COMMENT ON A PIECE BY DANIEL HALPER IN THE WEEKLY STANDARD

John Chuckman

 

It really does not get more uninformed and deliberately provocative than “U.S. Threatens Sanctions Against Israel, Makes Excuses for Iran.”

This stuff reads like an official news release from the old Politburo.

There is no need for excuses for Iran. It has done absolutely nothing requiring excuses.

It hasn’t attacked anyone in its modern history, is a member of the international treaty on nuclear weapons permitting inspections, and every intelligence service, including Israel’s, knows it has not been trying to build a bomb.

The genuine madman running Israel, on the other hand, has yelled for years that Iran is building a bomb, going against his own intelligence service. The madman just won re-election by promising no state for the Palestinians, so presumably five million people will be kept without any rights or votes forever? Or perhaps expelled in a future massive ethnic cleansing?

Without outside pressure on Israel, clearly nothing will happen to correct this shameful, longstanding, and potentially deadly situation.

Israel, in contrast to Iran, has attacked every neighbor that it has, some more than once. The madman himself killed 2,200 people only recently in a senselessly brutal assault. The madman’s yelling about Iran is about nothing other than wanting complete dominance of the region and as a distraction against the very bad economic conditions in Israel for ordinary people and against the tremendous tensions he has created in Jerusalem with his regular theft of property and mistreatment of ancient residents.

Israel, again in contrast to Iran, does not belong to the international nuclear arms treaty and does not allow inspections of nuclear facilities, and it does have a stockpile of thermonuclear bombs. Moreover, it participated in a deadly serious secret proliferation of nuclear arms with the former apartheid South Africa, then a good friend and trading partner.

Does it feel good to go to bed each night knowing you’re making every effort as a writer to promote war with a peaceful country, Iran, and continued mass slavery in Israel?

JOHN CHUCKMAN

A SERIES OF RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Why on earth would anyone think John Baird knows what he is talking about?

Apart from the fact that Mr. Baird has proven himself in public numerous times a dishonest and patronizing and unethical politician, Canada in fact has no equivalent of MI6 or the CIA, so we have absolutely no information sources of our own (CSIS being limited to domestic efforts).

Baird is merely echoing the words of Israeli and American sources, both of which not only have their own special interests for what they say but are proved liars in countless instances.

We have the blunt testimony, made public through error, from the presidents of France and the United States as to what a complete liar Mr. Netanyahu is, an unprecedented and unimpeachable testimony into secret affairs.

Israel endlessly plots to gain advantage and position throughout the Middle East. Its plots have nothing to with genuine security but with a desire to sit as arbiter of all affairs within a thousand miles of its borders (whatever those are).

Only the other day the United States quietly cancelled a large joint military exercise with Israel, having become quite fearful that Israel would exploit it for engaging the United States in war with Iran.

Top level American military and intelligence men expressed their deep concerns to Obama that Israel’s series of black operations in Iran, including the assassinations of several scientists were aimed at triggering just such an event.

It would not be the first time for Israel: both the Six Day War and the two-hour attempt to sink the American electronic spy ship USS Liberty in 1967 were black operations, the second intended both to blind the United States as to what was happening in the war and as an effort to draw the United States into it.

And you cannot get much blacker than Israel’s now-known sharing of nuclear technology with apartheid South Africa.

Baird serves Harper’s interests as a faithful junk-yard dog, and we all know Harper has bent over backwards to express views on Israel and Israel’s interests which have no basis in Canada’s traditional foreign policy.

Harper is motivated in at least two ways in this dark effort: one, he is a fundamentalist Christian full of biblical nonsense about Israel and the end of time from the nightmare lunacy of the Book of Revelations.

And two, Harper is miming American Republicans in being totally solicitous of all things Israeli because it brings in a steady flow of campaign donations, and we know Harper has as a goal for personal achievement to destroy and replace the Liberal Party, with campaign financing games being a major tool towards the goal.

