Армию США предупредили...

Командованию вооруженных сил США в Катаре в жесткой форме довели, что попытки обстрелов из районов, где находятся боевики «Сирийских демократических сил» (СДС), будут пресекаться, заявил официальный представитель Минобороны Игорь Конашенков. Напряжение в районе Дейр эз-Зора устанавливается из-за попытки определенных сил сорвать политический процесс в Астане, считает военный эксперт Центра стратегической конъюнктуры Владимир Неелов. 

Конашенков отмечает, что за последние дни правительственные силы Сирии были дважды атакованы из районов, которые контролируются СДС и военнослужащими спецподразделений армии США. При этом обстрел велся из минометов и реактивной артиллерии. Стоит подчеркнуть, что в районе Дейр эз-Зора совместно с армией САР действует российский спецназ, который выполняет задачи по поиску и уничтожению террористов «Исламского государства».
«Поэтому по специальному каналу связи до представителя командования вооруженных сил США в Эль-Удейде (Катар) в жесткой форме доведено, что попытки обстрелов из районов, где находятся боевики СДС, будут немедленно пресекаться», — сказал Конашенков.

В данном случае представитель российского военного ведомства заявляет, что все огневые точки будут подавляться имеющимися средствами поражения.

«Терпение кончилось, наши военные в открытую начали заявлять о том, что будут отвечать на обстрелы прокси-сил США. Хотя мне кажется, что случаи вооруженного отпора и пресечение действий на местности, скорее всего уже производятся, просто это не афишируется. Все это напряжение устанавливается на фоне политических процессов в Астане, здесь все к этому привязано — попытка обострить и сорвать данный процесс», — поясняет ситуацию эксперт.
При этом курды, при активной поддержке американского спецназа могут начать столкновения с армией Сирии на восточном берегу Евфрата. Дело в том, что в Вашингтоне не желают соглашаться с мирным окончанием войны, к которому Москва подводит Дамаск.

«США в этом смысле для курдов непостоянный партнер. Когда надо они их накачивают вооружением и средствами поражения противника, а когда в этом нет необходимости — бросают. Сейчас курды занимают достаточно самостоятельную позицию, поэтому вероятность открытого столкновения с правительственными силами сохраняется на низовом уровне, но до каких-то крупномасштабных и значимых столкновений дело не дойдет. Стоит отметить, что поддерживаемые ВКС РФ правительственные силы не станут первыми атаковать, это точно. Потому что такая дестабилизация обстановки в регионе не выгодна ни нам, ни сирийцам», — продолжает военный аналитик.

По мнению собеседника ФАН, вместе с астанинским процессом, в САР происходит смыкание фронта, когда присутствующие в регионе силы перестают заниматься только уничтожением террористов ИГИЛ и переходят в военно-политическую плоскость.

«Встает вопрос о том, как дальше делить отбитые у боевиков территории и кто на них будет играть главенствующую роль? Этот процесс сложный, потому что курды действуют самостоятельно и насколько они будут согласны говорить своем будущем в составе Сирии — вопрос. Мало кто хочет об этом говорить, но рано или поздно эту проблему придется решать», — заключил Неелов.

Накануне, 20 сентября, в военном ведомстве сообщили, что боевики еще одной запрещенной в России террористической организации «Джебхат ан-Нусра» блокировали в провинции Идлиб группу российской военной полиции в составе 29 человек. Ее удалось вывести из окружения после наступления сирийского десанта, которое состоялось при огневой поддержке ВКС и ССО РФ.

How the US Became a Warmonger Police State

Paul Craig Roberts 

Professor David Ray Griffin is a tenacious person. He has written a number of carefully researched books that demonstrate the extraordinary shortcomings in the official account of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the subsequent anthrax attack. He has provided the mountains of evidence completely ignored by the US government’s account and the presstitute media.

In his recently published latest book, Bush and Cheney: How They Ruined America and the World , Professor Griffin demonstrates how 9/11 was used by the Zionist Neoconservatives, the Cheney/Bush regime, and the military/security complex with the complicity of Congress and the US media to create Islamophobia among the American public in order to launch wars of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and provinces of Pakistan with Iran in the crosshairs.These wars are based on lies and fabricated “evidence,” on determination to control pipelines and oil flows, on maximizing profits for the military/security corporations in which Cheney has a personal interest, and on extending neoconservative hegemony over the world.

One consequence has been the destruction of US constitutional protections that protect liberty and violations of US and international law such as the laws against torture.

Another consequence has been millions of displaced refugees from Washington’s wars over-running the countries of Europe.

Indeed, Europe faces a “Camp of the Saints” situation, and the US now has a police state in which all citizens are subject to: indefinite detention (imprisonment) on suspicion alone without conviction or evidence presented to a court; assassination on suspicion alone without due process of law; and total violation of privacy, including body cavities, without presentation of a court warrant. American women are now subjected to having their vaginas examined by police in public on the roadside.

