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I’ve read variations of this same explanation on other blogs, but I have no way of knowing whether they’re true or not. But what I do know, is that it’s a heckuva a lot more believable than the other explanation mainly because it provides enough background and detail to make the scenario seem plausible. The official version–the “melts away” version– doesn’t do that at all. It just lays out this big bogus story expecting people to believe it on faith alone. Why? Because it appeared in all the papers? That seems like a particularly bad reason for believing anything. And the “army melting away” story is just one of many inconsistencies in the official media version of events.

Security is a slippery idea these days -- especially when it comes to homes and neighborhoods. Perhaps the most controversial development in America’s housing “recovery” is the role played by large private equity firms. In recent years, they have bought up more than 200,000 mostly foreclosed houses nationwide and turned them into rental empires. In the finance and real estate worlds, this development has won praise for helping to raise home values and creating a new financial product known as a “rental-backed security.” Many economists and housing advocates, however, have blasted this new model as a way for Wall Street to capitalize on an economic crisis by essentially pushing families out of their homes, then turning around and renting those houses back to them. Caught in the crosshairs are tens of thousands of families now living in these private equity-owned homes.

The same month that the family rented the house at 1471 West Camino Court, Progress Residential purchased more homes in Maricopa Country than any other institutional buyer. Nationally, Blackstone, a private equity giant, has been the leading purchaser of single-family homes, spending upwards of $8 billion between 2012 and 2014 to purchase 43,000 homes in about a dozen cities. However, in May 2013, according to Michael Orr, director of the Center for Real Estate Theory and Practice at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, Progress Residential bought nearly 200 houses, surpassing Blackstone's buying rate that month in the Phoenix area. The condition and code compliance of these houses varies and is rarely known at the time of the purchase. Mike Anderson, who works for a bidding service contracted by Progress Residential and other private equity giants to buy houses at auctions, was sometimes asked to go out and look at the homes. But with the staggering buying rate -- up to 15 houses a day at the peak -- he couldn’t keep up. “There’d be too many, you couldn’t go out and look at them,” he said. “It’s just a gamble. You never know what you’ve got into.”

Global private equity firms have not been, historically, in the business of dealing with pool fences and the other hassles of maintaining single-family houses. But following the housing market collapse, the idea of buying a ton of these foreclosed properties suddenly made sense, at least to investors. Such private-equity purchases were to make money in three ways: buying cheap and waiting for the houses to gain value as the market bounced back; renting them out and collecting monthly rental payments; and promoting a financial product known as “rental-backed securities,” similar to the infamous mortgage-backed securities that triggered the housing meltdown of 2007-2008. Even though the buying of the private equity firms has finally slowed, economists (including those at the Federal Reserve) have expressed concern about the possibility that someday those rental-backed securities could even destabilize -- translation: crash -- the broader market.

ince Wall Street was overwhelmingly responsible for the original collapse of the housing market, many have characterized these new purchases as a land grab. In many ways, Progress CEO Donald Mullen is the poster-child for this argument. An investment banker who enjoyed a brief flurry of fame after losing a bidding war to Alec Baldwin at an art auction, he was the leader of a team at Goldman Sachs that orchestrated an infamous bet against the housing market. Known as “the big short,” it allowed that company to make “some serious money“ when the economy melted down, according to Mullen’s own emails. (They were released by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 2010.) As Kevin Roose of New York magazine has written, “A guy whose most famous trade was a successful bet on the full-scale implosion of the housing market is now swooping in to pick up the pieces on the other end.”

Of course, the success of Moscow's campaign to switch its trading to rubles or other regional currencies will depend on the willingness of its trading partners to get rid of the dollar. Sources cited by Politonline.ru mentioned two countries who would be willing to support Russia: Iran and China. Given that Vladimir Putin will visit Beijing on May 20, it can be speculated that the gas and oil contracts that are going to be signed between Russia and China will be denominated in rubles and yuan, not dollars. In other words, in one week's time look for not only the announcement of the Russia-China "holy grail" gas agreement described previously here, but its financial terms, which now appears virtually certain will be settled exclusively in RUB and CNY. Not USD. And as we have explained repeatedly in the past, the further the west antagonizes Russia, and the more economic sanctions it lobs at it, the more Russia will be forced away from a USD-denominated trading system and into one which faces China and India. Which is why next week's announcement, as groundbreaking as it most certainly will be, is just the beginning.

