Planning For "End of World" Scenario.

The following is but another article in the latest, which clearly indicate to me that the government is getting ready for something big!

Over the past several months, whether through email or blog, I have been presenting to you all why I believe the government is getting ready for a major false flag operation here in the homeland.

A host of things that have occurred over the past 2-3 months, leads me to this conclusion. Everything from the main stream media playing up potential and/or devastating attack scenarios, to the heads of all intelligence agencies making the comment that they were all certain of some major attack occurring here, have all led me to this conclusion.

Louisiana Cops Plan for “End of the World” Scenario
Infowars.com

Kurt Nimmos

February 27, 2010

Police in Louisiana’s Bossier Parish are training for an “end of the world” scenario, according to the Shreveport Times. The program is dubbed “Operation Exodus,” inspired in part from the Book of Exodus in the Bible.
Parish Sheriff Larry Deen told the newspaper the “buck stops” with him. “The liability stops with Larry Deen. I am the chief law enforcement officer in this parish, and it is incumbent upon me [to] protect all of the people in it,” the officer said, referring to himself in the third person.
Deen’s plan is to protect Bossier Parish’s vital resources, like food and gasoline, in the event of a catastrophic event, such as war or a terrorist attack. Deen said he had been thinking of the plan since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, reports Drew Pierson.
Under Deen’s plan, the police will use volunteers, supplemented with active public safety personnel, that will be dispatched to vital areas in Bossier to protect them from looters and rioters. Deen listed as examples grocery stores, gas stations, hospitals and other public meeting places.
Police volunteers will have access to a .50-caliber machine gun to put down looters and rioters.
Instead of normal riot equipment such as shields and batons, the volunteers will be armed with shotguns and have access to a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on a vehicle dubbed “the war wagon.” On February 20, the volunteers were trained in hand-to-hand combat techniques.
“I think every public safety agency should be prepared for disaster response,” said Sandy Davis, director of the Caddo-Bossier Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
In 2008, respected trends forecaster Gerald Celente predicted food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches by 2012. “America’s going to go through a transition the likes of which no one is prepared for,” said Celente. “It’s going to be very bleak. Very sad. And there is going to be a lot of homeless, the likes of which we have never seen before. Tent cities are already sprouting up around the country and we’re going to see many more.”
IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn has also warned there will be food riots and unrest in response to what Celente calls The Greatest Depression. “Strauss-Kahn argued that government efforts to tackle the economic downturn so far have been uncertain and largely insufficient, which could lead to severe consequences,” The Guardian reported.
Warfare training drills “are taking place across the country as numerous public figures, including Senator Christopher Dodd, leading economist Nouriel Roubini, top trend researcher Gerald Celente, the head of the International Monetary Fund, the head of the World Trade Organization, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former national security director Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair have all warned of coming civil unrest and global instability,” Paul Joseph Watson wrote on March 2, 2009.
Celente predicted riots and unrest on during a Fox News broadcast in November, 2008
“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” a study produced by the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Institute predicted in late 2008. Economic collapse, terrorism and disruption of legal order could require deployment of forces within the U.S., it said.
In response to the report, state and local police in Arizona told the Phoenix Business Journal they have broad plans to deal with social unrest, including trouble resulting from economic distress. “The Phoenix Police Department is not expecting any civil unrest at this time, but we always train to prepare for any civil unrest issue. We have a Tactical Response Unit that trains continually and has deployed on many occasions for any potential civil unrest issue,” Phoenix Police spokesman Andy Hill told the newspaper on December 17, 2008.
Prior to the Super Bowl in December, 2008, Arizona police coordinated training with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon’s Northern Command.
Northern Command is specifically tasked with implementing martial law under Continuity of Government. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 voided restrictions placed on the military to support civilian administration by the Posse Comitatus Act, the latter restricting the military from working with local law enforcement. In addition to the Military Commissions Act of 2006, a 1994 U.S. Defense Department Directive (DODD 3025) allows military commanders to take emergency actions in domestic situations.
The exercise held in Louisiana’s Bossier Parish is but another example that police departments and officials around the country are taking seriously the inevitability of civil unrest as the economy continues to unravel.
Unemployment in the United States is currently over 20% and a record number of people are on food stamps. The share of the unemployed who lost their jobs permanently is at its highest level since at least 1967, the first year for which the Labor Department has these numbers available, according to The New York Times.
Meanwhile, the establishment tells us the worst is over. “The mainstream economics profession is guilty of dereliction of duty. They should be telling people that this ‘recovery’ is a scam. They should be warning investors that the markets could fall apart any day,” writes Bill Bonner for The Christian Science Monitor.
“I see growing signs of desperation and anger as the wealth of this nation continues to get transferred to the elite of this nation,” notes Seeking Alpha. “People are starting to ‘lose’ it as a result. This past week’s airplane event in Austin was a disturbing development. I must admit that I really am not surprised. The government shouldn’t be either.”
The government is directly responsible for the unfolding economic catastrophe. Instead of throwing out the banksters and providing sound money, they are preparing for food riots and martial law.
The “debt based monetary system, controlled and operated by the global central banking system, of which the apex is the Bank for International Settlements, is unsustainable,” writes Andrew Gavin Marshall. “This is the real bubble, the debt bubble. When it bursts, and it will burst, the world will enter into the Greatest Depression in world history.”
Even Goldman Sachs, responsible for ransacking the economy, predicts doom. “I see nothing but large increases in the deficit,” Goldman Sachs chairman John Whitehead told Reuters way back in 2008. “I just want to get people thinking about this, and to realize this is a road to disaster. I’ve always been a positive person and optimistic, but I don’t see a solution here.”
Short of dismantling the Federal Reserve and arresting and prosecuting the bankers, there is no solution short of training police to shoot starving food rioters and declaring martial law.

Bible Codes Update ptI

Last night there was a 7.3 earthquake that struck Japan and this morning the great 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile are all clear indications of the great earthquakes that will be seen this year throughout the world. These events, along with others, are indicated in the Bible code matrices for this current year of 2010 as being the beginning of major changes that will forever change the world.

Non believers will be left in shock, many will convert, yet most will not after seeing what the things that will batter the earth this coming year and the years to come.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/lt_chile_earthquake

http://www.biblecodewisdom.com/code/march-iran-israel-war-two-thousand-three

http://www.biblecodewisdom.com/code/great-earthquakes-two-thousand-ten

http://www.biblecodewisdom.com/code/babylon-great-earthquake (Babylon used in this context represents the America in the last days.)

http://www.biblecodewisdom.com/code/may-two-thousand-ten (over 589 matches! indicates many events will occur this year, but it is only the beginning.)

http://www.biblecodewisdom.com/code/great-war-two-thousand-ten (over 142 matches).

http://www.biblecodewisdom.com/code/obama-babylon (obama and babylon (U.S.) matrix is found in the book of the prophet Jeremiah, who is considered along with Ezekiel and Isaiah, to be the prophets that fore tell and acurately predict these years we are currently living in and will live in.)

http://www.biblecodewisdom.com/code/china-iran (over 123 matches!)

http://www.biblecodewisdom.com/code/russia-iran (7 matches)

http://www.biblecodewisdom.com/code/babylon-desolate (U.S. left desolate 27 matches).

Years of Deception Will=Years of Depression.

Surmounting The Armageddon Scenario & Cartel(secret society elites) ‘End Game’
by DeepCaster LLC, deepcaster.com

