Headlines of note for September 2013

Doves take the British Parliament...

Daily Mail: The humbling of David Cameron: On a momentous night, Tory rebellion forces Prime Minister to rule out military strike against Syria... and plunges him into a deep political crisis

The House of Commons has not voted against the Government on an issue of war and peace since February 27, 1782, when politicians voted against further war with America...

There is a certain irony in this; just as in the American Revolution, the only substantial ally of the U.S. is France...

Libération: Obama et Hollande affichent leur entente au sujet de la Syrie

In an interview with Le Monde, Obama's mentor (during his mystery years at Columbia) Zbigniew Brzezinski repeats the vacuous argument that we must bomb Syria in order to preserve the reputation of the U.S. and the West at large on the world stage...

Syrie : "Il faut un certain degré de patience et une vision plus large"

That reputation however has already been soiled; the international goodwill following the election of Obama has long dried up, as it becomes increasingly clear to the world that Anglo-American imperial arrogance continues unswayed through neo-liberal stratagems (of which the neo-conservative Bush Doctrine was but an ideological tributary), and the only "change" has been in tactics (drones rather than "boots on the ground") and stylistics (Obama's metro-sexual "cool" vs. Bush's cowboy swagger). The NSA revelations courtesy of Edward Snowden have brought the distrust of not only the U.S. government but of its telecommunication industry to a head; and with this distrust a vacuum of moral authority has opened, with Vladimir Putin eager to seize the moment, convincingly enough to induce Matt Drudge to declare: Putin is the leader of the free world... - apparently inspired by these comments of Putin on the eve of the G-20 meetings...

RT:  Putin to (Nobel Prize winner) Obama: 'Think about future Syria victims'

With the onslaught of recent scandals, moreover, the distrust is simmering domestically as well beyond the partisan divide. Brzezinski acknowledges in his Le Monde interview that the Obama administration is motivated in its push to war not merely by external concerns, but by internal factors...

Depuis le début de la crise, je ne soutiens pas la politique menée par les Etats-Unis. Mais étant donné les réalités de la situation, intérieure aussi bien que géopolitique, dans laquelle se trouvent les Etats-Unis, je n'ai pas d'autre choix que de soutenir la décision du président de procéder à une action limitée de représailles et d'obtenir le soutien du Congrès.

Since the beginning of the crisis, I did not support the policy of the United States. But given the realities of the situation, domestic as well as geopolitical, which find themselves in the United States, I have no choice but to support the president's decision to conduct a limited retaliatory action and obtain the support of Congress. [Google trans., with some rephrasing and our emphasis]

Thanks in large part to the British rejection, Obama's march to the brink has thus been halted - temporarily at least. Given those "interior" concerns, however, he has in turn taken the uncharacteristic measure of conforming to constitutional mandate, cognizant that he himself is at the brink of impeachment...

National Review: GOP Rep.: House Would Impeach Obama if We Brought It for Vote


The situation is fluid...

Monday, September 9th: at a press conference with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry - prompted by a question from CBS reporter Margaret Brennan - offers the hypothetical suggestion that Assad could give up his chemical weapons to avoid U.S. military action. What ensued from these "off the cuff" remarks was a tectonic re-alignment of the diplomatic stand-off between the U.S. and Syria backed by Russia...

Lobe Log: Kerry Gaffe on Syria Takes on Life of its Own

The "gaffe" came at a very opportune time however for the Obama administration, when it was effectively caught between a rock and a hard place in its push for bombing Syria - facing a likely no vote from Congress, the choice for the administration was either bomb without the consent of Congress and potentially face impeachment, or not bomb and accept humiliation. With a series of stories surfacing particularly on Russia's RT implicating the U.S. in fabricating evidence...

'CIA fabricated evidence to lure US into war with Syria'

Intl experts have strong proof images of chemical victims fabricated – Moscow

RT sources: Syrian rebels plan chem attack on Israel from Assad-controlled territories

International Business Times: Assad not Responsible for Ghouta Gas Attack, Says Freed Hostage Pierre Piccinin

Infowars: Rush Limbaugh Suspects Obama Conspired With Al-Qaeda to Frame Bashar al-Assad

It would appear then that Obama was offered a face-saving way out of potentially devastating revelations by Putin at the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg the previous week...

