Syria in U.N. crosshairs as West gins up war

The so-called horror in Syria is one of the West's creation, with foreign mercenaries brought in to battle the government in an effort to effect regime change in the beleaguered nation. The Saudis and Turkey are two of the predominant agents in this provocative drama, in which the Sunni muslim nations battle against what is, in their view, the Shia threat. This is part of the notion that motivates the Saudis to back action against Iran, as well.

The manipulation of the Western audience, however, is handled with aplomb by people who are skilled and experienced in this sort of thing. Remember the poor, distraught girl at the DC press event in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, with her sorry tale of Iraqi soldiers throwing the babies out of the incubators -- a horrifying image that did much to sway opinion in favor of the attack. It was only much later revealed that this young miss was the Kuwaiti ambassador's daughter, and the story she told was completely false. Still, the deed was done, and the West got its war.

Let's see how this latest PR campaign is being waged, this time with our source, "Omar," talking about saving the little babies:

Horror escalates in Syria as U.N. tries again to reach resolution - CNN.com: ""Today is the seventh day in a row we're under shelling -- nonstop bombardment," an activist named Omar said Saturday. He said government forces have surrounded the area with thousands of soldiers and dozens of tanks: "Not the normal tanks. Big tanks. Russian tanks."
"We just want from Assad to give us permission to move the injured baby -- they are just the babies," said an activist named Omar, referring to President Bashar al-Assad. "They have to leave the area to have a good treatment. ... He don't even let us save and treat our (injured) babies.""

It's always about the babies, and the children. In the US, the police state will justify any outrage against civil rights by using "the children" as its only concern. The US public, since they're constantly jerked by the heartstrings by every conniving shiester and con-artist out there, falls for it every time.

If if necessary, they'll also bring out the kittens and puppies, because people think with other parts of their body besides reason and intellect.

A nation of dupes and suckers is being led into yet another "humanitarian intervention" in which bankers will benefit, and the common folk will die, their country destroyed by humanitarian bombs.

If you don't believe there's foreign money in US campaigns...

This headline came to our attention, where the Asphyxiated Press once again rides to the defense of the status quo, and the upstanding moral values that make the US so exceptional. We are to be assured that no foreign money pollutes the political landscape -- because the AP says so:

Foreign donations at risk in super PAC landscape: "Money pouring into the presidential election from super political action committees and nonprofit campaign groups appears so far to be strictly American in origin, donated by U.S. companies, unions and millionaires. But it's easier than ever to conceal the source of money and the identities of contributors, making conditions ripe for illegal donations from foreigners, overseas companies or governments attempting to help a favored candidate for the White House."

What then, is AIPAC? Politicians give obeisance to this myopic promoter of Israeli geostrategic aims. The US Congress bends over before Benjamin Netanyahu in a way not even the US president is esteemed.

If this is not foreign money and foreign influence at work in the US political system, then what is it?

Foreign contributions to US political campaigns have been prohibited since 1966, but that didn't stop a practice that serves the interests of the global oligarchy with its labyrinthine network of multinational corporations.

The way the Federal Reserve funnels money to bail out European banks, and foreigners have, in turn, financial interests in the US financial system, how can anyone honestly posit that there's no commingling of fundage between these entities -- which, after all, know no national borders and have no national allegiances?

The average person in the US is simply looking for reassurance that the masters of the universe are taking care of things, that life will continue more or less as it always has, and that his/her standard of living will remain at its obscenely wasteful and fiscally irresponsible present level.

The soothing narrative provided by the AP and its sister propaganda outlets lets the believers in this fictional world have it both ways: they can continue to be ruled over and exploited by their masters, while benefiting in turn from the predatory spoils of the current regime.

They only fail to grasp that they, themselves, are the ultimate prey upon which the monster they themselves have nurtured will one day feast.

Fear of Iran is a well-watered weed

In this latest dispatch, the US Propaganda Agency -- through its branch the Associated Press -- asks and answers the question that's on the minds of everybody's mind inside the Washington beltway establishment: How can we ratchet up the tensions with Iran to justify our upcoming military aggression?

Actually, they play it a little cooler than that. The question that is formulated in the lede of the story is excerpted below:

Dwindling Time, Rising Tension Make Iran Top Fear - ABC News: "The prospect of conflict with Iran has eclipsed Afghanistan as the key national security issue with head-spinning speed. After years of bad blood and an international impasse over Iran's disputed nuclear program, why does the threat of war seem so suddenly upon us?"

This could only fly in a country that's been rightly described as the most propagandized nation in the world. The US is awash in self-justification for what is, at heart, a purely optional war of choice against a non-threatening, non-belligerent irritant to the status quo.

