Chess

When it comes to diplomacy, Russia is playing chess, Syria is playing checkers and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is playing tiddlywinks. On Monday, Kerry said that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could avoid having his country bombed into oblivion by turning over “every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week.” Of course Kerry just assumed that Assad would never do such a thing, but the Russians immediately pounced on his statement. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov quickly announced that Russia would encourage Syria to turn over their chemical weapons to international control in exchange for a guarantee that the U.S. will not attack, and subsequently Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem stated that his government was prepared for “full cooperation with Russia to remove any pretext for aggression.” Later on Monday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon indicated that he is thinking about asking the UN Security Council to support such a deal.

Do you know what they call such a move in chess?

Checkmate.

We were originally told that the primary goal of a U.S. military strike on Syria would be to prevent them from using chemical weapons in the future, and then John Kerry said that Assad could avoid a conflict by giving up all of his chemical weapons.

Well, the Russians and the Syrians have called the bluff.

So does this mean that we will have peace?

Unfortunately, the Obama administration does not seem to want that. The State Department has already come out and announced that what John Kerry said was a mistake. They insist that it was a “rhetorical argument” instead of an actual peace proposal.

But why wouldn’t the Obama administration grab such a deal? The American public does not want this war and neither does Congress at this point, so this could be a way out for Obama.

Wouldn’t getting Assad to give up all of his chemical weapons be a major coup?

And it certainly sounds like Syria wants peace…

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem told reporters in Moscow that his nation “welcomes” a proposal by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during talks on Monday: put Syria’s chemical weapons under international control to avert a U.S. military response over an alleged poison gas attack last month.

“I declare that the Syrian Arab Republic welcomes Russia’s initiative, on the basis that the Syrian leadership cares about the lives of our citizens and the security in our country,” Moallem said. “We are also confident in the wisdom of the Russian government, which is trying to prevent an American aggression against our people.”

We already know that a military strike would not get rid of Assad’s chemical weapons.

So wouldn’t a diplomatic solution that got rid of those weapons be far more preferable?

You would think that would be the case, but the sad truth of the matter is that this was never about Syria’s chemical weapons. This conflict is about money, religion, a natural gas pipeline, and looking out for the interests of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. The Obama administration is not going to be able to achieve what they really want in Syria without military conflict.

And Obama seems to have developed a real appetite for military action. In fact, Business Insider has pointed out that the attack on Syria will be the eighth military conflict during Obama’s presidency…

In 2011, America was more or less kicked out of Iraq. By then, Obama had surged troops in Afghanistan and increased cross-border strikes in Pakistan.

He took what was a one-off cruise missile strike in Somalia in early 2008, and expanded it into a concerted military operation against Boko Haram. That’s four.

He also cut a deal with Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour al-Hadi to conduct counter-terrorism operations and a bombing campaign in Yemen. That’s five.

He initiated a bombing and air campaign in Libya that ended in a boots-on-the-ground situation that was likely much bigger than anyone without a clearance knows. That’s six.

He then aided in French direct operations in Mali by providing surveillance drones and transport. That’s seven.

Now he’s pitching the idea of a cruise missile attack and possibly even a aerial bombing campaign in Syria, one that could conceivably lead to further escalation.

That’s eight.

But of course the Obama administration is promising that the assault on Syria will be very “limited”. On Monday, John Kerry even went so far as to claim that the attack would be “unbelievably small“.

So precisely how does the launching of hundreds of cruise missiles constitute an “unbelievably small” strike?

I think that John Kerry will end up deeply, deeply regretting that statement. He is an incompetent bumbler that is making the United States look like a total fool. Instead of being our top diplomat, he should be mopping the floors in a Dairy Queen somewhere.

When the U.S. attacks Syria, there is a very good chance that we could be starting World War III.

You see, it won’t just be a matter of Syria retaliating against the United States. Assad put it this way during an interview with Charlie Rose…

“You should expect everything. Not necessarily from the government”

So what does Assad mean by that? Debka gives us a clue…

The Syrian and Hizballah armies Sunday, Sept. 8, finished supplying rockets to dozens of Palestinian groups, some invented ad hoc, and deploying them on the Syrian and Lebanese borders facing Israel, debkafile’s military sources disclose. An array of Katyushas, Grads and Fajr-5s, with ranges of up to 70 kilometers, is now in place. This development prompted the first deployment in the Jerusalem region Sunday night of an Israeli anti-missile Iron Dome battery.