Baird only demonstrates he is one more shabby new-Conservative politician ready to put short-term goals of party political success ahead of Canada’s genuine long-term interests, which absolutely do not include ugly business like starting another Iraq-style war with Iran, a country guilty of nothing, and perhaps convulsing the world into a major crisis.
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“I recently watched a documentary about the rise of Adolph Hitler. Seeing all those cheering, delighted ‘fans’ at every event as he gave his speeches made me wonder what kind of people could applaud that sort of bile and hate. Reading the comments in the Globe, though, I can easily see we still have that same sort around today in Canada. I think half the regular comment posters here would cheer another Hitler if he promised to rid the world of Jews.”

The comment is ignorant beyond telling.

I have studied the rise of Hitler in serious and scholarly books. The rise of such people provides important historical lessons needed to protect democratic and human values.

Most Germans never wanted Hitler.

Despite the most strenuous efforts, he was never able to get a bit more than 37% of the vote.

Hitler took over in an elaborate coup d’état after having been appointed as Chancellor by President Hindenburg, an old man desperate for peace in the streets and a man who previously was quite contemptuous of Hitler.

And most Germans never wanted war, but they were trapped by a vicious and ruthless government. Just read the works of the great American journalist of Hitler’s time, William L. Shirer. He was there, and he was an intelligent and perceptive witness to events.

It is not just a coincidence that the popular vote for Harper is close in percentage (39.6%) to that of Hitler’s highest achievement: every society has malcontents, ideologues and savages as part of its fabric, just as a certain percentage of every human population is mentally unbalanced.

And when people – politicians or ordinary people making grossly dishonest comments – tell lies, over and over, louder and louder, we should all be acutely aware we have entered a danger zone in human affairs.

Baird has nothing but prejudice and no genuine information whatsoever to support his yelling and chest-beating.

How would we distinguish that mode of behavior from a small-time Joseph Goebbels type?

We cannot.
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“A very good reply by Mr. Baird.

“The difference between Iran and other dangerous countries like Pakistan is that Iran actively funds, trains and directs terrorist organizations that target the likes of Israel and the US and now Saudi Arabia. Iran is also very bellicose about annihilating Israel or the Zionist regime like they call it (as if there is a difference?) and this is before anyone was talking about attacking Iran.

“In the end, people here who ignore the facts at all costs will never be convinced until a bomb falls on their head.”

It ain’t our heads on which bombs will fall.

It’s 70 million completely innocent Iranians.

Just as the Iraq invasion – again, a product of Israel’s tireless efforts on a very weak American president – killed hundreds of thousands of innocents and destroyed a society for a generation.

It is only the genuine ideologues and haters pushing for extreme measures against Iran.

And surely we all know by now where policy driven by ideologues and haters takes us.

A one-way trip to nowhere.

And note what colossally dangerous prejudice the person making the comment displays: “other dangerous countries like Pakistan.”

Goebbels couldn’t have said it better.
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“The only threat a nuclear armed Iran poses is to the American ability to invade them.

“End of story.”

A brutal truth, but only a partial truth.

No country would ever use nuclear weapons in that fashion, because it would be national suicide.

And that is also precisely why the ideologues and haters who promote Israel’s twisted views do not understand reality.

We know Israel has at least 150 nuclear weapons because former President Carter told us that a couple of years ago.

The truth is that even were Iran developing nuclear weapons – and it is decidedly not doing so – all that would result is the kind of stand-off we had in Europe for decades.

And that stand-off kept the peace.

Israel does not fear Iran with nuclear weapons per se. It fears the rising influence of Iran in the region, an influence which in part stems from America’s stupid invasion of Iraq, another insane project advocated by Israel.

Israel unquestionably wants the same kind of virtually absolute authority in its region that America enjoys in the world at large.

The word for that is simple: it’s imperialism.

So here we have, once again, imperialistic and grossly selfish motives posing as desperate security fears and humanistic concerns.

It simply ain’t so.
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“a rapid[sic] left-wing Jew” liza writes in describing Mr. Gerald Caplan.

Again, Goebbels could not have said it better.

How does anyone, not mentally unbalanced or viciously hating, write such ugly things?

Were anyone other than an apologist for Israel to utter such hate-speech, he or she would be attacked savagely.