February 26, 2010

“Wherever we look at the world economy today, we see a wall of risk…and potential financial catastrophe. We see a large number of virtually bankrupt major sovereign states (US, UK, Spain, Italy, Greece, Japan and many more) teetering atop a financial system that is bankrupt, but is temporarily kept alive with phony valuations and unlimited money printing…
Governments like the US and the UK are committed to printing increasing amounts of worthless paper money in order to finance their growing deficits. The consequence of this rescue mission will be a hyperinflationary depression in many countries, due to many currencies becoming worthless.
The list of countries at risk of bankruptcy is increasing by the day. The acronym used to be PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain). It is now PIIGSJUKUS and growing. The main contenders are currently: USA, UK, Japan, Spain, Italy, Greece, Ireland, France, Portugal, Baltic States, Eastern Europe and many more. On a proper accounting basis all of these countries are already bankrupt...”
“The Sovereign Debt Disaster”Egon von Greyerz – Matterhorn Asset ManagementZurich, Switzerland, 2/23/10
“U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa…placed into the hearing record a five-page document itemizing the mortgage securities on which banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA had bought $62.1 billion in credit-default swaps from AIG.
These were the deals that pushed the insurer to the brink of insolvency -- and were eventually paid in full at taxpayer expense. The New York Fed, which secretly engineered the bailout, prevented the full publication of the document for more than a year…
The public can now see for the first time how poorly the securities performed, with losses exceeding 75 percent of their notional value in some cases. Compounding this, the document and Bloomberg data demonstrate that the banks that bought the swaps from AIG are mostly the same firms that underwrote the CDOs in the first place…
…Goldman Sachs underwrote $17.2 billion of the $62.1 billion in CDOs that AIG insured -- more than any other investment bank.
The list shows that the $21.2 billion in CDOs minted after 2005, mostly based on prime and commercial mortgages, performed as badly as or worse than the earlier subprime vintages…
…Philip Angelides, chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, at a hearing held by his panel on Jan. 13, questioned how banks could underwrite poisonous securities and then bet against them. ‘It sounds to me a little bit like selling a car with faulty brakes and then buying an insurance policy on the buyer of those cars’…
E-mails between Fed and AIG officials that Issa released in January show that the efforts to keep Schedule A under wraps came from the New York Fed…
AIG paid its counter­parties -- the banks -- the full value of the contracts… (at taxpayer expense! – ed.)
…Paris-based Societe Generale got the biggest payout from AIG, or $16.5 billion, followed by Goldman Sachs, which got $14 billion, and then Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch…” (emphasis added)
“Secret AIG Document Shows Goldman Sachs Minted Most Toxic CDOs”Richard Teitelbaum, Bloomberg News, 2/23/10
“…the Federal Reserve Bank continues working with the Mexican government to make it easier for illegal aliens to export US money to their homeland.
The Fed is currently devising several programs that will extend banking services to illegal aliens…
…The Federal Reserve Bank is aiding lawbreakers in moving their cash around in the US and Mexico. This obviously includes the myriad alien gangs and more than 50,000 gang members who are involved in narcotics trafficking, identity theft, homicides, and other criminal activity…
‘Directo a Mexico,’ the name of the program, enables US commercial banks to make money transfers for Mexican workers through the Federal Reserve's own automated clearinghouse…”
“Corruption at Federal Reserve Bank goes unnoticed”Jim Kouri, Law Enforcement Examiner, Examiner.com, 2/18/10
“Goldman Sachs Group Inc. managed $15 billion of bond sales for Greece after arranging a currency swap that allowed the government to hide the extent of its deficit.
No mention was made of the swap in sales documents for the securities in at least six of the 10 sales the bank arranged for Greece since the transaction, according to a review of the prospectuses by Bloomberg…”
“Goldman Sachs, Greece Didn’t Disclose Swap Contract”Elisa Martinuzzi, bloomberg.com, 2/17/10
“Many of the banks that helped Greece create derivatives that concealed its borrowing are betting on default, hoping to make additional profit from the nation's financial troubles… Banks' and hedge funds' purchases of credit default swaps on Greek bonds are driving up the cost of borrowing that Greece needs to roll over its maturing debt…”
“Report: Banks that hid Greece's debt aim to profit from default”The New York Times, 02/24/10
“America's Founding Fathers were afraid of any concentration of power in the republic. They were particularly afraid that banking interests could hijack our fledgling democracy.
And yet today, 234 years later, our Founding Fathers' worst fears have come true. Wall Street's stranglehold on the economy threatens our very prosperity, and the future of a truly democratic republic…”
“Wall Street’s Stranglehold on the Economy Is Choking Americans”Shah Gilani, Money Morning, 1/26/10
“What does not kill me, makes me stronger.”
F.W. Nietzsche
The inexorable Momentum of Destructive Megatrends is impelling us toward an Economic and Markets Armageddon, about which we and a few other notable commentators have been writing for some time. The Denouement will not be at all pretty or short-lived.
Thus with the foregoing as Context we sketch an all-too-likely, in our view, Scenario of Coming Events and Consequences, and lay out key Guidelines for coping and profiting.
Many of the themes about which we have previously written are now coming to a head, as the foregoing indicates. Thus we reiterate and weave them together in the following Scenario and recapitulate Guidelines for Profit and Protection.
Scenario
Athens, Greece, Cradle of Western Civilization, awakens on an early Spring Morning in 2010 and is forced to acknowledge that no effective Bailout is coming.
Greece can thus no longer pay interest on its Megaloans, nor can it obtain new loans.
Greece defaults on its Sovereign Debt.
The Unions call a National Strike. Greece, the country, is in chaos, and is de facto expelled from the EU.
If Greece’s relatively small GDP were the only issue, the Sovereign Debt Default would not matter much (from an economic perspective) to the EU, or the world, except that it foreshadows more Sovereign Debt defaults by Italy (worse off than Greece), and, Spain, Portugal, and, finally France and perhaps even some or all “Major Nations” on the von Greyerz list of the de facto bankrupt, above.
Greece is thus a Catalyst. (Other Nations’ Sovereign Debt Defaults could serve equally well.)
Subsequently a Tidal Wave of Sovereign Default Ripple Effects Cascades around the world, affecting most those economies and markets which most allowed themselves to be ensnared by the Lethal Cocktail of Globalism (as opposed to Internationalism) and “Free Trade” (as opposed to Fair Trade). The least self-reliant are shown to be the most vulnerable.
Again, late in 2010, Mega-Financial Institutions which are holders of the increasingly Toxic Sovereign Debt clamor for more bailouts.
But Stark Reality raises the question “Bailouts by whom, with what, and how?”
Consequently Credit Markets freeze, again, by the end of 2010.
The FDIC, which already had a $20.9 billion deficit as of February 23, 2010 is unable to prevent hundreds more U.S. small and medium size banks from failing.
Central Banks respond by printing even more Fiat Currency while simultaneously increasing demands for One Global Currency, de facto, a Major step toward World Government of, by, and for The International Banker Cartel.*
Simultaneously, the Fed-led Cartel* of Central Bankers allies, and Agents direct the full force of their Market Intervention and Manipulation Regime developed over decades toward their ‘End Game’ goals. See “Surmounting The Cartel’s ‘End Game’ Juggernaut” (9/25/09) in the ‘Articles by Deepcaster’ cache at http://www.deepcaster.com/ for more details.
*We encourage those who doubt the scope and power of Overt and Covert Interventions by a Fed-led Cartel of Key Central Bankers and Favored Financial Institutions to read Deepcaster’s December, 2009, Special Alert containing a summary overview of Intervention entitled “Forecasts and December, 2009 Special Alert: Profiting From The Cartel’s Dark Interventions - III” and Deepcaster’s July, 2009 Letter entitled "A Strategy For Profiting From The Cartel’s Dark Interventions & Evolving Techniques - II" in the ‘Alerts Cache’ and ‘Latest Letter’ Cache at www.deepcaster.com. Also consider the substantial evidence collected by the Gold AntiTrust Action Committee at http://www.gata.org/ for information on precious metals price manipulation. Virtually all of the evidence for Intervention has been gleaned from publicly available records. Deepcaster’s profitable recommendations displayed at http://www.deepcaster.com/ have been facilitated by attention to these “Interventionals.” Attention to The Interventionals facilitated Deepcaster’s recommending five short positions prior to the Fall, 2008 Market Crash all of which were subsequently liquidated profitably.
Massive Fiat Currency printing impels Hyperinflation to rear its ugly head in earnest. The Weimar Scenario Unfolds in countries around the World and reveals that long-suppressed-truths are coming home to roost. The Hyperinflationary Depression, long hidden by bogus official statistics (see below), is revealed to the world.
Truths and Consequences
Among the long suppressed truths that increasingly force themselves upon general public awareness as 2010 proceeds is the fact that major Official Statistics have been bogus for several years.
Indeed, the entire Official Statistics Production Machinery has been revealed as generating bogus numbers as demonstrated by Shadowstats.com.
Consider the following Real Numbers from Shadowstats.com which calculates the Real Numbers for the U.S.A. the way they were calculated in the 1980’s and 1990’s before Official Data Manipulation began in earnest.
Official Numbers vs. Real Numbers
Annual Consumer Price Inflation reported February 19, 20102.63% 9.76% (annualized February Rate)
U.S. Unemployment reported February 5, 20109.7% 21.2%
U.S. GDP Annual Growth/Decline reported January 29, 20100.10% -4.62%
And consider that the U.S. Dollar has lost one third of its purchasing power in the last 8 years, thanks primarily to the deleterious policies of the private for-profit Federal Reserve.
And consider also that the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s decision to allow financial institutions to value their portfolios according to a “Mark to Model” standard (i.e. falsely) rather than “Mark to Market” allows a Great Deception as to the True Value of those portfolios. Were portfolios required to be Marked to Market, a number of financial institutions would be shown to be bankrupt.
Considered together, the foregoing numbers (and those below) reveal a Stealthy Transfer of Wealth and Power from Citizens around the world to The Cartel. Long-time Citizens in the U.S. (and elsewhere) know this, at least intuitively – Two wage-earners are required today to support a family at the same standard of living in the U.S. as one wage-earner could sustain in 1972. As Richard Russell, Dean of the Newsletter writers, points out, the creation of ever-increasing debt and interest payments is unsustainable. Thus there will inevitably be a Day of Reckoning, a Day which is fast approaching.
Given the impending Disaster it is not surprising that The Cartel has an “End Game” to absolve themselves of responsibility and to allow others to “take the hit”.
In order to stave off the Day of Reckoning (which, we reiterate, is coming mainly as a consequence of The Fed’s decade-long dramatic monetary inflation and “easy credit” policies), and to implement its own ‘End Game’, the Fed-led Cartel* of Key Central Bankers and Favored Financial Institutions has created, and for the past several years has operated, an extraordinary “financial regime” built on dramatically, increasing trillions of dollars (nearly $600 trillion according to the Central Bankers Bank (BIS) report as of December, 2008 - - see http://www.bis.org/ (path: statistics>derivatives>Table 19 and ff.) of Dark OTC Derivatives available for the manipulation of major markets ranging from Precious Metals to Crude Oil and Energy, to Equities and Strategic Commodities (see Deepcaster’s July, 2008 Letter at http://www.deepcaster.com/).
The Magnitude of the Wealth Transfer this Regime has facilitated is staggering. For example, BIS Table 19 reveals that in the six months from June, 2008 to December, 2008 when investors were losing Trillions in the Market Crash, the Mega-Financial Institutions gained some $11.9 Trillion.
To be sure The Cartel’s massive and increasing use of derivatives to intervene (Overtly and Covertly via Primary Dealers) in a wide variety of markets (and especially to suppress the prices of Gold and Silver) is fraught with danger (e.g. through actual and prospective counterparty (and sovereign nation) failure as we are now seeing, as well as prospective Systemic Failure). Deepcaster, Warren Buffett and Jim Sinclair have pointed out the dangers of OTC derivatives. Indeed, Buffett calls them “toxic” … ”weapons of financial destruction” and Sinclair has aptly described the financial system as “sitting on a… trembling mountain of derivatives … think Weimar Republic.” Unfortunately, Deepcaster, Jim Sinclair, and Warren Buffett are correct. Indeed, the evidence provides increasing details about the Cartel’s nefarious “End Game” plan, key aspects of which we describe below.
Consider the following observation by Harry Schultz:
“…what is the reason for this “seemingly random monetary mess that multiplies its momentum every day? The answer, in one word, control. The elite/insiders already have control of the financial system, but they wanted more, much more…and it was not random, it was planned.” (emphasis added)
“How will all the above manifest itself in your life? The answer: “All you own will shrink...your income, assets, net worth, will shrink year after year in real terms inflation adjusted and possibly also nominally.” HS Letter, April 27, 2008
Harry Schultz, Eminence Grise of the Newsletter writing Fraternity sees the Threat to Profits and Wealth posed by the Fed-led Cartel* quite clearly.
The Cartel* ‘End Game’, as Deepcaster has named it, apparently involves Stealthily transferring ever more Wealth and Power to The Cartel at the expense of Investors/Citizens around the world. (See elsewhere in this Letter, and “Coping with the Superpower Cartel Threat” (1/30/09) in the ‘Articles by Deepcaster’ cache at http://www.deepcaster.com/.)
Of course, The Fed-led Cartel’s increasing Power and Profits have been threatened by Rep Ron Paul’s ‘Audit the Fed’ Bill (H.R. 1207) which fortunately has garnered two thirds Majority of the U.S. House of Representatives as co-sponsors and over half of the Senate on a companion Bill. Unfortunately, it has been dramatically watered down in Congress this session.
