RUSSIA BROKERS SYRIA GIVING UP CHEMICAL WEAPONS TO UN - US Ignores - Has Only One Purpose - Regime Change

Source: Analisis Militares

McCain Says Take The Deal; Assad Warns It's Obama's Problem: "We'll Do Anything To Prevent Another Crazy War" 09-09-13 Zero Hedge

The first clips from Charlie Rose's interview with Assad are being released and given the Russia-Syria discussions, Obama's skepticism, and now John McCain's 'dubious support' for "the US getting on board with Russia's proposal for Syria to hand over its chemical weapons," we thought this brief view of Assad's response was telling...

As RT reports,

Hardline Republican Senator John McCain said the US should get on board with Russia’s proposal for Syria to hand over control of its chemical weapons to the international community.

“If there is an international [agreement], if you have the guidelines, the requirements, the reporting, the dates— all of that guided by a very detailed resolution to the UN Security Council, I think that you can’t say no to it even though I’m very dubious that this is a real proposal,” McCain told Time magazine.

“I think it’s just a stalling tactic but to reject it out of hand is obviously not something that you can do.”

And Assad's response to requests for hism to hand over his (in his words, non-existent) chemical weapons...

Kerry Tells Lavrov Chemical Disarmament Demand Was "Rhetorical", Not Meant To Be Proposal 09-09-13 Zero Hedge

To paraphrase:

• Kerry to Syria: Turn over your chemical weapons!
• Syria to Kerry: Ok
• Kerry to Syria: I was being rhetorical. We will just bomb you anyway, as soon as we are done gassing you.

US Refuses To Admit Checkmate By Russia And Syria, Redirects Purpose Of Military Incursion: Admits Regime Change Intention 09-09-13 Zero Hedge

Less Than 10% Of The House Support Obama: Congressional Support Update 09-09-13

Hillary Speaks: "There Should Be A Response By The US" - Live Webcast

• Use of chemical weapons by Syria’s Assad “violates a universal norm,” warrants a “strong response from the international community led by the United States,” former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton says at White House event.
• Immediate surrender of Syria’s weapons “would be an important step,” Clinton says; Russian proposal on weapons “can’t be another excuse for delay, for obstruction”

Then again, what difference does it make, if the US will get the "support" for another war of aggression? The decision in Saudi Arabia has been made long ago. And what difference does it make if Hillary received hundreds of thousands worth of expensive Saudi jewerly. Seriously.

Syria Welcomes, Would Comply With Russian Chemical Weapon Disarmament Initiative 09-09-13 Zero Hedge

And just like that, with the new "appeasement" initiative proposed earlier today by Putin and which Syria has just fully complied with, the US strategy of "containing" Syrian chemical weapons has been difused. From Reuters:

Syria welcomes a Russian proposal to place the nation's chemical weapons under international control, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said on Monday after talks in Moscow, praising the Kremlin for seeking to "prevent American aggression".

Moualem, who spoke to reporters through an interpreter after Russia expressed hope the proposal could avert military strikes against Syria, stopped short of saying explicitly that President Bashar al-Assad's government accepted it.

"I state that the Syrian Arab Republic welcomes the Russian initiative, motivated by the Syrian leadership's concern for the lives of our citizens and the security of our country, and also motivated by our confidence in the wisdom of the Russian leadership, which is attempting to prevent American aggression against our people," he said.

That this is virtually a checkmate by the non-Western coalition is confirmed by Cameron's flailing statement to parliament:

"If Syria were to put its chemical weapons beyond use under international supervision clearly that would be a big step forward," Cameron told parliament. "We have to be careful though to make sure this is not a distraction tactic to discuss something else rather than the problem on the table."

What angle will Kerry, and certainly Obama in his national address, use now to justify further military preparation, is largely unknown. Expect even bigger and more spectacular false flags in the coming days, all of which will be caught contemporaneously on Evidence A, a/k/a YouTube.

Russia Launches New Surprising Strategy: Appeasement 09-09-13 Zero Hedge

In a time when Obama is pitching his entire campaign around one core, if strawman, theme - preventing future chemical weapon attacks by the Assad regime, Putin once again shows why when playing geopolitical chess, it is safe to bet on the pesky Russian. Moments ago, Russia suggested that Syria skip straight to step 2 of the US military campaign, and hand over its chemical weapons to "international control" which would immediately obviate the US campaign completely, whose entire premise for public consumption is just that - to put Syrian chemical weapons under adult supervision and third party control.

• RUSSIA SAYS WILL URGE SYRIA TO PUT CHEMICAL WEAPONS UNDER INTERNATIONAL CONTROL IF THAT WILL AVERT MILITARY STRIKES
• SYRIA SHOULD GIVE UP WEAPONS IF IT WILL AVOID STRIKE: RUSSIA
• LAVROV SAYS SYRIA’S CHEMICAL WEAPONS COULD BE DESTROYED

More from RIA, google translated:

Moscow calls on Syria to transfer chemical weapons under international supervision if it is to avoid military attack by the United States, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

"If the international control over chemical weapons in the country to avoid strikes, we are immediately involved in a job with Damascus" - Lavrov said.

