John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE UNZ REVIEW

 

“The New Russian Government, A much-needed evolution but not a revolution”

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Response to a comment which referred to the Guardian newspaper as very “left wing”

The Guardian is a terrible newspaper nowadays.

But it is not accurate to describe it as “left wing,” not at all.

Using that description is playing the Guardian’s own game.

The newspaper uses a great deal of window dressing that makes it appear “leftish” and progressive, features and filler material about minorities and women and the unfortunate. I suppose it’s intended to connect with the newspaper’s historic past and to provide a kind of sugar coating for what it truly advocates.

The Guardian’s heart and soul are pretty close to Tory in spirit. That is revealed through its choice of news stories covered, the slant given the stories, its editorials, the various public figures given regular favorable publicity, and even its highly-controlled and restrictive comment policies. Liberals don’t censor. The Guardian does, heavily.

It virtually led the howling mob attacking Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, and it used some really underhanded techniques, like running little human-interest items about British Jews who were afraid and were going to leave Britain to take up residence somewhere else. It did this several times in the course of its campaign. Once, the person’s destination was even Germany. Of course, any Jewish person who had anything unpleasant to say about Corbyn was given space to say it.

The paper raised no objections to direct interference in British domestic politics by several Israeli politicians, including Netanyahu, who chimed in on Corbyn and anti-Semitism, and he was even mistaken in the facts he cited.

The Guardian is staunchly pro-Israel and pro-American empire, the two, of course, being tightly associated.

The Guardian has supported all of America’s bloody Neocon Wars and coups. It never raises any doubts or questions about matters like the externally-induced horrors in Syria. President Assad is always treated with disdain. Syria, in the Guardian’s manufactured reality, uses poison gas against its own people and deserves cruise missile attacks.

It has no problem with America’s torrent of invective and threats and sanctions against Iran, a country which has done in fact nothing wrong. It has no problem with severe war-like sanctions being used against tens of millions of innocent people to cause starvation and to deprive them of medications, vicious actions taken by the United States against Iran and Venezuela.

It despises Putin and Russia. It literally sometimes prints gutter-quality literature on those topics. It stands shoulder-to-shoulder with those who insist Putin has virtually invaded Ukraine and seized Crimea. And of course, he or his henchmen shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine, even though the Prime Minister of Malaysia says that is not the case.

It has no problem with NATO, closely under American direction, running tanks up against the Russian border, sending risky, intrusive spy flights towards Russian airspace, doing armed cruises on the Black Sea, and carrying on with large-scale practice sea battles in the Baltic.

As far as The Guardian is concerned, the Salisbury Skripal Affair with Putin directly responsible for it – that indigestible mass of Theresa May accusations containing not a single proven fact – is a settled matter of history. It occasionally makes an effort to warm up the kettle, burning new bits flogged by security service outlets.

The Guardian played a sizable role in building up the public-relations image of that good friend of Netanyahu’s, the tyrant Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. He was to be a dynamic and progressive new force in the Middle East. It even used chirpy little features about a few upper-class women being allowed to drive now to emphasize his fine qualities between executions, kidnappings, and launching wars.

It has attacked and lied about Julian Assange, one of the truest heroes of our time and a great investigative reporter/editor. But you see, Assange’s work works against America’s appalling injustices, and that just isn’t allowed. And it worked against candidate Hillary Clinton, world’s leading purveyor of Russophobia, killer of Libyans and Syrians as Secretary of State, and a favorite of Guardian editors.

I could cite many examples of how dreadful the Guardian has become, but here is my favorite:

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John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER

 

“Shocking: Perfidious Turks Stab US in Back to Buy S-400s, Join Belt and Road Initiative

“Erdogan looks set to buy Russian missile defense system in defiance of US and NATO, tying his cart to China and Russia”

 

Erdogan is quite the performer.

Tough, sticking to his principles, even though they may not always be the most admirable, and surprisingly open to new big initiatives.

I say “surprisingly” because there is also a definite unbalanced element in Erdogan’s make-up.

He can be hard to predict. And anyone who builds a one-thousand room palace, as Erdogan did, shows some eccentricity, although it could be argued that his massive palace represents a modern effort to do what France’s Louis XIV did at Versailles, bringing together in one spot all the powerful people under his very observant eye.

Often, history is made, great changes are achieved, by rather difficult people like Erdogan.

Erdogan, at least in part, is likely still reacting to that big, attempted coup. It knocked him off into new directions, and the expert, careful diplomacy and assistance of Russia and China are offering new opportunities.