Even so, the private for-profit Fed has predictably responded to the Audit Threat with a not-so-veiled counter-Threat delivered via Chairman Bernanke’s Testimony to Congress last year.
“Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke unleashed an alarming veiled threat of financial terrorism when he was questioned by Rep. Duncan on Thursday about his response to the fact that a majority of Congress (is) co-sponsoring Ron Pauls H.R. 1207 bill to audit the Federal Reserve.
Bernanke clearly regarded the bills intent as hostile to the institution he represents:
“My concern about the legislation is that if the GAO is auditing not only the operational aspects of the programs and the details of the programs but making judgments about our policy decisions (it) would effectively be a takeover of policy by the Congress and a repudiation of the Federal Reserve (which) would be highly destructive to the stability of the financial system, the Dollar and our national economic situation.”
The brunt of Bernankes statement is as crystal clear as a threat from a common street thug -- back off from the Fed, or the economy gets it.
The chairman clearly implies that any attempt to restore monetary powers constitutionally granted to the Congress would be seen as a takeover and that the defensive and repudiated Fed would respond destructively.
Of course Congress’ constitutional power over money is enumerated in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution:
‘The Congress shall have power To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;’ “
“Bernanke Threatens Economic Collapse If Fed Audited”Aaron Dykes, Infowars, Friday, June 26, 2009
Deepcaster has described in detail key aspects of The Cartel’s apparent ‘End Game’ in its June, 2007 Letter “Profiting From the Push to Denationalize Currencies and Deconstruct Nations “ and its August 13, 2006 Alert “Massive Financial-Geopolitical Scheme Not Reported by Big Media” posted in the “Archives” at http://www.deepcaster.com/. Fortunately, a Bill was introduced in the last session U.S. Congress (H.Con.Res.40), which opposes this nefarious scheme.
Prologue to The Strategy designed for Profit and Protection
Key aspects of the ‘End Game’ plan that have been implemented through various departments of the U.S. government agencies and NGOs.
We repeat a critical fact: Masking the True State of the Economy and Financial Markets, is a central aspect of The Cartel Regime – Data Manipulation (coupled with Markets Manipulation).
Consider certain Real Numbers from Shadowstats.com which we mentioned above.
And consider the FASB’s decision to allow “Mark to Model” valuations.
We emphasize, Real U.S. GDP “growth” is a negative number -- about a negative 4.6%, according to shadowstats.com, as opposed to Official Figures showing just a positive 0.1%.
That the U.S. economy (about 25% of the international economy) is headed in the direction of Serious Stagflation (a Kondratieff Winter) is pretty clear from the very credible shadowstats.com statistics cited above. Predictions of Recovery any time soon are a combination of Media Hype and Fed “Communications policy”.
In sum since, the U.S. Dollar’s purchasing power has declined over 30% in the past 8 years, it appears that The Cartel expects (and likely are even pushing) the U.S. Dollar to go into further and further decline, over the medium term, and to continue their other policies, until there is a “No-Salvation, No-Return Systemic Crisis.”
It would appear that The Cartel-charted-course toward a Stagflationary Recession/Depression, and thus toward the further implementation of their “End Game,” is on course. For more details on the ‘End Game’ see the articles referred to above. Given the foregoing, one might reasonably buy the traditional Safe Haven Assets Gold and Silver.
And, indeed we do strongly recommend buying Gold and Silver but with one Major Caveat – regarding Timing and Asset Form it is essential to take into account ongoing Cartel Manipulation of Precious Metals prices.
The Cartel is still potent as evidenced by its delivering $50 down days at the beginning of December, 2009, and, again, at the beginning of February, 2010.
Consider John William’s comments regarding where Gold and Silver “should” be if they were again to hit their inflation-adjusted 1980 highs (and, we add, were their prices not manipulated):“…December 2, 2009 historic high gold price of $1,212.50 per troy ounce, the prior all-time high of $850.00 (London afternoon fix, per Kitco.com) of January 21, 1980... Based on inflation through January 2010, the 1980 gold price peak would be $2,367 per troy ounce, based on not-seasonally-adjusted-CPI-adjusted dollars, and would be $7,378 per troy ounce in terms of SGS-Alternate-CPI-adjusted dollars.
In like manner, the all-time high price for silver in January 1980 of $49.45 per troy ounce…has not been hit since, including in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars. Based on inflation through January 2010, the 1980 silver price peak would be $138 per troy ounce, based on not-seasonally-adjusted-CPI-adjusted dollars, and would be $429 per troy ounce in terms of SGS-Alternate-CPI-adjusted dollars.” (emphasis added)
“Annual Inflation 2.6% (CPI-U), 3.3% (CPI-W), 9.8% (SGS)Quarterly Inflation Shifted from Fourth- to Second-Quarter 2009Economy Keeps Bottom-Bouncing as Intensified Contraction Nears”
Commentary Number 280: January CPI, PPI, Housing Starts, ProductionJohn Williams’ Shadow Government Statistics, 2/19/10
Thus, unfortunately, the Solution does not lie in Straight-out Precious Metals Purchases (i.e. without regard to Timing or Asset Form) or in Buying and Holding Quality Equities for the long term, but rather in a Strategy.
The Strategy – Guidelines for Identifying Opportunities for Profit and Protection
Hedge for Profit. Above all, it will be most important not only to hedge one’s portfolios, and to lighten up considerably on the long side, but also to hedge for profit.That is, it is essential to regard the anticipated Takedowns in the Equities and other key Markets as Profit Opportunities.Be just as willing to “play on the short side” as to invest on the long side.
Get the Real Data. As many Investors suspect, Crucial Official Government and Agency Economic and Financial Data are of highly questionable validity. The Data set forth above from shadowstats.com is a good starting point.Educate yourself about the realities of the marketplace using Alternative Data Sources such as Deepcaster, Gold Anti-Trust Committee (www.gata.org), and shadowstats.com. Gathering and staying attuned to authentic information regarding the marketplace can save one much financial grief as well as positioning one for profit.
Take Account of both Overt and Covert Cartel Intervention. Many of these same investors who suspect Official Statistics also rightly suspect that the private-for-profit U.S. Federal Reserve and/or Central Banks overtly and covertly manipulate Major Markets. But they might not be aware that covert Market Interventions and Data Manipulation are likely far more pervasive than generally believed, as detailed in Deepcaster’s articles mentioned above.As well, such investors may not have thought systematically about how one copes with and profits from such Intervention and Data Manipulation.Consider one example of Cartel Intervention: the Traditional and Legitimate Safe Haven from inflation, deflation, and risk, is Gold. Yet, Gold has, during the recent periods of extreme financial market turmoil, been taken down in price (e.g. in 2008) from its highs of over $1000/oz. down to around the mid-$700 level when it should have skyrocketed.In early March, 2008 Gold was over $1000/oz. when the Bear Stearns Crisis revealed the fragility of the Financial System. Gold should surely have skyrocketed then. Instead, it was brutally taken down. Were its price not manipulated, Deepcaster’s view is that its price would be over $3,000.00 per ounce today.Deepcaster and others, including the Gold AntiTrust Action Committee, have offered considerable evidence that the Cartel* of Central Bankers and Favored Financial Institutions are the culprits behind these dramatic and devastating Takedowns. See Deepcaster’s Alert of 12/25/07 “A Strategy for Profiting from Cartel Intervention in Gold, Silver, Crude Oil and Other Tangible Assets Markets” in the Alerts Cache at www.deepcaster.com.But there is a Profitable Refuge from Market Intervention (especially regarding Gold and Silver) and Data Manipulation. That Profitable Refuge lies in the Strategy described in the aforementioned Alert, certain characteristics of which we outline here:
Recognize that the “Buy and Hold” strategy rarely succeeds anymore. The Eminence Grise of Newsletter writers, Harry Schultz perhaps put it the best when he stated that “buy and hold no longer works anymore, even with Gold.” Recent Market Developments should suffice to demonstrate this principle! Indeed The Dow was at about its current level of 10,000ish, a decade ago. And, adjusted for Official inflation Dow stockholders have actually lost over 30% of the purchasing power of The Dow’s dollar-value. Adjusted for Real Inflation Dow-holders have lost much more.
Track the Covert Interventionals as well as the Technicals and Fundamentals and Overt Interventionals. Tracking the Footprints, as it were, of the Covert Interventionals (e.g. the Repo and TSLF Pools) daily can often, but not always, give one excellent clues about The Cartel’s next likely Interventional Move - - such clues are essential to preserving wealth and making profits. Deepcaster’s tracking of The Interventionals, for example, allowed him to recommend five short positions going into September, 2008, (i.e. before the Market Crash) all of which he has subsequently recommended be profitably liquidated. Deepcaster’s recent article “Cartel Angst Equals Investor Advantage” (9/18/2009 can be found in the ‘Articles by Deepcaster’ at www.deepcaster.com) lays out a specific strategy for use in investing and trading in the heavily manipulated Gold and Silver Market.
Perhaps most important, be prepared to go both long and short Major Market Sectors - - long near the bottoms of Interim Takedowns and short near Sector Tops. The Interventionals are essential to helping identify these tops and bottoms. In Deepcaster’s view, it will be increasingly difficult to achieve a net profit for one’s portfolio if one is unwilling and/or unable to “go short” as well as “long”.The Blossoming of the 200% and 300% (and other) leveraged ‘short’ and ‘long’ ETF’s described above provide a superb opportunity to go short and long with ease, but not, as we explain in recent articles, without risk.
Be aware of and Active in the overall Geopolitical Landscape in order to gain an adequate understanding of how that Landscape might affect the present and future direction of the Markets. It is essential that one understand the motivations of the major players in the market and the resources at their disposal. For example, a Major Motivation of the U.S. Federal Reserve and other key Central Banks is the protection and enhancement of the legitimacy of their Treasury Securities and Fiat Currencies as Measures and Stores of Value. Therefore, one can understand that one of their Major Goals will be to attempt de-legitimize Gold, Silver and the Strategic Commodities, including especially Crude Oil, as Stores and Measures of Value. With this in mind, the periodic takedowns of Gold and Silver and, since July, 2008, of Crude Oil, become understandable. Moreover, such an insight applied daily to the market can result in a tremendous edge in understanding market performance, present and future.Moreover, regarding the assets at The Cartel’s disposal, if one tracks the Repurchase Agreement and TSLF Pools regularly for example, and is aware of the other Interventional tools that The Cartel has at its disposal, then one gains a considerable edge.
Finally, Hard Assets Partisans have the opportunity to become involved in Political Action to diminish the power of The Cartel. It is truly outrageous that the average unsuspecting citizen, and prospective retiree, can and does put his hard won assets in Tangible Assets and/or Retirement Accounts only to have those assets effectively de-valued by Cartel Takedowns, U.S. Dollar Devaluation and other Cartel actions. This is extremely injurious to many average citizens in many countries who are saving for the rainy day or retirement and have their retirement and/or reserves effectively taken from them. In order to help prevent this and similar outrages, we recommend taking three steps:
Become involved in the movement to Audit and then abolish the private-for-profit U.S. Federal Reserve as Deepcaster, former Presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, and legendary investor Jim Rogers, all have advocated. The ‘Audit The Fed’ Bill is H.R. 1207 (and has over 200 co-sponsors) and S604 in the Senate; and The Abolish The Fed Bill is H.R. 2755.Unfortunately these bills have been watered down in this session of Congress. http://www.carryingcapacity.org/ is a nonprofit organization which actively supports these bills.
Join the Gold AntiTrust Action Committee, which works to eliminate the manipulation of the Gold and Silver markets (www.gata.org). GATA is a nonprofit organization, which makes a great contribution by gathering evidence regarding the suppression of prices of Gold, Silver and other commodities.
Work to defeat The Cartel ‘End Game.’ Deepcaster has laid out the evidence regarding the Ominous Cartel “End Game” in “Coping with Power Moves in the Cartel's 'End Game' “ (04/24/2009) in the ‘Articles by Deepcaster’ cache at www.deepcaster.com. Clearly (and the recent U.S. Dollar bounce) The Cartel is sacrificing the U.S. Dollar over the long-term to prop up Favored International Financial Institutions and to maintain its power. But this sacrifice cannot continue forever. See Deepcaster’s July 2008 Letter in the ‘Latest Letter’ Archives at www.deepcaster.com.
Additional insights and details regarding the foregoing Strategy, which are essential to profiting from The Cartel’s Policies, are laid out in Deepcaster’s article of 3/06/09 entitled “Investor Advantage: Revisiting The Cartel’s ‘End Game’ ” in the ‘Articles by Deepcaster’ cache at http://www.deepcaster.com/.
Details of the Strategy designed to profit in spite of Cartel Intervention specifically in the Precious Metals markets are described in “Defeating The Cartel…With Profit” (3/28/2008) in the ‘Articles by Deepcaster’ cache at www.deepcaster.com.
Indeed, the Key Point of the Strategy for Protection and Profit is careful attention not only to the Fundamentals and Technicals but also to the Interventionals. These Overt and Covert Cartel-generated Interventions have the power to move markets as those who study the matter can attest.
In sum, the Key to Profit and Protection is a Strategy: Successful Investors must become Long-Term Position Traders, with their trading choices informed by the Interventionals, as well as the Fundamentals and Technicals. Moreover, engaging in the Actions suggested above can help prevent The Cartel’s obtaining Superpower status, and aid in achieving wealth protection and profits as well.
Copyright © 2010 DeepCaster LLC Editorial Archive