The desire by U.S. policymakers for such information could help explain why NSA collected information on foreign leaders such as Merkel. Her cellphone number was listed in a NSA targeting document, which German media outlets apparently obtained from Snowden's cache. U.S. officials have now indicated that much NSA eavesdropping on Merkel and other allied leaders is likely to be curtailed if not halted.

Ynet cited figures from the Israel Hotel Association for the first quarter of this year pointing to a 28 percent drop in tourist stays, with some areas including the Red Sea resort of Eilat – heavily marketed as a seaside destination for Europeans – seeing a 51 percent decline. The report quoted one tour operator saying he didn’t expect matters to improve next year. “We are only left with the pilgrims and Jewish tourists,” the tour operator complained, adding that Christian religious tourists spent most of their time in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.

MEK has carried out decades of brutal terrorist attacks, assassinations, and espionage against the Iranian government and its people, as well as targeting Americans including the attempted kidnapping of US Ambassador Douglas MacArthur II, the attempted assassination of USAF Brigadier General Harold Price, the successful assassination of Lieutenant Colonel Louis Lee Hawkins, the double assassinations of Colonel Paul Shaffer and Lieutenant Colonel Jack Turner, and the successful ambush and killing of American Rockwell International employees William Cottrell, Donald Smith, and Robert Krongard. Admissions to the deaths of the Rockwell International employees can be found within a report written by former US State Department and Department of Defense official Lincoln Bloomfield Jr. on behalf of the lobbying firm Akin Gump in an attempt to dismiss concerns over MEK’s violent past and how it connects to its current campaign of armed terror – a testament to the depths of depravity from which Washington and London lobbyists operate. To this day MEK terrorists have been carrying out attacks inside of Iran killing political opponents, attacking civilian targets, as well as carrying out the US-Israeli program of targeting and assassinating Iranian scientists. MEK terrorists are also suspected of handling patsies in recent false flag operations carried out in India, Georgia, and Thailand, which have been ham-handedly blamed on the Iranian government.

Lieberman would also state (emphasis added): Here’s my point Mr. Chairman, we ought to compartmentalize that agreement also, that nuclear agreement. We ought to put it over there, and not let it stop us from confronting what they’re doing in Syria. Continuing the sanctions for human rights violations in Iran in support of terrorism. And here’s the point I want to make about the National Council of Resistance of Iran and other democratic opposition groups that are Iranian – we ought to be supporting them.  This regime in Tehran is hopeless. It’s not going to change. There’s no evidence … every piece of evidence says the contrary. So I hope we can find a way, we used to do this not so long ago, supporting opposition groups in Iran. They deserve our support, and actually they would constitute a form of pressure on the government in Tehran that would unsettle them as much as anything else we could do because it would threaten the survival of the regime which from every objective indicator I can see is a very unpopular regime in Iran.  The United States, unrepentant regarding the arc of chaos, mass murder, terrorism, civilizational destruction it has created stretching from Libya to Syria, now seeks openly to extend it further into Iran using precisely the same tactics – the use of terrorist proxies – to dismantle and destroy Iranian society.

MEK has already afforded the US the ability to wage a low-intensity conflict with Iran. MEK’s role in doing so was eagerly discussed in 2009, several years before it was even de-listed as a terrorist organization by the US State Department in the Brooking Institution’s policy paper “Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran” (PDF). The report stated (emphasis added): Perhaps the most prominent (and certainly the most controversial) opposition group that has attracted attention as a potential U.S. proxy is the NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran), the political movement established by the MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq). Critics believe the group to be undemocratic and unpopular, and indeed anti-American.