I am pretty sure he privately holds the United States responsible for the coup, and I think that may be right, given many suggestive bits of evidence. Of course, as in all such matters, American intelligence would have worked diligently to cover its trail.

But America had the motivation and the connections and the opportunity – as, for example, in many important, high-level contacts with Turkish officials and military at the huge Incirlik Air Base – and, frankly, some of its responses after the events left a bit of lingering odor.

America seriously dislikes independent-minded heads of state, and that is just what Erdogan very much is, and in a large and strategically important country.

Erdogan’s purchase of the Russian S-400 system is a brilliant move. He gets a world-class air-defense system, he gets Turkish participation in future defense projects with Russia, and he waves a red flag right under Washington’s nose, effectively telling them “Tant pis!” – all while, I’m sure, chuckling and privately enjoying Washington’s squirming and efforts at maneuvering and fairly hollow threats.

Not too many leaders are capable of making such moves.

 

NOTE ON POSSIBLE AND PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN CONSIDERATIONS IN TURKEY’S PURCHASE OF RUSSIA’S S-400

I’ve learned the following from reading an interview with a man named Mark Sleboda, a Moscow-based security analyst. They are not widely-known facts but likely play into Turkey’s S-400 purchase.

During the Gulf War with Saddam Hussein, his French-made air defense system was shut down remotely. They can’t do that with a Russian system.

During the Turkish coup, air force pilots in Western fighters tried to shoot Erdogan. The Turkish Western-made air defenses wouldn’t work against their Western planes. A Russian air system would.

Turkey’s air force is one of the most Westernized parts of its military because it uses a lot Western equipment and receives a lot of training in the West.

The S-400 is a way to help protect against Erdogan’s own military.

And who ever knew that scoundrels like France could sell you a costly air-defense system and then switch it off when they wanted?

 

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

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

Turkey is acting as stalking horse for the United States and Israel in their desire to topple Assad and dismember Syria.

Here Syria legitimately downed a warplane either within or on its frontiers.

Yet when Israel murdered about ten Turkish citizens during its high-seas piracy of a humanitarian ship, Turkey took no such action with NATO.

This entire business is a set-up.

The Free Syrian Army is a fraud, an American-Israeli creation, and there too Turkey plays a role in providing refuge for what a group fairly characterized as terrorists.

America and Israel simple do not think any international laws or conventions apply to them when they want something outside their territory.

It is a world governed by bullies they are creating.
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“According to Reuters news (I know, I know….not very reliable), Syria announced that it has killed several Turks who have infiltrated into Syrian space.
In other news….Iran is asking both parties to cool down.

“Will we ever find out the truth about this plane incident?”

Reuters of course has a well-earned reputation as part of the CIA’s “mighty Wurlitzer,” the intelligence agency’s name for the set of news outlets it manipulates in planting of stories.

We’ve had one story that the plane was not a warplane.

One story that it was a warplane.

One story that it was indeed in Syrian airspace and Turkey was sorry.

And now we have a story that it was in international air space.

Good God, we no longer can get reliable news on anything of importance.

Our entire sense of reality, at least in international affairs, is today reduced to a fantasy creation, a few facts hung, here and there like a few nasty-looking ornaments on an ugly Christmas tree, just enough to make the created story seem plausible.

This is because there is so much concentration in the ownership of news outlets, the hands into which it is concentrated are huge corporations sharing interests with governments, and governments like the United States and Israel view it as their God-given right to constantly play with the lives of others.

In effect, the West today, in such matters, is governed by lies in pursuit of goals without ethics or morality.

“Democracy” and “rights” and “law” are words used in Orwellian fashion by these governments and their loyal followers, words without any genuine meaning, resembling the suggestive and untruthful words used in advertising.

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

RESPONSES TO AN EDITORIAL IN THE TELEGRAPH

Sorry, but this editorial begs an essential question.

What mission?

The “mission” has never been defined.

And why is that? Because the “mission” cannot be defined.

It is truly preposterous to talk of remaking an ancient society of about 30 million people who mostly live hardscrabble lives in the mountains and deserts.

Afghanistan is only barely a country with traditionally no real central government, no roads, and few of any other modernity.

It is a collection of tribes, many of them living as people lived centuries ago. Even its borders are not fixed, the arbitrary Durand Line serving as an imposed border with Pakistan.

Just consider how long it takes for serious economic development to occur, economic development being the only path to modern democratic society.