"We call on the Syrian leadership not only agree on a statement of storage of chemical weapons under international supervision, but also the subsequent destruction, as well as about the full accession to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons," - said the Minister.

According to him, Russia has already submitted its proposal to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Syria, who is currently in Moscow. "And look forward to a quick and hopefully for a positive response," - concluded Lavrov.

Earlier, the head of the U.S. Department of State, John Kerry said that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad can avoid foreign military intervention, if over the next week will give all chemical weapons the international community. At the same time the head of the State Department added that the Syrian president is not going to transfer chemical weapons and to ensure full accountability. Later in the words of the State Department Kerry called "rhetorical argument."

And now the ball is in Obama and Kerry's court following this surprising move of appeasement by Russia, and implicitly by Syria.

Because if the underlying motive behind the intervention is gone, then there is no need for an "Unbelievably Small" strike. Or any strike. In other words, should the US proceed with agitating for, and engaging in, war, it becomes very clear that the only goal behind US actions is not to contain Assad's weapons arsenal, but to destabilize the region, overthrow the Assad regime, escalate the conflict to involve Iran and Israel as final outcomes, boost the US deficit, facilitate the Untaper, and allow the trans-Syrian natgas pipeline originating in Qatar.

Finally, Putin also kills two birds with one stone, as any further and future chemical strike, in a case where there is supervision of the official arsenal, will automatically mean it was launched by the Qatari mercenaries with the intent of concocting yet another false flag.

Syria Strike To Be "Unbelievably Small" Kerry Promises, Leaves Everyone Puzzled 09-09-13 Zero Hedge

The Secretary of State, his emotional appeal to populist empathy using hundreds of YouTube clips showing the alleged aftermath of a chemical attack but not one piece of evidence proving Assad launched said attack, falling on deaf ears and eyes, has revised his track for a Syrian intervention. The latest spin from John Kerry: the Syrian attack would be "unbelievably small" as he characterized it today at a London press conference. Or, in the parlance of our times, "just the tip."

"We’re not talking about war, we’re not going to war." He spoke of a “limited, very targeted, very short-term effort." This happened while Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem left for Moscow today, seeking a joint approach with Russia to defuse Western assertions that the Syrian regime is using chemical munitions against its own people." In other words: Gazpromia refuses to be denied the "most unfavoured nation" status when it comes to being the marginal supplier of natgas to Europe.

The answer is simple: the whole point of the "unbelievably small" provocation is to launch another (false flag) retaliation, ostensibly against Israel, which then results in a quite believably large escalation, that drags the entire region in the conflict, and results in hundreds of billions in budget busting, and Untaper unleashing, defense spending, not to mention the change of the Syrian regime with one willing to support any and all Qatari-gas pipeline plans.

It really is not that complicated.

As to whether Obama will proceed with a strike if he gets only Senate support, which is also questionable but far more likely than getting the House to back him, we will almost certainly know before the end of the week.

Putin To Meet Iran President Rouhani In The Coming Days 09-09-13 Zero Hedge

The immediate reason for such a meeting is clear: to provide Russian support to Iran ahead of what may be a conflict that "inadvertently" drags Iran into a confrontation with Israel. Both moral and military.

Complete Syrian Event Update 09-09-13 Zero Hedge

All the latest updates and developments in the lethal Syrian foreplay farce.

• Congress starts deliberations today on whether to allow U.S. President Obama to strike Syria.
• Obama to meet tomorrow with Senate Democrats, according to a Senate aide who requested anonymity; Senate expected to vote on resolution by end of week
• Senate’s top Republican, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, hasn’t said whether he will back military strike
• “I think it’s an uphill slog from here,” Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who supports military action, said on CBS. “It’s very clear he’s lost support in the last week.”
• “It’s too early to come to any conclusion,” Obama’s chief of staff Denis McDonough said yesterday on Fox News
• House of Representatives takes proposal week of Sept. 16
• Syrian President al-Assad is disputing U.S. allegations he used chemical weapons against civilians, and said Obama administration hasn’t proved he did, according to CBS News correspondent Charlie Rose
• U.S. Secretary of State Kerry says Saudi Arabia supports taking action; other nations to voice support
• Syria may have used gas without Assad’s permission: Bild
• New Syria vote in U.K. possible if dramatic change: Hague
• Obama to give interviews with major TV networks today
• France slows march to confrontation by backing EU appeal to put off armed response until UN delivers report
• Le Figaro poll shows 2/3 French oppose military action: NYT

PATTERNS - Largest short-squeeze in US markets in 15 months

• Stocks rallied on "growth" and "less war",
• Oil sold off on "less war" and no growth,
• Treasuries rallied on "moar war" and "less taper",
• Gold and Silver did nothing (so war premium and taper off still in there), and the
• USD dumped ("less war" and "taper on?")

We couldn't make sense out of it! Can You? Riddle us that batman?