In contrast, the group’s champions contend that the movement’s long-standing opposition to the Iranian regime and record of successful attacks on and intelligence-gathering operations against the regime make it worthy of U.S. support. They also argue that the group is no longer anti-American and question the merit of earlier accusations. Raymond Tanter, one of the group’s supporters in the United States, contends that the MEK and the NCRI are allies for regime change in Tehran and also act as a useful proxy for gathering intelligence. The MEK’s greatest intelligence coup was the provision of intelligence in 2002 that led to the discovery of a secret site in Iran for enriching uranium.   Despite its defenders’ claims, the MEK remains on the U.S. government list of foreign terrorist organizations. In the 1970s, the group killed three U.S. officers and three civilian contractors in Iran. During the 1979-1980 hostage crisis, the group praised the decision to take America hostages and Elaine Sciolino reported that while group leaders publicly condemned the 9/11 attacks, within the group celebrations were widespread. Undeniably, the group has conducted terrorist attacks—often excused by the MEK’s advocates because they are directed against the Iranian government. For example, in 1981, the group bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party, which was then the clerical leadership’s main political organization, killing an estimated 70 senior officials. More recently, the group has claimed credit for over a dozen mortar attacks, assassinations, and other assaults on Iranian civilian and military targets between 1998 and 2001. At the very least, to work more closely with the group (at least in an overt manner), Washington would need to remove it from the list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Proof that Brookings’ policy paper was more than a mere theoretical exercise, in 2012 MEK would indeed be de-listed by the US State Department with support for the terrorist organization expanded. The fact that former senators and retired generals representing well-funded corporate think tanks even just this week are plotting to use MEK to overthrow the Iranian government should raise alarms that other criminality conspired within the pages of this policy paper may still well be in play. Lieberman himself suggests that proxy war and regime-change should proceed regardless of the so-called “nuclear deal” – with the 2009 Brookings report itself having stated that (emphasis added): …any military operation against Iran will likely be very unpopular around the world and require the proper international context—both to ensure the logistical support the operation would require and to minimize the blowback from it. The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support (however, grudging or covert) is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer—one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down. Under those circumstances, the United States (or Israel) could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians “brought it on themselves” by refusing a very good deal.  Clearly, both Brookings in 2009, and Lieberman this week have conspired to use the so-called “Iranian Nuclear Deal” as cover for betrayal and regime change.

For those wondering why Russia has intervened in Syria in the matter that it has, it should be plainly obvious. The US has no intention to stop in Syria. With Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya behind it, and Syria within its clutches, it is clear that Iran is next, and inevitably this global blitzkrieg will not stop until it reaches Moscow and Beijing. Even as the US adamantly denies the obvious – that is has intentionally created and is currently perpetuating Al Qaeda, the so-called “Islamic State,” and other terrorist groups in Syria, it is openly conspiring to use another army of terrorists against neighboring Iran, live before a US Senate hearing. Should the US succeed in Syria, it would not be the end of the conflict, but only the end of the beginning of a much wider world war.

(“Assad allies, including Iranians, prepare ground attack in Syria: sources“, Reuters) A military alliance between Moscow, Tehran and Hezbollah? You’re darn tootin’, and you can thank Barack Obama and his lunatic regime change plan for that development. Many critics of Putin’s action have said that “He doesn’t know what he’s doing” or “He’ll get bogged down” or “It’ll be another Vietnam”. Wrong. The fact is, Putin is more a devotee of the Powell Doctrine than any of the morons at the Pentagon. And he is particularly mindful of Rule Number 5 which states: “Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?” Has Putin thought about that or has he merely blundered ahead impulsively like US leaders are so apt to do?  Here’s what he said on September 30:

“We naturally have no intention of getting deeply entangled in this conflict. We will act strictly in accordance with our set mission. First, we will support the Syrian army only in its lawful fight against terrorist groups. Second, our support will be limited to airstrikes and will not involve ground operations. Third, our support will have a limited timeframe and will continue only while the Syrian army conducts its anti-terrorist offensive.” Bingo. In other words, he’s going to bomb these jokers into oblivion and let Quds brigade and Hezbollah mop up afterwards. There will be no Russian boots-on-the-ground. The Russian airforce will get precise intelligence on ISIS locations from Syrian agents on the battlefield which will minimize civilian casualties and limit damage to critical infrastructure. It will also make mincemeat out of anyone on the receiving end of the bombardment. Does anyone seriously believe that  ISIS and the disparate rabble of “moderate” throat-slitters that receive CIA funding are going to be able to withstand this impending onslaught?

