Syrian plane had illegal cargo, says Turkey's Davutoglu

Turkey ups the ante.  Again.  BBC News.  Excerpts:

Turkey has said a Syria-bound passenger plane which it forced to land in Ankara was carrying "illegal cargo".


The Syrian Air plane was intercepted by Turkey and searched over suspicions it was carrying military equipment.

But officials in Russia and Syria strongly denied the allegations and accused the Turkish authorities of endangering passengers and crew.

Tension between Turkey and Syria has been high since five Turkish civilians were killed last week by mortar bombs.

In response, Turkey fired into Syria for the first time since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began last year.

'Air piracy'

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said "objectionable" cargo had been confiscated from the plane.

"There is illegal cargo on the plane that should have been reported," he told the Anatolia news agency.

He did not specify whether any weapons had been found, but unconfirmed reports in Turkish media said the seized items included boxes of military communication equipment.


The foreign minister said Turkey, which imposed an arms embargo on Syria last year, would continue to investigate Syrian passenger planes flying over its air space.

Both Syria and Russia reacted angrily to the plane's enforced diversion.

Syrian Transport Minister Mahmoud Saeed accused Turkey of carrying out "air piracy" and breaking civil aviation agreements, according to Lebanon's al-Manar TV.

Gaida Abdul Latif, boss of Syrian Air, accused Turkey of endangering her passengers and crew.

"Turkish military aircraft forced the plane to land without giving prior warning to the pilot. The military aircraft were so close that there could have been an accident," she said.

'Spare parts'

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Turkish officials had failed to inform the embassy that 17 Russian citizens were on board the plane.

"We are concerned that, in this emergency situation, the lives and safety of the passengers, including 17 Russian nationals, were put at risk," he said.
Russia's state arms supplier Rosoboronexport said in a statement it had no information about the plane's cargo, and denied it had any connection with the flight or anything on board.

Earlier, Mr Davutoglu had said Ankara was determined to stop any transfer of weapons to Syria through its airspace.

He said Ankara had received information that the Damascus-bound plane could be carrying "non-civilian cargo".

The Airbus A320 airliner had about 30 passengers on board, far fewer than its 180 passenger capacity.

The aircraft was escorted by two Turkish fighters to the capital's Esenboga airport for security checks.

Turkey and Syria on the brink of all-out war

Tick..  Tick..  Tick..  The Telegraph, via The Extinction Protocol:

October 11, 2012 – TURKEY - If anyone believed that Syria’s bloodshed would stay inside the country’s borders, the events of the last week should have put them right. I’m in southern Turkey, near the frontier with Syria, and this area feels like the new front line of the battle against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Convoys of Turkish army vehicles ply the roads down to the border and, quietly, civilians are trickling away to safer areas. The reason is simple: cross-border artillery and mortar bombardments have become daily events. Last Friday, I went to the scene of the bloodiest incident so far, when a Syrian mortar bomb landed outside a family home in the Turkish town of Akçakale. By malign chance, a mother, her six daughters and a female relative happened to be outside, making dinner under an olive tree, when the weapon exploded beside them. They were, quite simply, cut to pieces. When I arrived, a severed human finger, covered in flies, was still lying on the ground. Three of the girls survived with critical injuries; the mother, three daughters and the visiting relative were all killed. Since then, hardly a day has passed without the Syrian army firing shells or bombs into Turkey, or vice versa. If another family dies in similar circumstances, the Turkish government will come under immense popular pressure to respond with full force. If the Akçakale killings were to be repeated, I would not be surprised if Turkey retaliated with a strike by troops as well as artillery, possibly accompanied with air power. The country’s parliament has authorised the government to do exactly that if necessary. In other words, Turkey and Syria are close to war. The two countries have been waging a covert, undeclared war since the onset of the uprising against Assad, with Turkey supplying the Syrian rebels and Damascus hitting back by fuelling the Kurdish insurgency inside its neighbor. But we could be close to the moment when this shadow war becomes a formal, cross-border conflict. The lesson is clear: a civil war in volatile region is like a brushfire. Leave it alone, and it will spread. –Telegraph


While the media has chosen to ignore this story, the bad blood between Turkey and Syria continues to grow.  Any bets on which country will stick their ass into the action next?

China/Japan FutureWar: Now Taiwan Wants In!

Now Taiwan Is Also Claiming The Senkaku Islands: 70 Fishing Boats Set Sail To Stake Claim.  The only sane motivation I can think of here is that this is a defensive move.  Taiwan wants to be able to take a shot at whoever might take a shot at them, or they don't want to be "innocent bystanders" if the dispute goes down twisted.