But it’s okay when you promote war and destruction on behalf of Imperial Israel.
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“It really is time for people to wake up. This is real.

“Remember 9/11.”

Ah, the ultimate stupidity has been uttered: “Remember 9/11.”

9/11 was a crime committed by 19 unstable men, each of whom paid for it with his life.

But that didn’t stop the arm-pumping, belly-over-belt crowd from murdering in blind rage at least half a million people having nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with it.

Gee, I’m glad we have writers like this to remind us of stupid human beings can be.

We’re chimpanzees with bigger brains, just big enough to cause horrific destruction.
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“Perhaps Mr. Baird and his colleagues will take the time to educate themselves”

When what you are after is propaganda and appeals to humanity’s worst instincts, you don’t educate yourself.

Why let education stand in the way of rage and irrationality?

It’s so much more fun to stomp up and down like Mr. Baird does, the very picture of an angry child, albeit a terribly ugly one.

http://chuckmancartoons.blogspot.com/2010/06/canadas-john-baird-does-lunch.html
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“Gerald Klu Klux Kaplan has the IQ of pond scum and it is to this paper’s eternal shame that it publishes his ignorant and hateful delusions. Since when does the globe publish racists like him? If Mr. Klu Klux Kaplan hates the jooz so much, maybe he should write for Stormfront or something.”

Sorry, but apart from the misspellings, isn’t it people like you who hurl ugly names, instead of cogent arguments, who demonstrate low IQs?

Although in truth, IQ has nothing to do with it.

Goebbels was a highly intelligent and educated man, but he was a hater and a believer in ugly fantasy.

And just so, this writer.
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“Baird and his staff write well, but they cannot hide their ethically indefensible support for Israel’s politics of repression, aggression, and religious superiority. I worry far more about Israel and the US than I do about Iran.”

They don’t want to hide it.

They make a very clear and public appeal to the supporters of Israel’s bloody excesses.

It’s precisely the scenario we see with America’s Republicans, all racing to outdo each other in excessive and nasty statements about whatever it is that Israel does not like.

How can anyone argue that such people are serving the national interest?
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“For those whose comments are full of anti Islamic stuff, are you aware that a proportion of the Palestinian population that was driven out after WW II was Christian?”

I’m glad you remind us of that truth.

Hanan Ashwari, for example, an able politician and academic, is Christian.

And so are tens of thousands of Palestinians.

By the way, it is illegal in Israel for Christians to preach conversion as they do in Canada or the United States every day.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY GERALD CAPLAN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

There is nothing threatening about Iran, absolutely nothing.

Indeed, after the horrors of the Iran-Iraq War – started by Hussein’s Iraq and encouraged and abetted by a United States keen to see Iran hurt – which was a war on a per capita basis about as bloody for Iran as WWI in Europe, Iran has had every reason to avoid war.

Despite the religious extremes of the state – something, by the way, very much present in Israel too with its nasty ultra-orthodox groups – Iran has not been aggressive towards any of its neighbors.

Iran is not even heavily armed if you take as a standard of comparison Israel, the world’s most heavily armed country on a per capita basis, its spending beyond all reason for the size of its economy.

Indeed Israel, as we all now know, is armed with nuclear weapons, the very thing it daily shamelessly accuses Iran of working towards.

It is sickening to hear Israel threaten day after day a people who do no harm.

And of course Israel doesn’t just threaten by itself, it pushes the United States through a lobby the like of which exists no where else to threaten and make ominous moves and demand extreme sanctions.

The United States keeps two to three aircraft carrier groups off the coast of Iran, an immense and terrifying presence which Iran has done absolutely nothing to deserve.

Israel itself now has at least one submarine there, likely equipped with American Harpoon missiles it illegally fitted up with small nuclear warheads a few years back.

What could be more threatening than this presence accompanied by the frightful rhetoric we hear and read from Israel?

There is one sad truth in this matter, and that is the inordinate influence of the Israel Lobby on U.S. politics.

The United States committed a world-scale atrocity invading Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands and setting back a vibrant Arab land decades.

And the only real reason for that crime was to flatten Israel’s most unflinching opponent. While the U.S. has never admitted that formally, both analysis of the situation and an inadvertent blubber from George Bush confirm it.