No way. Putin’s going to cut through these guys like a tornado through a trailer park.  Yes, ISIS has had some success against the bedraggled Iraqi and Syrian armies. But now they’re up-against the A Team where they are clearly out of their league.  Rolling up these cutthroats is going to take a lot less time than anyone figured. Russian bombers are already destroying ammo dumps, fuel depots, heavy military hardware, command posts, anything that enhances ISIS’s ability to wage war.  The new anti-terror coalition is going to cut supply lines and hang the jihadis out to dry. And the whole operation is going to be wrapped up before Uncle Sam even get’s his boots laced.  This is from Iran’s Press TV: “A senior member of Russia’s parliament says an ongoing air campaign by Moscow against militants operating in Syria is going to intensify. Alexei Pushkov, who serves as the chairman of the Committee for International Affairs at the Russian State Duma, said Friday that Moscow will be intensifying its attacks against the militants in Syria while studying the risks associated with an extensive operation.

“There is always a risk of being bogged down, but in Moscow, we are talking about an operation of three to four months,” Alexei Pushkov said, Reuters reported. Russia started to launch coordinated airstrikes on the positions of militants in Syria on Wednesday. The move came shortly after members of the Russian upper house of the parliament, the Federation Council, authorized the operations in Syria.” (Press TV) There’s not going to be any pussyfooting around. Putin’s going to go straight for the jugular and then head for the exits.

Do you think they’ve figured this out at the White House yet?  Do you think they understand that Iranian troops and Hezbollah are not going to distinguish between the “moderate” terrorists and the “extreme” terrorists; that they’re simply going to “kill them all and let God sort it out”.  Do you think they realize that Washington’s Middle East policy just collapsed and that the funding of jihadis and dreams of regime change just ended for good?  Do you think they grasp that Washington’s role as guarantor of global security has just been transferred to Vladimir Putin who has put himself and his country at risk to defend the fundamental principles of international law, national sovereignty and self determination? Here’s Putin again:  “We are supporting the government of Syria in the fight against a terrorist aggression. We are offering and will continue to offer it necessary military-technical assistance. We must continue a dialogue for the sake of reaching consensus. But it’s impossible to achieve real success as long as bloodshed continues and people don’t feel secure. We won’t achieve anything until we defeat terrorism in Syria.” Putin is leading a coalition in the fight against terror. We should all be grateful for that.

The entire country is in an impasse. No money will be forthcoming from the IMF until this legislation is adopted. In the meantime, Ukraine remains on the blacklist of its external creditors. Moreover, a controversial draft law on reforming the country’s gas transportation system was rejected (Itar-Tass, July 24, 2014). Both bills were tied into the government’s negotiations with both the EU and the IMF.

President Poroshenko (left) has intimated that the resignation of the cabinet has paved the way for a process of meaningful political restructuring:  “Society wants a full reset of state authorities,” said Mr Poroshenko. What is implied by Poroshenko’s statement is that the parliamentary process is slated to become defunct inasmuch as Rada is obligated to adopt the legislation demanded by the IMF and the European Union. And if the Rada does not adopt the legislation, the composition of the Parliament will be changed through a process of outright political manipulation. The 2014 budget project demanded by the IMF includes massive cuts in social spending coupled with increased allocations to the Armed Forces. Its adoption will contribute (virtually overnight) to a further process of the impoverishment of the Ukraine population.

