John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE AND VIDEO IN THE INDEPENDENT

Here’s more propaganda from The Independent, so poorly disguised you cannot vouch for the source.

God, don’t you ever get tired of pushing this stuff out?

Even if you could account for the source, this is propaganda precisely because it has absolutely no perspective. The best propaganda always has a tiny bit of truth, and the truth here is that, yes, such weapons are used.

You absolutely cannot fairly take one small part of a huge destructive war and suggest that it explains what is going on. It cannot. It can horrify people though, and that would appear to be its purpose here because The Independent makes no practice of presenting such things in most situations.

I can’t recall any equivalent material being used by The Independent for Israel’s slaughters in Gaza, and such material does exist. Some very brave photographers took images of the rivers of blood and smashed children.

I don’t recall such material for America’s (and of course Britain’s) proud invasion of Iraq in which such ghastly weapons as cluster bombs and white phosphorus were used. Thousands of pictures exist of sliced-up children and smashed women, but you never ran any.

The creepy Saudis, whom Britain implicitly supports and with whom it explicitly does a handsome business, are, right now, killing masses of civilians in Yemen, and they are using America’s dreadful cluster bombs to tear them apart, maiming those not killed. Where are your terrifying images?

The horror in Syria did not start by the government’s barrel-bombing places. The barrel-bombing is a response to the infiltration and entrenchment of tens of thousands of heavily-armed terrorists trying to destroy the country from scattered and hidden positions all over it.

They were infiltrated into Syria by the lunatic now running Turkey. They are financed and supplied by the absolute princes of Saudi Arabia. They were assisted, advised, and even led in some cases by the same government of Israel which holds more than five million unwilling people as prisoners. Yet more money came from the absolute princes of Qatar.

And the United States has also supplied and trained elements. It clearly approves of what has been going on or it would be stopped. We know to a certainty that nothing happens anywhere near its Middle East colony of which it does not approve.

Britain under David Cameron, as one of America’s most groveling allies, has also done its dirty bit to help.

This entire misery could be ended if outside help and support for thugs were ended, but that help and support, by the above-named parties, will not stop. Because those countries want Syria destroyed just the way Iraq was destroyed, reduced to a meaningless set of rump states with a population left to suffer for a generation.

And they want to achieve that in the most cowardly of fashions, giving the bloody work over to hired mercenaries and ideological maniacs while standing off – tsk-tsking at the horrors as Cameron is wont to do – pretending they have nothing to do with it.

I simply do not understand how anyone can think human trash like ISIS and al-Nusra Front should prevail over a reasonable, highly-educated man like Assad, a leader who has always protected a secular and diverse society and who keeps the support of large parts of that society.

It is a totally absurd situation, and it can only be explained in light of American policy. It is the policy that destroyed Iraq and Libya and sparked in large covert operations the whole pointless and wrongly-named Arab Spring. There was nothing spring-like in what happened.

A brief experiment with democratic government in Egypt was smothered following Israel’s complaints about the threat it represented. Egypt was returned to a decades-old dictatorship much to Israel’s liking. In other places, like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, potential uprisings were violently suppressed by absolute governments.

It was all an effort to re-mold the region to the liking of America and its Middle East colony under a façade of popular revolt and never mind all the inconvenience of death, destruction, and misery. The region’s authoritarian governments were overthrown only where they disagreed with America and/or Israel while in all other cases they were left to flourish, and the authoritarian governments overthrown were only replaced by others. Democracy flourishes nowhere.

Well, Mr. Putin understands that, and if the nations doing the deadly supplying aren’t going to stop, he’ll destroy what they’ve supplied. The Syrian army will do the rest.

NOTE:

Julian Assange has said that the massive influx of refugees into Europe is, in fact, part of the American strategy to de-stabilize Syria, and I don’t doubt that he is right. Emptying Syria of good parts of its professionals and technicians only further weakens it.

This, of course, puts in quite a different light Ms. Merkel’s controversial, open-arms support for unlimited refugees in Germany. She, rather than speaking from a heart larger than we would have credited her from past behaviors, is just once again supporting American policy, a much more familiar stance for her.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO ANOTHER COMMENT IN THE INDEPENDENCE

Reader comment:

“It has done nothing but kill people for 65 years, having invaded every neighbor that it has, many of them two or three times.”

Israel was attacked in 48, 67 and 73 by armies (variously) from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. Israel risked being annihilated in all these wars.

Read some history – don’t parrot what you’ve read on far-left hate sites.”

Your comment is arrogant and uninformed. It simply repeats the David and Goliath myths manufactured by the Israeli Ministry of Truth for American consumption.

It is you who should read some history.

