Are UN weapons inspectors trustworthy?

The drumbeat for war with Iran continues its continual drone, with Reuters' latest dispatch regarding Iran's reluctance to allow UN weapons inspectors into some of its facilities.

While on the one hand, this suggests they have something to hide, it also bears repeating that the Clinton administration used UN inspectors to target cruise missiles at Iraq back in the day. Put simply, whose side are they on?

Here's the intro:

Iran stonewalls U.N. nuclear watchdog on site-diplomats | Reuters: "(Reuters) - Iran's apparent reluctance to let U.N. inspectors visit a military site near Tehran underlines the uphill task they face in getting the Islamic state to address suspicions it may be seeking to develop nuclear weapons, Western diplomats say.

They say the U.N. nuclear watchdog sought access to the Parchin complex during three days of talks in the Iranian capital, so far without any sign that Iran would agree to it."

The Iranians are not naive. They know that they are a target, and once they began selling oil in other currencies besides the US dollar, they were virtually assured of being Washington's next target. The nuclear allegations are, of course, completely irrelevant and false.

Once the Israelis submit their nuclear facilities to UN inspections, then the Iranians can be fairly expected to do the same. Otherwise, the UN is so compromised already that no one should take it or its inspection regime seriously. This is a con game and it's being run by the US against Iran.

What the world needs now, more than anything, is for Russian and China to stand with the Iranians against the West's aggression. But China is already too conflicted, in its dependence on the US market for its goods, while Moscow is tough but not tough enough.

So the Iranians will eventually have to yield, although its in their best interests to be less than fully compliant. Every opportunity the UN/US is given to infiltrate the Iranian facilities is one you can be sure will be taken!

Komen reversal shows it worthy of contempt

This bunch of bitches and whores don't deserve a penny of your money. Just how craven and cynical they are is clear from their reversal of the earlier decision to defund Planned Parenthood cancer screenings:

Komen reverses move to cut Planned Parenthood funding | Reuters: "(Reuters) - Susan G. Komen for the Cure said on Friday it was retreating from a decision to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion and birth control services, and apologized for a move that thrust the world's largest breast cancer charity into a deeply politicized controversy.

Komen had said earlier this week it would cease to fund grants for breast cancer screening to Planned Parenthood under new eligibility rules that preclude grants to groups under investigation by U.S. authorities.

The move sparked a massive outcry among supporters of both groups, who believe Komen came under pressure from anti-abortion activists. Komen also faced dissent within its ranks from local chapter leaders.

"We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women`s lives," Komen said in a statement on Friday."

If you want to reward this caliber of people running a public charity, be our guest. But if there's one thing worse than a political opportunist charity, it's one that follows an odious decision with complete capitulation -- without acknowledging that the organization is still run by right-wing nuts.

The Koman organization doesn't deserve contributions from anyone who's serious about the health of women, or anyone for that matter. It's just a slush fund for compassion hustlers to pay themselves 6-figure salaries.

This is what happens when people elevate style and marketing over substance.

Anonymous eavesdrops on the eavesdroppers

There's a kind of rough justice in this latest report on the antics of the hacking cooperative known as Anonymous:

Anonymous Listens in on FBI, Scotland Yard Hacking Call - ABC News: "The hacking collective Anonymous managed to listen in on a conference call between the FBI and Scotland Yard as the law enforcement officers were discussing anti-hacking operations, the FBI admitted today.

Calling it "OpInfiltration," Anonymous members were allegedly able to steal a personal email which included instructions for dialing into the Jan. 17 private call. Today the group published a recording of the call -- which discussed the timing of planned arrests and identities of suspected hackers -- as well as the email addresses of the officials on it."

If anyone needed evidence of how ham-handed and inept the government agents charged with snooping on our society are, this would be it. These government agents have enormous powers, of course, and their efforts are being augmented by ever more sophisticated technologies.

But at the heart of it all is the people, and the people are cruel, insidious doofuses.

They are douchebags and imbeciles, who can't even manage to have a secure conference call between their brother snoops in Scotland Yard.