The hoax “war on terror” has turned America into a Gestapo state. Not many Americans directly experience the consequences, but they will be denied valid information as the Gestapo American state closes down all dissent on the grounds that it is harmful to national security. People who speak their minds will find that they no longer have First Amendment protection.

Every passing day truth is less and less prevalent in the United States. Democratic control over the government is already nonexistent. Essentially, Americans live in the Fourth Reich which has already budded and is now blossoming.

Wars and their expense will continue to multiply as the military/security complex uses manufactured “threats” to continue the excessive flow of American resources into more weapons to be used in the destruction of more countries.

Professor Griffin provides the details of the story of how the United States ceased to be a free country ruled by law and became instead a threat both to American civil liberty and to life on earth.

In world polls 25% of the respondants recognize the United States as the greatest threat to peace in the world. This is 5 times higher than those who regard North Korea and Iran as threats, much less Venezuela which does not even register. When Trump gave his UN speech he should have said that the United States, controlled as it is by the CIA and military/security complex, is the great threat that the entire world faces, including Americans.

But Trump has betrayed us. He accepted the aggressive militarist neoconservative line that the military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower warned us, to no avail, in 1961, 56 years ago, is the hegemonic police power chosen by History to protect the peace of the world.

It must reassure the 7 or 8 countries bombed into the stone age by Washington’s might that their destruction is “protecting the peace of the world.” 

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

Placed with the personal permission of the author.

More Thoughts on Trump’s UN Declaration of War Against Iran and North Korea

Paul Craig Roberts

Trump’s UN speech makes it clear that Trump’s presidency, in terms of his campaign promise to remove Washington from the “policeman of the world” role, exit the Middle East, and repair the damaged relations with Russia, is over. The CIA and the military/security complex are in full control of the US government. Trump has accepted his captivity and his assigned role as the enforcer of Washington’s hegemony over every other country. Washington uber alles is the only foreign policy that Washington pursues.

At the UN Trump actually threatened to wipe North Korea off of the face of the earth. He added to this threat threats against Venezuela (http://stephenlendman.org/2017/09/trump-threatens-venezuela/) and Iran. He demonized these countries as “rogue states,” but it is Washington that is playing that role. Washington has destroyed in whole or part eight countries in the young 21st century and has 3 to 5 more in its crosshairs.

One question is: why did not the UN audience shout Trump down, a man standing before them telling obvious lies? The answer, of course, is money. The US taxpayers pay roughly one-quarter of the UN’s annual budget, leaving the other 130+ countries a light load. Washington is succeeding in driving the world to Armageddon, because the world’s leaders prefer money to truth, to justice, to survival. The UN diplomats see in their cooperation with Washington the opportunity to make money by sharing in the West’s exploitation of their own countries.

Washington, absorbed in its effort to destroy Syria, left it to its Saudi Arabian puppet to destroy Yemen. The Saudi autocracy, a major sponsor with the US of terrorism, has done a good job, thanks to US supplying the weapons and to the US refueling the Saudi attack airplanes. This totally gratuitous war has helped to maximize the profits of the American military/security complex, a collection of evil never before present on the face of the earth. UNICEF reports that one million Yemeni children will be the victims of “American compassion” of which Trump bragged in the CIA’s UN speech.

One wonders if the Russians and Chinese are so absorbed in getting rich like America’s One Percent that they are unaware that they are on the list of countries to be eliminated for not accepting Washington’s hegemony. Really, where was the Russian government when Washington overthrew the Ukranian government? It was at a sports event. And I call Americans insouciant. Where was the Russian government? How could it have not known?

To be frank. The point is this. Unless Russia and China can take out the US, the US will take out Russia and China. The only question is who strikes first. The only way to avoid this is for Russia and China to surrender and accept Washington’s hegemony. This is the firm undeviating path on which the neoconservatives, the CIA, and the military/security complex have set the United States. The entire point of North Korea is US nuclear missiles on China’s border. The entire point of Iran is US nuclear missiles on Russia’s border.

As far as I can ascertain, hardly anyone is aware that Armageddon is just around the corner. There is no protest from the Western presstitutes, a collection of whores. In the US the only protests are against ancient “civil war” statues, which the ignorant rabble say are symbols of black slavery. There is no peace movement and no peace marches. In London the transgendered and the radical feminists are protesting one another, engaging in fist fights in Hyde Park. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4891484/Fists-fly-politically-correct-rally.html No one seems to have any awareness.

In US online propaganda websites such as Americans for Limited Government—funded by who? serving who?—endorse Trump’s destabilizing UN speech as a non-threat to world peace:

“President Trump has provided a cogent and inspiring defense of America and the American constitutional system of governance to the world not as imposition but an example to be followed, while at the same time respecting the sovereignty of other nations. However, the President also made it clear to those nations that threaten humanity with nuclear destruction [which Washington has done to N. Korea and Iran] that the United States will not be held hostage, and continuing down their current paths guarantees their annihilation. While many will focus on Trump’s threat to North Korea and Iran, the real focus of his speech is that it is a call to all nations to embrace their own sovereignty without threatening world peace.”