The 1967 War was engineered by Israel. Yes, some Arabs attacked, but only after an elaborate series of aggressive and provocative acts by Israel. It was what Israel wanted because its government had made an elaborate calculation ahead and was sure it would win fairly quickly. The prize was all of Palestine and part of Syria.

In the War, Israel also betrayed its best allies.

De Gaulle, a defender of young Israel, warned that he wouldn’t support conquest, but he was ignored.

The United States told Israel not to turn their armor north after defeating Egypt, but that’s just what Israel did because the entire intent of that war was to conquer what Israel still occupies to this day. Just ask yourself why else it still holds millions of people captive and has worked so hard to make their lives miserable as an incentive for their leaving?

In order to turn the armor in the Sinai quickly, Israel had to eliminate its Egyptian prisoners, and that is what it did. It shot hundreds of POWs, much as WWII Germans sometimes did.

To cover this up from the United States and to cover up turning armor north, it attacked the American surveillance ship, USS Liberty, trying desperately for two hours to sink it with everything the pilots had. This was not an error as Israel claimed later, the ship was not only well-marked, Israel had been told of its presence, and the Israeli attack pilots who first buzzed the ship waved to the waving crew.

As to 1948, well, please, it was Israel who was slaughtering Palestinians, driving them out of their own land to seize their farms, homes, and villages – all re-named afterward. There were several documented mass atrocities by people like the Stern Gang, Irgun, and other Jewish terror organizations. Hundreds of civilians were shot and Palestinian women were raped. The hope was that all Palestinians would simply run away as the rumors spread. I should hope some Arab states responded with anger, but they made only a half-hearted effort.

1973 was indeed an attack by Egypt against Israel, but it happened in light of all I’ve written above and far more.

Israel has demonstrated not an ounce of ethics in its 65 years. Duplicity and killing have been the chief features of Israeli policy over the entire period. Let’s not forget several invasions of Lebanon, killing tens of thousands, creating a years-long occupation (against which Hezbollah was formed, an army of genuine freedom-fighters, not terrorists), and using such horrible weapons as large numbers of cluster bombs on civilians.

And then America invaded Iraq, largely on Israel’s behalf, killing a million. Now Israel and America have terrorists doing the same thing in Syria.

It has been a completely destructive and destabilizing history.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN

The New York Times is very much like American foreign policy.

On the outside, it’s all lip service to truth and integrity.

On the inside, it’s exactly and precisely the opposite.

The paper has a long history of prejudices and bad intentions and twisted journalism and work for the secret services while pompously trumpeting its superior merits.

It is, literally, as sick an institution as the State Department, no matter who happens to be serving at its head.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN

You really do not need new evidence about the hopeless state of the news at BBC.

Every perceptive reader of BBC’s Internet site knows what a patchwork of half-truths and public relations puke BBC News has become.

It is just painfully obvious in the selection of stories, the selection of descriptive words, the images selected, and what is missing.

I check it daily just to see what games they are playing on any particular day.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

Jens Stoltenberg has said so many stupid things in recent time that his words now come as just noise.

Russia of course has troops in Syria, troops to service their planes, load munitions, guard the base, and prepare food.

Such support always comes with an air presence by anyone anywhere. Any thinking person knows that.

To refer to them as “boots on the ground” (a dumb American expression for troops somewhere) is completely asinine.

Putin is clever, cautious, and decisive – an excellent combination in a leader – and he is not ready to march into any potential morass.

Besides the Syrian Army is doing a good job of defending its country, only being impeded by the immense secret assistance America and Israel with their associates have provided the terrorist gangs trying to destroy Syria.

What Russia is doing is simply erasing that assistance. The Syrian Army will do the rest.

Jens Stoltenberg is just pitching one more line of anti-Russian American propaganda, attempting to feed the bonfire of ignorant fear America has kept burning in Europe since its engineered coup in Ukraine.

My question is: considering its face-value worthlessness, why does The Independent bother giving it prominence?

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

Sorry, but this stuff about Syrian civilian deaths owing to Russian bombing is simply ignorant propaganda.

No one who is well read on this matter could possibly write this.

I remind readers that the top story in The Independent today is America’s stupidly brutal bombardment of an M.S.F. hospital in Afghanistan. The bombing continued for thirty minutes after staff notified others of what was happening. People from abroad heroically giving their time and talents were slaughtered in the pointless attack.

Contrary to this writer’s assertions, there is not an ounce of proof that the Russians have hit a single civilian.

But there is plenty of proof that the Russians have seriously hit ISIS, which is their only purpose. The Russians keep releasing video footage of what their planes achieved.

The Syrian government has confirmed this. Also all targeting is done with agreement between Syrian and Russian officials, contrary to America’s imperious practices of bombing whomever where ever and whenever it pleases, killing countless thousands along the way.

The Independent should be ashamed to run such dishonest writing as this.

Putin does more in a couple of days to stop ISIS than the U.S. has done in years.

