While US President Barack Obama and the Western media lied in concert to the world regarding America's role in supporting terrorists operating in Syria, it is now revealed that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been shipping weapons to Syria via NATO-member Turkey and Jordan since at least early 2012. The New York Times in their article titled, "Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With C.I.A. Aid," admits that:

With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders.

The airlift, which began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows. It has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and, to a lesser degree, at other Turkish and Jordanian airports.

PressTV: US military has plans to bomb and send forces in Syria: Washington Post
Tony Cartalucci: CONFIRMED: US Shipping Weapons to Syria - Al Nusra's "Mystery" Sponsors Revealed

Cyprus and the Troika have agreed to a 20 per cent tax on deposits over 100,000 euros at the Bank of Cyprus and 4 per cent on deposits held at other banks. - A senior Cypriot official told Reuters that a plan to tap nationalized pension funds would not be a part of a plan to raise billions of euros in return for a bailout from the European Union. Cyprus said earlier on Saturday that it was looking at seizing a quarter of the value of big deposits at its largest bank in order to raise such funds. "Unfortunately, the events of recent days have led to a situation where there are no longer any optimal solutions available. Today, there are only hard choices left," European Union Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said in a statement. Cyprus is scrambling to come up with €5.8 billion by Monday, or face being kicked out of the Eurozone. The cash is a prerequisite for a further €10 billion in bailout funds.

The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West - Former Assistant Treasury Secretary Dr. Paul Craig Roberts says there is another financial calamity coming to the U.S. Dr. Roberts says, “It is a crisis they can’t avoid. One way or another it’s going to bite very hard, whether it comes through the dollar or the bonds.” Dr. Roberts says all the ongoing financial problems we face today are a result of little or no regulation. Dr. Roberts makes his case in a book titled “The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West.” Dr. Roberts contends, “What you are looking at is a deregulated financial system, and the result was fraud, crisis and collapse. . . . The end result of financial deregulation is crony capitalism.” Look no further than the continuing bank bailouts with massive money printing and zero percent interest rates as the reason for the coming catastrophe of spiking interest rates. Roberts asks, “How can the dollar be anything but a bubble because the Fed is creating a trillion new dollars every year, but the demand for dollars is not growing by a trillion dollars a year.” Roberts goes on to predict, “Sooner or later, the printing has to affect the dollar’s value. If the dollar drops . . . we have inflation . . . you can’t have inflation and zero percent interest rates.” Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with economist Paul Craig Roberts.

Paul Craig Roberts: Americans’ Economic Prospects And Civil Liberties Have Been Stolen

Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda. - The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda. A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world. Once developed, the software could allow US service personnel, working around the clock in one location, to respond to emerging online conversations with any number of co-ordinated messages, blogposts, chatroom posts and other interventions.

'Asharq al-Awsat' reports Abbas agrees to forgo legal action against Israel for 2 months; $500 million in US aid released to PA. - US President Barack Obama asked Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during his visit to Israel and the West Bank not to take action against Israel at the International Criminal Court for any reason, including settlement construction, London-based Arab daily Asharq al- Awsat reported on Saturday, citing Palestinian sources. The PA has hinted on numerous occasions since it gained recognition as a non-member observer state at the UN in November that it was considering complaining to the ICC against Israel for approving construction of new housing in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.

AWIP: U.S. Unblocks $500 mln "for Palestinians"

Israel will “immediately” respond to Syrian gunfire on the border of Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, stated new Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon. The statement comes after Israel returned fire from over the border, wounding two Syrian soldiers. "Every violation of Israeli sovereignty and shooting from the Syrian side will immediately be answered by silencing the source of fire," AFP quoted him as saying after Israeli troops opened fire towards a Syrian military post. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fired a Tamuz anti-tank guided missile into Syrian territory after Syrian troops opened fire for the second time in twelve hours, according to YNet News.