Imagine any John Woo climactic gunfight between three entities, all holding two guns, each pointing at everyone else.  The huge difference?  No one has fired even a single shot: Not yet.  So, what we got here is, for the moment, a peaceful but tense Taiwanian Standoff..  Zero Hedge:

If you thought it was complicated when "only" China and Japan were disputing the recent escalation in property rights over who owns those three particular rock in the East China Sea, to be henceforth called the Senkaku Islands for simplicity's sake because things are about to get far more confusing, here comes Taiwan, aka the Republic of China, not to be confused with the People's Republic of China for the simple reason that the latter officially asserts itself to be the sole legal representation of China and actively claims Taiwan to be under its sovereignty, denying the status and existence of ROC as a sovereign state (yet one which benefits from US backing), to also stake its claim over the disputed Senkaku Islands. (Epic run-on sentence, yeah?) It has done so in a very confusing manner: by replicating what it thinks China did some days ago when an "armada" of 1000 fishing boats set sail in an unknown direction and which the trigger happy media immediately assumed was in direction Senkaku. It subsequently turned out that this was not the case and as we reported, "China's fishing season stops every year in June-September in the East China Sea, where the islands are located. This year, the ban was lifted on Sunday." In short the (PR)China fishing boat amrada was not headed toward the Senkakus. Taiwan however did not get the memo, and as NKH reports, "several dozen Taiwanese fishing boats have set sail for the disputed Senkaku islands in the East China Sea, to claim access to their fishing grounds."


So to summarize: a country which (PR)China claims does not exist and is under its own sovereign control, has replicated what it thought was (PR)China's strategic move to reclaim the Senkaku Islands (which was nothing of the sort), and is sending its own fishing boat armada to reclaim islands whose ownership has sent Japan and (PR)China on the verge of more than mere diplomatic warfare. The only thing that could make this any more confusing is if someone discovered title deeds ceding ownership of the Senkakus to Japan, the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China at the same time, and signed by Linda Green. 

If this scenario wasn't such an expressway to World War 3(or 4), it'd be hilarious.   Based on the action so far, they all want to be perceived as wanting to fight much more than they really do.  I'm hoping a "diplomatic solution" is in the near-term future.  But, as with anything else during this Grand Irrationality, shit can spiral out of control really fast. It just takes one mistake, and everything changes..

How To Deal With The General Weirdness of The Grand Irrationality

Tens of thousands of Israeli troops in surprise Golan drill. Khamenei: No bending to the West

Sweet.  Armageddon Days are here again!  Debka:

Reservists drafted at no notice, Air Force, Central Command and other IDF units were flown to Israel’s northern Golan border early Wednesday, Sept. 19, for a surprise exercise called by Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz under the codename “National Asset.”


The official IDF announcement tried to downplay its importance, describing it as a “planned, routine event.” However, debkafile’s military sources say the war game is the biggest the IDF has conducted in the eight years since the second Lebanon war on Hizballah in 2006, with tens of thousands of soldiers and senior officers, including the artillery and the air force taking part.

Over the last weekend, witnesses reported heavy traffic of convoys of tank and APC carriers and military vehicles with emergency store markings heading north, just days after the IDF completed a large-scale war game on Israel’s Syrian and Lebanese borders simulating a Hizballah attack.

Since early September, therefore, the Israeli Defense Forces have been in the midst of preparations which have the appearance of readiness for a real war rather than an exercise. Those preparations peaked Wednesday under a codename which signified its goal: the defense of national assets.

Another sign of an impending conflict was provided by US diplomats who Monday began destroying classified documents and sensitive equipment at the Beirut embassy. As Islamist anti-US violence raged across Arab and Muslim countries, the State Department said this was a precautionary measure, without naming any specific threat. The trashing of embassy documents usually signifies preparations to evacuate an US embassy at short notice. It would be imperative in a war situation to keep them out of Hizballah hands.

The official IDF announcement described the exercise as focusing on fire power under the command of chief Artillery Commander, Brig. Gen. Ro’i Riftin and due to end Wednesday night. The rapid deployment of military strength on this scale for a live-fire drill is required practice for an army facing the onset of war aggression.

In the Persian Gulf, the US is leading 25 West European and Arab nations in a gigantic 12-day war game in the Straits of Hormuz which began Sunday, Sept 16. It includes a large-scale minesweeping drill to simulate the breaching of the Strait of Hormuz against Iranian efforts to block oil passage through the strategic waterway. The exercise - entirely by simulated measures - will also drill operations for destroying Iranian naval, air and missile bases in the Persian Gulf area and countering Iranian speedboats aiming to sabotage naval vessels and oil tankers.

Among the participants are the UK, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The United States has deployed three aircraft carriers with aerial strike forces. Military sources estimate that when the war game ends on Sept 27, these forces will not disperse but stay on hand in the event of Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear program.