Dollar Drops Most In 2 Months As S&P Retakes 50DMA 09-09-13 Zero Hedge

The S&P just regained the mythical 50DMA (and the Dow 15,000) leaving stocks with the best 7-day run in 2 months

Monday's equity market exuberance is being pitched as due to to Asian strength but the truth is the Nikkei 225 actually fell after GDP was released;

• JGBs rallied (well that doesn't fit with the meme of Japanese growth);
• Japanese GDP missed expectations (oops);
• Japanese trade balance was the 3rd worst on record;
• Chinese imports missed expectations (as copper demand fell since liquidity has eased and less need for cash-for-copper deals).

So what is the catalyst for Monday's S&P 500 rally... behold the EURJPY cross rate...

ADDITIONALLY:

Monday's best day in stocks in 2 months is driven not just by EURJPY carry-mongers, but by the largest short-squeeze in US markets in 15 months. Homebuilders are up a new normal 5% from Friday's open.

The 'worst' day for the shorts in 15 months...

as off the Friday lows, "most-shorted" namesare up 3.6%, while the broad index is up only 2%...

The apathy is deafening...

Has a USD exodus begun?

Along with Friday's drop, this is the biggest plunge in the greenback in 2 months. This is not an exodus to JPY (for once JPY is very stable) but appears to be very much a European issue as EUR, SEK, and CHF are all surging against the USD

for the biggest 2-day drop in 2 months...

Hedgers were active as VIX underperformed....

PATTERNS - Surprise Index Says Its Normally Time For Central Bank Intervention

Is This As Good As It Gets? 09-08-13 BofAML via ZH

Global macro data has surprised to the upside in recent weeks in general. For major economies the last 3 months has seen such an 'impressive' rise that it has reached a point at which (historically) market expectations have become relatively exuberant. As the chart below shows, not only is the macro surprise index near its normalized highs (suggesting there is not much room for further positive surprises here) but each time the pace of apparent improvement has been so fast, the US equity market has faded lower as "hard" data simply does not support the hope in the markets and "soft" data.

As BofAML notes, while a bit more than half of the recent data have been weaker than expected, the manufacturing and services PMIs have been very strong and the consensus believes what it wants to believe, adding that it is important to understand how crude these surveys are. A popular view is that these surveys are better than hard data. In our view, however, these data get way too much air time. They give a timely, rough read on the economy, but should get little weight once hard data are released.

STATISM - No One Objects. Everyone Too Busy Trying to Survive!

How Has This Not Led To Outright Revolution Yet? 09-09-13 Simon Black via Sovereign Man blog via ZH

“Ladies and gentlemen. For the safety and security of all passengers, please remove your shoes as you enter the security checkpoint…”

How many times have we heard that?

Anyone who has traveled in, out, or through the Land of the Free, or airports just about anywhere in the world over the last few years, has heard this tired refrain over and over again: ‘Safety and security.’

These days, you could put ‘safety and security’ in front of just about anything and get people to readily comply.

“Ladies and gentlemen, for the safety and security of all passengers, please stand on your head and clap with your feet…”

Well, OK. After all, who is against ‘safety and security’? Only criminal terrorists, apparently.

This is now the easiest way for governments to exact their agendas... whether it’s invading new countries, monitoring all Internet activity worldwide, or bailing out the big banks at taxpayer expense.

Apparently the citizenry has become so scared that we collectively lay down and let governments walk all over us.

This NSA debacle, which is only getting worse and worse, shows beyond all doubt how brazen and unabashed their tactics will be.

They’ve been caught red-handed spying on the entire world. And not a single utterance of remorse or reform.

Instead, it’s been ‘talk to the hand’, and they’ve closed ranks around the spy agency which has stepped up its efforts even more.

How this has not led to outright revolution in the Land of the Free is beyond me.

At this point, the Founding Fathers’ list of grievances nearly pales in comparison to the indignities and injustices to liberty that people suffer today under their government.

Understandably, people are too busy keeping their heads above water to pay much attention… with 25%+ unemployment rates in Europe and pensioners in the US resorting to food pantries in order to eat.

It’s the new American dream– living out your Golden Years dining at a charity food pantry because Ben Bernanke and his monopolistic control of the money supply have stoked ever-higher food prices.

And speaking of pensioners, you’ve undoubtedly heard by now that Poland has ‘overhauled’ its pension system by making a grab for private pension fund assets.

In nationalizing pension funds, the government of Poland gets to count those assets on its balance sheet, thus ‘reducing’ net public debt by roughly 8% of GDP.

This is a criminal enterprise, plain and simple. And anyone else would get thrown in jail for such a move.

Of course, the government claims that it’s for everyone’s safety and security.

By nationalizing pension funds, the government plans to gradually ‘adjust’ people’s portfolios away from stocks and into… what else? Government bonds.

Naturally, this is for people’s benefit, since government bonds are so safe and secure.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk: “We believe that, apart from the positive consequence of this decision for public debt, pensions will also be safer.”

And there you have it– confiscation of private property = Safety.

We’ve been talking about this trend for four years now. This is no longer theory. It’s real. It’s happening. And it’s coming soon to a bankrupt, insolvent nation near you.

Have you hit your breaking point yet?

US EMPLOYMENT - Going Nowhere Even With All Jobs Becoming Temporary Jobs and the Particpation Rate Plummeting

White House Issued Employment Chart 09-08-13 via BI

On Friday, the White House put out some charts seeking to put August's jobs report in context. Here's the key one.