And that’s because the U.S. does not really want to stop ISIS or al Qaeda or the other filthy terrorists who are doing America’s bidding in attempting to destroy Syria.

The U.S. now will not be able to repeat in Syria its Libyan dirty work in which a “no-fly zone” was converted into a murderous bombing campaign.

That is why the United States, and its apologists like this writer, is so upset. With a single rational stroke Putin has stopped their murderous intent.

We should all remember the hideous Sarin gas attacks in Syria and the effort to pin them on the government. That was not only a lie, it was cynical and immoral beyond belief. That poison came either from the United States or from one of its allies, perhaps Israel, to be used on innocent civilians just to provide a cause for war. It just doesn’t come any lower than that.

John Chuckman

COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

“CIA-backed ‘moderate’ rebels struck by fresh air strikes…”

Sorry, but those words are just plain dishonest.

These creepy guys are accurately described as ‘CIA-backed terrorists,’ just another flavor, if you will, of ISIS, al Qaeda, and the other monsters supplied and let loose on a beautiful country.

You may insert the word ‘moderate’ according to taste.

Just what do you think Benghazi was about and why do you think it has been covered up? It was a dirty American operation to ship Libyan-based terrorists and weapons to Syria that went wrong in an instance of covert operation ‘blowback.’

It is so refreshing to see Putin hurl America’s lies back into their faces, and he does so with genuine grace, never raising his voice or even calling names. Quite remarkable. No one prominent in the West is willing to do so, and certainly not The Independent.

The entire disaster in Syria is engineered by the U.S. and its friends in the area. Its only purpose is to destroy a government supported by a majority of Syrians and one notably tolerant of minorities. It has absolutely nothing to do with democracy.

And anyone who covers up the U.S. operation to supply Sarin gas in small quantities to be used on innocents by these creeps as a false flag to justify further American operations (the exact opposite of what Obama claimed at the UN) just has no interest in truth and may be said to suffer from a serious ethics disability.

________________________________________

Response to another comment:

 

‘The USA wars have killed millions with no concern on who or what they are bombing.’

Indeed.

3,000,000  estimated in Vietnam, mostly civilians cut down by napalm, clusters bombs, carpet bombing, and land mines.

Another million in Cambodia which was destabilized by American bombing and covert invasions, allowing cutthroats to take over.

A million or so in Iraq, and a country left smashed to bits.

How many in Afghanistan? How many in Gulf War I? How many in Yemen? Somalia?

We know 15,000 died at the hands of the dictator installed by the U.S. in Chile.

How many in Iran? in Guatemala? A dozen other places?

It is the greatest public lie of the century that the U.S. cares about democracy, human rights, or even human life.

The U.S. cares only about control.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO A COLUMN IN THE INDEPENDENT

“Syria is about to experience chaos on a whole new level”

Utter crap propaganda, likely from the Israeli Ministry of Truth or the Pentagon’s Disinformation Division.

The only honest and thoughtful actor in this whole squalid mess is Putin.

Russia’s strikes on America’s covert terrorist allies in the dirty job of destroying Syria mean only now do they face serious force applied specifically to them.

In Iraq, the troops were paid off with Saudi money to run away and leave their tanks behind when faced with nothing more than Japanese pick-up trucks and AK-47s in the hands of rabble.

In Syria, the US has been bombing infrastructure and the desert, and it has been searching for any excuse to repeat what they did in Libya with “a no-fly zone” which was actually an excuse for bombing the crap out of the country.

All the flap about Sarin gas attacks was just one utterly cynical effort to do so. Civilians were killed to create an excuse. The gas was used by America’s maniacs and was supplied by America either directly or indirectly.

But it is too late now to implement such a scheme – that is, unless you want war with Russia – and a few weeks of Putin’s precision air work is going to reduce these cowards before our eyes.

You end the terrors of Syria by attacking what has directly caused them, the maniacs the U.S. has supplied and tolerated, something the United States has only pretended to do.

John Chuckman

LETTER TO CBC RADIO’S THE CURRENT

The Rohingya Muslims of Burma by all accounts are treated badly.

But in not one particular cited by your guests does the situation of these oppressed people differ from the situation of the millions of Palestinians under Israeli occupation.

Inability to freely travel limiting opportunities to earn a living; unfair treatment by officials and police; hate speech – all of these and more are the everyday experience of Palestinians.

The Rohingya, concentrated on the west coast of Burma in Rakhine State, sometimes leave their oppression because of the seas, yet the people of Gaza, stretched along the sea in much the same fashion, are not even free to use the sea: fishermen who go outside their tiny permitted zone are shot at regularly by Israeli naval forces; ships of needed supplies from other places are subject to attack by Israel on the high seas; and even natural gas fields discovered in the Mediterranean in areas which under international law should belong to Palestine are seized by Israel.