Gold About To Rise!!!

If the following information regarding a potentially large purchase of IMF gold by China is true, then the price of gold should be getting ready to go up!
Last time gold went up substantially was when India made a fairly substantial purchase from the IMF as well. Back then, gold went up almost $50.00 within 24 hours, and continued up above 1,200!
China is very wisely getting rid of their U.S. Treasuries, and other U.S. Dollar reserves by swapping their soon to be worthless Dollars for this very precious commodity.
While the rest of the world continues to pump massive amounts of liquidity into their economies to further fuel this artificial economic recovery, China, India and a few other savvy countries are stockpiling and assuring they have gold, silver and other commodities.



China To Purchase Half of IMF's Gold
25.02.2010
Source: Pravda.Ru


China has confirmed the intention to purchase 191.3 tons of gold from the International Monetary Fund at an open auction, Finmarket news agency said.
World central banks started to increase their gold reserves after prices on gold began to climb in 2001. The IMF sells gold within the scope of a program to diversify sources of income and achieve an increase in lending.
The IMF announced an intention to sell 403.3 tons of gold in accordance with the adequate decision made by the board of directors of the fund in September of 2009. India, Mauritius and Sri Lanka purchased about 212 tons of the amount at the end of 2009. India purchased most – 200 tons.
China’s interest in international trade is connected with the development of the nation’s economy, as well as with the growing consumer demand in the country.
“Chinese officials have confirmed previous announcements from IMF experts and said that the purchasing of 191 tons of gold would not exert negative influence on the world market. China is interested in the development of the domestic consumer market,” the agency reports.
Most of Chinese citizens believe that investing in gold jewelry is a good way to avoid inflation, Rough & Polished agency said.
The IMF has received the profit of $7.2 billion from gold sales. A part of the funds is to be used for crediting poor countries.

