US and France arm rebels with anti-aircraft missiles.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has admitted that Al-Qaeda and other groups on the State Department’s terror list are on the same side as the United States in Syria and that they are aiding opposition rebels.

In an interview with BBC News (watch video), Clinton states, “We have a very dangerous set of actors in the region, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, and those who are on our terrorist list, to be sure, supporting – claiming to support the opposition [in Syria].”

Clinton’s admission that Al-Qaeda is supporting the armed insurrection in Syria dovetails with reports that the same Al-Qaeda terrorists who helped overthrow Colonel Gaddafi in Libya were airlifted into Syria by NATO forces.

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri’s has also publicly expressed support for Syrian rebel forces.

These terrorists have been blamed for bloody attacks that have killed both Syrian regime officials and innocent civilians, including a bombing earlier this month in Syria’s second city of Aleppo which killed 28 people.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

Newt Gingrich’s big applause line in the South Carolina CNN debate is coming back to bite him.

When moderator John King opened the debate with a question about allegations that his ex-wife made in an interview. Gingrich fired back, saying that his campaign offered several friends familiar with the situation to rebut ABC’s interview, but that the network refused to talk to them.

That wasn’t really true, his campaign now says.

Gingrich’s spokesman R.C. Hammond has told CNN that the only witnesses it offered to ABC were Gingrich’s two daughters from his first marriage. Not exactly the scores of “personal friends” that Gingrich promised as character witnesses in the debate, and promised again in a follow-up interview with King.

Mitt Romney came down against Gingrich’s treatment of the media, and John King in particular, in an appearance on FOX News Wednesday, The Hill reports.

“It’s very easy to talk down a moderator,” Romney said. “The moderator asks a question and then has to sit by and take whatever you send to them. And Speaker Gingrich has been wonderful at attacking the moderators and attacking the media.”

Ultimately, the legacy of Gingrich’s big moment might not matter, as Gingrich’s South Carolina boost seems to be shrinking fast. Already the conservative media is uniting to sink Gingrich’s campaign, and new polls show that Gingrich is rapidly losing his lead in Florida.

Source: Business Insider.

The SEAL Team that stormed Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound last May put special forces commandos on the map.

Without SEAL Team 6′s exploits that day, there is little doubt reports of a new commando team in the Persian Gulf would have raised an eyebrow.

As it is, military blogs are buzzing about Spencer Ackerman’s story at Danger Room where he reports that a new “elite commando team” is operating in the Gulf region.

Ackerman spoke with military sources that say the team, called Joint Special Operations Task Force-Gulf Coordinating Council (JSOTF-GCC), is on the ground to instruct local troops in special operations. This is the first time the U.S. has acknowledged the existence of the team.

Ackerman admits there is no proven connection to the Iranian scientist who was assassinated several days ago, and says many special-ops guys dismiss the news, saying that the new task force is simply there to advise and any connection to Iran will be “indirect at most.”

Which doesn’t make it any less interesting to add to the pile of rumors and tensions piling out of the Persian Gulf, but there are special forces teams assigned to hot-spots all over the world, and the public generally has no clue at all.

There are 2,500 Navy SEALs, about half of which are based at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base and Dam Neck Annex in Virginia Beach, with 2,400 assigned to the Special Warfare Command (SWC).

SWC has an additional 700 Special Warfare Boat Operators, and 700 reserve personnel deployed around the world. Considering there are already two aircraft carrier groups in the Gulf now, there are likely many more special forces in the region than just this newly acknowledged task force.

Source: Business Insider.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says Iran is laying the groundwork for making nuclear weapons someday, but is not yet building a bomb and called for continued diplomatic and economic pressure to persuade Tehran not to take that step. As he has previously, Panetta cautioned against a unilateral strike by Israel against Iran’s nuclear facilities, saying the action could trigger Iranian retaliation against U.S. forces in the region. “We have common cause here” with Israel, he said. “And the better approach is for us to work together.” Panetta’s remarks on CBS’ Face the Nation, which were taped Friday and aired Sunday, reflect the long-held view of the Obama administration that Iran is not yet committed to building a nuclear arsenal, only to creating the industrial and scientific capacity to allow one if its leaders to decide to take that final step. – PressTV/YouTube/Washington Post

Dominant Social Theme: Iran is evil. War is in the offing.

Free-Market Analysis:  Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta admitted on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Iran was not seeking to make nuclear weapons. OK, we can all relax now, right? Not quite. Panetta went on to caution that Iran was seeking a “nuclear capability” and that this “concerned” him – and presumably others as well.

Who are the others, we ask? President Barack Obama? The military? The CIA? Israel? No, we have another hypothesis. We think the current crisis is a manufactured one and that Iran’s “capability” – whatever it is – has little to do with any contemplated war.

There will be war, if there is war, between the West and Persia because the West NEEDS a war. Already, in the West, the alternative media – often a beacon of truth and hope – is explaining there will be war because ISRAEL feels threatened.

But this is not quite true, either. Israel is a creation of the power elite and it is the Anglosphere power elite that is currently seeking war, in our view. It seems to need or want a war to prop up its failing central banking system.

It is the failure of the financial system, proceeding apace, that gives rise to this talk of war, to the military tensions, to the tendentious statements made by Washington, DC and to a lesser extent by European and Israeli leaders.

What other conclusion can be reached? Iran HAS no nuclear weapons. And even if it did, is Iran somehow more evil or unstable than North Korea, which is evidently bent on increasing a nuclear arsenal that it already has built?

