E.I.R.STRATEGIC ALERT

E.I.R.STRATEGIC ALERT



WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Volume 29, No. 36 - September 3, 2015

An Urgent Appeal for Action to the Heads of Government at the UN General Assembly

“More and more people worldwide are profoundly worried over what only a few prominent people are saying publicly: NATO’s confrontation with Russia and China is escalating to a point that a global thermonuclear war is almost certain, unless we change our policy dramatically.” Thus begins a statement issued by Helga Zepp-LaRouche on Aug. 28. The ongoing meltdown of the trans-Atlantic financial system, of which “Black Monday” was only an acute symptom, she notes, is actually driving the war danger, much more than anything Russia or China may have done (cf. below).

Militarily, NATO is modernizing the tactical nuclear weapons in Europe to pursue a first-strike doctrine, while millions of refugees are on the march in the world. All this shows that the entire system of the international community has collapsed.

“Where is the institution that can still intervene, virtually at the last minute?”, Helga Zepp-LaRouche asks, which would allow mankind to avoid its own destruction.

If any such institution does exist, she answers, then it is the upcoming General Assembly of the United Nations in New York, where heads of state and government will gather from Sept. 24 to Oct. 1. “It is in Manhattan that the fate of mankind will be debated before the eyes of the entire world and a vision for a better future can be agreed upon. Or to put it differently: The preconditions will be set for whether we will have a future at all.”

There is a solution to this crisis, Helga Zepp-LaRouche said, but it must lie in a totally new paradigm, “based on mankind’s identity as a creative species, and it must consciously herald a new era for mankind....

“What is now demanded of the heads of state at the UN General Assembly, is that they demonstrate their ability to present a vision for mankind. The groundwork has been laid. Implementation of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road--”One Belt, One Road”--and their integration with the Eurasian Economic Union is in full swing. Many states in Asia, Latin America, and Africa are already advancing their development through cooperation with the BRICS countries. All the world’s problems could be solved, if this UN General Assembly succeeds in winning the European nations and the United States, in cooperation with the BRICS countries, to build up the regions of the world that are currently imploding under conditions of war, starvation, water shortages, epidemics, and terrorism.”

Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s statement can be read in full at: http://larouchepub.com/pr_lar/2015/150828_helga_appeal.html

Obama-NATO War Provocations Continue to Escalate

William R. Polk, a retired American diplomat who served under President John F. Kennedy and participated in the Cuban Missile Crisis deliberations, has written a poignant warning about the danger of nuclear war in Consortium News, posted Aug. 28. Based on his first-hand experience, Polk stressed not only that there are growing reasons to fear a nuclear war by miscalculation, but also that there is no parallel today to the leadership provided by John Kennedy and his Soviet counterpart Nikita Khrushchov.

Over the past weeks, there has been a growing chorus of warnings, coming from leading diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic (cf. below). And Russian officials have warned that, on top of the Ukraine conflict, any move to bring Georgia into NATO will be a virtual guarantee for general war. This is not an abstract question. Two weeks ago, the Georgian Defense Minister was in Washington, pressing for Georgian membership in the military alliance. On Aug. 26-27, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg was in Georgia furthering the accession process. According to Russian officials, if NATO membership would lead Georgia to invade the two independent regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, thus provoking a Russian military response, under existing security treaties.

In addition, a squadron of US F-22s arrived in Europe as part of the beefed up deployments, directed against Russia. NATO maneuvers are ongoing throughout the Autumn, including the largest NATO maneuvers in the entire post-Cold War period, directed against Russian “hybrid warfare”.

All of the war dangers, Lyndon LaRouche has stated repeatedly, emanate from the fact that U.S. President Barack Obama is committed to the crushing of Russia -- even if it means general war that would almost certainly lead to a thermonuclear war of extinction.

For his part, President Putin held a conference call on Aug. 28 with Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande, during which the three heads of government agreed that there should be a full Normandy Group meeting in the next weeks, including Ukrainian President Poroshenko. In read-outs of the call by German and French officials, it was acknowledged that Putin is fully committed to the implementation of the Minsk accords, starting a full ceasefire in eastern Ukraine as of Sept. 1.

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Moreover, Russia has taken the lead in pressing for an immediate diplomatic solution to the four-year-old war in Syria (cf. below).

In mid-September, President Putin will be in New York City for the UN General Assembly, and he reportedly conveyed, through the Lavrov-Kerry channels, that he would like to meet with President Obama on the sidelines of the UNGA.

Such a meeting would put the U.S. President on the spot and could offer an opportunity for a de-escalation of the situation. Ultimately, however, no true war prevention is possible as long as Barack Obama remains in power in Washington.

