John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

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Response to a comment which said [in reference to Israel],”No two states. No financial support”:

 

Of course, that’s reasonable, but nothing reasonable applies to Israel in the United States. Nothing. Ever.

Were there any political will in Washington, the whole business between Israel and the Palestinians could have been settled decades ago.

The United States, at least in theory, has that power. After all, Israel literally floats on a sea of American subsidies, and I don’t just mean the annual American government hand-out of about $500 per Israeli citizen.

There are huge public and private subsidies flowing to Israel, and a set of immense privileges in place – everything from free trade and favorable treatment in gaining large American government contracts to extraordinary access to American decision-makers – privileges worth their weight in gold.

But there is no political will in Washington to use that leverage.

There were even some very powerful past opportunities that were completely ignored, as when Israel attacked the USS Liberty viciously in the Six Day War.

America did nothing. Demanded nothing. Just shut the whole matter down.

Another strong psychological opportunity came in the wake of American-Israeli Baruch Goldstein slaughtering 29 Palestinians at prayer in 1994. Another 125 were wounded by that madman with a machine-gun.

Perfect time to apply pressure. Nothing was done.

Or how about the Six Day War itself, totally planned by an Israel confident it could win in order to seize the lands for a future “Greater Israel,” lands still occupied today. Millions held against their will. New parcels of land – the homes and farms of those held – stolen openly under the harmless-sounding euphemism of “settlements.”

Not a word. No effort. And remember when it comes to matters of property and ownership, likely no people on earth are more ready to shoot first and ask questions after than Americans.

In part, it’s the work of the very powerful Israel Lobby. No American politician wants to offend them. And no American politician wants to miss out on the campaign contributions and favorable mainline press handed out for loyal service.

But I believe the situation also reflects the fact that Israel really is a de facto colony of the US, a rather unusual and privileged one, serving many of Washington’s purposes in the Mideast.

Ever hear of a colonial power being fair in its colonies or showing the least sense of justice in colonial arrangements?

As for “the natives” anywhere, how did Britain treat them in its imperial heyday?

 

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John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER

 

“Trump’s Open Defiance of Washington’s Russophobia Is a Revolutionary Act”

 

This analysis is flawed.

Yes, it is good that Trump is meeting Putin and, yes, that fact flies in the face of many Washington establishment figures.

But please examine the overall record of this man, Trump.

It is loaded with contradictions and downright stupidities.

You cannot count on anything when dealing with someone like that. He is out-of-touch and uninformed on a great many matters. He often is caught making up his own version of something while he speaks or is being interviewed. He listens to almost no one, and he has little patience for most people trying to tell him anything.

He is a total living, breathing America-Firster. Actually, I believe Trump is a Donald Trump-Firster, always and in all things, and America really only comes into the picture because it provides the stage for his hammy and often-blundering acting performance. He is in many ways a rather sick and isolated man.

But he does have a fairly powerful political base, which feeds on the raw meat of xenophobia and fear of migrants and Islamophobia and love of walls, and he uses that base to push back in Washington. He has to push, even his own party, because most of its establishment truly dislike Trump. He’s treated like an unwelcome dinner-party guest who somehow got a genuine invitation by mistake.

With Trump, there’s no substance of which to get hold, just a lot of noise and a massive ego. He betrays friends, insults allies as well as enemies, and is totally for himself and is highly protective of his hermetically-sealed mindset about the world and its people.

This trip for Trump serves another purpose, too, having nothing to do with geo-politics. He is effectively telling the Washington establishment off about Russia because he fears some of the efforts underway by the Special Prosecutor are leading to serious trouble.

Whether the material the Special Prosecutor is gathering from past Trump associates – and several are cooperating – is damning enough ultimately to remove him from office is, in the end, up to the court of public opinion.

Evidence in any legal case of any nature can be interpreted in different ways. And we often end up with either convictions or exonerations which don’t reflect the underlying hard facts.

Humans are fallible and the legal systems they create are fallible. Often, the truth, the kind of truth you would believe if you actually sorted through all the evidence carefully and without partiality, gets tossed into the garbage.

