John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOE LAURIA IN CONSORTIUM NEWS

 

“Fear of a Major Mideast War

“Fears of a major war in the Middle East exploded Thursday night with the U.S. assassination of arguably the second most powerful man in Iran” [General Qassem Soleimani] 

 

It appears Trump has given Israel control of some portion of the American military in addition to major parts of Palestine.

This is classic Israeli extrajudicial killing, an Israeli practice for over seventy years (a recent book claimed Israel is responsible for more than 2,700 of them), but now America takes responsibility on its behalf.

Just as with the Neocon Wars, all for Israel’s benefit and all done so that Israel does not have to take direct blame for the immense violence it generates in the region.

Hard to know what Trump’s thinking here is. War before an election does not seem a good idea, especially if you are a candidate who has failed so far to achieve anything of substance around past promises to reduce America’s involvement in Mideast wars.

Remember that a crucial slice of the votes that put the man into office was not from his prime political base, the “pick-up truck and Jesus” set, but from those concerned with peace and better relations with Russia.

But prodding Iran to attack could allow Trump to play commander-in-chief defending the country. And Americans just instinctively support even the worst possible presidents at war. You might call it the George Bush Effect. The frightened puppy grabbing the nearest pantleg after a loud noise.

Of course, now when it comes to campaign contributions from American Oligarchs whose chief political concern is what Israel wants, Trump’s coffers will be overflowing.

I suspect Iran will take its time and carefully plan a response, and that response may not be clear and unambiguous, and it might be multi-faceted and done over time.

The men running Iran are careful men, none of them impetuous. Chess players. The United States has more than forty years of bellowing, open hostility towards the country, and we have not seen Iran’s leaders act foolishly in all that time despite many provocations.

I do not believe Iran will be driven to war – that would be playing the Israeli-American game with Israeli-American rules.

Clandestine and hybrid efforts, that is what Iran is best at. They have serious capabilities these days, and the United States, with all its bases abroad, has great vulnerabilities.

Of course, there’s also the option of Iran’s just leaving the nuclear agreement (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) that Trump idiotically tore-up and proceeding quietly with weapons development. Iran, despite Israel’s dishonest claims, never has pursued weapons development, only efficient use of nuclear power and legitimate scientific research. Perhaps it is time to reconsider that policy

Iran has substantial deposits of uranium, and the enriched-uranium bomb is simpler to build than the plutonium bomb. Maybe there is some possibility for covert assistance from North Korea, another country treated like crap by Trump’s Washington Braintrust?

 John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY RALPH RAICO IN THE UNZ REVIEW

 

“The Taboo Against Truth”

“Speaking truth to power” is not easy when you support that power. Perhaps this is the reason why so few Western historians are willing to tell the whole truth about state crimes during this century.”

“In fact, all great states in this century have been killer states, to a greater or lesser degree.”

 

https://www.unz.com/article/the-taboo-against-truth/#comment-3600137

 

Indeed.

And I wonder how many Americans know the postwar record of their own country in the world?

You know, the bloody work America busied itself with during its golden age of postwar dominance, the period of “the American Dream,” while American families watched “Ozzie and Harriet” and “Mary Tyler Moore” and “Seinfeld” and “Friends”?

One-fifth of the entire population of North Korea exterminated in three years of carpet bombing? That’s a Pentagon number, too.

How many Americans know their country conducted a true holocaust in Vietnam?  3 million Vietnamese killed. Carpet bombing. Napalm. Early cluster bombs.

A huge legacy of landmines and Agent Orange left behind to keep killing and maiming for decades.

At least a million died in the “killing fields” of Cambodia. The United states had an important role in bringing that about. A neutral government was constantly pressured and harassed and secretly bombed and periodically invaded on a small scale until it collapsed and the Khmer Rouge took over.

The US then did not lift a finger to stop the butchery by the Khmer Rouge.

In Iraq, the illegal US invasion killed about a million people and so set back one of the most advanced Arab states that it still has not recovered. Millions lack such basics as clean water and electricity.

Libya was the best-run government on the continent of Africa. Everything from clean water to good education was provided free to its people, and the country was kept at peace. Today it is in ruins, and fighting over its future continues.

The horrors of the proxy war in Syria, the covert work of the US and some allies, has killed over 600,000 people and destroyed great parts of a truly beautiful and historic land.

The millions of refugees that came close to de-stabilizing parts of Europe were the result of people desperately seeking safety from America’s bombing in its destructive series of Mideast wars.

During the coup in Indonesia after President Sukarno, there was a huge bloodbath as anyone even thought to be a communist had his throat cut. The rivers were said to run red with blood from hundreds of thousands of victims thrown in.

During the horror, the US State Department burned up the phone lines submitting the names of communists or communist suspects.

Apart from the big events, there have been just dozens of coups and interventions and dirty wars over the postwar period – from those in Iran and Guatemala to Chile and Ukraine and Bolivia – all democratic governments overthrown, just ones the US didn’t like.

The ugly suppurating wounds of Palestine never stopped leaking over the decades, and America never made the effort to stop what it could have easily stopped.
 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE INDEPENDENT

The story of North Korea’s producing the so-called super-notes, one-hundred dollar notes of near perfect quality, is an old one, but it is not necessarily true, as the author of this piece assumes.There is another story that says it is the CIA manufacturing these super-notes.

Such an intelligence operation would serve two ends.

One, it is a new source of untraceable funds for the CIA. We know that in the past the CIA has used drugs and armaments as ways to obtain off-the-record funds.

Two, the notes, combined with the story this author repeats, provide one more excuse to beat-up on North Korea.

Just ask yourself whether it is likely that North Korea has the immensely complex technology for producing notes of this quality.

Then ask yourself whether this is the way the United States would behave if indeed it knew North Korea was the source of the bills.