Even China – the economic miracle of our age – which had much infrastructure, a cohesive society, and great human capital has taken more than thirty years of growth to arrive where it is.

And great parts of China are still poor and backward, especially in the West.

Or consider how long it takes to change one important human habit, say smoking. Only after decades of effort are we changing this once everyday-accepted habit.

Yet the newspaper editorial rooms, following the well-paid flaks at the Pentagon, speak blithely of immense changes in what is a gigantic country.

The United States never went into Afghanistan to advance its people. If it had wanted that, it could have dropped dollar bills instead of bombs.

What the United States wanted was vengeance, and also, I believe, that football-atmosphere feeling of, “Well, after all we are the greatest, and these poor turban-heads can’t stop us from doing as we please.”

The U.S. garnered UN support in the wake of 9/11 by exploiting sympathy, calling in debts, threats, and promises to get the votes to make the “mission” look international.

Just consider the NATO commitment, apart from Tony Blair’s abused Britain loyally carrying America’s gear. If it were such an important mission, of world significance, then you would not see 750 troops here and 2000 there, many of them under heavy restrictions about fighting. No, you would see the response of WWII. NATO counries cannot say it in public, but they do not believe in America’s “mission.” The size and very nature of their efforts speak eloquently for anyone listening.

It has been a fool’s mission from the beginning, and it remains a fool’s mission.

In the end, the Taleban, who are best described as a large segment of the country and not the phony term “insurgents’ must be part of any government. Karzai recognizes that. So what are you wasting lives and treasure over?

The great irony, of course, is that the Taleban need not have been our enemies. They are not pleasant or modern people, but their views are often no different to those of the Northern Alliance America has effectively put in their place, and the truth is their views are no more backward than those in many third-world countries, including India where savageries like bride-burning continue.

The Taleban did not cause 9/11. Saudis and some others, working abroad, quite possibly in a CIA black operation which backfired, did. They were not even the original ones to grant Osama bin Laden refuge, America’s Northern Alliance did.

And the Taleban still agreed after 9/11 to extradite bin Laden if only a bit of evidence were provided, the normal working procedure for extraditions all over the world. But the United States refused, and, to this day, it is interesting that bin Laden has never been included on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.

For some reason unbelievable resources have been put into defeating what cannot be defeated. The fight against the Taleban has been subsumed under that great and hazy thing called the War on Terror, which really is an absurd extension of Israel’s views of how you live in the Middle East. Insanity, pure and simple.
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So, even accepting your doubtful assumptions, the solution is to attack all of these places?

The war on terror is derived from Israel’s view of living in the Middle East. Israel sits, armed to teeth, with an armed forces and security establishment monstrously out of proportion to its size, and it has attacked every neighbor that it has, some more than once. It threatens every country within a thousand miles that demonstrates any independence of view, and it has used every dirty trick in the book to assault its perceived foes.

Nothing has been a more complete failure than Israel’s way of living with its neighbors.

It is a garrison state, constantly suffering from paranoia, reminding me much of the way people in Virginia in 1700s reacted to the circumstances of slavery, sleeping with guns and knives under their pillows and regularly being driven to excesses by fears of slave revolts.

It is not a model or an ideology to serve as anything of an example.

Indeed, a great deal of the discontent felt in Muslim countries relates to the great suppurating wound of Palestine/Israel, a natural human reaction to the great injustices and to the one-sidedness and injustice of American policy.

Solving a fundamental problem like that would go a great way towards reestablishing healthy relations with the world’s billion Muslims, but still, after decades of talk, we see no honest effort to do so. Instead we spend countless billions fighting phantoms.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO AN ARTICLE IN THE TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL

Clinton is simply out of her mind.

Two dozen countries sending seven thousand troops?

And many or most not for combat?

That’s an average of about 290 troops per country.

290 cooks, guards, and orderlies each.

Some world crisis.

Everyone clearly sees what a mistake Afghanistan is, except the government of the United States.

Of course those eager not to offend American sensibilities, or those whose assistance or favors from America are under threat, send their token contingent.

This whole matter is like one of those slightly absurd British comedies of four or five decades ago.

World crisis, civilization in peril, so we better send 290 troops.

The press should be embarrassed to even report such press-release fantasy as an event.

Clinton should be embarrassed to utter a word about these 24 mice roaring, but this woman is long ago beyond any possible embarrassment, having said countless absurd things in recent years or quickly backtracking what she has previously said, making absolutely no sense in most of what she says.

Were a major business run the way America runs wars and foreign policy, the economy would collapse.