No time for time with Iran

The New York Times which has cheered every recent US war over the last ten years seems hell bent on helping us into yet another war in Iran. Today in an op ed they ran an editorial by Amos Yadlin a former head of the Israeli of military intelligence, and former fighter pilot who is now director of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies no less. The New York Times seems to have no problem printing an editorial full of lies and innuendos that are completely unsubstantiated. And thanks to the ongoing efforts of news media like the NYT a good many Americans now believe that Iran is now our worst enemy. Before I continue let us all remember that Iran has not attacked another nation in two centuries while the US has done almost nothing but enter wars with no more justification than one with Iran for over one hundred years. Let’s also keep in mind that Iran has no way of attacking the US and that their army is pitifully small compared to the now extremely experienced US armed forces.

Yadlin himself is either a liar or a paranoid ill-informed fool or a combination of both as he takes the familiar line that there is no time left and an attack against Iran must happen soon or it shall be too late. This particular brand of scare tactics, a rather rancid form of propaganda, is nothing new. It was utilized by George W. Bush and members of his administration in the build-up to our second war with Iraq. One can still recall Condi Rice with her visions of mushroom clouds over major American cities. There was no time we were told, Iraq held weapons of mass destruction with which they could somehow rain upon a helpless America. Everyone or at least any sane people now know Iraq had no such weapons in their arsenal. It’s too late for Iraq and it is likely too late for Iran.

Yadlin tells us…

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"The problem, however, is one of time. Israel doesn’t have the safety of distance, nor do we have the United States Air Force’s advanced fleet of bombers and fighters. America could carry out an extensive air campaign using stealth technology and huge amounts of ammunition, dropping enormous payloads that are capable of hitting targets and penetrating to depths far beyond what Israel’s arsenal can achieve.”

Poor little Israel! While everyone else seems to know that Israel is the Middle Eastern nation that actually does possess an estimated 200 to 300 nuclear weapons and though it seems rather obvious that Iran has none at all there is no time! We must act now or reap the consequences of being threatened by an Iran, a nation that is weak in comparison to even poowuh widdle Israel who has advanced weaponry provided mainly through the auspices of US money, three billion a year in fact.

And what is going on behind the scenes is something we all should wonder especially when all available information emanates from news media like the NYT who questions nothing said by the Whitehouse nor provides any good analysis other than thinly disguised propaganda. Does it really seem reasonable that Israel actually has enough influence to force the mighty US into a war with Iran? Isn’t far more likely that what we see is no more than a kindergarten play where the characters are all hilariously dramatic as only young children can be? Isn’t it far more likely that the whole scenario of Israel forcing America to war is choreographed by the Whitehouse and Pentagon? Remember that Israel is reliant on American tax dollars for its very existence today without which it would crumble like the rotting house of cards it actually is. It makes no sense at all that this should be true and we should all be asking shouldn’t cause and effect be something that does make sense as it surely always does? I cannot prove this but logic would suggest that this is all just another dog and pony show provided by a nation that has a long history of fabricating lies to enter us into wars of aggression, the US.

If we wish to stay within the realm of logic let me again remind that Iran is not and never has been the target. The US is not interested in spreading democracy indeed its history shows that the opposite is true. The true target is the oil of the Caspian Basin, all 12 trillion dollars worth of it. I have shown these maps previously but I beg your indulgence and let me show you them once again. The first map illustrates American military bases that surround the Caspian Basin as well as Iran, the last piece in the puzzle of over twenty years of military planning, invaded nations, and trillions of dollars. The second map delineates existing and proposed oil pipelines from the Caspian Basin to the Persian Gulf.

As I have said a number of times before we see that Afghanistan, and Iraq, as well as other nations of our national interest are actually mysteriously grouped about the Caspian Basin. Iran is the last remaining roadblock to vast riches in oil and natural gas all residing in the Caspian Basin. Is it at all reasonable that over two decades of invasion and the building of a vast network of US military bases in the region is about Israel which is nothing but a gadfly in our tomato soup? And that Israel is now forcing us, actually forcing the mighty US which possesses the most powerful and fearsome war machine the world has ever seen to attack Iran? I say that such an idea is surely nothing but the most unmitigated hogwash I have ever heard in my life.