The Road to Armageddon!

The road to Armageddon begins with Iran. The following article, which is a very detailed one, confirms the idea and the facts that the path we are currently on is one that will lead to military confrontation with Russia and China.
The whole 911 pre text which was successfully used by the S.S. (secret society powers that are), was only the latest one, was a necessary one in order to continue their push towards this new world order, in which they are their Banking institutions run the world.
The fact that any power or powers that dare choose option B, such as Iraq did back in 1999, when Saddam decided to opt out of the Dollar and begin selling oil in Euros, was the beginning of the end for Iraq.
Iran began to do the same thing in the summer of 2006, and they have gone even a few steps further by declaring themselves a nuclear state with several military achievements, Iran has crossed more red lines than Saddam ever did, so you can bet the S.S. elites have had them in their sights for some time now.
Russia and China highly distrust the U.S. and their NATO partners as can be seen by their continued reluctance to back further or more sever sanctions on Iran. They see Iran as not only a buffer zone of sorts against the S.S. empire, but they also view Iran as a military and energy partner that both Russia and China view with much favor and interest.
The U.S. and their allies (Masonic/Illuminati group) view Iran as the last dominoe that needs to be knocked down in the middle east region in order to have full hegemonic control there.
Russia and China also view Iran's stability as is, for their national interests. For Russia not only will it continue to be a close energy and military ally, but one that they view as necessary as a counter balance to the U.S.'s strategic allies of Israel and Saudi Arabia in the region. For China, the same can be said, except that China needs their energy in order to continue to fuel their rapid growing and expanding economy.
The key is Iran, and hence the reason why the road to Armageddon begins with an attack on Iran by the west.

The Road to Armageddon
Paul Craig Roberts

Infowars.com

February 25, 2010

The Washington Times is a newspaper that looks with favor upon the Bush/Cheney/Obama/neocon wars of aggression in the Middle East and favors making terrorists pay for 9/11. Therefore, I was surprised to learn on February 24 that the most popular story on the paper’s website for the past three days was the “Inside the Beltway” report, “Explosive News,” about the 31 press conferences in cities in the US and abroad on February 19 held by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, an organization of professionals which now has 1,000 members.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on February 21 that American extremists are now as big a concern as international terrorists.
I was even more surprised that the news report treated the press conference seriously. How did three World Trade Center skyscrapers suddenly disintegrate into fine dust? How did massive steel beams in three skyscrapers suddenly fail as a result of short-lived, isolated, and low temperature fires? “A thousand architects and engineers want to know, and are calling on Congress to order a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7,” reports the Washington Times.
The paper reports that the architects and engineers have concluded that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Institute of Standards and Technology provided “insufficient, contradictory and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers’ destruction” and are “calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials.”
The newspaper reports that Richard Gage, the spokesperson for the architects and engineers said: “Government officials will be notified that “Misprision of Treason,’ U.S. Code 18 (Sec. 2382) is a serious federal offense, which requires those with evidence of treason to act. The implications are enormous and may have profound impact on the forthcoming Khalid Sheik Mohammed trial.”
There is now an organization, Firefighters for 9/11 Truth. At the main press conference in San Francisco, Eric Lawyer,the head of that organization, announced the firefighters’ support for the architects and engineers’ demands. He reported that no forensic investigation was made of the fires that are alleged to have destroyed the three buildings and that this failure constitutes a crime.
Mandated procedures were not followed, and instead of being preserved and investigated, the crime scene was destroyed. He also reported that there are more than one hundred first responders who heard and experienced explosions and that there is radio, audio and video evidence of explosions.
Also at the press conference, physicist Steven Jones presented the evidence of nano-thermite in the residue of the WTC buildings found by an international panel of scientists led by University of Copenhagen nano-chemist Professor Niels Harrit. Nano-thermite is a high-tech explosive/pyrotechnic capable of instantly melting steel girders.
Before we yell “conspiracy theory,” we should be aware that the architects, engineers, firefighters, and scientists offer no theory. They provide evidence that challenges the official theory. This evidence is not going to go away.
If expressing doubts or reservations about the official story in the 9/11 Commission Report makes a person a conspiracy theory kook, then we have to include both co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission and the Commission’s legal counsel, all of whom have written books in which they clearly state that they were lied to by government officials when they conducted their investigation, or, rather, when they presided over the investigation conducted by executive director Philip Zelikow, a member of President George W. Bush’s transition team and Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a co-author of Bush Secretary of State Condi “Mushroom Cloud” Rice.
There will always be Americans who will believe whatever the government tells them no matter how many times they know the government has lied to them. Despite expensive wars that threaten Social Security and Medicare, wars based on non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, non-existent Saddam Hussein connections to al Qaida, non-existent Afghan participation in the 9/11 attacks, and the non-existent Iranian nukes that are being hyped as the reason for the next American war of aggression in the Middle East, more than half of the U.S. population still believes the fantastic story that the government has told them about 9/11, a Muslim conspiracy that outwitted the entire Western world.
Moreover, it doesn’t matter to these Americans how often the government changes its story. For example, Americans first heard of Osama bin Laden because the Bush regime pinned the 9/11 attacks on him. Over the years video after video was served up to the gullible American public of bin Laden’s pronouncements. Experts dismissed the videos as fakes, but Americans remained their gullible selves. Then suddenly last year a new 9/11 “mastermind” emerged to take bin Laden’s place, the captive Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the detainee waterboarded 183 times until he confessed to masterminding the 9/11 attack.
In the Middle Ages confessions extracted by torture constituted evidence, but self-incrimination has been a no-no in the U.S. legal system since our founding. But with the Bush regime and the Republican federal judges, whom we were assured would defend the U.S. Constitution, the self-incrimination of Sheik Mohammed stands today as the only evidence the U.S. government has that Muslim terrorists pulled off 9/11.
If a person considers the feats attributed to Khalid Sheik Mohammed, they are simply unbelievable. Sheik Mohammed is a more brilliant, capable superhero than V in the fantasy movie, “V for Vendetta.” Sheik Mohammed outwitted all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies along with those of all U.S. allies or puppets, including Israel’s Mossad. No intelligence service on earth, or all of them combined, was a match for Sheik Mohammed.
Sheik Mohammed outwitted the U.S. National Security Council, Dick Cheney, the Pentagon, the State Department, NORAD, the U.S. Air Force, and Air Traffic Control. He caused Airport Security to fail four times in one morning. He caused the state-of-the-art air defenses of the Pentagon to fail, allowing a hijacked airliner, which was off course all morning while the U.S. Air Force, for the first time in history, was unable to get aloft intercepter aircraft, to crash into the Pentagon.
Sheik Mohammed was able to perform these feats with unqualified pilots.
Sheik Mohammed, even as a waterboarded detainee, has managed to prevent the FBI from releasing the many confiscated videos that would show, according to the official story, the hijacked airliner hitting the Penagon.
How naive do you have to be to believe that any human, or for that matter Hollywood fantasy character, is this powerful and capable?
If Sheik Mohammed has these superhuman capabilities, how did the incompetent Americans catch him? This guy is a patsy tortured into confession in order to keep the American naifs believing the government’s conspiracy theory.
What is going on here is that the U.S. government has to bring the 9/11 mystery to an end. The government must put on trial and convict a culprit so that it can close the case before it explodes. Anyone waterboarded 183 times would confess to anything.
The U.S. government has responded to the evidence being arrayed against its outlandish 9/11 conspiracy theory by redefining the war on terror from external to internal enemies. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on February 21 that American extremists are now as big a concern as international terrorists. Extremists, of course, are people who get in the way of the government’s agenda, such as the 1,000 Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. The group used to be 100, now it is 1,000. What if it becomes 10,000?
Cass Sunstein, an Obama regime official, has a solution for the 9/11 skeptics: Infiltrate them and provoke them into statements and actions that can be used to discredit or to arrest them. But get rid of them at all cost.
Why employ such extreme measures against alleged kooks if they only provide entertainment and laughs? Is the government worried that they are on to something?
Instead, why doesn’t the U.S. government simply confront the evidence that is presented and answer it?
If the architects, engineers, firefighters, and scientists are merely kooks, it would be a simple matter to acknowledge their evidence and refute it. Why is it necessary to infiltrate them with police agents and to set them up?
Many Americans would reply that “their” government would never even dream of killing Americans by hijacking airliners and destroying buildings in order to advance a government agenda. But on February 3, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told the House Intelligence Committee that the U.S. government can assassinate its own citizens when they are overseas. No arrest, trial, or conviction of a capital crime is necessary. Just straight out murder.
Obviously, if the U.S. government can murder its citizens abroad it can murder them at home, and has done so. For example, 100 Branch Davidians were murdered in Waco, Texas, by the Clinton administration for no legitimate reason. The government just decided to use its power knowing that it could get away with it, which it did.
Americans who think “their” government is some kind of morally pure operation would do well to familiarize themselves with Operation Northwoods. Operation Northwoods was a plot drawn up by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff for the CIA to commit acts of terrorism in American cities and fabricate evidence blaming Castro so that the U.S. could gain domestic and international support for regime change in Cuba. The secret plan was nixed by President John F. Kennedy and was declassified by the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board. It is available online in the National Security Archive. There are numerous online accounts available, including Wikipedia. James Bamford’s book, Body of Secrets, also summarizes the plot:
“Operation Northwoods, which had the written approval of the Chairman [Gen. Lemnitzer] and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war.”
Prior to 9/11 the American neoconservatives were explicit that the wars of aggression that they intended to launch in the Middle East required “a new Pearl Harbor.”
For their own good and that of the wider world, Americans need to pay attention to the growing body of experts who are telling them that the government’s account of 9/11 fails their investigation. 9/11 launched the neoconservative plan for U.S. world hegemony.
As I write, the U.S. government is purchasing the agreement of foreign governments that border Russia to accept U.S. missile interceptor bases. The U.S. intends to ring Russia with U.S. missile bases from Poland through central Europe and Kosovo to Georgia, Azerbaijan and central Asia. U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke declared on February 20 that al Qaida is moving into former central Asian constituent parts of the Soviet Union, such as Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. Holbrooke is soliciting U.S. bases in these former Soviet republics under the guise of the ever-expanding “war on terror.”
The U.S. has already encircled Iran with military bases. The U.S. government intends to neutralize China by seizing control over the Middle East and cutting China off from oil.
This plan assumes that Russia and China, nuclear armed states, will be intimidated by U.S. anti-missile defenses and acquiesce to U.S. hegemony and that China will lack oil for its industries and military.
The U.S. government is delusional. Russian military and political leaders have responded to the obvious threat by declaring NATO a direct threat to the security of Russia and by announcing a change in Russian war doctrine to the pre-emptive launch of nuclear weapons. The Chinese are too confident to be bullied by a washed-up American “superpower.”
The morons in Washington are pushing the envelope of nuclear war. The insane drive for American hegemony threatens life on earth. The American people, by accepting the lies and deceptions of “their” government, are facilitating this outcome.