As the exhibition of colossal Western might got underway opposite Iranian shores, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted on his official website as saying: Iran will never bend to Western pressure The Islamic Republic, he told a military audience, "makes its decisions solely based on the interests of its people and the country, even if all of the world's powers get angry at its decisions."

It "does not accept the demands of any superpower," he added.
The Ayatollah also accused "Western and Zionist media" of fabricating reports on the biting effects of economic sanctions, hinting that the Iranian economy was not suffering.

Here's some music to listen to while you eat your stockpile of canned goods.  Ladies and Gentlemen, The The:

Armada of British naval power massing in the Gulf as Israel prepares an Iran strike

It's never a good sign to see the phrase "Western leaders are convinced.." in an article about the Middle East.  I'm still going with "bluff" on this one, but everybody's trigger fingers are getting itchier..  The Telegraph, via The Extinction Protocol:

September 16, 2012 – MIDDLE EAST - An armada of U.S. and British naval power is massing in the Persian Gulf in the belief that Israel is considering a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s covert nuclear weapons program. Battleships, aircraft carriers, minesweepers and submarines from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war. Western leaders are convinced that Iran will retaliate to any attack by attempting to mine or blockade the shipping lane through which passes around 18 million barrels of oil every day, approximately 35 per cent of the world’s petroleum traded by sea.  A blockade would have a catastrophic effect on the fragile economies of Britain, Europe the United States and Japan, all of which rely heavily on oil and gas supplies from the Gulf. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most congested international waterways. It is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point and is bordered by the Iranian coast to the north and the United Arab Emirates to the south. In preparation for any pre-emptive or retaliatory action by Iran, warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, will today begin an annual 12-day exercise. The war games are the largest ever undertaken in the region. They will practice tactics in how to breach an Iranian blockade of the strait and the force will also undertake counter-mining drills. The multi-national naval force in the Gulf includes three US Nimitz class carrier groups, each of which has more aircraft than the entire complement of the Iranian air force. The carriers are supported by at least 12 battleships, including ballistic missile cruisers, frigates, destroyers and assault ships carrying thousand of US Marines and Special Forces. The British component consists of four British minesweepers and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Cardigan Bay, a logistics vessel. HMS Diamond, a brand-new £1billion Type 45 destroyer, one of the most powerful ships in the British fleet, will also be operating in the region. In addition, commanders will also simulate destroying Iranian combat jets, ships and coastal missile batteries. In the event of war, the main threat to the multi-national force will come from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps navy, which is expected to adopt an “access-denial” strategy in the wake of an attack, by directly targeting US warships, attacking merchant shipping and mining vital maritime chokepoints in the Persian Gulf. Defense sources say that although Iran’s capability may not be technologically sophisticated, it could deliver a series of lethal blows against British and US ships using mini-subs, fast attack boats, mines and shore-based anti-ship missile batteries. Next month, Iran will stage massive military maneuvers of its own, to show that it is prepared to defend its nuclear installations against the threat of aerial bombardment. The exercise is being showcased as the biggest air defense war game in the Islamic Republic’s history, and will be its most visible response yet to the prospect of an Israeli military strike. Using surface-to-air missiles, unmanned drones and state-of-the-art radar, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and air force will combine to test the defenses of 3,600 sensitive locations throughout the country, including oil refineries and uranium enrichment facilities.


Stay tuned for Fall, 2012!   Chock full of intrigue, surprises, and maybe just maybe, a whole lot of Apocalyptic bloodshed!  Coming to a TeeVee near you!
Can the Mothership just come already?

Guest Post: When the Weakest Critical Part Fails, the Machine Breaks Down

Zero Hedge.  Excerpts:

Consumer spending is the bedrock of the global economy, and consumer spending depends on expanding debt and leverage. Once that subsystem fails, consumerism and the global economy grind to a halt.


The failure of any critical subsystem in an organism triggers a catastrophic, fatal decline. It doesn't matter if the rest of the critical subsystems are functioning at optimum levels; the failure of even one essential "part" leads to death.

The metaphor is easily extended to machines, where a perfectly sound engine will fail once the oil pump ceases functioning.

The cliche is that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The conventional wisdom is that the U.S. economy is so large and diverse that the failure of any one part will have only limited consequences on the economy as a whole.

But this belief was undermined by the financial crisis of 2008, in which the apparently "limited" implosion of subprime mortgage debt dominoed into a full-blown global financial crisis.
..
When financialization fails, the consumerist economy dies. This is what is happening in Greece, and is starting to happen in Spain and Italy.


The central banks and Central States are attempting resuscitation by issuing credit that is freed from the constraints of collateral. The basic idea here is that if credit based on collateral has failed, then let's replace it with credit backed by phantom assets, i.e. illusory collateral.