Global Schmoes

Upon first hearing about global warming I tended to believe that it might be true. As the years passed and I looked at some of the proponents for global warming I began to be skeptical. First, there was Al “Saddam should be ousted” Gore. Al Gore made a movie about global warming that must have raked in a pretty sum of money for an already wealthy patrician. Then there are the scientists working for the UN. Proponents for global warming have always held up these computer model wielding savants spluttering about their veracity and asking the same question “how could so many be wrong?” Well, the UN is nothing but the pet poodle for the US government as witness their giving the okay for the US and European “powers” to attack Libya under the auspices of humanitarian reasons. The main one being “protecting” civilian lives. Today we know that NATO bombed the living daylights out of Libya resulting in much destruction and as many as 50,000 deaths with more occurring every day thanks to the inevitable fighting resulting from the power vacuum caused by NATO’s typically horrific and brutal wars against innocent civilians. This is the same UN that global warming enthusiasts have held up as sterling and unimpeachable champions of truth, along with their “computer models.” Perhaps our global warming champions of truth, justice, and the American way should have been more careful about their sources.

There are other reasons I have been skeptical but shall refrain from stating them as global warmers always have their pat and ready answers which as it turns out are a lot of pap. Dr. David Evans has compared the computer model predictions to actual NASA satellite data and lo and behold the computer models are so erroneous that it is entirely laughable. Evans concludes…

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1.The climate models are fundamentally flawed. Their assumed threefold amplification by feedbacks does not in fact exist.

2.The climate models overestimate temperature rises due to CO2 by at least a factor of three.

But please, do not take my word for it and go read the entire article complete with graphs and background information on Evans. And no, you won’t be seeing this information in the main stream news though no doubt the same people who know the worth of the main stream news shall set aside what they know about it for their beloved global warming just as they have set aside what they know to be true about the UN when they hold up their “scientists” as the epitome of “good” science. For myself I regard them as charlatans who have found themselves a nice comfy and secure not to mention well paying job who fan the flames of global warming fanatics around the globe (no pun intended). And if you believe that all scientists are great men and women that are naught but seekers of truth on the shores of the universe you need to wake up from your day dreams. Who do you think works for the so-called defense industry that has inundated the world with their weapons of destruction and earn a pretty penny doing so?

To the news, to the pale blue news

It’s no secret that the news media infuriates me almost as much as our phony baloney politicians do. The most recent being their handling of the doofless burning of Korans in Afghanistan. Every article I read keeps repeating that the riots are caused by the burning of the books. This just isn’t so. It may have triggered the riots but the feelings of animosity towards the western powers runs much deeper than that. It is beyond the ken of yours truly as to how the news and Americans in general can overlook the stunningly obvious which is we have invaded Afghanistan, occupied their land with a bunch of murderous barbarians (us,) bombed their weddings, bombed the ensuing funerals, bombed their houses, bombed their civilians, women and children more often than not, kicked in their doors during the middle of the night, executed them, abused them, and humiliated them for the last decade, and this after the Russian invasion. Yet the news media tells us that the riots are about the burning of the Koran.

One obvious conclusion is that this is another attempt to frame the Afghans as unreasonable fanatics. This is ludicrous beyond belief yet many Americans will buy into this for after all the news media is only after the truth, is unbiased as well as fair. And who are the real fanatics? The other day I was looking for Tahini sauce at a local yokel market, couldn’t find it, and asked an employee if they carried it. I was told they used to have it but that they cleared all that “kind of stuff out.” This person then regarded me with a continence that was a mixture of hurt and childish anger. After all, those dirty A-rabs is a-killin’ our lovely rosy cheeked cherubic troops. What a laugh. Every time one or two Americans get their asses blown off it’s big news yet the thousands upon thousands of Afghans murdered by our “heroes” goes largely unnoticed unless they get caught pissing on the bodies of dead Afghans. And even then the main concern is the pissing and not the fact that these few “good men” just murdered the dead Afghans who I stress were just fighting an invasion of foreign troops just as most Americans would if they were in the Afghan’s place.

