New World Next Year - 2011/2012

Source: Corbett Report and Media Monarchy


Welcome to http://NewWorldNextWeek.com - the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. This week:

Chossudovsky: West tries to discredit AL report on Syria

Source: Press TV
Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

Arab League monitors investigating the unrest in Syria say they have found nothing frightening during their initial visit to Homs, the epicenter of the unrest.

Interview with Professor Michel Chossudovsky, director of Center for Research on Globalization

Syria Update: U.S. Government Gives Green Light to Mainstream Media

Source: Boiling Frogs Post
Sibel Edmonds
 

MSM News, 6 Months Late: “Obama Secretly Preparing for Syria Intervention”

 

This morning I woke up to the following news headlines. Let me correct myself: This morning I found the US media and their quasi extension reporting on stale, at least 6-month old US operations on Syria. Now, that’s much better. I think it is safe to assume that the media has been given a ‘green light’ by the White House and Pentagon to report on long-ongoing war preparations, aka ‘intervention’ plans, on Syria while making it sound as fresh-new-recent. Let’s read together:

Obama Administration Secretly Preparing Options for Aiding the Syrian Opposition

As the violence in Syria spirals out of control, top officials in President Barack Obama‘s administration are quietly preparing options for how to assist the Syrian opposition, including gaming out the unlikely option of setting up a no-fly zone in Syria and preparing for another major diplomatic initiative.

…

And here is the almost comical egregious part:

After several weeks of having no top-level administration meetings to discuss the Syria crisis, the National Security Council (NSC) has begun an informal, quiet interagency process to create and collect options for aiding the Syrian opposition, two administration officials confirmed to The Cable.

…

Right! According to these ‘reporters’, up until now our imperialistic hawks have been sitting on their butts and doing absolutely nothing on Syria’s months-long prewar crisis! Just read the following by MSM’s favorite source WINEP, and please try not to laugh:

Andrew Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that the administration was caught off-guard by how the opposition became militarized so quickly. The administration’s message had been to urge the opposition to remain peaceful, but that ship has now sailed, he said.

Arab League in Syria: A Pre-Ordained Conclusion

Source: RT
James Corbett

The Syrian government has released 755 detainees as Arab League monitors continue their mission to stop nine months of violence that has killed thousands. However, doubts remain on both sides that the observers can provide a neutral verdict.

­The release of the detainees Wednesday follows the three-pronged Arab League plan that will see Damascus withdrawal government troops from residential areas, release prisoners and begin talks with the opposition.

The report comes as Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi, the head of the Arab League mission, said he saw "nothing frightening" in the city of Homs, the epicenter of the nine-months of the anti-government rising and the first stop on the month-long monitoring mission that kicked off Tuesday, Reuters reports.

"There were some places where the situation was not good," Dabi told Reuters by telephone on Wednesday. "But there wasn't anything frightening, at least while we were there. Things were calm and there were no clashes."

Meanwhile, some members of the opposition believe the Arab League will prove ineffective by concluding that the violence is being generated from both sides.

The opposition also says Dabi's military background disqualifies him from being a neutral witness, while the Arab League's mission is nothing more than a stalling tactic to put off a foreign military intervention.

However, political analyst James Corbett told RT that while the observer mission is in fact lacking in credibility, it is only because conclusions will unlikely be based on facts on the ground.

America Threatens China: What Lies Behind the U.S. "Return to Asia" Strategy?

Source: China Military Online
Lin Zhiyuan

What is behind US 'Return-to-Asia' strategy?
Edited and translated by People's Daily Online

-The American overall strategy toward China is giving the same priority to cooperation and prevention, but intensifying "security rebalancing" efforts on China, taking comprehensive measures to suppress China, and instigating its allies to pay, contribute and appear to restrain China.

-Some thinkers of the U.S. Navy are quite interested in the English geographer Halford Mackinder's "Heartland" theory. Mackinder said "Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World Island (Eurasia)."

Mackinder's followers have applied this strategy to Asia, and believed that controlling South China Sea will make the U.S. air force and navy command East Asia, and consequently command the "World Island".

-Currently, the situation in Europe is under American control, and the situation in the Middle East is beneficial to the United States. The world's geographic center is transferring from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the Asia-Pacific region has become the world's political and economic center.

Recently, the PLA Daily interviewed Lin Zhiyuan, an expert on U.S. issues at the Department of World Military Research under the Academy of Military Sciences on the U.S. strategy to "return to Asia."

Reporter: While talking about Asia recently, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "The United States is back," making it clear that the United States has paid more attention to the Asian-Pacific region than ever, and it will shift its strategic focus to Asia in the future. What do you think of the move?

Lin Zhiyuan: It aims to fully restore U.S. influence in the Asia-Pacific region. The United States implements a global strategy, which has respective focuses on deployment.

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States started to shift its strategic focus to Asia. However, the American focus on Asia was always interrupted by some major events, such as Asia’s financial crisis and the war on terrorism. Especially over the past 10 years, the United States paid all attention to anti-terrorism and got entangled in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but made slow progress in Asia.

The Federal Reserve Is Secretly Bailing Out Europe

Source: Washington's Blog

Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke told Congress that the Fed would not bail out Europe.

But he might have been less than forthcoming.

Former Vice President of the Federal Reserve bank of Dallas, Gerald ODriscoll, says that the Fed is secretly bailing out Europe:

O’Driscoll wrote in a Wall Street Journal editorial:

America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, is engaged in a bailout of European banks. Surprisingly, its operation is largely unnoticed here.

The Fed is using what is termed a “temporary U.S. dollar liquidity swap arrangement” with the European Central Bank (ECB). There are similar arrangements with the central banks of Canada, England, Switzerland and Japan.

Simply put, the Fed trades or “swaps” dollars for euros. The Fed is compensated by payment of an interest rate (currently 50 basis points, or one-half of 1%) above the overnight index swap rate. The ECB, which guarantees to return the dollars at an exchange rate fixed at the time the original swap is made, then lends the dollars to European banks of its choosing. 

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The two central banks are engaging in this roundabout procedure because each needs a fig leaf. The Fed was embarrassed by the revelations of its prior largess with foreign banks. It does not want the debt of foreign banks on its books. A currency swap with the ECB is not technically a loan.