10 Indications the U.S. is Planning Military Action Against Iran

The Bush administration appears to have rejected the Baker-Hamilton Commission’s recommendations for a diplomatic offensive towards Iran. Instead, key indicators suggest that Bush is preparing to expand the war on terror by attacking Iran.

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Blood of Civilians on Halliburton's hands

Senior managers for defense contractor KBR overruled calls to halt supply operations in Iraq in the spring of 2004, ordering unarmored trucks into an active combat zone where six civilian drivers died in an ambush, according to newly available documents.

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CONSPIRACY THEORY ROCK

UK Gun Crimes Soar After Gun Ban

Sunday, August 26, 2007 8:36 PM

Gun crimes in England have almost doubled since 1997, when a ban on firearms began. According to the Sunday Times of London, crimes in which guns were used numbered 4,671 in 2005-06. Also, government officials report that most gun crime is committed by children and teenagers under 18 years old. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, told the Telegraph: "What this shows is that the majority of these crimes are committed by youngsters under 18. "The government's policy has failed with the group most responsible for this increase in crime. It is long past time the Government stopped believing its own propaganda, and took measures to get a grip."

Bush E-Mail Mystery Deepens: White House Won't Name Tech Contractor

The White House will not identify a private company which appears to be involved in the disappearance of potentially millions of White House e-mails.

The company was responsible for reviewing and archiving White House e-mails, a White House official told congressional staff in May, according to a letter yesterday from House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Congressional investigators asked then for the name of the company and "have repeatedly requested" the information since then, according to Waxman.

They are still waiting for an answer, the chairman wrote to White House counsel Fred Fielding. Waxman asked the White House to come up with the company's name by Sept. 10.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel declined to tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com the company's name or explain why the White House would not provide it to Congress.

"We are reviewing Rep. Waxman's letter and will respond expeditiously," Stanzel said in an e-mailed statement.

According to the White House, as many as five million e-mails may not have been properly archived and may be lost forever, in apparent violation of the Presidential Records Act. The post-Watergate law states that communications relating to official activity in the offices of the president and vice president are owned by the American public and cannot be destroyed.

The unnamed firm "was responsible for the daily audits of the e-mail system and the e-mail archiving process," Waxman said a White House briefer had attested in a May meeting.

The firm worked for the Information Assurance Directorate, under the White House chief information officer, Waxman said he was told.

In addition to requesting the firm's name, Waxman's staff has also asked to see a White House report which detailed the days on which few or no e-mails were archived; the White House has been similarly unresponsive to that request, Waxman charged, and asked it provide the document by Sept. 10 as well.

$4.5b bet on another 9/11 within 4 weeks

Updates
'Bin Laden' Options Trades Have Wall Street Whispering
Tell Congress to Stop the March to War with Iran
Cara’s Commentary: The “Terrorism Put”
Betting on a crash?
US Opposition Political Leaders Issue Urgent False Flag Terror Warning
Or
US Opposition Political Leaders Issue Urgent False Flag Terror Warning
Congressman: Stock Market Will Eventually Collapse
Or
Congressman: Stock Market Will Eventually Collapse
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Related
Mystery trader bets market will crash by a third
The Fed: Something big is going to happen
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August 26, 2007

$4.5 billion options bet on catastrophe within four weeks

Anybody have a clue as to what these 'investors' are expecting?

The two sales are being referred to by market traders as "bin Laden trades" because only an event on the scale of 9-11 could make these short-sell options valuable.

There are 65,000 contracts @ $750.00 for the SPX 700 calls for open interest. That controls 6.5 million shares at $750 = $4.5 Billion. Not a single trade. But quite a bit of $$ on a contract that is 700 points away from current value. No one would buy that deep "in the money" calls. No reason to. So if they were sold looks like someone betting on massive dislocation. Lots of very strange option activity that I haven't seen before.

The entity or individual offering these sales can only make money if the market drops 30%-50% within the next four weeks. If the market does not drop, the entity or individual involved stands to lose over $1 billion just for engaging in these contracts!

Clearly, someone knows something big is going to happen BEFORE the options expire on Sept. 21.

THEORIES:

The following theories are being discussed widely within the stock and options markets today regarding the enormous and very unusual activity reported above and two stories below. Those theories are:

1) A massive terrorist attack is going to take place before Sept. 21 to tank the markets, OR;

2) China, reeling over losing $10 Billion in bad loans to the sub-prime mortgage collapse presently taking place, is going to dump US currency and tank all of Capitalism with a Communist financial revolution. Either scenario is bad and the clock is ticking. The drop-dead date of these contracts is September 21. Whatever is going to happen MUST take place between now and then or the folks involved in these contracts will lose over $1 billion for having engaged in this activity.