Al Monitor: Obama, Putin previously discussed plan to secure Syria chemical arms

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that he and President Obama had “indeed discussed” the idea during a meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia last week.

He and Obama agreed “to instruct Secretary of State [John Kerry] and Foreign Minister [Sergey Lavrov] to get in touch” and “try to move this idea forward..."

Putin's trump card may have been incriminating intelligence, or simply "the debt bomb"...

Boiling Frogs Post: Did Putin Quietly Play the Debt Card Over Syria?

As a side note, that Kerry's reverie was prompted by a CBS reporter is perhaps no accident, given certain relationships that exist...

Fire Andrea Mitchell: Ben Rhodes — brother of CBS News president David Rhodes — instrumental in changing Benghazi talking points


Sept. 16: The UN report on the August 21 chemical attack in Ghouta is released, establishing that the weapons used were not substantially improvised, as was the case in previous attacks according to Russian claims...

McClatchy: Russia gave UN 100-page report in July blaming Syrian rebels for Aleppo sarin attack

The case for assigning blame in the Ghouta attack to the Syrian government has perhaps been more convincingly made by the Brown Moses blog (though it should be noted that for a time Brown Moses hosted a Free Syrian Army donation banner) than by the U.S. government...

Washington's Blog: Congress Members Who Have Seen Classified Evidence About Syria Say It Fails to Prove Anything

The assumption however is that only Assad would have such finished weapons in his stockpile, perhaps being of binary construction, as speculated by chemical weapons expert Dan Kaszeta... Unless, of course, they came from somewhere else... Libya? A flashback to this Wayne Madsen Report...

December 10-11, 2012 -- From Libya with Love: Chemical weapons in Syria, in the hands of the rebels

The Obama administration has managed to accomplish something that is a self-fulfilling prophecy: "Al Qaeda" now possesses weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The WMDs are chemical weapons canisters obtained from well-guarded Libyan warehouses that were opened up to Salafist rebels, many affiliated with "Al Qaeda" cells, during the NATO-supported military attack on the government of Muammar Qaddafi.

The CIA's and Pentagon's propaganda machinery have covered up the presence of Libyan chemical weapons in Syria by claiming the government of Bashar al Assad has started mixing precursor chemicals in preparation for deploying nerve and mustard gas weapons on the battlefield against Syrian rebels...

Were they shipped from Benghazi? This fellow might know...

Washington Free Beacon: Congressman - CIA Employee Who Refused to Sign Non-Disclosure on Benghazi Suspended

In any case, the Syrian government got the precursors of the chemical weapons it does possess from Deutschland...

Spiegel: German Chemicals for Syria - Merkel Denies Military Use

Whatever its origin, that sarin was used in Ghouta is not in significant doubt; the question is why was it necessary to stage the atrocity exhibition...

Global Research: The Chemical Attacks in East Ghouta Used to Justify a Military Intervention in Syria

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Yet another case of the disappearing death-squad...

Liberal America: Possible Second And Third Gunman At Washington Navy Yard

The chief reports they are still searching for the, possible, 2 other shooters. These shooter are described as one white male 40-50 years of age, in a khaki military style uniform with some sort of beret. The second shooter is described as a black male also between the age of 40 and 50 years old, 5ft 10 inches tall, 180 pounds with gray sideburns, wearing a olive military style uniform. 

While the patsy was chipped...

Activist Post: ‘My ELF Weapon’ - More Proof Navy Yard Shooter Targeted with Mind Control Weapons

And to insure a double-digit body-count...

BBC: Navy Yard - Swat team 'stood down' at mass shooting scene

The Hill: Radios failed during Navy Yard attack, emergency responders say


Then there is the VA's oops-we-did-it-again extermination program...

CBS: Veterans dying from overmedication

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Terror in Kenya...

Cryptome: Nairobi Mall Attack

Land Destroyer: Kenyan Bloodbath - Reaping the "Benefits" of US AFRICOM Collaboration

Aangirfan: MI6 INVOLVED IN MALL SHOOTING?

WND (Corsi): Egypt eyes Obama's brother for terror list

On that note, Al Shabaab is using Masonic Lodge names and numbers in Charlotte NC (home of the 2012 Democratic National Convention) as code for their target list...

Kenyan Daily Post: Codes used by AL SHABAAB to identify targets - All KENYANS need to READ THIS and BEWARE!

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The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald continues churning out the NSA stories...