Cyber War!

With the possible threat from a host of nation states that would like to do harm to the U.S., the following article shines light on an inconvienent truth...the fact that the U.S. is very vulnerable to a cyber attack. This is further the case when you take into consideration the fact that this is one of the most interconnected countries in the world, along with much of the developed Western European nations.

US would lose cyberwar: former intel chief

by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) Feb 23, 2010

The United States would lose a cyberwar if it fought one today, a former US intelligence chief warned on Tuesday.

Michael McConnell, a retired US Navy vice admiral who served as ex-president George W. Bush's director of national intelligence, also compared the danger of cyberwar to the nuclear threat posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

"If we went to war today in a cyberwar, we would lose," McConnell told a hearing on cybersecurity held by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

"We're the most vulnerable, we're the most connected, we have the most to lose.

"We will not mitigate this risk," added McConnell, now an executive vice president for consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton's national security business. "And as a consequence of not mitigating this risk, we are going to have a catastrophic event."

Tuesday's hearing came a little over a month after Internet giant Google revealed that it and other US companies had been the target of a series of sophisticated cyberattacks originating in China.

"National security and our economic security are at stake," said Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller, the panel's chairman and a co-sponsor of a bill seeking to bolster public and private sector cybersecurity cooperation.

"A major cyberattack could shut down our nation's most critical infrastructure -- our power grid, telecommunications, financial services."

James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that government intervention would probably be needed to crack down on the "Wild West" the Internet has become.

The greatest threat to the United States comes from cyber espionage and cyber crime, he said, calling them a "major source of harm to national security."

"We have lost more as a nation to espionage than at any time since the 1940s," Lewis said.

Scott Borg, director of the US Cyber Consequences Unit, also warned of the economic damage from cyberattacks.

"Cyberattacks are already damaging the American economy much more than is

generally recognized," said Borg, whose independent research institute investigates the economic and strategic consequences of cyberattacks.

"The greatest damage to the American economy from cyberattacks is due to massive thefts of business information.

"This type of loss is delayed and hard to measure, but it is much greater than the losses due to personal identity theft and the associated credit card fraud," he added.

In his prepared remarks, McConnell said the United States needs a "national strategy for cyber that matches our national strategy that guided us during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union and nuclear weapons posed an existential threat to the United States and its allies."

He pointed to US President Barack Obama's appointment of a cybersecurity coordinator in December and his national cybersecurity initiative as moves in the right direction, but said they were not enough.

"The federal government will spend more each year on missile defense than it does on cybersecurity," he said, despite the potential for attacks that "could destroy the global financial system and compromise the future and prosperity of our nation."

In order to secure cyberspace, McConnell suggested the United States provide a "more robust commitment" in leadership, policies, legislation and resources.

He called for establishing a National Cybersecurity Center modeled after the National Counter Terrorism Center set up after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

The center would integrate elements of the Pentagon's proposed Cyber Command, the Department of Homeland Security's National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center and the cyber operations of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, state and local governments and the private sector.

It would also serve as "the hub of information sharing and integration, situational awareness and analysis, coordination and collaboration," McConnell said.

Fear of Coming Bank Runs??

(old fashioned bank ran)

Market manipulation video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQyFxBG6dhY
I wonder where all the TARP and Stimulus money has gone to?? It's no wonder why there is no transparency as to where all this money has gone. Market crash is coming.

Update: Citigroup Says Feds Ordered 7 Day Restriction On Bank Withdrawals

Paul Joseph WatsonPrison Planet.com
Monday, February 22, 2010

A new advisory being sent by America’s third largest bank to its account holders has stoked fears that major financial institutions could be preparing for old fashioned bank runs if the economy takes a turn for the worse.
Originally reported by John Carney over at the Business Insider website, Citigroup is sending the following information to customers along with their bank statements.
“Effective April 1, 2010, we reserve the right to require (7) days advance notice before permitting a withdrawal from all checking accounts. While we do not currently exercise this right and have not exercised it in the past, we are required by law to notify you of this change.”
An almost identical advisory to the one being sent out can be read on page 22 of Citbank’s Client Manual effective January 1, 2010, which can be read here from Citibank’s own website.
“We reserve the right to require seven (7) days advance notice before permitting a withdrawal from all checking, savings and money market accounts. We currently do not exercise this right and have not exercised it in the past,” states the manual.
According to the Future of Capitalism blog, Citigroup originally claimed that the warning was only sent nationwide as a result of a mistake, but that the measures do apply to account holders in Texas.
However, in a statement, Citigroup confirmed that they had reserved the right to impose the new 7 day rule on all account holders nationwide, but claimed they had no plans to enforce it. The bank stated that they had been forced to enact the new policy as a result of federal regulations.
“When Citibank moved to unlimited FDIC coverage in 2009, we had to reclassify many checking accounts to allow for immediate withdrawals in order to ensure all customers qualified for the additional coverage. When we moved back to standard FDIC coverage with most major banks in 2010, Citibank decided to reclassify those accounts back to make them eligible again for promotional incentives. To do so, Federal Reserve Reg D requires these accounts, called NOW accounts, to reserve the right to require a 7-day notice of withdrawal. We recently communicated this technical requirement to our customers. However, we have never exercised this right and have no plans to do so in the future,” reads a statement released by the bank.
Over the last 18 months, numerous rumors of bank runs, “bank holidays,” and limitations on access to cash at ATM’s have been floating around. Citigroup’s new policy to restrict withdrawals won’t do anything to calm such fears.
As we reported back in 2008, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which guarantees individual accounts up to $100,000, only has about $50 billion to “insure” about $1 trillion in assets across the nation’s financial institutions.
This revelation prompted fears that an accelerating amount of bank closures could absorb FDIC funds and leave holders of money market and traditional savings accounts exposed.
———————————————————------------------------------------------------------


Citigroup Warns Customers It May Refuse To Allow Withdrawals
John Carney
Business Insider
Sunday, February 21, 2010

The image of banks locking their doors to keep customers from making withdrawals during a bank run is what immediately came to mind when we heard that Citigroup was telling customers it has the right to prevent any withdrawals from checking accounts for seven days.
More here.
Below are a number of other news sources reporting on this story and the potential for bank runs.
Citi Warns of Withdrawal Gate
Foreign Embassies Urged to Stockpile Local Currencies
Government Trying To Prevent Bank Run After IndyMac Collapse
What’s a Bank Run?

Russia TV-U.S. Will Start WW3

The time is fast approaching for this attack. Back in 2005 I began to write a series of Letters of Preparation, for exactly this time period and these events.
Back then, I would tell people it was only a few years away, but now, it is only wks, perhaps 2-3 months. The attack will occur before June 2010.
The illuminati this time will bite off more than they can chew, and the worse part of this is that the rest of us will also feel these harsh consequences.


http://www.infowars.com/u-s-will-start-ww3-by-attacking-iran/

NATO Check! Russia Checkmate!!