Searching for truth in the debris - What follows amounts to Syria’s version of events in the attack near Aleppo on Tuesday in which 26 people died in unexplained circumstances. It comes from three senior medical and military sources in Damascus and in the Aleppo area. All wish to remain anonymous. It is the government version of events but it conforms to the few undisputed facts of the case: the low number of causalities for an alleged chemical attack; the fact that the UN took Syria’s complaint seriously and acted upon it and the fact that Syrian soldiers are among the fatalities. Damascus says it has conducted tests on the Victim’s blood samples and also soil samples and the rocket debris itself. It says the results have already been sent to the UN team investigating. I am told the Syrian officials have also supplied the phone numbers of the doctors who treated the victims to the UN and has vow to co-operate fully with the UN investigation which is now underway. Syria believes the chemical involved was a relatively small amount of chlorine gas, namely CL17 which was dissolved into saline solution in a home-made rocket. Two separate military sources have confirmed to Channel 4 News that it was a rocket and not a shell.

GAINES TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) – A cattle farmer is fighting a Gaines Township zoning ordinance to keep a couple of trailer-sized political signs on his property.

A crowd is expected in 63rd District Court Friday as Vern Verduin takes on Township officials who are trying to force him to remove his signs. The signs, which are visible from M-6, are posted on two semi-truck trailers parked in Verduin’s pasture. One reads "Marxism/Socialism = Poverty & hunger." The other reads "Obama's 'mission accomplished.' 8% unemployment. 16 trillion debt." "I felt that things were going in the wrong direction," he said. He said as a farmer, he's concerned especially about hunger and poverty. But the signs have put him at odds with the leaders of Gaines Township, for whom he has worked as a volunteer firefighter for years. The Township cited him for violating its sign ordinance, which restricts the size of political signs to 20 square feet. But under the ordinance, you can have a bigger sign to sell a product than to sell an idea. "You can have a 32-foot advertising sign. I don't get that," said Verduin. That commercial element is why Verduin's lawyer thinks his client will win in court. The US Constitution, he says, gives political speech more protection than it does commercial speech. "This is clearly a violation of his free speech and free exercise right," said attorney Howard Van Den Heuvel.

There was a lot going on this week, but it’s all being overshadowed by the fascinating geopolitical game over Cyprus. This is a stage on which a country’s pending financial collapse hinges explicitly on its hydrocarbons potential, and whoever turns up with aid will win access to exploration blocks. Yesterday morning, Oilprice.com’s Jen Alic took us through the nuances of this game, noting that Russia could bail out Cyprus in return for a nice chuck of exploration acreage offshore. By the close of the day, that is exactly how things appeared to be unfolding. Later in the day, it began to emerge that Gazprom had reportedly offered Cyprus a bailout deal in return for offshore exploration rights. But by Friday, Russian and Greek Cypriot officials had said no deal had been reached. The deal Cyprus put on the table was the creation of a Cypriot state company with control of gas reserves into which Russian companies could invest, along with a nice stake in Cypriot banks to be rescued by the Russian investment fund. It’s not enough for Moscow, which is holding out for more—and likely to get it if the EU refuses to budge. This all came after the EU tried to get Cyprus to agree to partially fund an EU bailout package by putting a levy on bank deposits and offering account-holders compensation in the form of potential gas futures. This is where the EU was caught playing dirty—and it’s all about Russia. Russian oligarchs use Cyprus for their offshore banking needs, and as such hold a lot of the bigger accounts that would have been targeted under this scheme.

Ten years ago this week, British forces entered Iraq’s second city, Basra, as part of the U.S.-led invasion of the country. No one remembers that decisive event more so than librarian Alia Baqer. Known locally as a cultural hero, Baqer moved to rescue the contents of Basra’s central library before everything was lost. “At the beginning of the war on Iraq, the governor [of Basra] took the library over as a headquarters for himself and his guards, mounting machine guns on top of the building. So, we asked the governor if we could take the important books to our homes, but he rejected the idea. Eventually we took the responsibility ourselves to transfer the books, without the governor’s approval,” she said, looking back ten years. As U.S.-led forces took over the country, security broke down and looting spread. Baqer and her staff moved fast to carry the most precious books to safety, transporting them in curtains to the Hammdan restaurant next door.