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Looks like John Kerry may be about to get caught in another major lie. 

This is troubling news. Saudi Arabia has been supplying weapons to the Jihadi Syrian "rebels", i.e., al-Nusra/al-Qaeda, who are the most potent fighting anti-Syrian government forces. The particular class of anti-aircraft missiles to be provided are equivalent to the currently-deployed American Stinger B. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-portable_air-defense_systems#Third_generation The missiles will not stay in Syria, of course. As soon as al-Qaeda is ready to use them elsewhere, they will be.  Look for Russia to respond by announcing the addition of shoulder-fired missiles to the anti-aircraft missiles already to aid in containing the squadron of U.S. F16s now stationed on the Jordan\Syria border. 

Not to mentiont that Russia has deployed its S-400 surface to air defense system to Syria, which is 2 generations later than the currently deployed U.S. Patriot systems. The S-400 can knock down aircraft or missiles flying up to 90,000 feet and travels at over 17,000 mph, very near Earth escape velocity. It has a lateral range of nearly 300 miles.

There is debate over the truthfulness of reports that Russia is stepping up its military defense of the Assad government. If this report is true, the only conceivable targets for the missiles are aircraft of the U.S. coalition and their role is likely to be protection of Russia's naval base and deterrence from those aircraft flying air support for anti-assad government forces. 

The Obama Administration's answer to the question of who shot down MH17 seems to be more and more questionable. 

This is a must-read. We are at a perilous moment in history.

The pieces of the puzzle are slowly coming together, and it isn't pretty. This article connects Qatar, Afghanistan and hero of Benghazi, to the fabulous five terrorist dream team Obama let out of the gitmo prison. Incredible story. excerpt: "How Our Stinger Missiles Wound Up In Afghanistan Being Used Against Our Own Troops: On February 15th 2011 a civil war erupted inside Libya.   Egyptian Islamists previously  freed from jail by the Muslim Brotherhood flooded into Eastern Libya and joined with their ideological counterparts.  al-Qaeda operatives hell bent on using the cover of the Arab Spring to finally rid themselves of their nemesis, Muammar Gaddafi. President Obama chose to ignore an outbreak of violence in Libya for 19 days.  Perhaps Obama was tentative from the criticism he and Hillary received over the mixed messaging in Egypt.  Regardless, eventually Obama was begged to engage himself by leaders from France, The United Kingdom, and Italy. The White House advisors (Emanuel, McDonough, Donolin, Jarrett, Axelrod, Plouffe) were more cautious this time.  Initially Obama ignored the EU requests and later chose to dispatch the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to Europe to address their concerns. "Look, enough with the jokes shorty; you got us into this mess, now the turban heads are laughing at us"… "ah, bot of course, zeah av bullets, no? Vee ave to shoot" For the following 11 days American citizens, including State Dept. embassy officials, were trying to evacuate the country as vast swathes of the country erupted in bloodshed and violence, they became trapped in Tripoli.   A bloody national revolution was underway. The United Nations Security Council held urgent immediate emergency meetings to try to determine what to do.    However, the United States Ambassador to those meetings, Susan Rice, was not present.    She was attending a global warming summit in Africa. Without the U.S. present the United  Natio

Israel and the U.S. have been loudly protesting Russian sale of advanced anti-aircraft (ground-to-air) missiles to Syria, labeling them as an "ostacle to peace." Well, maybe, an obstacle to kind of peace the U.S. and Israeli governments want. Such missiles are purely defensive, i.e., have no offensive purpose. They are only an obstacle to invasion of Syria's sovereign airspace by foreign air forces. So yes, a "status quo changer," a Syrian capability to knock all but the stealthiest of U.S. aircraft out of the Syrian sky. No replay of the Lybia "no fly zone" game in Syria.