Actually, the Iranians have done one thing that's extremely threatening to the US world order, but it has nothing to do with its nuclear program which, by any measure, is of no consequence when compared to those of the US and Israel. The Iranians have no bombs, but the way one hurts the world order is not militarily, but by threatening the place of the petrodollar in international finance.

That, in short, is Iran's true transgression.

Oddly enough, the move away from the dollar and into gold and other currencies is largely incentivized by Washington itself, and the economic sanctions it has imposed on dealings with Iran's banks. The Chinese and Indians, being locked out of dollar transactions for the purchase of oil, are instead turning to barter, or their own currencies. Think, law of unintended consequences, but Israeli pressure on the totally servile and craven US congress is such that the politicians fall over one another in their desire to show their humiliating subservience to the Likudnik Zionists.

The AP, in its story, goes on to explain that time is "running short to Iran to back down without a fight." This, of course, is preposterous, since it is Iran that is in the crosshairs of its bigger and more powerful adversaries, who most of all covet its strategic resources. Iran cannot back down soon enough or completely enough to forestall what has, at this point, become fait accompli in the gathering clouds of war.

Netenyahu in Israel has already played the Nazi card, and the compliant and totally captured IAEA has made a menace out of a molehill regarding Iran's nuclear activities -- none of which have amounted to a breach of the NPT, of which Iran is a signatory (but Israel, the region's only nuclear power, has not).

Still, Israel cannot stand the thought of competition, even if it's only a notional thing among career warmongers bent on regional domination.

Washington, for its part, has decided that its purposes will be best served by engaging in a hostile takeover of the main obstacle to its hegemony over desperately coveted resource wealth, and the strategic power it bestows on the dominant power.

We are in for a hell of a dust-up in 2012, and Barack Obama will be lucky to escape with his Nobel Peace Prize covering his ass as he heads for the exits in November.

The rest of us, however, are likely to be paying for this bout of geostrategic folly for the foreseeable future.

It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people.

US politicians show delusions of grandeur

It's really fascinating to see US politicians ordering foreign governments around. You would think they have no concept of sovereignty, the way they huff and puff in front of the TV cameras, insisting that erstwhile US puppet dictators hew to the party line:

The Associated Press: Egypt's ruling generals play risky game with US: "Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, demanded that Egypt return all assets and funds seized in the raids of the NGOs, allow them to reopen their offices and end the investigations and prosecutions.
"The Egyptian government's actions cannot be taken lightly and warrant punitive actions against certain Egyptian officials, and consideration of a cutoff of U.S. assistance to Egypt," she said."

Since when does Washington make demands to other governments?

Well, since always actually. Up until recently, those things were usually handled in private, and the paymasters got their way -- no question.

Now, however, there's a different calculus in play. The US never demands the Israelis follow orders. If anything, the Likudniks set the tone, and Washington politicians fall over themselves to show their obsequiousness.

With war brewing in Syria and Iran, the US is embroiled in too many controversies at the moment to play its enforcer role in every little dispute that arises. The Egyptians, under their own pressures with a restive population, will use the opportunity to enlarge its capacity to act unilaterally. This is only to be expected when the world order not only tolerates the suppression of dissent, but nearly requires it.

Note the harsh repression of the Occupy movement in the US.

It's fascinating in its own way how quickly the power of the US empire has declined, and will continue to decline in years to come. The days of some two-bit politician demanding that foreign powers bow down before them are quickly receding into history.

Pretty soon, we'll all see chumps like Ros-Lehtinen for the yapping little lapdogs they are.

GOP hypocrisy on full display in Forbes vs HHS

For all their pissing and moaning about bloated federal budgets and the perennial effort to gut social programs like Social Security and Medicare, when it comes to two-faced displays of political crocodile tears, it's hard to beat the latest from Rep. J. Randy Forbes of Virginia.

He takes exception to a HHS decision to exclude one of his corporate benefactors from the bidding for a fat federal contract servicing Medicare public-information operations. The mere thought of his fat-cat sugar daddy taking the hit in the midst of the current austerity hysteria is equal to a waste of money, in Forbes' twisted mental state:

HHS shift could cost Chesterfield 1,000 jobs | Richmond Times-Dispatch: "Rep. J. Randy Forbes, R-4th, on Monday sent a letter to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking for answers.

Calling it an "arbitrary decision," Forbes wrote that "not allowing General Dynamics to again compete for this contract could result in devastating job losses in Virginia."

Forbes also claimed in his letter that the change would not only lose jobs and limit competition for the contract, but also cost tax dollars.

