Afghanistan

If SocGen is right in its just released oil price forecast in a "Syrian war world", then the global economy is about to undergo an apoplectic shock the likes of which have not been seen since the summer of 2008, when Lehman brothers had to be taken under to generate the deflationary shock sending crude from $130 to $30 in the matter of days. The French bank's forecast in a nutshell: "Base case scenario: $125 for Brent. We believe that in the coming days, Brent could gain another $5-10, surging to $120-$125, either in anticipation of the attack or in reaction to the headlines that an attack had started. In our base case, we assume an attack begins in the next week. Upside scenario: $150 for Brent If the regional spill over results in a significant supply disruption in Iraq or elsewhere (from 0.5 – 2.0 Mb/d), Brent could spike briefly to $150." And if indeed 2008 is coming back with a vengeance, the next question is who will be this year's unlucky Lehman Brothers?

Syrian President Bachar al-Assad has warned President Obama not to take military action against his country since: “Failure awaits the United States as in all previous wars it has unleashed, starting with Vietnam and up to the present day”.

With a US attack on Syria now seemingly inevitable, it is useful to get familiar (and in some cases follow in real time using their "social networking" sites) the US Naval forces amassing around Syria, ready to deliver either a lethal payload of Tomahawk cruise missiles (carried by the four destroyers listed below), a deployment of marines (located in the USS Kearsarge big-deck amphibious warfare ship), or one or more squadrons of airplanes sitting on the deck of the Truman and Nimitz aircraft carriers.

President Bashar al-Assad stressed that "Syria is a sovereign country that will fight terrorism and will freely build relationships with countries in a way that best serves the interests of the Syrian people." As Syrian TV reports, in an interview with the Russian newspaper of Izvestia, President al-Assad stressed that "the majority of those we are fighting are Takfiris, who adopt the al-Qaeda doctrine, in addition to a small number of outlaws." On the alleged use of chemical weapons, President al-Assad said that the statements by the US administration, the West and other countries were made with disdain and blatant disrespect of their own public opinion, adding that "there isn’t a body in the world, let alone a superpower, that makes an accusation and then goes about collecting evidence to prove its point." Al-Assad stressed that these accusations are completely politicised and come on the back of the advances made by the Syrian Army against the terrorists.

It has been revealed, thanks to Edward Snowden, that Google and other US tech companies received millions of dollars from the NSA for their compliance with the PRISM mass surveillance system. So just how close is Google to the US securitocracy?

"Google is getting WH [White House] and State Dept support and air cover. In reality they are doing things the CIA cannot do"

That Google was taking NSA money in exchange for handing over people’s data comes as no surprise. When Google encountered the big bad world, Google itself got big and bad.

If Obama was betting on a "rally 'round the flag" effect ahead of the US attack of Syria as a result on an endless chain of false flag-based interventions in the middle east which started with Colin Powell's lies to the UN, and has never ended, he appears to have completed his latest epic foreign policy blunder and miscalculation. As Reuters reports, Americans strongly oppose U.S. intervention in Syria's civil war and believe Washington should stay out of the conflict even if reports that Syria's government used deadly chemicals to attack civilians are confirmed, a Reuters/Ipsos poll says. About 60 percent of Americans surveyed said the United States should not intervene in Syria's civil war, while just 9 percent thought President Barack Obama should act.

Ever heard of BOSS? Didn’t think so. BOSS stands for Biometric Optical Surveillance System, and it is a crowd-scanning program that has been in development by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for almost three years now. Did you catch that? This is the DHS, the ridiculously dangerous, cancerous, gargantuan waste of money our “leaders” foolishly created after 9/11 to prevent “terrorism.” Whereas in the beginning most people actually believed the DHS was there to stop cave dwellers with terroristic tendencies, it is now completely clear that its primary mission is to protect the oligarchs and political criminals from domestic dissent.

The American narrative is quickly changing. There has long been criminality and degeneracy within our government (Democrat and Republican) and the corporate cartels surrounding it, but what we are witnessing today is the final step in the metamorphosis that is totalitarianism. The last stage accelerates when the average citizen is not just complicit in the deeds of devils, but when he becomes a devil himself. When Americans froth and stomp in excitement for the carnival of death, and treat the truth as poison, then the transformation will be complete.

If You Don't Buy Global Warming, Great ... Use This Info to Talk to Your Friends Who Do

Favoring “Friends” ... Harassing “Enemies” ... Propaganda ... Cyber-Warfare ... Track ‘Em and Whack ‘Em

Obama cancels meeting with Putin in Moscow amid tensions over NSA leaker Edward Snowden. http://t.co/Wdy2SYXvSt

— WSJ Breaking News (@WSJbreakingnews) August 7, 2013

Embassy evacuations are so last week. In an apparent escalation of the threat level to some unspecified color, earlier today the U.S. Air Force flew some American personnel out of Sanaa, Yemen, the Pentagon said, as the United States told its citizens to leave the country and ordered the evacuation of non-essential government staff "because of a terror threat." Reuters quotes Pentagon spokesman George Little who said in a statement  that "in response to a request from the U.S. State Department, early this morning the U.S. Air Force transported personnel out of Sanaa, Yemen, as part of a reduction in emergency personnel."  He did not specify which types of personnel were involved or where they were taken. "The U.S. Department of Defense continues to have personnel on the ground in Yemen to support the U.S. State Department and monitor the security situation," the statement said.

This insane world was created through decades of bad decisions, believing in false prophets, choosing current consumption over sustainable long-term savings based growth, electing corruptible men who promised voters entitlements that were mathematically impossible to deliver, the disintegration of a sense of civic and community obligation and a gradual degradation of the national intelligence and character. There is a common denominator in all the bubbles created over the last century – Wall Street bankers and their puppets at the Federal Reserve. Fractional reserve banking, control of a fiat currency by a privately owned central bank, and an economy dependent upon ever increasing levels of debt are nothing more than ingredients of a Ponzi scheme that will ultimately implode and destroy the worldwide financial system. Since 1913 we have been enduring the largest fraud and embezzlement scheme in world history, but the law of diminishing returns is revealing the plot and illuminating the culprits. Bernanke and his cronies have proven themselves to be highly educated one trick pony protectors of the status quo. Bernanke will eventually roll craps. When he does, the collapse will be epic and 2008 will seem like a walk in the park.

The latest subjunctive paraphrase, just released by the US State Department: "Please don't panic... well, actually panic just a little bit, but thanks to the NSA's pervasive snooping activity, in retrospect there will have been no need to panic, as any terror threats will have been promptly eliminated (except for those that sneak through the NSA's dragnet like the Boston bombing of course). So all is well... but not really, which is why we are extending embassy closures for a little more, due to highly specific unspecified threats which we can't reveal. Just know the threats are there. But thanks to the NSA, there is nothing to worry about. Unless there is."

Now that Edward Snowden has been granted temporary asylum in Russia and he has been allowed to leave the airport, things are starting to hot up between the US and Russia.