Daily Headlines: Proxy Wars And Tipping Points

We've already seen how the U.S. is becoming more and more involved in the conflict in Syria (see here) with support for the radical Islamic groups who are attemtping to overthrow Assad's regime.

Russia, Iran and Turkey have chosen sides and they are exerting full effort to keep Assad in power.

This proxy war is heating up:

Russia Warns War Is Coming

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is preparing a major offensive in the coming days against the opposition targeting his regime, an informed Syrian government source confirmed.

The source told WND yesterday Assad was warned by Russia that if the coming counterinsurgency targeting the opposition is not successful in the next 4-6 weeks, Syria should be prepared for a war

“We have confronted the Russians about stopping their continued arms shipments to Syria,” said Clinton. “They have, from time to time, said that we shouldn’t worry – everything they are shipping is unrelated to their [the Syrian government's] actions internally. That’s patently untrue.”

Continued Clinton: “And we are concerned about the latest information we have that there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria, which will escalate the conflict quite dramatically.

U.S.: Russia Sending Syria Attack Helicopters

The Obama administration said Tuesday that Russia is sending attack helicopters to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime and warned that the Arab country's 15-month conflict could become even deadlier.

With diplomacy at a standstill, the reported shipment of helicopters suggests a dangerous new turn for Syria after more than a year of harsh government crackdowns on mainly peaceful protests and the emergence of an increasingly organized armed insurgency.

Russia and Syria have a longstanding military relationship and Syria hosts Russia's only naval base on the Mediterranean Sea.

Russian military support in the form of materiel as advanced as attack helicopters would deal a serious blow to efforts to starve the Syrian army of supplies.

Russia Prepares Army For Syrian Deployment

Given the worsening crisis in Syria, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper reported that the Russian army is apparently being prepared for a mission in Syria. Citing anonymous sources in the military leadership, the newspaper said that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the general staff to work out a plan for military operations outside Russia, including in Syria.

The units being prepared for an intervention are the 76th Division of airborne forces (an especially experienced unit of the Russian army), the 15th Army Division, as well as special forces from a brigade of the Black Sea fleet, which has a base in the Syrian port of Tartus.

According to the newspaper report, deployment depends on the decision of the Russian government and the UN. However, the plans also foresee that the troops might intervene without UN approval.

On Monday last week, three Russian warships were sighted off the Syrian coast. An anonymous source from the Russian government told the Iranian newspaper Tehran Times that Moscow wants to show NATO that it will not allow any military operation against Damascus under the guise of a humanitarian mission.

U.S. Says Russian Attack Helicopters Sent To Syria

Turkey Fears Syrian Conflict Spilling Over Border

In Europe:

EU: Movement Of Money, People Can Be Limited

The European Commission has been providing legal advice to others who are considering possible scenarios should Greece leave the euro, a European Union spokesman said.

Olivier Bailly said Tuesday that, legally, limits could be imposed on movement of people and money across national borders within the EU if it's necessary to protect public order or public security — but not on economic grounds.

"Some people are working on scenarios," he said, but refused to confirm or identify which organizations and people were working on them.

Globalist Plan: European Union Police State

Olivier Bailly said Tuesday that, legally, limits could be imposed on movement of people and money across national borders within the EU if it’s necessary to protect public order or public security — but not on economic grounds.

EU finance bosses have discussed controlling ATM withdrawals, subjecting the citizens of member states to rigorous border checks, and imposing capital controls “as a worst-case scenario should Athens decide to leave the euro,” Reuters reports.

The banksters are seriously worried about the a second Greek election on June 17 and are working on “contingencies” should a leftist coalition, SYRIZA, win the second election and increase the probability that Greece will ultimately renege on its EU/IMF bailout and dump the euro currency.

SYRIZA is a Greek abbreviation for Coalition of the Radical Left. It is comprised primarily of democratic socialists, green left groups and Maoist, Trotskyist and eurocommunist organizations.

On Monday, EU central banksters rushed to prevent a run on Spain’s banks as they teetered on the edge of disaster.

Fitch Ratings last week cut Spain’s credit rating to BBB, just above junk status.

The EU’s third largest economy is also looking for a bailout. Italy believes the deal to prop up Spain represents “the removal of a filter” that separated Spain and Italy from the group of heavily indebted EU countries, with Greece leading the way. Italy’s “public debt” currently accounts for 120 percent of its GDP

The banksters warn that Italy will follow Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, and eventually seek an aid package as the EU begins its descent.

It now appears the EU will impose some sort of police action to prevent its citizen-subjects from taking money out of banks and preventing them from fleeing the country as chaos ensues in the wake of one country after another toppling.

Barroso To Unveil "Political Union" Plan At EU Summit

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has said member states must agree to a big common budget, a future banking union and - ultimately - political union in order to save the EU.

Barroso, EU Council president Herman Van Rompuy, European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi and Jean-Claude Juncker - the head of the euro-using countries' club, the Eurogroup - are drafting a joint paper on how EU leaders can stop the crisis.