I have never in my long life read such a misrepresentation of a speech. The United States has become the complete propaganda state. No truth ever emerges.

It is only the US government, which is not a government of the people, that has ever threatened another country with total destruction as Trump did to North Korea in the CIA’s UN speech.

This is a first. It trumps Adolf Hitler. The US has become the 4th Reich. It is doubtful that the world will survive the foreign policy of the United States of America. 

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

Placed with the personal permission of the author.

Will The Fed Really “Normalize” Its Balance Sheet?

To begin with, how exactly does one define “normalize” in reference to the Fed’s balance sheet?  The Fed predictably held off raising rates again today.  However, it said that beginning in October it would no longer re-invest proceeds from its Treasury and mortgage holdings and let the balance sheet “run off.”

Here’s the problem with letting the Treasuries and mortgage just mature:   Treasuries never really “mature.” Rather, the maturities are “rolled forward” by refinancing the outstanding Treasuries due to mature.   The Government also issues even more Treasurys to fund its reckless spending habits.  Unless the Fed “reverse repos” the Treasurys right before they are refinanced by the Government, the money printed by the Fed to buy the Treasurys will remain in the banking system.  I’m surprised no one has mentioned this minor little detail.

The Fed has also kicked the can down the road on hiking interest rates in conjunction with shoving their phony 1.5% inflation number up our collective ass.  The Fed Funds rate has been below 1% since October 2008, or nine years.   Quarter point interest rate hikes aren’t really hikes. we’re at 1% from zero in just under two years. That’s not “hiking” rates.  Until they start doing the reverse-repos in $50-$100 billion chunks at least monthly, all this talk about “normalization” is nothing but the babble of children in the sandbox.  I think the talk/threat of it is being used to slow down the decline in the dollar.

To justify its monetary policy, Yellen stated today that she’s, “very pleased in progress made in the labor market.”  Again, how does one define progress?  Here’s one graphic which shows that the labor market has been and continues to be a complete abortion:

The labor force participation rate (left y-axis) has been plunging since 2000. It’s currently below 63%. This means that over 37% of the working age population in the United States is not considered part of the labor force. That’s close to 100 million people between the ages of 15 and 64 who, for whatever reason, are not looking for a job or actively employed. A record number of those employed are working more than one part-time job in order to put food on table and a roof over the heads of their household. Good job Janet! Bravo!.

The blue line in the graph above shows the amount of dollars spent by the Government on welfare. Note the upward point acceleration in the rate of welfare spending correlates with the same point in time at which the labor force participation rate began to plunge. Again, nice work Janet!

The labor force participation rate is much closer to the true rate of unemployment in the United States.  John Williams of Shadowstats.com has calculated the rate of unemployment using the methodology used by the Government a couple of decades ago and has shown that a “truer” rate of unemployment is closer to 23%.

The true level of unemployment  is definitively the reason why the rate of welfare spending increased in correlation with the decline in those considered to be part of the labor force.   It could also be shown using the Fed’s data that another portion of the plunging labor force participation rate is attributable to the acceleration in student loans outstanding.  I would argue that part of the splurge in student loan funding, initiated by Obama, was used to keep potential job-seekers being forced by economic necessity from  seeking jobs and therefore could be removed from the labor force definition, which in turn lowers the unemployment rate.

As I write this, Yellen is asserting that “U.S. economic performance has been good.”  I’d like to get my hands on some of the opioids she must be abusing.  Real retail sales have been dropping precipitously (the third largest retail store bankruptcy in history was filed yesterday), household debt is at an an all-time high, Government debt hits an all-time high every minute of the day and interest rates are at 5,000 year lows (sourced from King World News)

Note to Janet:   near-zero cost of money is not in any way an attribute of an economy that is “doing well.” In fact, record levels of systemic debt and rising corporate and household bankruptcies are the symptoms of failed Central Bank economic and monetary policies. This is further reinforced by the record level of income disparity between the 1% highest income earners and the rest of the U.S. labor force.

The entire U.S. economic and financial system is collapsing.  If the Fed truly follows through on its threat to “normalize” its balance sheet and raise rates, the U.S. will likely collapse sometime in the next couple of years. On other hand, up to this point since Bernanke’s famous “taper” speech in May 2013, most of the Fed’s statements with regard to hiking rates (hiking them for real) and reducing its balance sheet has been nothing but hot air.  And in fact, unless the Fed reverse repos its balance sheet back to the banks, it’s assertion of “balance sheet normalization” is nothing more than another in long series of lies. 

http://investmentresearchdynamics.com/