When you look at non-farm payroll growth on a 12-month average basis, you lose the month-to-month noise, and you see that the job situation has been basically unchanged for the last 30 months: Adding jobs at a pace of about 2 million per year. August's disappointing report doesn't materially change that.

The problem with the August report isn't that it was bad; it's that it wasn't good. For the past few months, it had looked like the job situation was maybe getting better, with the pace of job growth speeding up to around 2.5 million a year. Now it's becoming clear that we haven't broken out of the funk.

The key question is, can we expect this pattern to change? Is there reason to expect the pace of job growth to improve soon, so that labor force participation can start increasing again?

Reasons for pessimism:

1. The Fed. It's remarkable that we managed even tepid job growth since 2011, despite steep cuts in state and local government payrolls, flirtation with the debt ceiling, the end of the payroll tax cut, an increase in top income and capital gains tax rates, and sequestration. We owe a lot of thanks to the Federal Reserve, which has eased aggressively to offset fiscal tightening and dysfunction. The flip side is that, as things get better, the Fed is signalling that it will pull back. It seems as though Fed officials have decided that a job growth pace around 2 million is about right, and they will ease or tighten as necessary to maintain it. So, improvements on the above two dimensions may simply be offset by Fed action. Appointment of Larry Summers, a Quantitative Easing skeptic, will exacerbate this problem; as BNP Paribas economists noted last month, increasingly credible rumors of a Summers appointment caused a 0.30 point rise in 10-year Treasury bond rates, reflecting that the markets expect tighter money under a Summers Fed than a Yellen Fed.
2. The risk of more fiscal dysfunction. While we've probably come to the end of fiscal drag, there could be more in store if Republicans succeed in getting more austerity measures as part of agreements to keep the government open and raise the debt ceiling this fall.

So, that's depressing: The long jobs drought isn't ending and it's not clear that it's going to end anytime soon. But there is at least one thing the White House can do to quickly improve the outlook: nominate Janet Yellen to lead the Fed

EMERGING MARKETS - EU Major Contributor to EM Current Account Deficit Growth

Why Europe (Not The Fed) Is Crushing Emerging Market Economies 09-08-13 Daniel Gros, originally posted at Project Syndicate via ZH

Emerging markets’ currencies are crashing, and their central banks are busy tightening policy, trying to stabilize their countries’ financial markets. Who is to blame for this state of affairs?

A few years ago, when the US Federal Reserve embarked on yet another round of “quantitative easing,” some emerging-market leaders complained loudly. They viewed the Fed’s open-ended purchases of long-term securities as an attempt to engineer a competitive devaluation of the dollar and worried that ultra-easy monetary conditions in the United States would unleash a flood of “hot money” inflows, driving up their exchange rates. This, they feared, would not only diminish their export competitiveness and push their external accounts into deficit; it would also expose them to the harsh consequences of a sudden stop in capital inflows when US policymakers reversed course.

At first sight, these fears appear to have been well founded. As the title of a recent paper published by the International Monetary Fund succinctly puts it, “Capital Flows are Fickle: Anytime, Anywhere.” The mere announcement that the Fed might scale down its unconventional monetary-policy operations has led to today’s capital flight from emerging markets.

But this view misses the real reason why capital flowed into emerging markets over the last few years, and why the external accounts of so many of them have swung into deficit. The real culprit is the euro.

Quantitative easing in the US cannot have been behind these large swings in global current-account balances, because America’s external deficit has not changed significantly in recent years. This is also what one would expect from economic theory: in conditions approaching a liquidity trap, the impact of unconventional monetary policies on financial conditions and demand is likely to be modest.

Indeed, the available models tell us that, to the extent that an expansionary monetary policy actually does have an impact on the economy, its effect on the current account should not be large, because any positive effect on exports from a weaker exchange rate should be offset by larger imports due to the increase in domestic demand.

This is what has happened in the US, and its recent economic revival has been accompanied by an expansion of both exports and imports. The impact of the various rounds of quantitative easing on emerging markets (and on the rest of the world) has thus been approximately neutral.

But austerity in Europe has had a profound impact on the eurozone’s current account, which has swung from a deficit of almost $100 billion in 2008 to a surplus of almost $300 billion this year. This was a consequence of the sudden stop of capital flows to the eurozone’s southern members, which forced these countries to turn their current accounts from a combined deficit of $300 billion five years ago to a small surplus today. Because the external-surplus countries of the eurozone’s north, Germany and Netherlands, did not expand their demand, the eurozone overall is now running the world’s largest current-account surplus – exceeding even that of China, which has long been accused of engaging in competitive currency manipulation.

This extraordinary swing of almost $400 billion in the eurozone’s current-account balance did not result from a “competitive devaluation”; the euro has remained strong. So the real reason for the eurozone’s large external surplus today is that internal demand has been so weak that imports have been practically stagnant over the last five years (the average annual growth rate was a paltry 0.25%).

The cause of this state of affairs, in one word, is austerity. Weak demand in Europe is the real reason why emerging markets’ current accounts deteriorated (and, with the exception of China, swung into deficit).