In essence, the financialization system has shifted to the realm of fantasy, where we (taxpayers, people who took out student loans, homeowners continuing to make payments on underwater mortgages, etc.) are paying very real interest on illusory debt backed by nothing.

Once this flimsy con unravels, the credibility of all institutions that participated in the con will be irrevocably destroyed. This includes the European Central Bank (ECB), the Federal Reserve, the E.U., "too big to fail" banks, and so on down the financialization line of dominoes.

Once credit ceases to expand, asset bubbles pop and consumerism grinds to a halt. And since ever-expanding consumption is the bedrock of the global economy, the global economy will also grind to a halt.

The "flimsy con" is almost fully exposed, and the entire process continues to accelerate.

Crude Oil Spikes on News That Saudi Arabia Tells Citizens to Leave Lebannon Immediately

Crude oil prices need an excuse to spike anymore?  Reuters, via EX-SKF:

Here's the short snippet from Reuters (8/15/2012):


Saudi Arabia tells citizens to leave Lebanon immediately - SPA

(Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has ordered its citizens to leave Lebanon "immediately", the state news agency reported in an SMS alert on Wednesday.

"The Saudi Arabian embassy in Lebanon calls all Saudi citizens to leave Lebanon immediately," the alert said, without elaborating.

And here's the chart:

Last week, it was the oil refinery fire(Has the oil industry built any new refineries lately?  Lately being the last 20 plus years..  Answer:  No). This week, it's the imminent(Since the last eight years or so) Israeli attack on Iran.  What's next week's excuse going to be?  Oh yeah;  I wonder how much Saudi Arabia profited from this bit of "news?"

It Was Only A Matter Of Time..

Gauss: Stuxnet-Linked Cyber Weapon Hits Lebanon.  ABC News, via Yahoo:

A new cyber weapon believed to be linked by code to the infamous Stuxnet worm has been discovered stealing banking information in Lebanon, according to Moscow-based cyber security firm Kaspersky Labs.


The new malware, dubbed Gauss for an in-code reference to a German mathematician, is designed to "steal and monitor data from clients of several Lebanese banks," among other nefarious abilities. The code also includes some kind of "special warhead" that is so well encrypted that Kaspersky has been unable to identify it.

Of the more than 2,500 instances of Gauss infections in the Middle East, more than 1,600 of them were discovered in Lebanon and nearly 500 in Israel, Kaspersky said in a blog post.

Kaspersky researchers said they discovered Gauss while investigating Flame, a massive espionage program revealed in May that was able to record nearly everything done on an infected computer, including real-world conversations that took place near it.

Kaspersky researchers had previously linked specific portions of code in Flame to Stuxnet, believed to be the first-ever true cyberweapon to do actual physical damage to its target, an Iranian nuclear facility, and Duqu, a surveillance worm based on Stuxnet. Now the Russian researchers said they believe Gauss to be related to those three as well.

"After looking at Stuxnet, Duqu and Flame, we can say with a high degree of certainty that Gauss comes from the same 'factory' or 'factories,'" the blog post said.

Kaspersky and several other cyber security firms said that Stuxnet and its kin are so sophisticated and required such a commitment of time and expertise that a nation-state was most likely behind their creations. A 2010 Congressional report on Stuxnet put the U.S. and Israel at the top of a short list of probable suspects and the New York Times reported Stuxnet was developed by the two countries as part of a wave of cyber aimed at Iran.

Peter Boogaard, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said the agency is "coordinating with our federal and private sector partners to analyze" Gauss and is "working with organizations that could potentially be affected."

Kaspersky said that while a vast majority of the infections they've detected were centered in Lebanon, there were a few instances of Gauss detected on computer systems in the U.S. and the total number of infections is still unknown.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could apply this type of focused brain power to help humanity, as opposed to vanquishing it?  The Law of Unintended Consequences should be surfacing shortly..

Italian PM warns of the break-up of the Eurozone and the European Union

The rumblings from officialdom begin, or continue..  The Guardian, via The Extinction Protocol:

August 6, 2012 – ROME - The big news this morning is coming from an interview Italy’s Mario Monti gave to German magazine Der Spiegel, in which he warned that growing Italian resentment against Germany risks the break-up of not just the eurozone but the European Union itself. He said the eurozone tensions “bear the traits of a psychological dissolution of Europe,” adding that Europe “must work hard to contain it.” Asked about a strengthening in resentment between the allegedly profligate southern European nations and the bloc’s thrifty northern members, Monti told Der Spiegel “it is very alarming, and we have to fight against it. Yes, there is a front line in this area between north and south, there are reciprocal prejudices,” according to AP’s report of the interview. In the meantime, tensions between Germany and Italy appear to be on the rise. The news comes after an Italian newspaper splashed its front page on a photo of Angela Merkel with her arm raised and the headline “Quarto Reich.”(Ouch!)  Meanwhile, in an op-ed in Germany’s Bild Romano Prodi, a former Italian prime minister and president of the EU Commission, urged Germany to show “true leadership” in steering the continent through the crisis, saying the bloc’s biggest economy has the duty “to lead Europe toward a better future.” If Germany fails to lead through the crisis, it “would be the political end, for Europe and for Germany,” he insisted, urging Berlin to present a “clear action plan to achieve a democratic, federally structured Europe.” It is important to note that il Giornale (Where the headline 4th Reich appeared)is owned by Berlusconi. –Guardian (Full article at this link)

International, Geo-Political Oh SNAP!

Syria Arrests Turkish Army General in Aleppo.  Maybe he's on "foodie" vacation.  There's better hummus in Syria, donchaknow..  Fars News Agency:


TEHRAN (FNA)- The Syrian Army announced that it has recently apprehended a Turkish general who commanded the terrorists trying to seize control of Aleppo.



According to an informed source in Syria, the Turkish general was arrested during the Syrian Army's clashes with the terrorists in Aleppo.


News reports said that the Turkish general has been taken to Damascus for further interrogations.


Earlier, Turkish media also reported that Syria has detained 40 Turkish military officers in different parts of the country, and said that efforts to release them have failed.


Turkey along with the US, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been supporting terrorists and rebel groups in Syria and have practically brought a UN peace initiative into failure to bring President Assad's government into collapse.


Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.


Hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed, when some protest rallies turned into armed clashes.


The government blames outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad.


In October 2011, calm was eventually restored in the Arab state after President Assad started a reform initiative in the country, but Israel, the US and its Arab allies are seeking hard to bring the country into chaos through any possible means. Tel Aviv, Washington and some Arab capitals have been staging various plots in the hope of increasing unrests in Syria.

Turkey is rapidly becoming Gladys Kravitz or Iago of the middle east.  There's probably going to be some blowback for this set of shenanigans.  Coupled with the insurgents targeting Christians, might the West be backing the wrong horse?

Seeds of World War 3: Hezbollah and Iran say they will fight with Assad to defend Syria against any invasion

Another day, another escalation.  The Extinction Protocol.  Excerpts:

Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah and Iran will fight alongside the Syrian regime if it is attacked by foreign forces, a pro-Damascus Palestinian fighter leader said on Tuesday. In the event of “a foreign attack, we discussed with our brothers (in the Syrian regime), with (Hezbollah chief) Hassan Nasrallah and our brothers in Iran, we will be part of this battle,” said Ahmad Jibril of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. In an interview with Beirut-based Mayadeen television, Jibril said that if a “Turkish-European alliance or NATO escalate… we will take to the streets and fight on behalf of all those with honour and our Syrian brothers.” Jibril also cited Nasrallah as saying Hezbollah would fight on behalf of the Syrian regime, and described the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah alliance as “one axis” that the PFLP-GC is part of. He added that he met recently with Nasrallah, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, without specifying when. He also noted that the Hezbollah chief “said he would join this battle, in the event of a foreign attack” on Syria. The Iranian regime, he said, told him it would not allow a strike on Syria. “We have warned the Turks several times not to play with fire,” Jibril said. Echoing the Syrian regime’s discourse, the PFLP-GC chief said the 16-month uprising against Assad was not a genuine local movement, but rather “a change in the foundations of this region in order to create a new Middle East,” referring to a term coined in 2006 by former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Jibril described the defence of the Syrian regime as “a decisive battle.” Victory would be necessary, he said, in order to “defeat the American and Zionist projects.” –Gulf News



Iran says missiles could destroy US missile bases:  .. Amir Ali Haji Zadeh, commander of the Revolutionary Guards aerospace division, was quoted by Fars news agency as saying. Haji Zadeh said 35 U.S. bases were within reach of Iran’s ballistic missiles, the most advanced of which commanders have said could hit targets 2,000 km (1,300 miles) away. ‘We have thought of measures to set up bases and deploy missiles to destroy all these bases in the early minutes after an attack,” he added. It was not clear where Haji Zadeh got his figures on U.S. bases in the region. U.S. military facilities in the Middle East are located in Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Turkey, and it has around 10 bases further afield in Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan.  Reuters
 
U.S. increases military presence:  The United States has quietly moved significant military reinforcements into the Persian Gulf to deter the Iranian military from any possible attempt to shut the Strait of Hormuz and to increase the number of fighter jets capable of striking deep into Iran if the standoff over its nuclear program escalates. The deployments are part of a long-planned effort to bolster the American military presence in the gulf region, in part to reassure Israel that in dealing with Iran, as one senior administration official put it last week, “When the president says there are other options on the table beyond negotiations, he means it.”  New York Times
 