The information reaching Israeli intelligence is that the newly-armed Palestinian groups fully intend targeting the Israeli capital, following the example of Hamas, which aimed missiles from the Gaza Strip at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in November 2012.
In his interview to PBS’s Charlie Rose Show airing Monday, Bashar Assad spoke of “people aligned to Syria” carrying out “some kind of retaliation” for an American attack.

It now turns out that he intends using pro-Syrian and amorphous Palestinian groups as his instruments of retaliation, while at the same time disavowing responsibility for their actions.

In the south, likeminded Hamas and Jihad Islami groups in the Gaza Strip may try and join the rocket offensive against Israel. It will be hard for them to stand aside and watch, although Egypt’s counterterrorism offensive in Sinai is cutting into their resources.

In addition to what the Palestinians have, the Syrians have approximately 100,000 rockets that they can fire at Israel and Hezbollah has approximately 70,000 rockets that they can fire at Israel.

If thousands of rockets start falling in Israeli cities, and if especially if any of those rockets have unconventional warheads, Israel will respond with absolutely overwhelming force and the number one target will be the city of Damascus.

Then we will have World War III, and the rest of the world will blame the United States and Israel.

Anyone that claims that this upcoming conflict will be good for the U.S. or for Israel is not being very smart.

There is so little that could be gained from a war with Syria and so much that could be lost.

And at this point, the American people are overwhelmingly against attacking Syria.

A brand new CNN poll has found that the American people are opposed to a military strike by a 71 percent to 27 percent margin if Congress does not approve it.

And if the vote was taken right this moment, it would almost certainly fail in the U.S. House of Representatives. If you doubt this, just check out the chart in this BBC article.

And a different survey has found that the American people are against military action in Syria by a 63 percent to 28 percent margin…

Opposition to U.S. airstrikes against Syria is surging, a USA TODAY/Pew Research Center Poll finds, despite a White House campaign to convince Americans it is the right course ahead.

By more than 2-1, 63%-28%, those surveyed Wednesday through Sunday say they are against U.S. military action against the Syrian regime for its reported use of chemical weapons against civilians. In the past week, support has declined by a percentage point and opposition has swelled by 15 points, compared with a previous Pew Research poll.

Hopefully Obama is listening.

If the American people were told the actual truth, those numbers would probably be even more lopsided. At least that is what U.S. Representative Justin Amash thinks…

If Americans could read classified docs, they’d be even more against #Syria action. Obama admn’s public statements are misleading at best.

So will the American people get to see the “evidence” that the Obama administration has been touting?

Of course not.

In fact, a request by the Associated Press to see the evidence has been denied…

The Associated Press ran a skeptical piece Sunday about the Obama administration’s public case for military intervention in Syria in response to a reported Aug. 21 chemical attack.

The AP’s Zeina Karam and Kimberly Dozier wrote that “the U.S. government insists it has the intelligence to prove it, but the public has yet to see a single piece of concrete evidence produced by U.S. intelligence — no satellite imagery, no transcripts of Syrian military communications — connecting the government of President Bashar Assad to the alleged chemical weapons attack last month that killed hundreds of people.”

The Obama administration has released videos to make its case, but the AP noted that its requests for additional evidence the government claims to possess have been denied

Instead, we are being told to “trust” Barack Obama and John Kerry as they lead us toward World War III.

And Obama seems absolutely obsessed with making this conflict happen. According to Politico, an unprecedented media blitz is planned to drum up support for this war…

Obama will tape interviews Monday afternoon with anchors from ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as with PBS, CNN and Fox News, the White House said.

The interviews will be conducted by ABC’s Diane Sawyer, CBS’s Scott Pelley, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Fox’s Chris Wallace, NBC’s Brian Williams and PBS’s Gwen Ifill.

The interviews will air that night, ahead of Obama’s Tuesday speech on Syria.

So what do you think?

Should we attack Syria and potentially start World War III?

Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below…

Many people hype “the coming economic collapse” as if it is some kind of big summer Hollywood blockbuster. Many people out there write about it as if it is something that will happen in a single day or over a few weeks and that it will suddenly change how the entire world functions. But that is not how the financial world works. The financial world is like a game of chess – very slow and methodical. Yes, there are times when things happen very quickly (like back in 2008), but even that crisis played out over a number of months. Sadly, most Americans are not used to thinking in terms of months or years. These days, most Americans have the attention span of a goldfish and most Americans have been trained to expect instant gratification. They are simply not accustomed to being patient and to wait for things. Well, despite what you may have read, the economic collapse is not going to be a single event. It is going to play out over quite a few years. In some ways we are experiencing an economic collapse right now. When the next major financial crisis occurs, many will be calling that “an economic collapse”. But if you really want to grasp what is happening to us, you need to think long-term. We are heading for a complete and total nightmare, but it is going to take some time to get to the end of the story.