Thus, if anything, emerging-market leaders should have complained about European austerity, not about US quantitative easing. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s talk of “tapering” quantitative easing might have triggered the current bout of instability; but emerging markets’ underlying vulnerability was made in Europe.

The fickleness of capital markets poses once again the paradox of thrift. As capital withdraws from emerging markets, these countries soon will be forced to adopt their own austerity measures and run current-account surpluses, much like the eurozone periphery today. But who will then be able – and willing – to run deficits?

Two of the world’s three largest economies come to mind: China, given the strength of its balance sheet, and the eurozone, given the euro’s status as a reserve currency. But both appear committed to running large surpluses (indeed, the two largest in the world). This implies that, unless the US resumes its role as consumer of last resort, the latest bout of financial-market jitters will weaken the global economy again. And any global recovery promises to be unbalanced – that is, if it materializes at all.

PENSION CONFISCATION - Coming to a Theater Near You

Poland Confiscates Half Of Private Pension Funds To "Cut" Sovereign Debt Load 09-06-13 Zero Hedge

While the world was glued to the developments in the Mediterranean in the past week, Poland took a page straight out of Rahm Emanuel's playbook and in order to not let a crisis go to waste, announced quietly that it would transfer to the state - i.e., confiscate - the bulk of assets owned by the country's private pension funds (many of them owned by such foreign firms as PIMCO parent Allianz, AXA, Generali, ING and Aviva), without offering any compensation. In effect, the state just nationalized roughly half of the private sector pension fund assets, although it had a more politically correct name for it: pension overhaul.

By way of background, Poland has a hybrid pension system: as Reuters explains, mandatory contributions are made into both the state pension vehicle, known as ZUS, and the private funds, which are collectively known by the Polish acronym OFE. Bonds make up roughly half the private funds' portfolios, with the rest company stocks.

And while a change to state-pension funds was long awaited - an overhaul if you will - nobody expected that this would entail a literal pillage of private sector assets.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said private funds within the state-guaranteed system would have their bond holdings transferred to a state pension vehicle, but keep their equity holdings.  The funds would effectively be left with only the equities portions of their assets, even this would be depleted, and there will be uncertainty about the number of new savers joining.

But why is Poland engaging in behavior that will ultimately be disastrous to future capital allocation in non-public pension funds (the type that can at least on paper generate some returns as opposed to "public" funds which are guaranteed to lose)? After all, this is a last ditch step which no rational person would engage in unless there were no other option. Simple: there were no other option, and the driver is the same reason the world everywhere else is broke too - too much debt.

By shifting some assets from the private funds into ZUS, the government can book those assets on the state balance sheet to offset public debt, giving it more scope to borrow and spend. Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski said the changes will reduce public debt by about eight percent of GDP. This in turn, he said, would allow the lowering of two thresholds that deter the government from allowing debt to raise over 50 percent, and then 55 percent, of GDP. Public debt last year stood at 52.7 percent of GDP, according to the government's own calculations.

To summarize:

1. Government has too much debt to issue more debt
2. Government nationalizes private pension funds making their debt holdings an "asset" and commingles with other public assets
3. New confiscated assets net out sovereign debt liability, lowering the debt/GDP ratio
4. Debt/GDP drops below threshold, government can issue more sovereign debt

And of course, once Poland borrows like a drunken sailor using the new window of opportunity, and maxes out its new and improved limits, it will have no choice but to confiscate more assets, and to make its balance sheet appear better, until one day, there is nothing left in the private sector to confiscate. At that point the limit itself will have to be legislated away, and Poland will simply continue borrowing until one day there are no foreign lenders willing to take the same risk as the nation's private pensioners. At that point, Poland, which is in the EU but still has the Zloty, can just go ahead and monetize its own debt by printing unlimited amounts of its currency.

Of course, we all know how that story ends.

The response to the confiscation was, naturally, one of shock:

The reform is "a decimation of the ...(private pension fund) system to open up fiscal space for an easier life now for the government," said Peter Attard Montalto of Nomura. "The government has an odd definition of private property given it claims this is not nationalisation."

"This is worse than many on the markets had feared," a manager at one of the leading pension funds, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.

"The devil is in the detail and we don't yet know a lot about the mechanism of these changes, what benchmarks will be use to evaluate our performance... (It) looks like pension funds will lose a lot of flexibility in what they can invest."

Catastrophic consequences for fund flows aside, the Polish prime minister had a prompt canned response:

Tusk said people joining the pension system in the future would not be obliged to pay into the private part of the system. Depending on the finer points, this could mean still fewer assets in the private funds.

"The (current) system has turned out to be built in part on rising public debt and turned out to be a very costly system," Tusk told a news conference.

"We believe that, apart from the positive consequence of this decision for public debt, pensions will also be safer."

You see, he is from the government, and he is confiscating the pensions to make them safer. Confiscation is Safety and all that...

Polish officials have tried to reassure investors, saying the overhaul avoids the more radical options of taking both bond and equity assets away from the private funds outright.

They say the old system effectively made Polish public debt appear higher than it really is.

Well, once you nationalize private assets, the public debt will lindeed appear lower than it was before confiscation: we give them that much.