"The American people have a right to know why their hard-earned money is being wasted by this administration," he wrote."

When will these clowns 'fess up and remind us that they're working tirelessly to dismantle Medicare, turning it into a "voucher" system where seniors are given a lump sum for healthcare, and remanded to their own devices when it comes to paying for their medical needs.

Perhaps the call center here can be re-purposed for explaining how the ending of Medicare as we know it still qualifies as Medicare.

As for the 1,000 jobs on the line if the call center closes, how many of these jobs are held by GOP voters, who consistently vote against their own interests, and for those of the 1 percent who have economic and political power in the US? Since 1980, they've been reliably voting for trickle-down economics, and the fiction that a rising tide would lift their boats, and not swamp them instead.

Now that the only jobs to be had are low-paying, service-economy creations, people are starting to reap what they've sown, and yet in their ignorance cannot fathom the perfidy that animates shills like Forbes to attack the same monster that he so assiduously has cultivated throughout his public life.

Ain't that a hell of a note?

Jared Loughner to be drugged back to sanity

Jared Loughner slipped the surly bonds of reason and became a complete, blithering lunatic before gunning down a crowd of people at a congresswoman's town meeting.

Now, after a rigorous application of mind-altering chemicals, the government is noting signs that Loughner is returning to Earth after and extended absence:

Jared Loughner making 'progess' toward standing trial, judge says - latimes.com: "Excerpts of the mental health reports read by the judge painted a picture of a much-improved defendant, who was deemed incompetent to stand trial in May.

Loughner has undergone two four-month commitments for treatment, during which his attorneys have waged a legal battle to spare him from being medicated against his will with drugs they say could harm or kill him.

Loughner could face the death penalty if convicted. "

It's one of the long-standing mysteries of our advanced, compassionate society: the legal establishment takes a raving lunatic, sedates and subjects him to lengthy, intense "treatments," and in the end they render him sufficient docile that he can be compassionately executed.

He cannot be exonerated in any case, even if his mental state was such that he was not able to control his actions. He either must remain in confinement as the state works to make him "competent" for execution, or he is found "competent" and put to death.

The nicety of making the man "competent" seems overwrought, if there is no alternative but death while in state confinement. The Supreme Court at some point has found it unconstitutional -- at least at one time -- to execute and insane person, one who's not able to aid in his own defense. That's a standard that, no doubt, will soon be revised, but in the interim we're put through the lunacy and torment of watching the system apply its entire resources in the service of killing an insane individual.

This squeamishness will be put to rest, along with previous imperatives like the mandate of due process of law before the government executes alleged terrorists. The Obama regime has already established the bipartisan precedent that the president, on his word alone, has unlimited power to decree that citizens must die.

Is it such a stretch that the executive, at some point, will claim the power to eliminate other inconvenient beings from our midst?

What better case to establish this precedent than that of a deranged killer?

Taliban kills innocents, while NATO victims are collateral damage

People who stick their head into the corporate media echo chamber hear nothing but pro-regime propaganda. The VOA, in particular, dishes it out in industrial-strength portions:

US Afghan Commander Calls on Taliban to Save Lives « VOA Breaking News: "The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan is responding to new data on civilian casualties — calling on the Taliban to stop the killing of innocent men, women and children.
General John Allen said Saturday the death toll from insurgent attacks “is much too high and deserves Mullah Omar's direct attention and action.” He also said he expected the Afghan Taliban to “act immediately” if it had any real interest in stopping the killings.
The commander of the International Security Assistance Force issued his statement Saturday, hours after a United Nations report said more than 3,000 civilians died in Afghanistan's conflict last year. The report called the 2011 death toll the worst in the decade-long war.
The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said insurgents were responsible for 77 percent of the Afghan civilian deaths. The number of deaths caused by NATO-led and Afghan government forces dropped by 4 percent."

The UN is but a tool of the US, so any report that they produce is immediately suspect. There's no credibility there, since the UN is on US soil, and on the US payroll. The bureaucrats there know that if they cross the US government, their cushy jobs could evaporate, and they'd be back in the backwaters where they came from.

It would be just delightful if there was a truly impartial international organization that could be trusted to see things in a balanced way. The Taliban are not sweethearts, but they, after all, are Afghans, and the US military is an unwelcome guest in that miserable land.

If the UN was worth the paper its charter was written on, the US wouldn't be in Afghanistan to begin with, and George "Dubya" Bush would be on trial for crimes against humanity. That neither of these is the case demonstrates the effectiveness and value of the UN and the entire "international community" which it purports to represent.