Yatsenyuk intimated in his resignation speech that the State was bankrupt and that failure to abide by IMF demands would create social chaos: “The fact is that today you failed to vote for the laws, and I have nothing (with which) to pay wages of policemen, doctors, teachers; nothing to buy a rifle with, nothing to fuel an armored personnel carrier with. Today you failed to take a decision to fill the gas storages to allow us to live through the winter, to at last free ourselves from dependence on Russian gas,” (Rada, July 24, 2014)

LANCE BARTHOLOMEUSZ, Acting Director of Legal Affairs, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA), said UNRWA was deeply alarmed and affected by the escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip and the devastating human and physical toll it was taking on civilians, including Palestine refugees.  Far too many lives were being lost and the traumas resulting from the military operations would mark the population for years to come.  Among ordinary Palestinians there was a profound crisis of confidence in the ability of international law and international mechanisms to protect civilians, and to prevent and address violations of international law.  Because of military operations, and because over 40 per cent of Gaza’s territory was affected by Israel evacuation warnings or declarations of “no-go zones”, thousands of people continued to flee to shelters run by UNRWA and by partners.  By yesterday evening, 22 July, approximately 118,000 Palestinians had sought refuge in 77 UNRWA schools.  That was about 6 per cent of the population of Gaza and double the peak in UNRWA shelters during the 2008 to 2009 conflict.

The conflict had not spared UNRWA premises, 77 of which had been damaged by air raids and other fire, which was totally unacceptable.  All parties to the conflict must respect at all times the neutrality and inviolability of UNRWA’s premises.  The situation of the population of Gaza and of Palestine Refugees in Gaza had become completely unsustainable.  Israel’s illegal blockade had deepened poverty levels and Gaza's aquifer would be entirely contaminated in the next three to four years making the Strip essentially unliveable.  Today, these indicators paled in comparison to the intensity of the bombardments, fighting and the immediate fears for security and survival. 

Assume a $1 trillion dividend issued in the form of debit cards that could be used only for goods and services. A back-of-the-envelope estimate is that if $1 trillion were shared by all US adults making under $35,000 annually, they could each get about $600 per month.  If the total dividend were $2 trillion, they could get $1,200 per month. And in either case it could, at least in theory, all come back in taxes to the government without any net increase in the money supply.

In October, a high-ranking Iranian commander also slammed the US for providing aid supplies to ISIL, adding that the US claims that the weapons were mistakenly airdropped to ISIL were untrue. “The US and the so-called anti-ISIL coalition claim that they have launched a campaign against this terrorist and criminal group – while supplying them with weapons, food and medicine in Jalawla region (a town in Diyala Governorate, Iraq). This explicitly displays the falsity of the coalition’s and the US’ claims,” Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri said. The US claimed that it had airdropped weapons and medical aid to Kurdish fighters confronting the ISIL in Kobani, near the Turkish border in Northern Syria. The US Defense Department said that it had airdropped 28 bundles of weapons and supplies, but one of them did not make it into the hands of the Kurdish fighters. Video footage later showed that some of the weapons that the US airdropped were taken by ISIL militants. The Iranian commander insisted that the US had the necessary intelligence about ISIL’s deployment in the region and that their claims to have mistakenly airdropped weapons to them are as unlikely as they are untrue.

He noted that the members of his committee have already proved that the US planes have dropped advanced weaponry, including anti-aircraft weapons, for the ISIL, and that it has set up an investigation committee to probe into the matter. “The US drops weapons for the ISIL on the excuse of not knowing about the whereabouts of the ISIL positions and it is trying to distort the reality with its allegations. He noted that the committee had collected the data and the evidence provided by eyewitnesses, including Iraqi army officers and the popular forces, and said, “These documents are given to the investigation committee … and the necessary measures will be taken to protect the Iraqi airspace.” Also in January, another senior Iraqi legislator reiterated that the US-led coalition is the main cause of ISIL’s survival in Iraq. “The international coalition is only an excuse for protecting the ISIL and helping the terrorist group with equipment and weapons,” Jome Divan, who is member of the al-Sadr bloc in the Iraqi parliament, said. He said the coalition’s support for the ISIL is now evident to everyone, and continued, “The coalition has not targeted ISIL’s main positions in Iraq.”

“We have discovered weapons made in the US, European countries and Israel from the areas liberated from ISIL’s control in Al-Baqdadi region,” the Al-Ahad news website quoted Head of Al-Anbar Provincial Council Khalaf Tarmouz as saying. He noted that the weapons made by the European countries and Israel were discovered from the terrorists in the Eastern parts of the city of Ramadi. Al-Zameli had also disclosed in January that the anti-ISIL coalition’s planes have dropped weapons and foodstuff for the ISIL in Salahuddin, Al-Anbar and Diyala provinces. Al-Zameli underlined that the coalition is the main cause of ISIL’s survival in Iraq. “There are proofs and evidence for the US-led coalition’s military aid to ISIL terrorists through air(dropped cargoes),” he told FNA in January.