End result: "The Polish pension funds' organisation said the changes may be unconstitutional because the government is taking private assets away from them without offering any compensation.... This may lead to the private pension systems shutting down," said Rafal Benecki of ING Bank Slaski."

Unconstitutional? What's that. But whatever it is, it's ok - after all the public pension system is still around. At least until that too is plundered. But in the meantime, all such pensions will be "safer", guaranteed.

But best of all, in the aftermath of Cyprus, we now know what the two most recent European blueprints for preserving the myth of solvency are: bail-ins, which confiscate deposits, and pension fund "overhauls", which confiscate, well, pension funds.

And now, back to the global recovery soap opera.

STATISM - Will Anything Stop Them?

Numerous Intelligence Officials Question US Claims on Syria 09-08-13 Washingtons Blog

High-Level U.S. Intelligence Officers: Syrian Government Didn’t Launch Chemical Weapons

Preface:   Without doubt, intelligence is being manipulated to justify war against Syria.  Here, here, here, here and here.

Without doubt, the Syrian rebels had access to chemical weapons … and have apparently used them in the recent past.

Associated Press reported last week:

An intercept of Syrian military officials discussing the strike was among low-level staff, with no direct evidence tying the attack back to an Assad insider or even a senior Syrian commander, the officials said.

So while Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that links between the attack and the Assad government are “undeniable,” U.S. intelligence officials are not so certain that the suspected chemical attack was carried out on Assad’s orders, or even completely sure it was carried out by government forces, the officials said.

***

Another possibility that officials would hope to rule out: that stocks had fallen out of the government’s control and were deployed by rebels in a callous and calculated attempt to draw the West into the war.

Reuters notes today:

With the United States threatening to attack Syria, U.S. and allied intelligence services are still trying to work out who ordered the poison gas attack on rebel-held neighborhoods near Damascus.

No direct link to President Bashar al-Assad or his inner circle has been publicly demonstrated, and some U.S. sources say intelligence experts are not sure whether the Syrian leader knew of the attack before it was launched or was only informed about it afterward.

Indeed, numerous intelligence officers say that the rebels likely carried out the August 21st attack.

For example, the Daily Caller reports:

The Obama administration has selectively used intelligence to justify military strikes on Syria, former military officers with access to the original intelligence reports say, in a manner that goes far beyond what critics charged the Bush administration of doing in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war.

According to these officers, who served in top positions in the United States, Britain, France, Israel, and Jordan, a Syrian military communication intercepted by Israel’s famed Unit 8200 electronic intelligence outfit has been doctored so that it leads a reader to just the opposite conclusion reached by the original report.

***

The doctored report was picked up on Israel’s Channel 2 TV  on Aug. 24, then by Focus magazine in Germany, the Times of Israel, and eventually by The Cable  in Washington, DC.

According to the doctored report, the chemical attack was carried out by the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division of the Syrian Army, an elite unit commanded by Maher al-Assad, the president’s brother.

However, the original communication intercepted by Unit 8200 between a major in command of the rocket troops assigned to the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division, and the general staff, shows just the opposite.

The general staff officer asked the major if he was responsible for the chemical weapons attack. From the tone of the conversation, it was clear that “the Syrian general staff were out of their minds with panic that an unauthorized strike had been launched by the 155th Brigade in express defiance of their instructions,” the former officers say.

According to the transcript of the original Unit 8200 report, the major “hotly denied firing any of his missiles” and invited the general staff to come and verify that all his weapons were present.

The report contains a note at the end that the major was interrogated by Syrian intelligence for three days, then returned to command of his unit. “All of his weapons were accounted for,” the report stated.

***

An Egyptian intelligence report describes a meeting in Turkey between military intelligence officials from Turkey and Qatar and Syrian rebels. One of the participants states, “there will be a game changing event on August 21st” that will “bring the U.S. into a bombing campaign” against the Syrian regime.

The chemical weapons strike on Moudhamiya, an area under rebel control, took place on August 21. “Egyptian military intelligence insists it was a combined Turkish/Qatar/rebel  false flag operation,” said a source familiar with the report.

[A "false flag" is a ploy for starting war which has been used by governments around the world for thousands of years.]

Agents provacateurs are as old as warfare itself. What better than a false flag attack, staged by al Qaeda and its al Nusra front allies in Syria, to drag the United States into a war?

And 12 very high-level former intelligence officials wrote the following memorandum to Obama today:

We regret to inform you that some of our former co-workers are telling us, categorically, that contrary to the claims of your administration, the most reliable intelligence shows that Bashar al-Assad was NOT responsible for the chemical incident that killed and injured Syrian civilians on August 21, and that British intelligence officials also know this. In writing this brief report, we choose to assume that you have not been fully informed because your advisers decided to afford you the opportunity for what is commonly known as “plausible denial.”

***

There is a growing body of evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East — mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its supporters — providing a strong circumstantial case that the August 21 chemical incident was a pre-planned provocation by the Syrian opposition and its Saudi and Turkish supporters. The aim is reported to have been to create the kind of incident that would bring the United States into the war.

According to some reports, canisters containing chemical agent were brought into a suburb of Damascus, where they were then opened. Some people in the immediate vicinity died; others were injured.

