27 Sept 2014

How The "Syrian Rebels" Really Feel About "Friendly" US Airstrikes

Tyler Durden's picture Late yesterday, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, disclosed what in a nutshell US strategy in Syria would be.
For one, he announced that the US would require some 12,000-15,000 armed, trained and paid for boots on the ground, i.e., mercenaries to do Obama's dirty work on the ground because the Nobel peace prize winner is unwilling to go all the way with his belligerent pivot. As a reminder, the last notable time the US engaged in wholesale arming and funding of offshore mercenaries was the Afghan war, when the CIA got involved with the Mujahideen "freedom fighters" whose funding began with $20–$30 million per year in 1980 and rose to $630 million per year in 1987, culminating with the terrorist action of Osama Bin Laden, once a close friend of the US and the CIA (read more about Operation Cyclone here).
More importantly, as Reuters reported, Dempsey said that the endgoal is "to recapture lost territory in eastern Syria". Territory, which as we reported in July, amounts to 35% of Syria's landmass and includes most of its oilfields. And sure enough, the territory would be preserved for the exclusive use of the "rebels", or the group of Islamists from whose ranks none other than ISIS arose over the past year. And since the rebels couldn't care one way or another, this is merely a way for the US to say that whatever Syrian territory is "liberated" from ISIS presence, it will be disposed of as the US sees fit, with the only decisions being whether to grant it to Qatar or Saudi Arabia.
In the meantime, things on the propaganda front are going form bad to worse.

Western Bloc Headed By Washington Rejects UN Principle That All States Are Equal Says Russian FM Lavrov

The US-led Western block rejects the principle of the equality of sovereign states secured by the UN Charter while advocating democracy in the international arena, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addressing the UNGA.
"The US-led Western alliance, while acting as an advocate of democracy, rule of law and human rights in individual countries, is acting in the international arena from the opposite position, rejecting the democratic principle of the sovereign right of states enshrined in the UN Charter and trying to decide for others what is good and what is bad," Lavrov said at the 69th session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Saturday.
RT: The Russian foreign minister elaborated that there was an increasingly obvious contradiction between the need for collective action by partners to produce proper responses to common challenges and some countries' drive for dominance and revival of the archaic bloc mentality based on barrack-like discipline and flawed 'us and them' logic".
Lavrov added that Russia was willing to compromise and ready to balance interests only based on mutual respect and if the dialogue is honest, respectful and equal”.

UK Black Hole of Debt - Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert with Ben Dyson

"Confirmation that austerity measures were a hoax!" "Poll shows 90% of UK MPs are economically illiterate."
 Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the supermassive black hole of debt at the center of the UK economy from which nothing escapes: Wealth, jobs, hope are all sucked in and still the hole grows.

Shit Feminists Say - Gamergate Edition - Honey Badger Radio

"Video games are promoting evil masculinity!"
"It's been over a month since Gamergate began and with social justice warriors' stupidity in the spotlight once more, well, our cup runneth over, ...with MHRA community help, ...a very special edition of 'Shit Feminists Say', fully captures the scope of the stupid."

Not Even A Dead-Cat Bounce: Russia Sanctions, Whiff Of Reality Sink ‘Economic Expectations’ In Germany

: Germany is expected to pull the Eurozone out of its funk by stimulating internal consumption. It is expected to allow the ECB to print money and stir up inflation so that other Eurozone countries like Spain or France can leverage that inflation to cut real wages, impoverish their people, devalue mountains of debt, make exports cheaper, and push imports beyond the reach of the poor.
The Eurozone is mired down, and it’s holding back the global economy. Germany would have to do its job. Not German exporters, for crying out loud – they’re causing all the problems, the official thinking goes. But German consumers, the same ones whose dour mood can last for years. They’d have to pull the Eurozone, and by extension the global economy, out of their funk.
But those consumers are getting cold feet, after businesses and investors have gotten cold feet months ago.
The Ifo Business Climate Index fell to its lowest level since April 2013. Business Expectations fell to their lowest level since December 2012. In manufacturing, expectations dropped into the negative for the first time since January 2013, dragged down by flagging exports. Construction hit the lowest level since December 2012, and wholesaling hit the lowest level since March 2010. The Ifo Employment Barometer backed off as well. The German economy is sputtering.
The sentiment of “financial experts” has been diving for nine months in a row. The ZEW Indicator, whose the long-run average is 24.6, now sits at 6.9, the worst level since December 2012, when markets were climbing out of the debt crisis debacle (ugly chart). The report blamed thesanction spiral with Russiaanddisappointingeconomic activity in the Eurozone.

Catalonia President Ordered An Independence Referendum On Nov. 9

RT: The president of Catalonia, Artur Mas, has signed a decree calling an independence referendum for Nov. 9. The secessionist drive of the Spanish region has been rebuked by the fascists in Madrid, who vowed to block the vote.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has called a government meeting Monday that is expected to provide a bullshit legal response to Barcelona’s democratic announcement. Madrid plans to challenge the vote in the bullshit constitutional court.
Last week the Catalan parliament voted to hold an independence referendum in November, with 106 MPs in favour and 28 against. 
Support in Catalonia for seceding from Spain grew in the relatively prosperous northeast province over years of economic hardships and austerity measures. A recent opinion poll by the Omnibus Opinion Studies Center showed that almost 60 percent of Catalans would vote for independence.

