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Comparing this with Fukushima I find it hard to get too excited by this. If nothing else is clear it is that we are being lied to about this. Perhaps the old maxim of Gerald Celente applies: "if all else fails they take us to war"
US
readies possible missile strike against Syria - report
Despite
President Obama cautioning against intervention in Syria, the
Pentagon is making “initial preparations” for a cruise missile
attack on Syrian government forces, according to a new report
RT,
24
August, 2013
Joint
Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey is expected to present options
for such a strike at a White House meeting on Saturday, CBS News
reported on Friday.
US
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel suggested Friday naval forces are
moving in position closer to Syria in case Obama chooses action.
"The
Defense Department has a responsibility to provide the president with
options for contingencies, and that requires positioning our forces,
positioning our assets, to be able to carry out different options —
whatever options the president might choose," Hagel said, adding
a decision must be made quickly given “there may be another
(chemical) attack.”
Meanwhile,
a defense official, cited by Reuters, said on Friday the US Navy was
expanding its Mediterranean presence with a fourth cruise-missile
ship, the USS Mahan. Though the source stressed to Reuters the Navy
did not have orders to prepare for military operations against Syria.
The
ship was due to head back to the United States, but the commander of
the US Sixth Fleet decided to maintain the ship in the region.
All
four ships are capable of launching long-range, subsonic cruise
missiles to reach land targets.
President
Barack Obama is under renewed pressure to take action following the
emergence of footage of what appears to be the aftermath of a toxic
agent attack in a Damascus suburb on Wednesday. The forces of
President Bashar Assad were assaulting a rebel stronghold in the
district at the time, but deny responsibility. Moscow, which has
maintained close ties with the regime, called the incident a rebel
“provocation” possibly designed to derail upcoming Geneva peace
talks.
Though
the Pentagon will present plans for potential action on Saturday, as
CBS reported, President Obama has final say on any further
developments.
Questioned
on the continuing upheaval in Syria and Egypt during a CNN interview
Friday, Obama said the United States should be wary of “being drawn
into very expensive, difficult, costly interventions that actually
breed more resentment in the region.”
Obama
went on to express reservations for becoming involved in the 30-month
Syrian conflict due to a lack of international consensus.
"If
the US goes in and attacks another country without a UN mandate and
without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are
questions in terms of whether international law supports it, [and] do
we have the coalition to make it work?” said Obama.
Despite
his cautious tone, Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice
said via Twitter, “What is Bashar al Assad hiding? The world is
demanding an independent investigation of Wednesday’s apparent CW
attack. Immediately.”
Adding
to the rhetoric in Washington, Sen. John McCain said that if the
administration was to “let this go on,” it was “writing a blank
check to other brutal dictators around the world if they want to use
chemical weapons."
The
top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee also spoke out in
support of a strike in Syria, writing to Obama of the need to respond
to the latest alleged outrage.
"If
we, in concert with our allies, do not respond to Assad's murderous
uses of weapons of mass destruction, malevolent countries and bad
actors around the world will see a green light where one was never
intended," Rep. Eliot Engel wrote on Friday.
Engel
has been a proponent of a more aggressive approach to Assad’s
government.
"And,
we can do this with no boots on the ground, from stand-off
distances," he added in the letter. "I know that your
Administration is wrestling with these very complex issues, but I
believe that we, as Americans, have a moral obligation to step in
without delay and stop the slaughter."
Obama
insisted to CNN that while the United States remains “the one
indispensable nation” in international diplomacy, he suggested that
perhaps this was one conflict where the world should not look to
Washington for a definitive answer.
"The
notion that the US can somehow solve what is a sectarian complex
problem inside of Syria sometimes is overstated," said the
president.
The
White House later released a statement confirming Obama’s words,
and emphasizing that the US has no plans to put “boots on the
ground.”
The Pentagon Is Preparing A Cruise Missile Attack Against Syria
23
August, 2013
Earlier
today, in "US
Refines "Military Options" Ahead Of Syrian Strikes",
we reported on what we thought was now inevitable especially since it
was in agreemenet with what we predicted with absolute certainty over
a month ago in "US
Prepares For "Kinetic Strikes" Against Syria."
There we said: "The pre-story here is well-known to most: in a
repeat fabulation of the Iraq "WMD" lie, the US and the
entire developed world "found" Syria to have crossed a
red-line when it used chemical weapons, despite subsequent reports
that it was the Syrian rebels, aka Qatari mercenaries, who were the
party responsible for chemical weapon use. No matter though: the
public media campaign was hatched, and merely waited for the
catalyst. That
catalyst may be imminent..."
Sure
enough, a month later the convenient catalyst emerged when this
Wedensday,
despite the entire world watching Assad (and as Iraq WMD inspector
Rolf Ekeus stating the obvious in "It
would be very peculiar if it was the government to do this at the
exact moment the international inspectors come into the country"),
we are meant to believe that the Syrian leader launched the biggest
nerve gas attack in the history of the Qatari, Al-Qaeda and
CIA-funded and organized Syrian rebellion. Two days later, without
any actual investigation, the
west determined somehow, on its own, that the attack was launched by
Assad, not a false flag attack by the rebels even though it
was their chemical
weapons depot that
had been previously uncovered. Visions of Colin Powell lying to the
world (with his former aide admitting years
later the WMD speech was the "lowest
point in my life")
should now be emerging right before your eyes.
Moments
ago the inevitable denouement arrived when as CBS' David Martin
reports, the US is preparing for a cruise missile launch against
Syria, and is further ordering warships closer to Syria to be
prepared and ready for when the trigger is pulled.