We are unaware of any reliable evidence that a Syrian military rocket capable of carrying a chemical agent was fired into the area. In fact, we are aware of no reliable physical evidence to support the claim that this was a result of a strike by a Syrian military unit with expertise in chemical weapons.

In addition, we have learned that on August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major, irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and Qatari, Turkish and U.S. intelligence officials took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, now used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors.

Senior opposition commanders who came from Istanbul pre-briefed the regional commanders on an imminent escalation in the fighting due to “a war-changing development,” which, in turn, would lead to a U.S.-led bombing of Syria.

At operations coordinating meetings at Antakya, attended by senior Turkish, Qatari and U.S. intelligence officials as well as senior commanders of the Syrian opposition, the Syrians were told that the bombing would start in a few days. Opposition leaders were ordered to prepare their forces quickly to exploit the U.S. bombing, march into Damascus, and remove the Bashar al-Assad government

The Qatari and Turkish intelligence officials assured the Syrian regional commanders that they would be provided with plenty of weapons for the coming offensive. And they were. A weapons distribution operation unprecedented in scope began in all opposition camps on August 21-23. The weapons were distributed from storehouses controlled by Qatari and Turkish intelligence under the tight supervision of U.S. intelligence officers.

12 U.S. Intelligence Officials Tell Obama It Wasn’t Assad

Cross-Posted from WarIsACrime.org ; originally posted at Consortiumnews.com

By Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA veteran, who chaired National Intelligence Estimates and personally delivered intelligence briefings to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, their Vice Presidents, Secretaries of State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many other senior government officials

Editor Note: Despite the Obama administration’s supposedly “high confidence” regarding Syrian government guilt over the Aug. 21 chemical attack near Damascus, a dozen former U.S. military and intelligence officials are telling President Obama that they are picking up information that undercuts the Official Story.

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Is Syria a Trap?

Precedence: IMMEDIATE

We regret to inform you that some of our former co-workers are telling us, categorically, that contrary to the claims of your administration, the most reliable intelligence shows that Bashar al-Assad was NOT responsible for the chemical incident that killed and injured Syrian civilians on August 21, and that British intelligence officials also know this. In writing this brief report, we choose to assume that you have not been fully informed because your advisers decided to afford you the opportunity for what is commonly known as “plausible denial.”

We have been down this road before – with President George W. Bush, to whom we addressed our first VIPS memorandum immediately after Colin Powell’s Feb. 5, 2003 U.N. speech, in which he peddled fraudulent “intelligence” to support attacking Iraq. Then, also, we chose to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt, thinking he was being misled – or, at the least, very poorly advised.

Secretary of State John Kerry departs for a Sept. 6 trip to Europe where he plans to meet with officials to discuss the Syrian crisis and other issues. (State Department photo)

The fraudulent nature of Powell’s speech was a no-brainer. And so, that very afternoon we strongly urged your predecessor to “widen the discussion beyond …  the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.” We offer you the same advice today.

Our sources confirm that a chemical incident of some sort did cause fatalities and injuries on August 21 in a suburb of Damascus. They insist, however, that the incident was not the result of an attack by the Syrian Army using military-grade chemical weapons from its arsenal. That is the most salient fact, according to CIA officers working on the Syria issue. They tell us that CIA Director John Brennan is perpetrating a pre-Iraq-War-type fraud on members of Congress, the media, the public – and perhaps even you.

We have observed John Brennan closely over recent years and, sadly, we find what our former colleagues are now telling us easy to believe. Sadder still, this goes in spades for those of us who have worked with him personally; we give him zero credence. And that goes, as well, for his titular boss, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who has admitted he gave “clearly erroneous” sworn testimony to Congress denying NSA eavesdropping on Americans.

Intelligence Summary or Political Ploy?

That Secretary of State John Kerry would invoke Clapper’s name this week in Congressional testimony, in an apparent attempt to enhance the credibility of the four-page “Government Assessment” strikes us as odd. The more so, since it was, for some unexplained reason, not Clapper but the White House that released the “assessment.”

This is not a fine point. We know how these things are done. Although the “Government Assessment” is being sold to the media as an “intelligence summary,” it is a political, not an intelligence document. The drafters, massagers, and fixers avoided presenting essential detail. Moreover, they conceded upfront that, though they pinned “high confidence” on the assessment, it still fell “short of confirmation.”

Déjà Fraud: This brings a flashback to the famous Downing Street Minutes of July 23, 2002, on Iraq, The minutes record the Richard Dearlove, then head of British intelligence, reporting to Prime Minister Tony Blair and other senior officials that President Bush had decided to remove Saddam Hussein through military action that would be “justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.” Dearlove had gotten the word from then-CIA Director George Tenet whom he visited at CIA headquarters on July 20.

The discussion that followed centered on the ephemeral nature of the evidence, prompting Dearlove to explain: “But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” We are concerned that this is precisely what has happened with the “intelligence” on Syria.

The Intelligence

There is a growing body of evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East — mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its supporters — providing a strong circumstantial case that the August 21 chemical incident was a pre-planned provocation by the Syrian opposition and its Saudi and Turkish supporters. The aim is reported to have been to create the kind of incident that would bring the United States into the war.