If there really was a terrorist threat -- a serious threat, that is, and not a bunch of pissed-off Arabs with no tactical training or smarts -- then it's quite obvious that these clowns would be totally unprepared to deal with it. With every advantage at their disposal, when it comes right down to it the people charged with "keeping us safe" can't even keep their phone conversations private.

We've watched to many crime dramas on TV. In the real world, it ain't CSI so much as Keystone Cops.

But these Keystone Cops, unfortunately, are equipped with all kinds of surplus military hardware and automatic weapons, so when they get the drop on grandma, she's a dead duck.

Iran's leader warns that the US is not invulnerable

Taking up the tone of most of the corporate media's coverage of the US' aggression against Iran, a simple statement by Iran's supreme leader is presented as a threat to the US:

Iran's leader: War would be detrimental to U.S. - CNN.com: "Tehran, Iran (CNN) -- The supreme leader of Iran issued a blunt warning Friday that war would be detrimental to the United States.
"You see every now and then in this way they say that all options are on the table. That means even the option of war," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said during Friday prayers in Tehran. "This is how they make these threats against us.
"Well, these kinds of threats are detrimental to the U.S.," he said. "The war itself will be 10 times as detrimental to the U.S.""

As usual, the West is presented as rational and peace-loving, while the ayatollah comes across as a flaming lunatic. One would never guess that it's the US and its vassal state, Israel, that is the aggressor and source of provocations to which Iran is responding.

From the deadly explosions at Iranian military sites to the murder of its nuclear scientists, all the way to the aircraft carrier battle groups dispatched to the Persian Gulf and an economic boycott (which under international law is an act of war), the Iranians are clearly on the receiving end of hostilities directed at it by the US and its minions.

That the Iranians have the temerity to stand up to this and declare their willingness to inflict reciprocal pain against their attackers isn't lunacy or provocative. Most people would say it's coldly rational and realistic.

You hurt me, I'll hurt you.

We don't expect the news media to tell the truth any more. In the recent dust-up with the New York Times' public editor, that poor punching bag of a lackey asked somewhat sheepishly, what do you expect, for the media to be "vigilantes of truth"?

Such notions, like the Geneva Conventions under GW Bush, are simple naive and quaint. Times have changed, and the old rules no longer apply.

Might makes right, and not only do the winners get to write history, but nowadays they also get to write the news media's dispatches from the front lines.

When the war finally commences for real, the people fighting won't even know what they're fighting for. All they'll have to cling to is a slick story manufactured on Madison Avenue that could just as easily be selling soap -- or the next president of the United States.

Swedish prosecutor lies to obtain Assange extradition

The lawyer for the Swedish public prosecutor argued in a London court that the UK should hand over Julian Assange so he can be questioned over allegations of improper or negligent use of a condom during consentual sexual relations:

Swedish prosecutor demands Assange extradition - CBS News: "(AP) LONDON - Sweden's public prosecutor was right to demand the return of Julian Assange, a lawyer told Britain's Supreme Court Thursday, saying that failing to hand over the WikiLeaks chief would break with precedent and wreck European extradition rules.
Clare Montgomery, the lawyer for Sweden's prosecution service, struck back at Assange's legal team's argument that only impartial authorities such as a judge can properly issue European arrest warrants.

"The English notion of an arrest warrant issued by a court is very much an exception," she said, warning later that if the U.K. Supreme Court insisted only honoring judge-issued warrants "it would make it impossible for possibly eight, possibly more European partners" to extradite suspected criminals."

What she doesn't say is what is at issue here: Sweden's government is trying to get its hands on Assange so he can be handed over to the US for prosecution for the actions of Wikileaks.

Assange was responsible for making public a treasure-trove of embarrassing state and defense department documents, which implicated the US of various unsavory activities worldwide. The revelations, after much fanfare, were admitted to be less damaging to national security or US collaborators than alleged by government lackeys and corporate media sluts, but the Obama administration is peerless in its prosecution of whistleblowers -- and so it is with Assange.

The US government's activities would be no less reprehensible if it was honest about its doings and its intentions towards Assange, but at least it could do us all the favor of abandoning the pretense of liberty and justice for all, and all the other uniquely "American" virtues we are constantly bombarded with in the media.