CBS News has learned that the Pentagon is making the initial preparations for a cruise missile attack on Syrian government forces. We say "initial preparations" because such an attack won't happen until the president gives the green light. And it was clear during an interview on CNN Friday that he is not there yet.
"If the U.S. goes in and attacks another country, without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented," the president told CNN, "then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it -- 'do we have the coalition to make it work?' Those are considerations that we have to take into account."
Launching cruise missiles from the sea would not risk any American lives. It would be a punitive strike designed not to topple Syrian dictator Bashir Assad but to convince him he cannot get away with using chemical weapons.
Watch a report on Syrian activists gathering evidence to prove chemical attack:
Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey is expected to present options for a strike at a White House meeting on Saturday.
Potential targets include command bunkers and launchers used to fire chemical weapons.
However, officials stress President Obama, who until now has steadfastly resisted calls for military intervention, has not made a decision.
CBS News has learned that the Pentagon is making the initial preparations for a cruise missile attack on Syrian government forces. We say "initial preparations" because such an attack won't happen until the president gives the green light. And it was clear during an interview on CNN Friday that he is not there yet.
"If the U.S. goes in and attacks another country, without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented," the president told CNN, "then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it -- 'do we have the coalition to make it work?' Those are considerations that we have to take into account."
Launching cruise missiles from the sea would not risk any American lives. It would be a punitive strike designed not to topple Syrian dictator Bashir Assad but to convince him he cannot get away with using chemical weapons.
Watch a report on Syrian activists gathering evidence to prove chemical attack:
Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey is expected to present options for a strike at a White House meeting on Saturday.
Potential targets include command bunkers and launchers used to fire chemical weapons.
However, officials stress President Obama, who until now has steadfastly resisted calls for military intervention, has not made a decision.
None
of this should come as a surprise to our readers. We explained in
detail why not the
US state department, not the
Pentagon, noteven
the president or the US MIC is seeking this war. No: the culprit is
none other than the Federal Reserve and it banking industry
superiors. To
wit:
The chart below will likely come as a surprise to most. It shows total nominal US defense spending, more importantly it shows that such spending has been rapidly declining since 2010. And while on the surface it is great news the US is becoming more "pacifist" (apparently mass killings using drones are relatively cost-effective) and the result for the US is even better as it means lower deficits, there is one person who is very unhappy with this outcome - Ben Bernanke.
Why is Ben unhappy? Simple - as a reminder, the only reason Ben is even contemplating tapering has nothing to do with the economy. After all the Fed chairman (and/or his successor) is willing to send the stock market into stratospheric overdrive and would be very happy to add not subtract from the monthly QE $85 billion notional since it means more "wealth effect" and thus brings the US closer to the "Keynesian successful endgame" (that the logic here is completely inverted is well known to all but the most die-hard Keynesian fanboys and is not in the scope of this article).
However, the fact that the gross US debt issuance is declining (if only until the demographic and healthcare crunch hits in 2015 and deficits explode once more) means Bernanke has less primary issuance to monetize. Were Bernanke to maintain his monetization run rate into a lower deficit regime, the Chairman would destabilize the liquidity in the already increasingly illiquid Treasury market in which the Fed now holds over 30% of all 10 Year equivalents and its holdings increase by 0.3% every week.
This illiquidity is manifesting itself most directly in the "special" repo rates that have become a norm in the past few months especially in the 10 Year, and which indicate an ongoing shortage of TSY collateral.
Of course, there is a very simple and elegant solution to declining defense spending, one which has been used time and again in US history when the US government needed to provide the Fed with more securities (i.e. deficit) to monetize: war.
And
speaking of war:
The ultimate decision will come not from Congress but from the Fed.
So what may have spooked Bernanke and the sudden reappearance of the Syrian war as a real and credible possibility?
Why, the economy of course. Only not its "improvement" but its recent (and ongoing) deterioration.
And since the taper is largely priced in, Bernanke is already contemplating how to reengage in the subsequent untapering should all hell break loose following a September tapering announcement prompting the Fed to reengage once more. However, for that to happen, US deficits would need to flow as before, as only then will there be the much needed copious primary issuance of debt that the Fed will need in order to resume monetizing at a fervent pace without impairing the liquidity characteristics of the bond market.
As for the downside? What are some irrelevant Syrian lives in the grand scheme of things, when the status quo's wealth must be preserved at all costs. Costs including the death of thousands of innocent civilian Syrians and/or other nationalities should the conflict just happen to spill outside the Syrian borders.
So
there you have it: in order to make way for the inevitable Untaper,
Bernanke has launched in motion a chain of events that will
ultimately culminate with a surge in US deficit spending, which will
require a surge in Treasury issuance, and thus, a surge in Fed
monetization, which also means reserve creation, and as has been made
all too clear over the past 5 years, yet another surge in the stock
market.
Of
course, the use of war as a culmination point to end a depression is
nothing new. Just look at the first Great
Depression.
And
just like then, the only cost to perpetuate the myth of the Keynesian
and monetarist religion and the pillaged wealth of the 0.01% status
quo elite, will be a few hundred thousand innocent men, women and
children. Or, as they are known in the Beltway, collateral
damage.
That
is, unless, Putin decides to retaliate. Then history will truly
rhyme, when just as the first great US depression was followed
promptly by a world war, so the second great US depression will have
an identical outcome.
* *
*
Finally,
for those curious, this is the current layout of US naval assets
around the world courtesy of Stratfor.
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