According to some reports, canisters containing chemical agent were brought into a suburb of Damascus, where they were then opened. Some people in the immediate vicinity died; others were injured.

We are unaware of any reliable evidence that a Syrian military rocket capable of carrying a chemical agent was fired into the area. In fact, we are aware of no reliable physical evidence to support the claim that this was a result of a strike by a Syrian military unit with expertise in chemical weapons.

In addition, we have learned that on August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major, irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and Qatari, Turkish and U.S. intelligence officials took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, now used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors.

Senior opposition commanders who came from Istanbul pre-briefed the regional commanders on an imminent escalation in the fighting due to “a war-changing development,” which, in turn, would lead to a U.S.-led bombing of Syria.

At operations coordinating meetings at Antakya, attended by senior Turkish, Qatari and U.S. intelligence officials as well as senior commanders of the Syrian opposition, the Syrians were told that the bombing would start in a few days. Opposition leaders were ordered to prepare their forces quickly to exploit the U.S. bombing, march into Damascus, and remove the Bashar al-Assad government

The Qatari and Turkish intelligence officials assured the Syrian regional commanders that they would be provided with plenty of weapons for the coming offensive. And they were. A weapons distribution operation unprecedented in scope began in all opposition camps on August 21-23. The weapons were distributed from storehouses controlled by Qatari and Turkish intelligence under the tight supervision of U.S. intelligence officers.

Cui bono?

That the various groups trying to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have ample incentive to get the U.S. more deeply involved in support of that effort is clear. Until now, it has not been quite as clear that the Netanyahu government in Israel has equally powerful incentive to get Washington more deeply engaged in yet another war in the area. But with outspoken urging coming from Israel and those Americans who lobby for Israeli interests, this priority Israeli objective is becoming crystal clear.

Reporter Judi Rudoren, writing from Jerusalem in an important article in Friday’s New York Times addresses Israeli motivation in an uncommonly candid way. Her article, titled “Israel Backs Limited Strike Against Syria,” notes that the Israelis have argued, quietly, that the best outcome for Syria’s two-and-a-half-year-old civil war, at least for the moment, is no outcome. Rudoren continues:

“For Jerusalem, the status quo, horrific as it may be from a humanitarian perspective, seems preferable to either a victory by Mr. Assad’s government and his Iranian backers or a strengthening of rebel groups, increasingly dominated by Sunni jihadis.

“‘This is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at least you don’t want one to win — we’ll settle for a tie,’ said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York. ‘Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that’s the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers, there’s no real threat from Syria.’”

We think this is the way Israel’s current leaders look at the situation in Syria, and that deeper U.S. involvement – albeit, initially, by “limited” military strikes – is likely to ensure that there is no early resolution of the conflict in Syria. The longer Sunni and Shia are at each other’s throats in Syria and in the wider region, the safer Israel calculates that it is.

That Syria’s main ally is Iran, with whom it has a mutual defense treaty, also plays a role in Israeli calculations. Iran’s leaders are not likely to be able to have much military impact in Syria, and Israel can highlight that as an embarrassment for Tehran.

Iran’s Role

Iran can readily be blamed by association and charged with all manner of provocation, real and imagined. Some have seen Israel’s hand in the provenance of the most damaging charges against Assad regarding chemical weapons and our experience suggests to us that such is supremely possible.

Possible also is a false-flag attack by an interested party resulting in the sinking or damaging, say, of one of the five U.S. destroyers now on patrol just west of Syria. Our mainstream media could be counted on to milk that for all it’s worth, and you would find yourself under still more pressure to widen U.S. military involvement in Syria – and perhaps beyond, against Iran.

Iran has joined those who blame the Syrian rebels for the August 21 chemical incident, and has been quick to warn the U.S. not to get more deeply involved. According to the Iranian English-channel Press TV, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javid Zarif has claimed: “The Syria crisis is a trap set by Zionist pressure groups for [the United States].”

Actually, he may be not far off the mark. But we think your advisers may be chary of entertaining this notion. Thus, we see as our continuing responsibility to try to get word to you so as to ensure that you and other decision makers are given the full picture.

Inevitable Retaliation

We hope your advisers have warned you that retaliation for attacks on Syrian are not a matter of IF, but rather WHERE and WHEN. Retaliation is inevitable. For example, terrorist strikes on U.S. embassies and other installations are likely to make what happened to the U.S. “Mission” in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, look like a minor dust-up by comparison. One of us addressed this key consideration directly a week ago in an article titled “Possible Consequences of a U.S. Military Attack on Syria – Remembering the U.S. Marine Barracks Destruction in Beirut, 1983.”

For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Thomas Drake, Senior Executive, NSA (former)

Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)

Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan

Larry Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)

W. Patrick Lang, Senior Executive and Defense Intelligence Officer, DIA (ret.)

David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)

Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)

Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East (ret.)

Todd Pierce, US Army Judge Advocate General (ret.)

Sam Provance, former Sgt., US Army, Iraq

Coleen Rowley, Division Council & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)

Ann Wright, Col., US Army (ret); Foreign Service Officer (ret.)