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.
Charlie Kaye ✔
@CharlieKayeCBS
BREAKING. @CBSNews has learned that the Pentagon is making the initial preparations for a Cruise missile attack on Syrian government forces
BREAKING. @CBSDavidMartin: US naval commander orders warships to move closer to Syria to be ready for possible Cruise missile strike.
Richard Engel ✔
@RichardEngel
defense official says U.S. Navy Fleet
Commander ordered 2 U.S. Navy destroyers to stay in the Eastern med for
a few days in case needed.
More from CBS:
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, not even
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.And speaking of war:
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.
The ultimate decision will come not from Congress but from the Fed.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.
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.
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.
Source
WB7
Additional:
US readies missile strike against Syria - report
RT: Despite President Obama 'the baby bomber' 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.
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.”
Edited by WD
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