413151613293582.html

‘Little wonder Sarkozy was overheard saying of Netenyahu “I can’t stand him. He’s a liar.”‘

Yes, thank you.

Both points are absolutely spot on.

I would add that not just Sarkozy, largely a friend of Israel’s, said that but Obama spoke to the effect: “Tell me about it. I have deal with him every day.”

Obama’s addition is very telling evidence when anyone wants to discuss the inordinate and inappropriate influence of Israel in the United States.

The leader of a tiny country of 7 million gets access to the President “every day”?

And in that access he gets to lie without ever being reproved?

How is that possible?

The Lobby, and its critical campaign finance contributions.

Just the arrangement Harper daily works towards establishing in Canada by making parties more dependent on private contributions – eliminating government support for parties – and by grooming the special interest groups, especially that of Israel’s apologists, regularly.

It’s not a bright outlook for fairness or decency in our policy, two things completely missing from the foreign policy of the United States for some years now.

 

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY CHARLES MOORE IN THE TELEGRAPH

“In our generation, Blunt’s equivalents are the intellectual apologists for Islamist extremism.”

A truly ignorant statement.

No one “apologizes” for Islamist extremism, but many try explaining it rationally in the face of a flood of Islamophobic garbage from folks like Charles Moore.

Blunt assisted in the giving away of state secrets.

His acts, in fact, closely resemble the acts of people like Israeli spy Jonathon Pollard who seriously damaged the security of the United States out of his belief that Israel was entitled to any secret the United States had.

Adding that kind of line to a piece like this is not analysis and it is not intellectually honest but is propaganda of the lowest order.

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

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

“He’s more like Ted Kaczynski, who didn’t care what he blew up…”

That is simply appalling, Ms Wente. It is both uninformed and ignores the elephant in the room.

Assange’s organization combed through the material and did not release names in highly sensitive cases.

The biggest chunk of missing material is from communications with Israel.

There are two theories for this.

First, that Assange made a deal with Israeli authorities ahead of time to withhold material.

Second, that WikiLeaks is being used by Mossad to “get out” certain messages.

And we know from history there is tons of material on Israel.

The embarrassment and hurt to the United States is nothing new for the Israelis.

For decades, they have done as they please regardless of what the U.S. thinks.

Just consider the 1967 war, whose ghastly results persist to this day.

And consider Israel’s two hour all-out attack on the USS Liberty, a spy ship, during that war. Israel did everything it could to sink it, killing a large portion of the crew. It made lame excuses afterward for the attacking the well-marked ship which it had been advised would be on station to keep Israel to its secret promises around the war.

The attack was covering General Dayan’s movement northward from the Sinai of armor – something it had previously told the U.S. in private it would not do. The resulting conquest mess we live with to this day. Those conquests were Israel’s entire secret purpose in making that war happen as a big black operation.

There are countless other instances, including Israel’s duplicitous nuclear program, something Kennedy was totally against when he discovered it. Well, the program is still there, but Kennedy isn’t.

How about Israel’s participation in the Suez Crisis with Britain and France, something Eisenhower put an end to?

How about the many insults like that offered the Vice President recently?

The icing on the cake, as it were, was the most damaging spy in American history, Israeli hero, Jonathon Pollard. Some of what he stole was sold to Russia.

Israel never even blushes over Pollard, and to this day, they continue to beg and plead for his release, despite the fact that a quarter of the senior American intelligence agents would tender their resignations were that to happen. There have been dozens of formal and informal requests – immense pressure – to release a man that under other circumstances would have been shot.

And there have been many spying instances, right down to a group of Mossad spies who were right behind the 9/11 guys, a group of phony “house movers” arrested in New York and deported and a group of “art students.” None of it ever explained.

It is well known that the United States is more intensively spied on by Israel than it is by any other ally.

Note: for those not familiar, Ms Wente is one of Canada’s most persistent and blind defenders of Israel’s bloody excesses.