Will Russia And China Hold Their Fire Until War Is The Only Alternative?

By Paul Craig Roberts: Obama’s September 24 speech at the UN is the most absurd thing I have heard in my entire life. It is absolutely amazing that the president of the United States would stand before the entire world and tell what everyone knows are blatant lies while simultaneously demonstrating Washington’s double standards and belief that Washington alone, because the US is exceptional and indispensable, has the right to violate all law.
It is even more amazing that every person present did not get up and walk out of the assembly.
The diplomats of the world actually sat there and listened to blatant lies from the world’s worst terrorist. They even clapped their approval.
The rest of the speech was just utter bullshit: We stand at a crossroads,” “signposts of progress,” “reduced chance of war between major powers,” “hundreds of millions lifted from poverty,” and while ebola ravages Africa we’ve learned how to cure disease and harness the power of the wind and the sun.” We are now God. We is comprised of the exceptional people–Americans. No one else counts. We are it.
It is impossible to pick the most absurd statement in Obama’s speech or the most outrageous lie. Is it this one?Russian aggression in Europe recalls the days when large nations trampled small ones in pursuit of territorial ambition.”

An Open Letter To Feminist Apologist Emma Watson

Dear Emma Watson,
I was not raised a celebrity. I can say that my life has been very different from yours. I am a woman living in America. I have not attended a fine university like Brown, as you did. I have known abuse, I have been molested. I have known hardship and depression. But there is something you should know. 
I don’t need feminism.
Maybe you can’t understand why this might be so. How someone like me, who has in the past been suicidal and faced such turmoil, could say that I do not need something that is supposed to help the whole world.
I want you to know that I am neither religious nor someone politically conservative, and I say this because many have accused me of this stance for merely disagreeing with feminism. Your idea of feminism is certainly beautiful, but it is not the reality of the women’s movement today, nor was it the reality of the past.

The Feminist Ideological Conquest Of DiGRA (Part 1) #GamerGate #NotYourShield

Sargon of Akkad: A brief overview of the history of DiGRA from its founding in 2003 through to the 2014 regime and documentation of the feminist takeover of the DiGRA executive board.

Mahmoud Abbas' "War Of Genocide" Speech On Israel Crimes Against Humanity + Obligatory US Zio-Nazi Criticism Of Abbas' Speech At UN

Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian national unity government, has slammed the apartheid Israeli regime for the ‘war of genocide’ it imposed on the Gaza Strip.
Zio-Nazi UK Regulater Banned Press TV: Abbas berated the apartheid Tel Aviv regime for the brutal military aggression against the besieged Palestinian territory in an address to the 69th session of the UN General Assembly on Friday.
Israel unleashed aerial blitzkrieg attacks on Gaza in early July and later expanded its military campaign with a ground invasion into the Palestinian territory. Over 2,130 Palestinians lost their lives including over 500 children and some 11,000 were maimed.
Abbas said what Israel did in nearly two months of conflict was “a series of absolute war crimes carried out before the eyes and ears of the entire world.”
The Palestinian official called for the Israeli regime to face justice for its atrocities in Gaza, saying, “We will not forget and we will not forgive, and we will not allow war criminals to escape punishment.”

How Goldman Controls The New York Fed: 47.5 Hours Of "The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes" Explain

Tyler Durden's picture When nearly a year ago we reported about the case of "Goldman whistleblower" at the NY Fed, Carmen Segarra, who alleged she was wrongfully terminated after she flagged "numerous conflicts of interest and breaches of client ethics [involving Goldman] that she believed warranted a downgrade of Goldman's regulatory rating" and which were ignored due to the intimate, and extensively documented on these pages, proximity between Goldman and either one-time NY Fed Chairman and former Goldman director Stephen Friedman or current NY Fed president and former Goldman employee Bill Dudley, we said:
as everyone knows, both Bill Dudley and Stephen Friedman used to be at Goldman, and as we noted Dudley and Goldman chief economist Jan Hatzius periodically did and still meet to discuss "events" at the Pound and Pense. 

So while her allegations may be non-definitive, and her wrongfful termination suit is ultimately dropped, there is hope this opens up an inquiry into the close relationship between Goldman and the NY Fed. Alas, since the judicial branch is also under the control of the two abovementioned entities, we very much doubt it.

BofA Merrill Lynch: The Four “Canaries In The Coalmine” Died

: On the Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange combined, 251 companies have gone public this year as of September 26, up 73% from last year. Their IPOs raised $77 billion, nearly double the amount raised last year at this time. It was the second largest amount in history, behind only the year when all IPO craziness came to a head and finally blew up, the infamous year 2000, which, for this period, clocked in at $84 billion.
IPOs are risky. Especially those IPOs that are pushed out in all haste while the IPO “window” is open, and the window stays open only a short while. For early investors, such as venture capital funds, it’s the moment to exit and take their cash and run. And the “public” is buying. That “public” isn’t actually the people for most part but institutional investors, such as mutual funds that then stuff these shares into people’s retirement funds.
The “IPO window is open” is a euphemism. It means that desperate and crazed investors buy anything even if it doesn’t pass the smell test, they’re buying without looking, they believe in all the hype and forget to do the math. No earnings, no problem. Sky-high valuations, no problem, even if the company is only good at burning investor cash. Risks don’t exist. This is an opportunity. Buy, buy, buy. That’s a “healthy IPO market,” another euphemism. It’s healthy, but for whom?