Turkey recovers pilots’ bodies: Turkey on Wednesday found the bodies of two pilots shot down by Syria last month during a contested flight that pushed the neighbors’ relations to a new low almost a year after Ankara threw its weight behind the opposition to oust President Bashar al-Assad from power. The military General Staff in Ankara said on Wednesday that it was working to remove the bodies of Captain Gokhan Ertan and Lieutenant Hasan Hüseyin Aksoy from the Mediterranean. Turkey didn’t identify the location of the dead pilots or provide any additional details. The armed forces weren’t immediately able to provide comment. Wall Street Journal

Middle East Rumors

Interesting little thread from Lunatic Outpost.  Real time rumors, speculation, propaganda, and some genuine nuggets of information all included here.  Please remember the truth is always not only the first casualty of war, but also of the pre-war run up..  Please exercise discretion when reading!

Israel's Key Energy Provider, Egypt, Cuts Off All Natural Gas Supplies

Twist:  Major.  Zero Hedge.  Excerpts:

Two months ago, we warned that while the world had decided to blissfully move on from last year's topic #1, the MENA revolutions, and specifically the massive power vacuum left in their wake, things in the region were far from fixed. Quite the contrary, and as we added back then "it is very likely that the Mediterranean region, flanked on one side by the broke European countries of Greece, Italy, Spain (and implicitly Portugal), and on the other by the unstable powder keg of post-revolutionary Libya and Egypt, will likely become quite active yet again. Only this time, in addition to social and economic upheavals, a religious flavor may also be added to the mix". Yet nobody cared as after a year of daily videos showing Molotov Cocktails dropping like flies, people had simply gotten habituated and needed some other source of excitement. Nobody cared also when a week ago Art Cashin warned that the hidden geopolitical risk is not Spain but Egypt. Today, Egypt just reminded at least one country why perhaps caution about the instability caused by having a military in charge of the most populous Arabic country and the one boasting "the Canal", should have been heeded after Egypt just announced that it is cutting off its natural gas supplies to Israel, which just so happens relies on Egypt for 40% of its energy needs.

..
Furthermore, if the Egyptian move is indeed an escalation in strategic alliance shifts in the region, it could have truly huge implications:

The Egyptian decision is a potential blow to the country's ties with Israel, already tested by the toppling of Israeli ally President Hosni Mubarak a year ago.



Egypt was the first of two Arab countries to sign a peace treaty with Israel, in 1979, followed by Jordan in 1994.a

This is a big deal.  Coal, Petroleum and Gas make up over 99 percent of Israel's energy consumption.  Close to One Half of One Third of their resources are now gone.  Imagine the impact in your own country, say three weeks in..  Imagine you and yours dealing with a much larger disruption than this one:  What do you think?  What if an energy crisis occurs world-wide?  Humanity Freaks the Geek OUT.  Unless the situation is corrected, there will probably be a lot of repercussions, both intended and not. 

If this supply disruption lasts for any length of time, tensions in the region will increase..  Very, very quickly.

Pentagon chief: 'We're within an inch of war almost every day’

Jeremy Herb for The Hill.  Excerpts:

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta offered a blunt assessment of the threats facing the United States on Wednesday, saying the potential for another war breaking out remains high in places like North Korea.



“We’re within an inch of war almost every day in that part of the world,” Panetta said in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, in response to a question about the threats in the Korean Peninsula. “And we just have to be very careful about what we say and what we do.”


Blitzer then asked Panetta, who joined with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for an interview during the secretaries’ NATO meeting in Brussels, whether the North Korean threat kept him up at night.



“Unfortunately, these days there’s a helluva lot that keeps me awake,” Panetta responded, listing Iran, Syria, the Middle East, cyber warfare and weapons of mass destruction as other insomnia-inducing issues.

It's interesting he didn't mention India/Pakistan.  And wouldn't it have been quicker to say Fukushima?

Speaking Of Global Powderkegs..

Guest Post: Pakistan And India To Go To War Over Water?  Zero Hedge.  Excerpts:

A peaceful and stable Pakistan is integral to western efforts to pacify Afghanistan, but Islamabad’s obsessions with its giant eastern neighbor may render such issues moot.



Since partition in 1947, Pakistan and India have fought four armed conflicts, in 1947, 1965, 1971 (which led to the establishment of Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan) and the 1999 Kargil clash.


With the exception of the 1971 conflict, which involved rising tensions in East Pakistan, the others have all involved issues arising from control of Kashmir.