The complete surrounding of Iran is almost complete by NATO and the U.S. The more the U.S. and Israel talk about how they are not going to attack, the more you better believe it is coming. Just as the case with anything else, always take the exact opposite what the government says, advocates or promotes, and you better believe the exact opposite is true. It doesn't matter if it's with the economy, or foreign policy, the opposite of their official line is almost always the truth.
The Chess pieces and moves have all been made, and this has been a gradual process, for it is said that the Iraq and Afghanistan invasion were merely a necessary prelude to the eventual plans for Iran, for it is Iran that has always been the main objective, even as far back as 2003.
The following informatin suggest that a possible strike, that would lead to a new war might be coming as soon as next month.

U.S. Intensifies Threats to Russia And Iran
Friday, 19 February 2010, 2:44
Impending Explosion: U.S. Intensifies Threats to Russia And Iran
Rick Rozoff

Washington and its NATO allies launched two of the three major wars in the world over the past eleven years in March - against Yugoslavia in 1999 and against Iraq in 2003. The war drums are being pounded anew and the world may be headed for a catastrophe far worse than those in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
The United States, separately and through the military bloc it controls, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is accelerating military deployments and provocations throughout Eurasia and the Middle East.

Embroiled with fellow NATO members in the largest-scale military offensive of the joint war in Afghanistan launched eight years ago last October and well on the way to both extending and replicating the Afghan aggression in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula [1], Washington and its allies are also taunting and threatening Russia as well as surrounding Iran with military forces and hardware preparatory to a potential attack on that nation.
The rapid pace of the escalation - almost daily reports of missile shield expansion in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, the Persian Gulf and Turkey; heightened and progressively more bellicose words and actions directed against Iran - is occurring at a breakneck and almost dizzying speed, drawing in larger and larger tracts of Europe and Asia.
On January 12 new U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria James Warlick, speaking "at his first public event in the country," announced that Washington is entering into negotiations with the Bulgarian government to station interceptor missile facilities, most likely at one of the three new military bases the Pentagon has acquired there in the past four years. "The US military already has bases in Romania and Bulgaria that were created some years ago for delivering troops and cargo to Iraq and Afghanistan...." [2]
"The United States is planning to expand its European missile shield to other parts of Europe" and "will consult closely with Bulgaria and other NATO allies on the specific options to deploy elements of the defense system in those regions," according to the American envoy. [3]
During the same speech Warlick also "called on Bulgaria to find other alternatives to stop its dependence on Russian gas," [4] a reference to sabotaging the Russian South Stream project to transport natural gas from the eastern end of the Black Sea to Bulgaria and from there to Austria and Italy.
An analyst at a pro-NATO think tank in Bulgaria said of the proposed missile shield components that "They can be deployed virtually anywhere. Naturally they will need special infrastructure that provides logistical processes, and technically everything should be enforced by NATO standards." [5]
The news of including Bulgaria in U.S. and NATO missile shield plans came eight days after a comparable announcement was made by Romanian President Traian Basescu that his country, where the U.S. has four new military bases, will host land-based U.S. interceptor missiles. The news from Romania in turn came only two weeks after Poland disclosed that a U.S. Patriot Advanced Capability-3 anti-ballistic missile battery will be stationed 35 miles from Russian territory as early as March. [6]
The head of the Russian lower house of parliament's Committee on International Affairs, Konstantin Kosachev, responded to the latest news by saying it is "not in line with the 'reset' of US-Russia relations," [7] an almost unintentionally comic understatement, and other Russian officials have pointed out that the Bulgarian report, as with those relating to Poland and Romania, came to their attention by reading of it in the press. Moscow's American friend doesn't feel constrained to notify Russia of its intention to base missile shield installations near the latter's borders or across the Black Sea from it.
Former Joint Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces retired general Leonid Ivashov was less restrained in his reaction. He recently told a major Russian radio station that U.S. missile strategy “remains unchanged” vis-a-vis that of the former George W. Bush administration and missiles in Romania are an integral component of Washington's plan to "neutralize Russia as a geopolitical competitor” [8] in the Black Sea and in general. In fact Washington's plans are to destroy the strategic balance in the European continent two and a half months after the expiration of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Recent announcements concerning U.S. missile deployments near Russia have been interpreted by some observers as intentionally designed to bury START negotiations and any hope for a treaty for the limitation and reduction of strategic offensive arms.
A Russian military analyst, Alexander Pikayev, said of the above dynamic that "US/Russia relations were improving but these proposals really don't help the situation. This situation is a time bomb. If these plans go ahead it could cause big problems in five to ten years time." [9]
The White House and Pentagon explain the drive to deploy a solid wall of interceptor missile bases along Russia's western borders as an alleged defense against Iranian, North Korean and even Syrian missile threats, the argument used by the last American administration in furtherance of plans to place ground-based midcourse missiles in Poland and an X-band missile radar site in the Czech Republic.
The rationale was false then and remains so now. How short-to-medium-range missiles in Poland can in any manner be a response to Iran is unexplained - because it is unexplainable.
Ivashov refuted this transparent lie by stating “Iran will never be first to deliver a military strike.” [10]
On January 12 the Polish parliament took the next step and approved the deployment of 100 U.S. troops, the first foreign forces to be based on its soil since the end of the Warsaw Pact almost twenty years ago, to staff the missile battery near Russia's border.
Regarding the addition of Bulgaria to the expanding range of American missile shield sites - not the last as will be seen below - Konstantin Sivkov, First Vice President of the Russian Academy for Geopolitical Problems, said that the move “directly threatens Russia.” A news account of his comments added "that after Bulgaria, the next country to make a similar announcement may be Georgia, which has already expressed similar desires" [11]
He also anticipated the statement of the former top Russian military commander cited above in asserting "the argument that the US missile defense in Europe will be directed against missiles from Iran and North Korea is ridiculous as neither of the two states has the capacity to carry out such strikes."
In his owns words, Sivkov warned: “The US missile defense in Europe is being created in order to level down Russian operational and tactical missile weapons. The USA has started creating a military infrastructure for exerting military pressure on Russia.” [12] Another geopolitical analyst, Maxim Minaev of the Russian Center for Political Affairs, said of the new and continent-wide European missile shield system planned by the U.S. and NATO that "In its scope it envisages a much stronger structure than the one that was supposed to be in located in the Czech Republic and Poland,” [13] one which logically will include Georgia and Azerbaijan on Russia's southern border.
Poland became a full NATO member in 1999 and Bulgaria and Romania five years later. On the day U.S. ambassador Warlick first revealed plans to extend interceptor missile plans to Bulgaria, Prime Minister Boiko Borissov hastened to add "My opinion is that we have to show solidarity. When you are a member of NATO, you have to work towards the collective security." [14]
To indicate the extent to which U.S. missile shield provocations in Eastern Europe are linked with NATO's drive east into former Soviet space, fraught as that strategy is with heating up so-called frozen conflicts and the very real threat of hot wars, this year's developments in Poland, Romania and Bulgaria immediately gave rise to dangerous military prospects east of the Black Sea.
The latest news from Romania was coupled with the announcement that "the Czech Republic is in discussions with the Obama administration to host a command center for the United States' altered missile-defense plan," [15] and on February 18 the Romanian government began bilateral discussions with neighboring Moldova "on U.S. missile defense plans in Europe...." [16]
The former Soviet republic of Moldova has been coveted by Romania since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the current, Western-supported post-"Twitter Revolution" government is more than willing to oblige its patrons in Bucharest and Washington.
Recently Vladimir Voronin, president of Moldova until last September 11th, spoke of the Romanian president's disclosure that he would allow the stationing of U.S. missiles in his country and, drawing a parallel with Romania's World War II fascist dictator, said "The steps taken by Basescu are similar to the agreements to form an anti-Soviet coalition reached by Antonescu and Hitler."
Voronin added, "Moldovan society is against basing U.S. anti-missile defense systems in Romania. Strained Moldovan-Romanian relations will become worse. We do not accuse Romania for this decision as we are aware of its unionist policy. [Absorbing Moldova into Romania.] Romania cannot accept that Moldova exists as an independent state." [17]
"Though the Americans said the rockets are designed to prevent dangers from Iran, the essence is different. These events remind one of Europe's return to the Cold War of the last century." [18]
On February 11 Moldovan political analyst Bogdan Tsirdia warned that the U.S. "is very consistently moving NATO infrastructure in Russia's direction," specifically mentioning American bases in Romania and Kyrgyzstan, and added "the US wants to create another base in Georgia."
He added in relation to the Black Sea in particular that "in the near future the US will have a conventional arms advantage over Moscow in the region...[T]he United States is turning the Black Sea into an American lake to control transit in the region." [19]
On February 15 Transdniester, formerly part of the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic but independent since 1990 and a war with Moldova two years later - and which fears that Romanian incorporation of Moldova would be a prelude to armed attacks to subjugate it - offered to host a Russian missile defense system to counter the American one in Romania.