Assange's sexual practices may not be admirable, but his courage in taking on the world's most corrupt and malevolent regime certainly is. The Swedish prosecutor's willingness to sacrifice principle for the sake of currying favor with Washington, on the other hand, will be to its everlasting shame, but in the here and now, it's money that does the talking -- and governments captured by the oligarchy are more than willing to oblige the malefactors and do their dirty work.

So Assange will go down, in order to be made a spectacle of, and object lesson in the consequences of speaking truth to power. He will be condemned even before being brought to trial, and shunted away to some hell-hole to be tortured and barbarized by the world's most civilized criminal syndicate.

With no defenders in the halls of power, his fate is assured.

And so is ours, unless we make Julian Assange the object lesson to the oligarchs about our rejection of their usurpations and gradual but determined destruction of representative government through an informed citizenry. In short, many of us are required to take a stand to break this infernal machine that's grinding humanity into the dust.

The stakes are immense, even if the system seems to only be obsessed with two men at present. Those two might as well be 100 million, for as they fare, so do we all.

Israel calls the Iranian kettle black

In a lively bit of Zionist propaganda, Reuters has an item on its service where a senior Israeli official says Iran has enough nuclear material to make four atom bombs:

Israel says Iran has material for four A-bombs | Reuters: "(Reuters) - Israel estimated on Thursday that Iran could make four atomic bombs by further enriching uranium it has already stockpiled, and could produce its first within a year of deciding to build one.

But in his rare public remarks, Major-General Aviv Kochavi, chief of military intelligence, held out the possibility stronger international sanctions might dissuade Tehran from pursuing a policy he had no doubt was aimed at developing nuclear weapons, despite Iranian denials."

Nobody bothers to ask how many H-bombs the Israelis have, as well as A-bombs and neutron bombs and other types of nuclear weaponry.

Plus, the mean to deliver them to targets of their choosing, by land, sea or air. Probably space, too.

This is all yet another manifestation of the complete prostitution of the news media to the needs of their overlords in government and industry. The spreading of hypocritical, hysterical claim about boogeymen, while neglecting to mention the even more egregious threats posed by one's own side, is job one of today's corporate media establishment.

We're gearing up for the next big confrontation, a global war of the forces of good against the axis of evil.

Only this time, the good guys are really the villains in a perversion of language that would make George Orwell blush.

Watch as the peace-loving defenders of freedom attack adversaries who possess resources that will, once possessed, be used to enslave others.

It's US, Europe and Israel against the world: a history of repression, exploitation and destruction.

As the BeeGees asked, how can a loser ever win?

What do the Talibans think?

More butt-scratching analysis from the AP, this time parroting NATO's latest propaganda dispatch from the front lines of Afghanistan:

Report Shows Taliban POWs Convinced of Victory - ABC News: "The Taliban believe they will return to power after the U.S.-led coalition ends its combat role in Afghanistan in 2014, NATO officials said Wednesday, based on a classified report on the interrogation of thousands of insurgent prisoners.

The captured Taliban fighters also believed they were receiving support from Pakistan and that they were doing well on the battlefield, the officials said.

But the officials cautioned that the report, compiled shortly after the capture of Taliban fighters, was a summary of those interrogations and not based on an intelligence analysis."

This is a direct appeal to the hubris of the average, red-blooded US male. How can we let these barbarians lick us? Will our sacrifice be in vain?

It's the usual balderdash. NATO is in Afghanistan in the service of corporations who seek to monopolize the flow of natural gas out of the Caspian basin. It has nothing to do with terrorism, but instead who will control Afghanistan: Afghans, or corporations?

It's said that honesty is the best policy, but not when it comes the US foreign policy. When it comes to oligarchical control of resources, the public is propagandized and manipulated into supporting wars fought over other than the stated reasons.

Things are not as they seem. These alleged Taliban prisoners routinely have the correct answers beaten out of them for feeding the voracious maw of the news cycle.

The only correct answer, it seems, is war and more war.