We’ve seen it happen many times – from the phony case made against Lee Oswald in the Kennedy assassination or the manufactured investigation into the downing of TWA Flight 800 to the phony “not guilty” verdict in the O J Simpson murder case. Truth simply does not prevail in an atmosphere thick with interests and influence.

Trump has reason to fear because there’s no denying it, Washington is just totally in the grasp of the Russia-Fear-and-Loathing Crowd. Not just the Democratic Party, but the security services, the Pentagon, and some of the most powerful lobbies, such as the one for Israel.

Yes, Russia maintains pretty good relations with Israel – one of Putin’s great strengths is maintaining good relations with many differing interests – but Israel’s rulers’ deepest feelings are undoubtedly that Russia is intrinsically a barrier.

You see, Israel and its lobby in Washington very much like a hyper-aggressive United States, the kind of United States which has rampaged through the Middle East. They see that kind of United States as a guarantee of Israel’s future. Israel’s position in the Middle East is inherently weak and always has been, but its de facto role as an American colony in the region gives it strength it wouldn’t have on its own as a truly independent nation state, something it emphatically is not.

And no group is more influential in Washington than the Israel Lobby, owing to the sheer fact that it represents so many very successful and influential American businessmen, including those who own or manage all of the high-end national press and broadcasting. Trump has bent over backward trying to please them with stuff like the illegal recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel and his total ignoring of Israel’s murderous activity against the people of Gaza, who want nothing but their rights.

He also has his big plan brewing for an “historic final settlement” between Israel and the Palestinians, which is in the hands of his son-in-law, a good friend of Netanyahu, and, by all accounts leaking out, is so biased against Palestinian interests, it is sure to fail, however that does not mean that the effort won’t please members of the Lobby.

The CIA and Pentagon tend to be on side with the Israel Lobby because they see Israel as a strategic asset in the Middle East, and they just basically loathe the only country on earth, Russia, which is capable of destroying the United States. The Democrats are “on side” because they are political opponents of Trump and because they are loyal servants of American imperial interests and because they have pretty much all been politically bought-and-paid-for over many years by the Israel Lobby. But then, so has the Republican Party whose biggest big-shots do not really like Trump.

I do not see any powerful interest group in Washington right now which wants or demands better relations with Russia. It’s a good cause that completely lacks a base of support, because nothing in Washington is decided on the basis of merit. Matters are decided by politics and by imperial geo-politics.

Those groups – Democrats, Republicans, CIA, Pentagon, and powerful lobbies – are all married to the concept of America re-asserting itself in the world through a new kind of multi-faceted and hybrid aggression on almost every front.

They are not satisfied to accept the relative economic decline underway for “the indispensable nation” as states who were not competitors in the past become competitors. They want to push and bully their way into as many advantages in the world as they possibly can. It really is a Mafia-like business model for the country. And that is just what has been happening, with or without Trump, for some years now. Obama, for example, worked full-time towards the goal although you never heard him make speeches about it.

There’s only Trump in Washington saying America needs better relations with Russia – and, of course, he is right, but being right in Washington won’t get you so much as a cup of coffee. There is also the fact, not appreciated by many people abroad, that, in terms of the American Constitution, the President just isn’t all that powerful inside the United States. His only unquestioned power comes in time of war when he is Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. In other matters, it is a constant struggle with other elements of a divided government, one divided by its very design in the American Constitution.

Putin understands this all clearly, I’m sure, and I believe he is using Trump to drive a wedge into the heart of the powerful and dominant anti-Russia coalition in Washington. I don’t think he necessarily sees Trump as Russia’s friend – and, let’s be honest, with an erratic man like Trump, what kind of dependable friendship does he offer to anybody? – but Putin very much sees Trump as a tool to use in a very dark and dangerous game being played inside the United States. This is the way high-level power-politics is played, and Putin is a master at it.

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 RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Canada “mulls” future with an important United Nations’ agency?

This kind of politically-motivated, special-interest blubbering casts a very dark shadow on Lester Pearson’s distinguished career and achievements in international affairs.