Yes, there will certainly be times of great chaos. The financial crisis of 2008 was one of those moments.

But the financial crisis of 2008 did not completely destroy us.

Neither will the next crisis.

I think it is helpful to think of what is happening to us as a series of waves.

When you build a beautiful sand castle on the beach, the first wave that comes in does not totally destroy it.

Rather, the first wave weakens the castle and it is destroyed by subsequent waves.

Well, that is what is happening to us.

The financial crisis of 2008 was a wave.

The epicenter of the next great financial crisis will be in Europe and that will be another wave.

For many, the next financial crisis will feel like “the end of the world” but it won’t be.

There will be waves after that one that will be even worse.

Yes, the waves are going to start coming more rapidly and will start becoming more intense.

In that way, they will kind of be like birth pains.

But these problems did not build up overnight and they are not going to disappear overnight either.

A lot of people that write about the coming economic collapse seem to suggest that we should just let it happen so that the “recovery” can begin.

Unfortunately, it is not going to be so simple.

It took decades to build up a national debt of almost 16 trillion dollars.

It took decades for American consumers to build up the greatest consumer debt bubble in the history of the world.

It took decades to gut the economic infrastructure of the United States and ship millions of our jobs overseas.

These problems are going to plague us for a very long time.

Sadly, a lot of people out there seem to wish for an economic apocalypse. They seem to think that if the global financial system crashes that the government is going to disappear and we are going to start fighting with each other using sharp pointed sticks.

Well, it simply is not going to happen.

The U.S. government is not going to help you survive when things hit the fan, but it is not going to disappear either.

In fact, the federal government will probably try to grab more power than ever in an attempt to “restore order”.

The governments of Europe are not going to disappear either. In fact, in the long run Europe is probably going to end up more “federalized” than ever even if the euro breaks up in the short run.

A lot of people out there seem to think that when the old system collapses that it will give them an opportunity to help put in a new system.

Sorry, but that is not going to happen either.

The powers that be are going to have their own ideas about what needs to happen.

They never like to let a good crisis go to waste, and they will certainly try to use every crisis to shape the world even more in their own image.

The coming economic collapse is going to play out over a number of years and it is going to be absolutely horrible.

Billions of people will deeply suffer because of it.

It will be unlike anything any of us have ever seen.

Personally, I believe that it will eventually be much worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The United States is going to get hit particularly hard. The United States is going to lose its position as the leading economic power on the globe and the U.S. dollar is going to lose its position as the default reserve currency of the world.

If you thought that the unemployment crisis during the last recession was bad, just wait until you see what is coming.

We are heading for a complete and total unemployment nightmare in the United States. Unemployment is eventually going to soar well up into the double digits.

The U.S. government will try a wide variety of measures to try to “fix” things, and some will likely have some limited success.

But the debt-fueled prosperity that we are all enjoying now is going to come to an end.

Many communities all over America will degenerate into rotting cesspools.

There are going to be riots in our major cities, crime and looting will be absolutely rampant and it will seem like society is coming apart at the seams.

The U.S. government will likely respond by becoming more authoritarian than ever, and that will truly be frightening.

But all of this is going to play out over time.

Right now, things are not as good as they were five years ago.

A couple of years from now, things will be even worse. Many of us will look back and wish that we could return to the “good old days” of 2011 and 2012.

We are on a decline that is not going to stop. There will be little false bubbles of hope like we are in now, but they won’t last long.

But just because the economy is falling apart does not mean that your life is over. Many that are busy preparing right now will be greatly blessed even in the middle of all the chaos.

And it is when things are the darkest that the greatest lights are needed.

Make the decision right now to be a light during the times ahead.

You can choose to let the times that are coming destroy you, or you can choose to make them the greatest adventure of your life.

The choice is up to you.

Deal Or No Deal: John Kerry’s Historic Diplomatic “Mistake” Proves That Obama Does Not Want Peace

The Economic Collapse Is Not A Single Event