But now a rising new element of discord threatens to precipitate a new armed clash between southern Asia’s two nuclear powers – water.


Lahore’s “The Nation’ newspaper on Sunday published an editorial entitled, “War with India inevitable: Nizami,” the newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief and Nazaria-i-Pakistan Trust Chairman, Majid Nizami, asked his fellow citizens to prepare for a war with India over water issues. Nizami told those attending the “Pakistan-India relations; Our rulers- new wishes” session at Aiwan-e-Karkunan Tehrik-e-Pakistan, which he chaired, “Indian hostilities and conspiracies against the country will never end until she is taught a lesson.”


While The Nation is a conservative daily, part of the Nawa-i-Waqt publishing group, with a circulation of roughly 20,000, it has a website, and what’s more, close ties to Pakistan’s highest military circles, so Nizami’s comments should hardly be rejected out of hand.
And:
At issue are Pakistan’s concerns over India’s ongoing construction of two hydroelectric dams on the upper reaches of the Indus River. Islamabad is concerned that the 45 megawatt, 190-foot tall Nimoo-Bazgo concrete dam 44 megawatt Chutak hydroelectric power project will reduce the Indus River’s flow towards Pakistan, as they are capable of storing up to 4.23 billion cubic feet of water, violating the terms of the bilateral 1960 Indus Water Treaty. The Indus, which begins in Indian-controlled Kashmir, is crucial to both India and Pakistan, but is currently experiencing water flows down 30 percent from its normal levels. The Indus is Pakistan's primary freshwater source, on which 90 percent of its agriculture depends. According to a number of Pakistani agriculture and water experts, the nation is heading towards a massive water shortage in the next couple of years due to insufficient water management practices and storage capacity, which will be exacerbated by the twin Indian hydroelectric projects, as they will further diminish the Indus’ flow.



So, if push comes to shove, who’s got Pakistan’s back?

China.


During the Boao Forum for Asia, on China’s southern Hainan island on 1 April, Pakistan and China agreed to support each other “in all circumstances” and vowed to uphold their sovereignty and territorial integrity at all costs. Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani told Chinese Executive Vice Premier Li Keqiang, “China’s friend is our friend, and China’s enemy is ours,” adding Pakistan considers China’s security as its own security and supports China’s position on Taiwan, Tibet and Xinqiang. Li replied that China would support Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in every situation, telling Gilani, “No matter what changes take place at international level, we will uphold Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”


It might be noted here that in October 1962, coinciding with the Cuban missile crisis, India and China fought a brief but bitter war along their disputed Himalayan border.


Fifty years later, China and India have yet to resolve their border issues over Kashmir and China continues to claim most of India's Arunachal Pradesh to the base of the Himalayas in the absence of any definitive treaty delineating the border. Kashmir remains the site of the world's largest and most militarized territorial dispute with portions under the de facto administration of China (Aksai Chin), India (Jammu and Kashmir), and Pakistan (Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas).


No guesses therefore as to whom Beijing might back should Pakistani-Indian tensions continue to rise.


Seriously:  Can't anyone fucking get along?  As Rage Against The Machine so eloquently states..  "There'll be no shelter here;  The front line is everywhere.."  So..  Fuck Diplomacy:  Let's Rock.

 

Big Doin's Afoot..

Turkey expels Israeli ambassador, suspends military ties with Israel over flotilla raid  Tick.  Washington Post.  Excerpts:

Turkey says it is expelling the Israeli ambassador and cutting military ties with Israel over the country’s refusal to apologize for last year’s deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla.

And:

Davutoglu also said Turkey was suspending all military agreements signed between the former allies, saying “it is time Israel pays a price.”

This is not a positive turn of events.

New evidence of a massive oil slick near Deepwater Horizon site   Story and video from Raw Story.  Excerpts:

A California nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection and preservation of wildlife has discovered what seems to be a massive oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico near the area of the original Deepwater Horizon spill.

In a flight over the Gulf Tuesday, OnWingsOfCare.org founder and pilot Dr. Bonny Schumaker spotted an oil slick that stretched for nearly 10 miles.

Last week, two Louisiana State University men took a boat into the Gulf and returned with video evidence of large blooms of crude oil swelling up to the water’s surface where the doomed oil rig once hovered.

BP had firmly denied that the well is continuing to leak.

“None of this is true,” they said in a statement.

New Data Supports Previous Fairewinds Analysis, as Contamination Spreads in Japan and Worldwide  The latest video from Arnie Gundersen.  From accompanying article:

Newly released neutron data from three University of California San Diego scientists confirms Fairewinds' April analysis that the nuclear core at Fukushima Daiichi turned on and off after TEPCO claimed its reactors had been shutdown. This periodic nuclear chain reaction (inadvertent criticality) continued to contaminate the surrounding environment and upper atmosphere with large doses of radioactivity.