Again I ask -- who are the real fanatics? Here in America people are upset because the science of Darwin is being taught in schools seen as a blasphemy against a mythical god by a bunch of superstitious fools who believe in the devil and angels and how many of them can fit on a pinhead, appropriate for a bunch of superstitious pinheads I would say. What about the Americans who go to services where they roll and wither in the dirt speaking in tongues? Americans are fanatical about the sanctity of America itself completely intolerant of anything different, suspicious of furriners who don’t share their world view, eat what they eat, or dress the way they dress. Americans are so fanatical that they think spreading the American way of life to every corner of the planet is their god given prerogative yet it is the Afghans who are fanatical.

Serving our country

As I was waiting in the clinic waiting room an old codger wheeled himself up to the receptionist desk, gasped and sat down in his wheeler. Then one of the receptionists said, “We see you have served your country and we appreciate that.” Of course I’m no longer surprised by idiocy but it’s a good example of the insanity that has gripped this nation for years most especially since WWII, the “good war.” That soldiers serve their country is not just debatable but flatly untrue. They serve the State which is another thing entirely; indeed one might refer to the US army as the Wall Street army for that is who they are serving.

This military worship is so misplaced as to be laughable. From looking at the film of the US helicopter shooting down innocent civilians in Iraq to news reports of American soldiers raping young girls and murdering their families in Afghanistan one has to realize that this is just the tip of the iceberg. How many atrocities have been committed by our troops is anyone’s guess. But these are the realities of war; this is what war is, and what it does. War isn’t a humanitarian effort, or a social movement like women’s lib, it’s a disgusting act of violence that no matter how you dress it up stinks to high heaven.

Even going to so-called “radical” websites like counterpunch one invariably comes across various forms of military worship. Consider the following statement from Andrew Cockburn…

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It might be hoped that the urgent needs of our troops fighting in Afghanistan would spark a note of realism regarding the systems developed to help them. Sadly, such is not the case. The home-made bombs constructed with farm fertilizer and torch batteries that are the Taliban’s principal and devastatingly effective weapon have sparked many a multi-million dollar countermeasure on our part. One such is a surveillance system grandiosely christened Gorgon Stare. Developed at a cost of $320 million, and carried on Reaper drones, it allegedly enables us, as one air force general boasted when it was first unveiled, “to see everything” over a ten square-kilometer area, including insurgents planting bombs.

Cockburn’s main complaint seems to be that we aren’t helping the troops enough not that they have no business being in Afghanistan in the first place. Who needs propaganda when you have radicals like Cockburn spewing it out for them? Cockburn says “[I]t might be hoped that the urgent needs of our troops fighting in Afghanistan would spark a note of realism regarding the systems developed to help them. Sadly this is not the case.” The urgent needs of our troops? Really and truly? Does Cockburn really mean it is so sad that our troops need better weapons to murder “insurgents” with? Truly he does. One might ask what about the Afghans who are merely people fighting an invasion of their lands whatever name radicals like Cockburn might tag them with.

Then we have Amy Goodman who breathlessly tells us what she heard regarding Lt. Kernel Danny Davis from a Rolling Stone reporter which I replicate below…

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"The fact is that you have a 17-year army veteran who's done four tours – two in Afghanistan and two in Iraq – who has decided to risk his entire career (he has two and a half more years left before he gets a pension) because he feels that he has a moral obligation to do so."

Apparently Davis’ veracity is unimpeachable, his bravery unquestioned, his nobleness beyond reproach, having done four “tours”, two in Afghanistan and two in Iraq, certainly a record to be proud for a military worshipping nation like ours though nobody seems to ask just what Davis was doing on these “tours”. As Cockburn thrills us at the beginning of his article, Davis, in Cockburn’s own words…

Serving U.S. Army Lt. Colonel Danny Davis has been attracting notoriety following his courageous statement that senior military commanders have been systematically deceiving the American people about the war in Afghanistan.