Our dear current foreign minister is again working hard to destroy Canada’s international reputation for fairness and decency, but of course that’s what his boss Stephen Harper has worked ceaselessly towards since holding office, and we know no one utters a word on anything in this government that hasn’t been pre-approved by the chair-throwing leader, even his almost uncontrollably angry and nasty gorilla boy, Baird.

Good God, aren’t the Palestinians to be considered as full human beings unless Israel nods to say they are?
And just consider in whose company Baird’s words place us: Just the other day, Israel’s foreign Minister Lieberman made clear public threats to murder Mr. Abbas over these matters. And those threats come after numberless others from a man who is just about as much a lowlife as you would find in any dictatorship on the planet.

But no objections are ever made by the United States, a country which actually believes it stands for human rights and democratic principles: indeed, we hear the opposite, that the United States will stop funding the agency, in effect reneging on treaties and long-standing obligations. Do it my way, or I’ll take my things and go home is the glorious response of our freedom-loving neighbour.

And why is that?

Because Obama is in political trouble, and he needs campaign funds and good press, just the things the American Israel lobby is in a position to grant or withhold.

So all sense of fairness is cast aside by Obama in pursuit of re-election, a man who has proven himself a weak and ineffective president in just about every respect, except when measured by the number of his extra-judicial killings by drone, which is now in the thousands.

And of course, running after Obama is Stephen Harper, desperately running along behind like the neighborhood’s most unpleasant brat trying to gain favour yelling “Me too!”

And there’s another aspect of Pearson’s distinguished legacy disappearing: when Lyndon Johnson demanded Canada send troops to Vietnam – he actually grabbed Pearson by the lapels – Pearson had the guts to say no.

From Harper, we get Canada volunteering for whatever stupid and demeaning job he sees before the United States even asks.

How low we’ve fallen.

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“Here are a few excerpts from the Hamas charter…”

Well, how many terrible things has Hamas actually done compared to what we know Israel has done?

When was the last time Hamas killed 400 Israeli children?

When was the last time Hamas pirated ships on the high seas, killing 9 people only trying to deliver humanitarian assistance?

When was the last time Hamas or any other organization dropped a million horrible cluster bombs inside Israel, as Israel did in Southern Lebanon?

When was the last time Hamas held ten thousand Israelis as illegal prisoners?

When was the last time Hamas removed hundreds of Israelis from their homes and just stole them?

When was the last time Hamas openly murdered scores of highly-placed Israelis?

And have you ever read the bloody horrors of the Old Testament?

Huge sections of it are packed with violence, ruthlessness, intolerance, arbitrary rules for everything, and just plain hatred of others.

And it is the Old Testament ideas governing Israel in many aspects, courtesy of the ultra-Orthodox parties who always make up the balance of power there.

Read those ghastly stories of war and murder and rape and slavery and weird laws about what cloth you may wear and what food you may eat, and, yes, how women are totally subservient to men, how a child should be sacrificed if his father believes he hears God demanding it, and you will understand why Israel respects none of its neighbors and has attacked most of them more than once.

And, oh, it could not be clearer in the Old Testament that all non-Jews are inferior beings, not to be spared any brutality – nothing Hamas or any other Arabic group has ever written and accepted is more poisonous than that.

Some basis for a state in the 21st century. A state which demands to be recognized as a one-religion state, a state which even today treats all its non-Jewish citizens as second-class at best.

And if you have a very dark sense of humor you will enjoy the bad joke of a Jews-only democracy, surely no different in concept to an Islamic state.

Of course, if Israelis find Muslims so repulsive and backward, we might ask why the founders of modern Israel insisted on creating it in a place totally inhabited with and surrounded by them?

Makes a lot of sense to me.
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“The entire UN is corrupt.”

Then why does Israel always wave the UN documents which – under pressure from foreign powers – mandated its creation?

Your expressed view is ridiculous.

The entire rest of the planet’s population is corrupt because it doesn’t do what a tiny population in Israel demands?

Of course, you also neglect the fact that Israel stands in contempt of a host of UN resolutions. Being in contempt of just one has been used as an American excuse for bombing others.