In a second area of concern, Fairewinds disagrees the NRC's latest report claiming that all Fukushima spent fuel pools had no problems following the earthquake. In a new revelation, the NRC claims that the plutonium found more than 1 mile offsite actually came from inside the nuclear reactors. If such a statement were true, it indicates that the nuclear power plant containments failed and were breached with debris landing far from the power plants themselves.

..

Third, the burning of radioactive materials (building materials, trees, lawn grass, rice straw) by the Japanese government will cause radioactive Cesium to spread even further into areas within Japan that have been previously clean, and across the Pacific Ocean to North America.

Burning contaminated materials.  What could possibly go wrong?  Fukushima:  37 degrees North Latitude.  Southern Missouri:  36 degrees North Latitude.  Being globally down wind from Fukushima is awesome.

The Imminent Failure Of The Eurozone Excerpts from Zero Hedge.

Japan, and the E.U. are declining. That is, about one-sixth of the world's population is losing ground. These big economies are the ones that lead the rest of the world, including China. Countries like China, India, and Brazil, depend on the health of the big economies to keep buying their products and commodities so they can grow and generate wealth for their citizens.

What is especially concerning is the blow-up that is about to happen in Europe. It is not something that is happening "over there." In a world that is so interconnected financially and by trade, a sinking Europe is everyone's concern.

Their problems are much the same as ours with a twist. Their governments and central banks have also pursued reckless monetary and fiscal policies and now, effect is following cause. They have more or less followed the same policies as has the U.S., much to the same end. They spent large, engaged in Keynesian fiscal stimulus in a bailout attempt, ran up huge debts and deficits, and their economies are in decline.

The twist is the European Monetary Union (EMU), known as the eurozone. It is as if here in the U.S. there was no federal government and each state was truly sovereign, but there was a Federal Reserve Bank. Some states spend more than others, funding deficits by borrowing huge sums to support programs their citizens wanted. The profligate states want the Fed to buy their debt and float them loans created out of thin air, or otherwise they will go belly up and they will take down many states' banks. The responsible states know they will be stuck with the bill.

Even Goldman Sachs Secretly Believes That An Economic Collapse Is Coming  Before It's News.  Excerpts:

Goldman Sachs is doing it again. Goldman is telling the public that everything is going to be just fine, but meanwhile they are advising their top clients to bet on a huge financial collapse. On August 16th, a 54 page report authored by Goldman strategist Alan Brazil was distributed to institutional clients. The general public was not intended to see this report. Fortunately, some folks over at the Wall Street Journal got their hands on a copy and they have filled us in on some of the details.

It turns out that Goldman Sachs secretly believes that an economic collapse is coming, and they have some very interesting ideas about how to make money in the turbulent financial environment that we will soon be entering. In the report, Brazil says that the U.S. debt problem cannot be solved with more debt, that the European sovereign debt crisis is going to get even worse and that there are large numbers of financial institutions in Europe that are on the verge of collapse. If this is what people at the highest levels of the financial world are talking about, perhaps we should all start paying attention.

There is a tremendous amount of fear in the global financial community right now. As I wrote about the other day, the financial world is about to hit the panic button. Things could start falling apart at any time. Most of these big banks will not admit how bad things are publicly, but privately there is a whole lot of freaking out going on.

I don't know about anyone else, but all this Big Picture Doom is actually having the opposite effect.  The closer we get to whatever will ultimately happen, the calmer I get.  Strange, but much much emotionally lighter, that's for sure..  Have a great weekend.

IMF hit by 'very major' cyber security attack

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says it has been targeted by a sophisticated cyber attack.

Officials at the fund gave few details but said the attack earlier this year had been "a very major breach" of its systems, the New York Times reports.

Candid.  Must be BIG.

In related news, Anonymous is back, baby..

US intensifying secret campaign of Yemen airstrikes

I think we're going in the wrong direction, here..  From MSNBC..

The Obama administration has intensified the American covert war in Yemen, exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets, according to American officials.



The acceleration of the American campaign in recent weeks comes amid a violent conflict in Yemen that has left the government in Sana, a United States ally, struggling to cling to power. Yemeni troops that had been battling militants linked to Al Qaeda in the south have been pulled back to the capital, and American officials see the strikes as one of the few options to keep the militants from consolidating power.

On Friday, American jets killed Abu Ali al-Harithi, a midlevel Qaeda operative, and several other militant suspects in a strike in southern Yemen. According to witnesses, four civilians were also killed in the airstrike. Weeks earlier, drone aircraft fired missiles aimed at Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric who the United States government has tried to kill for more than a year. Mr. Awlaki survived.