"I will urge the European Council to take concrete commitments towards a fully developed economic and monetary union and a process that maps out the steps how to get there," Barroso told MEPs.

He said the next step - which "might require [EU] treaty changes" - would be a "banking union."

Barroso's final step - fiscal and political union - would see EU countries issue joint bonds, co-ordinate tax policy and co-ordinate national spending on everything from healthcare to schools and social welfare.

Italy May Be Next In Line For Bailout (And Loss Of Sovereignty

The U.S. And The World:

Austerity - Its Coming Whether We Like It Or Not

The industrial countries have a choice. They can act as if all is well except that their consumers are in a funk and so what John Maynard Keynes called "animal spirits" must be revived through stimulus measures. Or they can treat the crisis as a wake-up call and move to fix all that has been papered over in the last few decades and thus put themselves in a better position to take advantage of coming opportunities.

Embry - Despite Rally, Global Financial Crisis II Is Imminent

Today John Embry told King World News that, despite the rally, investors should brace for “global financial crisis II.” Embry also said this crisis will be “more unpleasant than the first one.” Embry, who is Chief Investment Strategist of the $10 billion strong Sprott Asset Management, also told KWN that gold and silver will reign supreme during the upcoming turmoil. But first, Embry had to say about the Egon von Greyerz prediction of a massive global bailout: “I believe that’s very realistic. They will go down the path of trying to continually bail this system out to prevent a collapse. Nobody wants to be at the helm when the ship goes down, so they will try to move heaven and earth to prevent that.”

“The only way they can do that is with exactly what Egon (von Greyerz) suggested, and that is with a massive, global bailout. I think it’s absolutely essential that the listeners be aware of the depth of the problem, and not listen to the mainstream media which glosses over everything and tells you to be in the conventional assets and that everything is going to work out fine. I don’t believe that’s going to be the case.

Either you take the debt clean-out right away, and that means a very hard deflationary depression, or you do what I suspect they will try to do and that is keep pumping money into the system to keep the whole banking (system), derivatives and economies afloat.

That will lead to some sort of monetary distress that could end in hyperinflation. I think that’s the worst outcome, but there is no good outcome. Basically you have a set of circumstances, that past events have created, which leads to no good avenue going forward.”

Communist Defector Speaks Out On America's Marxist Future

Pacepa, who served as a top aide in the Romanian communist regime, tells Accuracy in Media, “The Democratic Party has become dangerously infected with the Marxism virus. I recognize the symptoms because I once lived through them, and I believe it is my obligation as an American citizen to help the conservative movement to prevent any further spread of Marxism in my adopted country.”

But Pacepa speaks out, saying that, in addition to the White House hiring Van Jones, he saw the Marxist agenda at work in the agenda of the White House and the Democrat-controlled Congress during Obama’s first two years, when they “began dutifully following in Marx’s footsteps by redistributing our country’s wealth and putting under government control a part of its health care, banking system, and automobile industry.” His observation is this regard is not unique, but Pacepa goes further, citing evidence of how planks in the Communist Manifesto parallel the Obama legislative agenda. Yet, Romney doesn’t want to call Obama a socialist because of what the liberal media will say about the charge.

“Marxism is a malignant tumor on the body of any country,” Pacepa writes, highlighting the stakes involved in the presidential campaign. “This is another thing I learned during my years at the top of Marxist Romania. Marxism, like any cancer, works silently—you can feel it only after it has spread throughout the whole body, and then it is usually too late.”

Recal from Isaiah 17:4, Israel is destined to take a hit around the time of the destruction of Damascus:

"In that day, the glory of Jacob will fade; the fat of his body will waste away"

Could this information be foreshadowing of what is to come (don't forget about Syria's arsenal of chemical weapons)?

Israel "To Evacuate Tel Aviv" In Event Of Missile Attack

Israel will evacuate the entire population of Tel Aviv if it is hit by missiles, particularly if they have unconventional warheads, the commander in charge of Israel's central region told AFP.

Colonel Adam Zusman, chief of the Home Front Command in Israel's Gush Dan region, which encompasses the city of Tel Aviv and its environs, said an attack on the centre of the country would force massive evacuations.

"In case of a missile attack on the centre of Israel, especially unconventional, the population from Tel Aviv and other cities will be evacuated and relocated in other areas of the country," Zusman told AFP in an interview at the weekend.

"Massive evacuations will take place in case of unconventional attacks and if buildings are destroyed by a missile."

Zusman said Israel continued to face serious threats from Iran and its allies, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Gaza's Hamas rulers.

"We estimate that in case of war, hundreds of missiles will hit Tel Aviv and its nearby cities. As a result of these attacks, there will be hundreds of Israeli casualties.

"In the next war, nobody will be able to drink a coffee in Dizengoff," he said, referring to a popular street in downtown Tel Aviv.

"Israeli civilians will have to face the threat. Today, every civilian is threatened in Israel."