"$1.78 Billion Bet that Stock Markets will crash by third week in September Anonymous Stock Trader Sells 10K Contracts on EVERY S&P/Y "Strike" Shorts Stocks "in the money" effectively selling all his SPY holdings for cash up front without pressuring the market downward.

This is an enormous and dangerous stock option activity. If it goes right, the guy makes about $2 Billion. If he's wrong, his out of pocket costs for buying these options will exceed $700 Million!!! The entity who sold these contracts can only make money if the stock market totally crashes by the third week in September.

Bear in mind that the last time anyone conducted such large and unusual stock option trades (like this one) was in the weeks before the attacks of September 11.

Back then, they bought huge numbers of PUTS on airline stocks in the same airlines whose planes were involved in the September 11 attacks.

Despite knowing who made these trades, the Securities and Exchange Commission NEVER revealed who made the unusual trades and no one was ever publicly identified as being responsible for the trades which made upwards of $50 million when the attacks happened.

The fact that this latest activity by a single entity gambles on a complete collapse of the entire market by the third week in September, seems to indicate someone knows something really huge is in the works and they intend to profit almost $2 Billion within the next four weeks from whatever happens! This is really worrisome."

Credit turmoil ‘has hallmarks of bank run’

The current turmoil in the financial markets has all the characteristics of a classic banking crisis, but one that is taking place outside the traditional banking sector, Axel Weber, president of the Bundesbank, said at the weekend.

“What we are seeing is basically what we see underlying all banking crises,” said Mr Weber, one of the most influential members of the governing council of the European Central Bank.

The comments mark the first time that a top central banker has endorsed the notion that the non-bank financial system is seeing an old-style bank run.

Some Federal Reserve policymakers also privately see comparisons between the current distress in credit markets and the bank runs of the 19th century, in which savers lost confidence in banks and demanded their money back, creating a spiralling liquidity crisis for institutions that had invested this money in longer-term assets.

That scenario ultimately led to the creation of the US Federal Reserve and other central banks as lenders of last resort for the banking system.

The Bundesbank president said that the market had completely over-reacted to the credit losses in the US subprime mortgage sector.

“What we are seeing at the moment is a total overreaction,” he said. “There is no overall problem in terms of solvency – it is one of liquidity.” He said the challenge for central banks – which cannot supply liquidity directly to the non-bank sector – was to help banks absorb the influx of assets onto their balance sheets.

However, the tools that modern central banks possess to address liquidity problems can only directly address such runs inside the traditional banking sector, and do not directly touch the non-bank financial sector, which has been hardest hit by the current credit crisis.

Mr Weber’s analysis highlights the dilemma facing central banks, which cannot channel funds directly to the non-bank financial sector, and may therefore have to resort to easing monetary policy instead. The ECB is due to set its key interest rate on Thursday and the Federal Reserve on September 18.

Mr Weber told fellow central bankers and economists at the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole symposium that the only difference between a classic banking crisis and the turmoil under way in the markets is that the institutions most affected at the moment are conduits and investment vehicles raising funds in the commercial bond market, rather than regulated banks.

These entities were inherently vulnerable to a sudden loss of confidence on the part of their funders because “there is a maturity mismatch” on the part of financial institutions that have invested in long term mortgage-backed or asset-backed securities using short-term finance.

“Most of the conduits are owned by the banks,” he said. In many cases, sponsoring banks are being forced to take risky assets back onto their balance sheets, in turn causing banks to keep hold of their own cash, putting pressure on short-term money markets, he argued.

His comments came as Frederic Mishkin, a Fed governor, argued for a rapid and aggressive monetary policy response to any fall in house prices.

His diagnosis of the financial crisis was echoed by other experts.

James Hamilton, a professor at the University of California, warned that – as in old-fashioned bank runs – sudden demand for liquidity can lead to a firesale of assets that depresses their price, making otherwise solvent institutions insolvent.

Paul McCulley, managing director of Pimco, said there was a “run on the shadow banking system”. He said the shadow banking system held $1,300bn of assets that now had to be put back onto the balance sheets of the banks.

The issue, he said, is “how it is done and at what price”.