Transdniester's president, Igor Smirnov, said "we could deploy what Russia needs" as the stationing of U.S. interceptor missiles "will not be a stabilizing factor." [20] His country is bordered by Ukraine to the east and has been blockaded by that nation after the U.S.-backed "orange revolution" in Ukraine in late 2004 and early 2005. The recent presidential election has rid the nation and its people of the "orange" duo of Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Timoshenko, and incoming head of state Viktor Yanukovich pledged that "There is no question of Ukraine joining NATO," [21], thereby renouncing one of the two major objectives of his pro-Washington opponents: Pulling Ukraine into the military bloc against the will of the overwhelming majority of its population and ousting the Russian Black Sea fleet from Sevastopol in Crimea.
The outgoing Yushchenko regime recently assigned Ukrainian troops to the global NATO Response Force and hosted NATO Military Committee Chairman Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola who presented a draft cooperation plan for 2010-2011.
A member of the new president's Party of Regions, Vasil Hara, deputy chairman of the party's parliamentary group, recently stated "that by offering to deploy U.S. anti-missile systems on its territory, Romania is turning Ukraine into a risk zone."
He also affirmed that incoming President Yanukovich "will not leave Transdnestr without support." [22] NATO expansion not only allows nations increasingly closer to Russia and Iran to be used for global interceptor missile facilities. The eastward drive of the bloc is expressly intended to secure such bases and related sites for that purpose.
Recent developments, however, signal a new advance in U.S. and NATO strategy to neutralize potential adversaries' ability to respond to military aggression from the West. The extension of missile shield deployments and technology to the Black Sea and from there further east and south marks the confluence of hostile intentions toward Russia and Iran simultaneously.
In the third public warning on NATO expansion since last month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently said "The West's ultimate goal is not Iran, but India and China" and "named the recent concentration of NATO forces around India and unrest in Pakistan as an argument." He added that NATO now "almost completely surrounded Russia" and advocated that "Russia should respond to the deployment of NATO forces along its borders." [23]
Earlier this month former president Hashemi Rafsanjani issued a similar warning, saying "the deployment of NATO forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Azerbaijan will constitute a serious threat to Iran...." [24]
In discussing Western pressure not to provide Iran with S-300 surface-to-air missiles for defense against prospective U.S. and Israeli attacks, Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Vladimir Nazarov recently said, "This deal is not restricted by any international sanctions, because these are merely defensive weapons," and recalled earlier Russian concerns about the U.S and its NATO allies arming Georgia on the eve of the August 2008 war with Russia.
But, Nazarov rued, "Our calls were ignored. It should be recalled that the Georgian aggression resulted in deaths among Russian servicemen and Russian civilians." [25]
Russian concerns have not abated in the face of recent news.
The website of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe divulged that American airmen from the Ramstein Air Base in Germany have arrived at the modernized, massively upgraded Krtsanisi National Training Center in Georgia, "a forward operating base of sorts," to join American Marines there training the Georgian armed forces on a "mission that involves providing a top-notch service to fellow warfighters." [26] The Marines have been in the nation and at the Krtsanisi base since last August, and in October conducted the latest Immediate Response war games. Immediate Response 2008, which also included U.S. Marines, ended the day before Georgia invaded South Ossetia and triggered a five-day war with Russia.
U.S. Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke will arrive in Georgia on February 22 on a visit "devoted to the Georgian military contingent's participation in the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan." (Holbrooke was in the Persian Gulf on February 15 and while speaking in Qatar said of Afghanistan "We cannot make the disastrous mistake of 1989. The international community must stay in Afghanistan to help it," [27] meaning 1992 presumably, when the U.S.'s Mujahideen clients took over the nation, and "The U.S. has led and won similar wars in Kosovo and Bosnia...." [28])
Georgia is to send another 700 troops trained by U.S. Marines to Afghanistan to serve under American command shortly. Leading Georgian officials have unapologetically acknowledged that the training and combat experience provided them by the U.S. can be used for subjugating South Ossetia and Abkhazia Any such attempt would guarantee another and far larger war with Russia which has expanded its military presence in both nations since the 2008 war. [29]
Georgia can also be used by the U.S. for military strikes against Iran by providing surveillance radar, air bases and its Black Sea waters for cruise missile launches.
The Russian Itar-Tass news agency revealed on February 12 that in addition to supplying Georgia with aerial drones, Israel is delivering a large consignment of arms and ammunition to the nation.
Citing sources in the Russian secret services, the report revealed: "Under an effective contract Israel’s Ropadia company, registered in Cyprus, plans to supply through Bulgaria’s Arsenal firm 50,000 AKS-74 automatic rifles, about 1,000 grenade launchers RPG-7 and nearly 20,000 40-millimeter shells for them, as well as about 15,000 5.56-millimeter assault rifles....The hardware and ammunition was ready for shipment back several days ago.” [30]
In line with recent announcements that Washington is building up both land-based and sea-based interceptor missile capabilities in the Persian Gulf, the same combination as will be deployed along Russia's western frontier from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and from the latter into the South Caucasus, Georgia and neighboring Azerbaijan are key components in the strategy to prevent Iranian retaliation in the event of U.S. and Israeli attacks. American and NATO bases in Bulgaria and Romania were used for the 2003 war against Iraq and are for the war in Afghanistan to the current day.
Azerbaijan, which has consolidated military ties with the U.S., NATO and Israel, is on Iran's northwest border. [31]
Recently an official with the Azerbaijan president's Academy of Public Administration spoke at a conference titled Azerbaijan's Integration into Europe: Problems and Prospects, organized by the NATO International School in Azerbaijan. He advocated NATO intervening in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict with Armenia as the military bloc had "in the early 1990s in the Balkans, Bosnia," when NATO deployed 400 warplanes in a bombing campaign against Bosnian Serb positions.
According to the official, Elman Nasirov, "the main aim of Azerbaijan in integrating into NATO and European structures is to provide security and restore its territorial integrity," [32] meaning the military conquest of Karabakh.
Azerbaijan can be a major base for operations against Iran, where ethnic Azeris comprise as much as a quarter of the population. The Bosnia model has been alluded to above on two occasions.
On February 16 NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen hosted Major General Yaylym Berdiyev, the defense minister of Turkmenistan, Iran's northeastern neighbor, at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels. As the French Voltaire Network wrote five days before, "NATO has encircled Iran almost entirely: it has a foothold in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. It just needs one in Turkmenistan for the siege to be complete." [33] To Iran's west, Turkey's Zaman newspaper wrote on February 17 that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar and while identifying Iran as a "long-term threat" because of its "nuclear weapons," said that the U.S. interceptor missile system being steadily expanded from Eastern Europe to locations east and south "would protect into the Caucasus and down to Turkey, would provide some additional guarantee against threatening behavior." (NATO Deputy Secretary General Claudio Bisogniero was in Qatar on February 8 and 9 to consolidate military partnerships with members of the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative and the Mediterranean Dialogue: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. [34])
The same Turkish source quoted U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates: "The dialogue on what Turkey could do within NATO to counter the proliferation of ballistic missiles via a missile defense system continues. We have discussed the possibility of erecting two radar systems in Turkey." [35]
The Pentagon is simultaneously deploying land-based and ship-based interceptor missiles throughout the Persian Gulf to render Iran incapable of retaliation against massive missile attacks and bombing runs from the U.S. and its allies. [36]
After a five-day tour to Afghanistan and Pakistan to oversee the escalation of the wars in both nations, U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones - former Marine Commandant and NATO Supreme Allied Commander - said that Washington was pursuing tighter sanctions against Iran and revealed what the true purpose of such economic warfare is: "We are about to add to that regime's difficulties by engineering, participating in very tough sanctions," which "could trigger regime change." [37]
On February 14 Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen arrived in Israel to meet with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and military Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, and stated that the option of war against Iran "is still on the table." [38] During his trip it was reported that "Mullen's visit follows a visit last month by U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones and a leaked secret visit two weeks ago by Central Intelligence Agency director Leon Panetta." [39]
In a masterful analysis of the current crisis in Yemen, American professor Robert Prince examined that nation's role in American plans for armed hostilities against Iran.
In addition to "countering Chinese access to Middle East and African oil and gas moves, in the long run Yemen offers the United States strategic access to the Horn of Africa – Somalia, Sudan, Kenya – all of which are in varying degrees of turmoil and opens the door for expanding the roles of either AFRICOM or NATO – not only in the Middle East, but in Africa.
"There is another possible strategic consequence to US bases in Yemen, hypothetical but not out of the range of possibility: a US air base in Yemen could be used as a launching pad for an air attack on Iran, not only for US planes but for the Israelis as well." [40] On February 15 the earlier-cited Vladimir Nazarov, deputy secretary of Russia's Security Council, warned that "Any military action against Iran will explode the situation, will have extremely negative consequences for the entire world, including for Russia, which is a neighbor of Iran." [41]
On the 17th Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces General Nikolai Makarov was quoted by his nation's Interfax news agency as stating, "The U.S. is currently conducting two military operations - in Afghanistan and in Iraq. A third one would be a disaster for them. So, as they're tackling their tasks in Iraq and Afghanistan, they could deliver a strike against Iran." [42] Washington and its NATO allies launched two of the three major wars in the world over the past eleven years in March - against Yugoslavia in 1999 and against Iraq in 2003. The war drums are being pounded anew and the world may be headed for a catastrophe far worse than those in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.