But Iran, it is said, can target Israel with nuclear weapons. Yet North Korea can do the same with South Korea. Compare the “tensions” and rhetoric and one has to conclude that a double standard is being applied. It is seemingly a situation where Iran’s ongoing nuclear program is simply a tool designed to unlock wider rhetoric. Here’s a further excerpt from a Washington Post on the subject:

The comments suggest the White House’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear strategy has not changed in recent months, despite warnings from advocates of military action that time is running out to prevent Tehran from becoming a nuclear-armed state. Iran says its nuclear program is only for energy and medical research, and refuses to halt uranium enrichment.

Several Republican candidates have called for a tougher line against Iran, saying they believe it is committed to building the bomb. “If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon,” said Mitt Romney. “And if you elect Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”

Rick Santorum has said that the U.S. should plan a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and “say to them that if you do not open up those facilities and close them down, we will close them down for you.” Iran has opened two dozen of its facilities to international inspectors, but has refused in defiance of the U.N. Security Council to suspend its uranium enrichment.

Panetta did not rule out launching a pre-emptive strike. “But the responsible thing to do right now is to keep putting diplomatic and economic pressure on them to force them to do the right thing,” he said. “And to make sure that they do not make the decision to proceed with the development of a nuclear weapon.”

We can see from the above excerpt how strongly the drums of war are beating. Panetta, while admitting that Iran has no weaponized nuclear program, will not rule out a “pre-emptive” strike. The entire scenario seems to be some kind of power elite dominant social theme.

These fear-based themes are essentially tools used by the elites to stampede Western middle classes into giving up wealth and power to global institutions specially constructed for that purpose, such as the UN, IMF and World Bank.

In this case, we are not quite sure why the Pentagon – an elite-oriented institution – has decided to focus so intently on Iran. We are sure, however (as we have pointed out previously), that the powers-that-be are creating an Islamic crescent arc in the Middle East by destabilizing secular regimes and replacing them with Islamic ones.

This is ongoing … and perhaps the malicious rhetoric surrounding Iran is merely part of a propaganda process intended to further demonize the region preparatory to a full-on regional war.

Modern wars need years, even decades, to foment, in our view. In the Internet era, this is even harder because people’s natural skepticism about being manipulated will surely be fueled by the fodder provided by various alternative ‘Net news.

Iran/Western tensions seen through this lens are perhaps preparatory and do not indicate an immediate state of hostilities. On the other hand, the amount of weaponry now emplaced in and around Iran certainly gives rise to concern. Even a war planned for later can be generated sooner by mistake (intentional or not). View the video below and make up your own mind.

My Two Cents: As if we couldn’t tell. End Two Cents.

*Taken from the Washington Post.

Former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke in Arizona, who resigned in the wake of a congressional probe into the Fast and Furious undercover investigation his office oversaw, has admitted leaking a sensitive document about a federal agent who blew the whistle on the gunrunning operation, according to Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican.

Mr. Grassley, in a statement late Tuesday, said the leaked document was “deemed so sensitive by the Justice Department that it was not provided to Congress, except in a secured room at department headquarters.”

“Leaking sensitive documents to the press and retaliating against whistleblowers is not good faith cooperation with Congress,” Mr. Grassley said.

CONTINUED..

*Taken from the Raw Story.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Monday that he is giving Congress ten days to pass a constitutional amendment that would make raising taxes nearly impossible. And if he doesn’t get what he wants, he will do everything in his power to force the U.S. to default on its debts.

“Okay, in ten days you want to change the United States Constitution by two-thirds vote in both houses?” Matthews asked. “That’s what you’re demanding.”

“Yes,” Lee admitted. “If possible we can’t change the Constitution just in Congress but we can submit it to the states. Let the states fight it out.”

CONTINUED..

*Taken from Washington’s Blog.

Scientists note that fear of terrorism makes people stupid.

As I’ve repeatedly noted, FBI agents and CIA intelligence officials, constitutional law expert professor Jonathan Turley, Time Magazine, Keith Olbermann and the Washington Post have all said that U.S. government officials “were trying to create an atmosphere of fear in which the American people would give them more power”.

Indeed, the former Secretary of Homeland Security – Tom Ridge - admits that he was pressured to raise terror alerts to help Bush win reelection.

In the real world, as the National Safety Council notes:

CONTINUED..

*Taken from PopEater.

A convicted murderer, long suspected of involvement in the 1994 Quad Studios shooting of Tupac Shakur, has finally admitted to committing the crime, and has accused Game’s manager, Jimmy “Henchmen” Rosemond — founder of Czar Entertainment — of masterminding the botched robbery, which left the legendary rapper shot five times.

“I want to apologize to his [Tupac's] family and for the mistake I did for that sucker [Rosemond],” Dexter Isaac toldAllHipHop.com yesterday (June 15), on the eve of Tupac’s 40th birthday.

In an explosive confession dedicated to his former friend, whom he helped to launch entertainment company Henchmen Entertainment in 1989, Isaac explained that he has “stayed silent in prison for the past 13 years, doing a life sentence like a real soldier should,” but that he is “tired of listening to your [Rosemond's] lies.”

CONTINUED..

*Taken from CBS NY.

Embattled Rep. Anthony Weiner admitted to posting lewd photos of himself on Twitter at a Monday afternoon press conference.

While addressing the media at the Sheraton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, Weiner made the following statement: “Last Friday night I tweeted a photograph of myself that I intended to send as direct message as part of a joke to awoman in Seattle. Once I realized I posted it to Twitter, I panicked, I  took it down and said that I had been hacked. I then continued with that story to stick to that story which was a hugely regrettable mistake.”

Weiner apologized to the Seattle student, who was on the receiving end of the tweet. “To be clear, the picture was of me and I sent it. I am deeply sorry for the pain this has caused my wife Huma and our family, and my constituents, my friends, supporters and staff,” Weiner said.

CONTINUED..