In late December, Iraqi Parliamentary Security and Defense Commission MP disclosed that a US plane supplied the ISIL terrorist organization with arms and ammunition in Salahuddin province. MP Majid al-Gharawi stated that the available information pointed out that US planes are supplying ISIL organization, not only in Salahuddin province, but also other provinces, Iraq TradeLink reported. He added that the US and the international coalition are “not serious in fighting against the ISIL organization, because they have the technological power to determine the presence of ISIL gunmen and destroy them in one month”. Gharawi added that “the US is trying to expand the time of the war against the ISIL to get guarantees from the Iraqi government to have its bases in Mosul and Anbar provinces.” Salahuddin security commission also disclosed that “unknown planes threw arms and ammunition to the ISIL gunmen Southeast of Tikrit city”. Also in Late December, a senior Iraqi lawmaker raised doubts about the seriousness of the anti-ISIL coalition led by the US, and said that the terrorist group still received aids dropped by unidentified aircraft.

“The international coalition is not serious about air strikes on ISIL terrorists and is even seeking to take out the popular (voluntary) forces from the battlefield against the Takfiris so that the problem with ISIL remains unsolved in the near future,” Nahlah al-Hababi told FNA. “The ISIL terrorists are still receiving aids from unidentified fighter jets in Iraq and Syria,” she added. Hababi said that the coalition’s precise airstrikes are launched only in those areas where the Kurdish Pishmarga forces are present, while military strikes in other regions are not so much precise. In late December, the US-led coalition dropped aids to the Takfiri militants in an area North of Baghdad. Field sources in Iraq told al-Manar that the international coalition airplanes dropped aids to the terrorist militants in Balad, an area which lies in Salahuddin province North of Baghdad. In October, a high-ranking Iranian commander also slammed the US for providing aid supplies to ISIL, adding that the US claims that the weapons were mistakenly airdropped to ISIL were untrue.

The US and the so-called anti-ISIL coalition claim that they have launched a campaign against this terrorist and criminal group – while supplying them with weapons, food and medicine in Jalawla region (a town in Diyala Governorate, Iraq). This explicitly displays the falsity of the coalition’s and the US’ claims,” Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri said. The US claimed that it had airdropped weapons and medical aid to Kurdish fighters confronting the ISIL in Kobani, near the Turkish border in Northern Syria. The US Defense Department said that it had airdropped 28 bundles of weapons and supplies, but one of them did not make it into the hands of the Kurdish fighters. Video footage later showed that some of the weapons that the US airdropped were taken by ISIL militants. The Iranian commander insisted that the US had the necessary intelligence about ISIL’s deployment in the region and that their claims to have mistakenly airdropped weapons to them are as unlikely as they are untrue.

International law with regard to the situation in Ukraine is difficult and subject to interpretation rather than regulation. On one hand there is the principal of non-interference into internal affairs which has been undermined, practically by financing policy groups and NGOs and legally by constructs such as the “responsibility to protect”. One the other hand there is the principle about the invulnerability of national borders. This principle, on the other hand, is being contradicted by the equally valid right to self-determination as seen in the Crimean referendum and Crimea’s accession into the Russian Federation or the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence. International law is, on other words, highly subjective and based on policy and  constructs about apparent “legitimacy” rather than legality and law.

Experts warn about the risk of unwanted nuclear war. Several analysts would note that the deterioration in relations between NATO and Russia poses an acute risk for a military escalation which could include the use of nuclear weapons and escalate into a conflict of global reach regardless whether it is wanted or unwanted. During a two-day symposium at the New York Academy of Medical Sciences on February 28 and March 1, 2015, several internationally renown experts warned about the risk about a potential escalation of the situation in Ukraine and the involvement of nuclear weapons due to mutual distrust and nuclear forces being on hair-trigger alert.