The comparisons are even closer because if you ask Burmese officials, they would tell you the Rohingya want their own state, something Burma will not grant, and are regarded as rebellious, something none of your guests discussed.

Yet CBC Radio, and The Current in particular, would not dream of treating the Palestinians’ plight, which after all is in every sense closer to home. You have not done so once in any meaningful way.

To add insult to injury in the piece you did, you interviewed a representative of the American Holocaust Museum whose investigations are said to have established that all the “early signs of genocide” were now present in Burma. I wasn’t aware that there was an official handbook of diagnosis for genocide, but these people appear to have one.

It does seem to me in view of the appalling conditions in Israel/Palestine, people from the Holocaust Museum are simply not qualified to comment on Burma.

Indeed, I think it not unfair to suggest that their statements effectively serve as diversions to a faraway topic from what is going on so much closer to home in Israel.

AFTERWORD: In a follow-up interview the next day with Burma’s ambassador to Canada, he said something along the lines of “There’s no such thing as the Rohingya people.”

These were exactly the same words uttered by Golda Meir about the Palestinians decades ago, and her chilling words have been echoed many times since, including a few years ago by Newt Gingrich on the campaign trail after receiving the best part of $20 million in campaign contributions from billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a devoted supporter of Netanyahu’s vision of Israel.

 

 

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

COMMENT WRITTEN TO CBC NEWS

CBC radio news has been in serious decline for years, but in your recent coverage of events in Syria, you have touched bottom.

In every newscast and every news-oriented show, the subject dominates. Even on fluff shows like Mary Ito or Bret Banbury we hear about Syria from people who know nothing about it. The problem all this “coverage” is that you investigate nothing and simply repeat the official American view, endlessly.

You have not one qualified reporter on site. No one interviews Syrian officials. No one interviews Russian officials who include many experts on the region. No one talks to good independent reporters or observers, people such as Robert Fisk.

Your broadcasts would not differ in substance if you simply read press releases from the White House and Pentagon.

Even when you report facts upon which people might agree – as for example the number of refugees from Syria, recently cited at one million – you offer no vitally-important perspective, so the end result is effectively CBC joining the tireless American drumbeat to war.

You should well know that when America invaded Iraq, breaking all international law and humanitarian agreements, it killed at least half a million people and created four million refugees. It then refused to take almost any of the refugees, while Syria took a massive two million. Very heartless of Assad, don’t you think?

You keep repeating the American accusations about Assad using sarin gas. In fact, the only certain use of that horrible stuff has been by the violent rabble called the Free Syrian Army. They used small quantities more than once, material either captured from overrun military posts or supplied by American intermediaries such as Israel, which is known to have stockpiles.

And what is the “evidence” you blindly refer to over and over? I can tell you. It is a supposed recording of Syrian officials supplied by Mossad.

Yes, Mossad, the very people who pride themselves at deception and who have a long track record of expertly using it, even in several cases successfully against the United States.

And the recording, even if it could be proved authentic, is ambiguous as to meaning.

You do not kill thousands of people and destroy a country’s infrastructure citing rubbish like that.

The truth is that the entire Syrian “civil war,” as I cannot but believe some of your better journalists must know, is an American black-operation, part of a long series of violent efforts to create a huge cordon sanitaire around Israel. And this particular induced-civil war employs many of the same unsavoury characters typically grouped under the rubric “al Qaeda.”

Recently, this massive covert effort has been failing, despite even more American and Israeli weapons being smuggled to the murderous opposition through Turkey, owing to the successes of Assad’s army. So, now a new casus belli is needed to allow American bombing of Assad’s forces.

The “formula” for this kind of operation was worked out in the invasion of Afghanistan where Americans used everything from Tomahawk missiles to B-52s (with hideous cluster bombs as well as “block-busters”) while locals – the Northern Alliance in that case, including such blood-thirsty creatures as General Dostum – did most of the fighting on the ground. The formula was successfully and cynically repeated in Libya.

The cynics running the induced-horror in Syria for America have gone to the extent now of supplying the rabble with small quantities of sarin to generate a tipping point so Libya can be repeated. It is brutal cynicism with absolutely no regard for Syria’s people.

And remember, if you associate America’s impulses in Syria with either the rule of law or humanitarianism, it was Americans who employed white phosphorus, flame throwers, depleted-uranium (cancer-inducing) ammunition, and cluster bombs in Iraq. Some great defenders of humanitarian principles to be judging what anyone else does.

I realize you cannot present all these underlying realities (after all, your president would be called into Stephen Harper’s office immediately for a chair-throwing meeting), but you do not need to sink to the contemptible level of just repeating every American fabrications with no authority of on-site journalism and no expert opinion.

Shabby, simply shabby.