Has everyone been born yesterday? You don’t mean to say that our courageous military commander commandos have been lying to us? Gasp, shock and awe, baby. Of course they have been lying to us just as the government has been lying to us, as every pea-brained jackass of a politician has been lying to us. The point has never been that we have been told lies, the point has never been that our brave servers of the nation need more and better weapons to murder, rape, and steal with. The point is that what we are doing is morally wrong. We are murdering innocent people and sometimes worse than murder. Torture, rape, pillage, destruction, and murder are emblazoned on our American banner and here are the very people who supposedly stand against such things celebrating the acts of violence as something noble and the overall wonderfulness of our uniformed goon squads. I would suggest to Cockburn and Goodman that if they are truly antiwar to stop worrying about the lies and the lack of gooderer and betterer equipment with which to murder innocent people with and pay more attention to the wars themselves and not get bogged down in propaganda that promotes war and writing it themselves for they do more harm than good. The reason being that as long as people accept and promote the idea that soldiers are doing good things than the wars themselves must be doing good things and this just is not true, not true at all.

A nation of modern means

A headline in the Los Angeles Times asks ”Koran burning: Can military do more to avoid offending Muslims?” Certainly, the American military can get out of Afghanistan. The LAT asks this like a child asking, why is the grass green or the sky blue in wide eyed innocence. The stupidity of such a question leaves one breathless. One can almost picture an America gallumping around the globe like some kind of gigantic oaf inadvertently stepping on the toes of other people only it wouldn’t be true. The US war machine knows exactly what it is doing. The war machine may make mistakes from time to time but these matter little in the overall grand scheme of world domination.

As for the great American public the general tenor remains that with America’s modernity and overall success as a nation of means, the murder of civilians as reported in the news is acceptable since our intentions are good and our hearts are pure. It would seem that the murder of such small fry pales in comparison to such noble causes as bringing the heathens up from the gutter whether they wish it or not.

Social Security: Setting up the suckers

Obama with help from congress is doing what a republican could never get away with. Cutting through the crap we can call it an out and out attack on Social Security. Congress has completed their part of the task which continues the cut in the taxes that pay for Social Security calling it “a very good deal for Americans.” As originally conceived Social Security paid for itself and was solvent for at least the next 25 years if not a good deal longer. Now money to pay for Social Security must come from elsewhere.

Link from the NYT

Under the agreement reached by House and Senate negotiators, the current reduction in the employee’s share of the Social Security payroll tax — to 4.2 percent of wages, from 6.2 percent — would be continued to the end of the year. Revenue lost to the Social Security trust fund would be fully replaced with money from the general fund of the Treasury.

For a worker with annual earnings of $50,000, the payroll tax holiday would increase take-home pay by $1,000 over the course of the year.

It needs to be said that a person earning 50,000 bucks a year is hardly hurting. I never made that much money. And if money was needed to pay for fat cat doctors who accept Medicare patients and for extending unemployment benefits why not just take that from the general fund of the treasury rather than Social Security? The answer is obvious. This is a set up to start dismantling a much needed program that benefits the poor, the sick, and the elderly. Since Social Security worked despite the lies from politicians and the news media in order to destroy it they must first make it insolvent. Cutting taxes for it is the most direct route to this goal. Once Social Security is insolvent then it can be attacked, dismantled, and finally destroyed. Politicians, the news media, and Libertarians love to call Social Security an “entitlement” as if it is some kind of gift to shiftless ne’r do-wells, bums who feel they deserve a free handout and what-not from the government but since it is paid for by the people who eventually use it Social Security is in no way an entitlement, it’s a trust fund. Big difference.

What began as a “temporary” measure is now well on its way to being permanent. If you worked you have paid into the Social Security trust fund. Now Obama and his criminal cohorts in congress are stealing it from you. First they stole your money to bail out the banksters that created the housing bubble and created “Free Trade” that shipped your job to China, and now they want to make sure you will have nothing left by destroying what you have already paid for insuring your “golden years” will be filled with misery as you scrape to get by even as your health fails. These carrion eating vultures want to make sure you have nothing left, not one thin dime or scrap of food in your cupboard while they give everything to their money men backers, the top one percent, the real parasites. People should be up in arms over this issue but the lies coming from Obama and congress as well as the news media will make sure that the masses will remain subdued meekly accepting the scraps tossed to them from the rich man’s table.