Now Israel wants Iran flattened, under the flimsy excuse Iran is developing nuclear weapons, something every single expert who knows anything says is not so.

What Israel actually wants is Iran flattened because of its growing influence in the region. Israel, quite simply, wants to be hegemonic power in the region, a miniature replica of the United States in the world at large.

And we are fed an endless series of lies and distortions to assist Israel in achieving that. Look at every Republican presidential candidate, and you will find people receiving massive campaign contributions to promote nonsense from “there are no Palestinians” to “I’d attack Iran immediately,” none of which is fair or ethical.

And in Canada, we have an American Republican wannabe as our prime minister now who tailors his statements to precisely the same purposes and for precisely the same reasons.

Insanity.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY AURAL BRAUN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

 

Aural Braun’s column reminds me very much of the kind of pseudo-academic stuff churned out by those legions of scribblers working at America’s many think tanks, all of them functioning like the actors wearing white coats in television ads posing as doctors.

In other words, Mr Braun is attempting to sell us a bill of goods, but I’m afraid he doesn’t do a very good job of it.

“…the additional nuclear know-how that Iran is bound to gain from operating the advanced reactor is likely to serve a dual purpose and thereby boost prospects for Tehran’s nuclear weapons program.”

That’s simply inaccurate and question-begging. The best intelligence sources have told us Iran does not have a weapons program. Moreover, by what god-like authority are we to deny scientists and engineers in Iran the right to learn about reactor operations? God knows, Israel’s scientists suffer from no such restriction.

“Second, Russian leaders, President Dmitry Medvedev included, have pushed forcefully for Russian regional dominance, and this includes at least key parts of the Middle East.”

I thought Mr Braun’s qualification was as professor dealing with politics and international affairs? But with that flat-footed statement, he shows no understanding of what large and powerful states always do. They invariably behave in such a way that they serve as the sun to a solar system of states around them.

Indeed, that is precisely what Israel has worked towards since the Six Day War. Israel strives, with its ill-gotten nuclear weapons and bottomless military subsidies from the United States, whose government seems permanently intimidated by a relentless lobby, to become a miniature geo-political replica of the United States in the Middle East, one sharing no understanding or sympathies with the peoples over which it casts its shadow.

“The Erdogan government, which some suspect of considerable Islamist sympathies, has not only challenged Israel but has built powerful ties with Iran and Syria.”

First, I truly doubt Mr Braun would have written this nonsense before Israel’s bloody act of piracy on the high seas. Naturally, Turkey was deeply offended when its citizens were murdered, its word questioned (Turkey had officially examined the ships before they left), and a great deal of property stolen. Israel never even apologized.

Erdogen was treated as a rather exceptional leader by Israel’s apologists when he worked with Israel on a number of matters. Now, he is suddenly a pariah.

I hate to be the one breaking the news to Mr Braun, but Syria and Iran are legitimate, and ancient, countries. There is nothing wrong in having relations with them, even “powerful” ones, to use the same loaded word Mr Braun does.

There is additional news for Mr Braun: despite its Ataturk-started traditions of secular government, Turkey is a Muslim country, so Islamist sympathies are as natural as breathing. Only someone defending the indefensible (Israel’s behaviour), as Mr Braun works towards indirectly in this column, would consider that some kind of accusation.

“Third, although Moscow understands that a nuclear Iran would present a profound long-term danger, it also seems to believe it can control the ‘process’….This is an extraordinarily risky gamble and, in light of Iran’s determination and inventiveness, a foolish one.”

There is not one genuine fact in those statements, but lots of attitude and unwarranted adjectives.

“Superpower restoration for a Russia saddled with a unidimensional, energy-based economy confronting a dire demographic decline is a dangerous pipe dream.”

Apart from its mixed metaphors, that statement is ridiculous. Where is the evidence that Russia thinks it can be a “superpower”?

Russia in fact is a country of about 150 million people with an intellectually-gifted population, some extraordinary technological capability, and an economy that is “over the hump” of its great depression following the collapse of communism, and it is now starting to show potential for serious long-term growth.