This typically pompous Wall Street Journal editorial gets part of it right but ignores several elephants in the room. -- No way this goes down without Russia having agreed to it. Russia's only foreign military base is a naval port in Syria. Russia has deployed anti-aircraft missile batteries in Syria. Russia has supplied the Syrian government with state-of-the-art antiaircraft shoulder-held missiles. Several months ago, the Russians moved a fleet of warships into the Mediterranean for the first time, to protect Syria from foreign attack, including at least one submarine equipped with anti-ship missiles.  The U.S. and Russia have been engaged in building up their forces positioned around for over a year, in an escalating fashion. Russia has a huge economic incentive to keep Assad in power because he is blocking the natural gas pipeline that western interests want to run through Syria Russia has also built up its forces within Syria, a pipeline that would break Russia's near-monopoly on supplying natural gas to the European Union. A direct military intervention in Syria doesn't go down without Russia's approval, notwithstanding what their later statements might be. Obama is an accomplished liar but he's politically timid. Touching off World War III is not on his agenda. 2. Iran also has to acquiesce in advance. Syria and Iran have a mutual defense treaty, the first announced in 2005, a later treaty announced in 2008. http://tinyurl.com/oez2dq7 (.) Thousands of crack Iranian Revolutionary Guards troops are already stationed in Syria. As the only other Shia-majority state in the region, Syria is critical to Iran's own defense. Iran has the ability to close the Straits of Hormuz, thereby toppling the western world economy as petroleum supplies suddenly dry up. The U.S. Navy lacks the ability to quickly clear the Straits of mines, as was proved in embarrassingly bad tests the U.S. Navy did last year. Iran is not a world power but its military might is nothing to sneez

Mike Whitney eloquently expresses my anger.

Targeting civilian airliners is a big no-no under international law.

The situation is getting extremely freaky in Syria because of the U.S. attack on Syrian troops and the pro-war rhetoric coming out of the U.S. government.

Merkel is in a poor position to break up Russia-China relations, having blown up the South Stream Pipeline project and playing the U.S. lapdog role on sanctions against Russia, which drove Russia into China's arms. China has been happily switching from Gulf Coast oil supply lines to Russian, given that the U.S. is busily blowing up the Middle East. Moreover, neither Merkel nor the Saudis bring anything to the China de-dollarization play while Russia does.   Follow the link from "This" to see what has Pepe Escobar so freaked out. The U.S. War Party is going nuts with their Cold War 2.0. 

"We found out on September 11 what can happen with hijacked planes." Wrong. Make that, "We found out on September 11 what can happen with controlled demolition." Please notice that no one in U.S. government will confirm that the aircraft were actually taken or ever existed. Just in time for the anniversary of 9/11 and Congress convening to consider new authorizations for use of military force anytime and anywhere he pleases.  Stamp this one as "War Party propaganda until proved otherwise."

Gates' remarks follow similar warnings by several retired U.S. generals that the outcome of war with Syria would be unpredictable. This is a proxy war being waged by the U.S., which is providing "humanitarian" aid to the "rebels," whilst Saudi Arabia and Qatar ostensibly provide their weapons. (Ostensibly, because most of their weapons are being transported by U.S. proxies from Libya and most of the "rebels" are non-Syrian foreign fighters, largely al Queda, infiltrated into Syria via Turkey.) The U.S. has moved anti-aircraft missile teams into areas of Turkey and Jordan that border Syria, a move that was met by Russia moving its own advanced anti-aircraft missile teams into Syria itself and repositioning a sizeable part of the Russian Navy in Syria and ramping up its naval presence in the Mediterranean.   Meanwhile, Lebanon's Hezbollah has pledged unity with Syria's existing government and is adding soldiers to the Syrian Army's forces. Israel has responded with two air assaults on Syria, ostensibly to deny advanced weaponry to Hezbollah. Iran has also pledged military involvement if needed to preserve the existing Syrian government.  In sum, Syria is a very large powder keg with a very short fuse that could easily erupt into a larger war with Russia and Iran too, with the resulting closing of the Straits of Hormuz and thereby plunging the world into economic disaster resulting from severe oil shortages. Nonetheless, Neocons and Zionists in the U.S. are pushing hard for the U.S. to directly wade in militarily.  Civilian casualties in the so-called Syrian "civil war" are estimated to be between 80,000 and 120,000 thus far.   

Reuters explains why Gen. Dempsey's was wrong in his estimate that the military strikes on Syria would cost only "tens of millions of dollars."  His estimate was apparently counting only the costs that would be incurred before the end of the fiscal year on September 30.   If the U.S. used only as many cruise missiles as was used against Libya, the cost would be over $100 million. More are likely because Syria, unlike Libya, has advanced anti-missile and anti-aircraft defenses. Throw in the cost of using aircraft too, and the cost rises to over $1 billion.