Revealed: how US and UK spy agencies defeat internet privacy and security

NSA shares raw intelligence including Americans' data with Israel

UK detention of Reprieve activist consistent with NSA's view of drone opponents as 'threats' and 'adversaries'

As do others...

O Globo: Documentos da NSA apontam Dilma Rousseff como alvo de espionagem

NSA accused of spying on Brazilian oil company Petrobras

The Hindu: NSA planted bugs at Indian missions in D.C., U.N.

Spiegel: Belgacom Attack - Britain's GCHQ Hacked Belgian Telecoms Firm

NYTimes: N.S.A. Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens

Naval Research Laboratory (via Cryptome): User Authentication from Web Browsing Behavior

Toward the Attribution of Web Behavior

Washington Post: Obama administration had restrictions on NSA reversed in 2011

How Snowden did it...

Ars Technica: Sysadmin security fail - NSA finds Snowden hijacked officials’ logins

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After Wikileaks, after Snowden, and with Russia's assuming the lead on Syria...

NYTimes (V.V.Putin): A Plea for Caution From Russia

...the U.S. has lost its standing as the world's unilateral super-power, its claim to "American exceptionalism" and with it any pretense to moral authority... It's getting so bad, world leaders now turn their backs to the U.S...

VOANews: Brazil's Rousseff Calls off State Visit to US Over Spying

While scolding it at the UN...

UN: At UN debate, Brazilian President urges protection of Internet users

“Tampering in such a manner in the affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and an affront to the principles that must guide relations among them, especially among friendly nations,” she declared.

GlobalPost: Bolivian President Evo Morales accuses US of 'harboring terrorists'

Or hold it under suspicion...

Spiegel: NSA Affair - Germans Conduct Helicopter Flyover of US Consulate

Under orders from Germany's domestic intelligence agency, a federal police helicopter conducted a flyover of the US Consulate in Frankfurt, the government in Berlin has confirmed. Officials were apparently searching for surveillance equipment.

Over time, the U.S. will lose its lead in those areas where it remained an economic powerhouse; in telecommunications...

Bloomberg: NSA Spying Seen Risking Billions in U.S. Technology Sales

Economy Watch: Brazil, Argentina To Team Up Against US Cyber-Spying

In arms sales (Is the worry that U.S. contractors would install hack-able back-doors to weapons systems, such as was the case with encryption products?)...

AFP: US spying on Brazil halts talks on warplane purchase

With the almighty dollar: Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had been hinting for months that the time was soon coming to wind down quantitative easing, when against all market expectations he balked - just as the expected war was nixed...

Goldbroker.com: Bernanke’s « Syrian Moment » 

These two events are linked and should be understood as some attempts at imposing the US dollar as the world reserve currency and, thus, preserving this paper-money monetary system.

But the opposite is happening : the dollar is being rejected massively, there’s a loss of global confidence in the dollar, and the United States is more and more isolated...

Finally, with its bullying and duplicitous designs to impose GMO's on the world on behalf of U.S. biotech companies, in agriculture...

Blacklisted News: Total GMO Ban To Be Considered By Russia Within Weeks

Reuters: Washington state testing alfalfa for GMO contamination

Biotech alfalfa is approved for commercial production in the United States. But many foreign and domestic buyers require that supplies not be genetically modified, and the possible presence of GMO modified alfalfa in export supplies could result in lost sales for U.S. farmers.

Just this summer, Japan and South Korea temporarily stopped buying some U.S. wheat because an experimental biotech variety was found growing in a field of conventional wheat in Oregon...

These force-feeding efforts are undeterred however...

MintPress News: Trans Pacific Partnership Might Include International Ban On GMO Labeling

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Miscellania...

Commemorating another episode in history in which, like the diplomatic events of this month, the Russians saved the Americans from themselves...

Tarpley: American Banker Wharton Barker’s First-Person Account Confirms - Russian Tsar Alexander II Was Ready for War with Britain and France in 1862-1863 to Defend Lincoln and the Union – Americans “Will Understand”

In the not so distant future we will have cognition factories...

Science News: Tiny human almost-brains made in lab

Looks can be deceiving, but this looks not quite natural...

Seemorerocks: Rain in Colorado

Now we're really "out there"...

NASA: NASA Spacecraft Embarks on Historic Journey Into Interstellar Space