Cheminade Talks to Sputnik on Petition Drive

The French-language edition of Sputnik on Aug. 25, featured an article based on an interview with Jacques Cheminade, calling attention to the Schiller Institute petition “Denouncing the Threat of a Third World War.” (http://fr.sputniknews.com/opinion/20150825/1017773858.html)

The article paraphrases from that petition and extensively quotes Cheminade, who denounces the various provocations of Russia from the West. Importantly, the article stresses his insistence that the aggressive Western policy is driven by the financial collapse in the West, as well as his proposals to reorganize the international financial system along the lines of the Glass-Steagall Act, “to separate speculative banks from those involved in investing in the real economy.”

As for France, Cheminade says his country must return to the Gaullist policy of détente and cooperation.

“NATO Is Committing a Gigantic Mistake”

German Horst Teltschik has issued a warning the Chancellor’s office would do well to listen to. As top foreign policy adviser to the Chancellor at the time of reunification, Teltschik was involved in Chancellor Kohl’s efforts to offer Moscow solid security guarantees vis-a-vis NATO at the time. He later went on to chair the Munich Security Conference from 1999 to 2008, which promotes peaceful conflict resolution.

Since the beginning of the crisis over Ukraine, Teltschik has repeatedly warned the West to drop the confrontation course. He again voiced his concerns, in the weekly Focus (Aug. 26), where he called NATO policy toward Russia “immensely dangerous”. The ongoing major exercises on both sides are “mutual gestures of threats. Russia tries to intimidate NATO – and vice versa.”

The fact that NATO has stopped dialogue and cooperation with Russia today, he charged, is “a gigantic mistake”. During the Cold War, NATO pursued a “wiser policy than today.” Now, the Western alliance has destroyed all the confidence built up over the recent decades between Russia and NATO.

Along the same lines, the European Leadership Network, comprised of former senior government members, including several former defense and foreign ministers, issued another dramatic appeal on Aug. 26, on How to Reduce the Risk of a Military Encounter Between Russia and NATO.The call urges NATO to reopen official communication channels to Russia, such as the NATO-Russia Council, to discuss measures to prevent potential incidents during military exercises from mushrooming into direct conflicts (cf. SAS 34/15).

The call is signed, among many others, by former Defense Ministers Malcolm Rifkind (UK), Paul Quilès (France), and Volker Rühe (Germany), and by former Foreign Ministers Igor Ivanov (Russia) and Ana Palacio (Spain), and Alexei Gromyko, Deputy Director of the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences).

Another important initiative was taken by the Free Thinkers Association (Freidenkerverband) of Berlin on Aug. 25, which warned that “After the wars of aggression against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, war is being prepared against Russia. The encirclement of Russia by military bases, NATO expansion to the East, the construction of a U.S. missile defense shield and western operations in Ukraine, are part of this confrontation.”

These efforts dovetail with the petition “to stop World War III”, being circulated by the Schiller Institute (cf. SAS 33/15)

LaRouche: Wall Street Is Hopelessly Bankrupt, Protect the Real Economy

The total meltdown of the trans-Atlantic financial system, signalled by the “Black Monday” stock market crashes on Aug. 24, was temporarily postponed after a huge dose of “quantitative easing” by the Federal Reserve and other central banks over the following days. While many may have breathed a sigh of relief, this latest injection of “funny money” has only increased the instability of the overall system.

Lyndon LaRouche was not fooled by the intervention of the “plunge protection teams”. On Aug. 26, he issued an emergency statement, underlining that “Wall Street is plummeting to a general breakdown crisis. It is already underway and it is unstoppable. Wall Street is hopelessly bankrupt. We must, therefore, mobilize in anticipation to force the United States Federal government to stop that financial crash from bringing down the real economy and the nation with it.”

That requires the immediate passage, in both the House and the Senate, of the bills to reinstate the Glass-Steagall bank separation, precisely as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt did it in 1933.

“We have reached the point where the United States can no longer survive if we continue to tolerate the existence of Wall Street. We must end the Wall Street control over the US economy.

“Furthermore, this is a global crisis and the Glass-Steagall solution must be adopted internationally. This means global bankruptcy reorganization and the establishment of a credit system to revive capital intensive real production.” Indeed, the total indebtedness of the global system is estimated to be $2 quadrillion, of which some 90% represent outstanding derivative contracts. Clearly, that debt is unsustainable and must be cancelled under orderly bankruptcy proceedings, before it brings down the real economy, killing the people, and causes war.

LaRouche concluded: “I am taking this opportunity to sound the alarm and to call on others to join me in forcing the only viable action, available to the American people and people worldwide: Shut down Wall Street and reinstate Glass-Steagall.... We can launch a global recovery, but only under the condition that Wall Street and the other bankrupt centers of financial speculation are shut down for good.”

Swiss Professor Chesney: Cancel Illegitimate Debts and Implement Bank Separation

Swissinfo.ch featured on Aug. 27 an interview with Zürich Professor Marc Chesney under the headline “Greece, one of the casualties of financial dictatorship”, on the occasion of a new book he has published. Chesney begins with a 1966 quote from Charles de Gaulle that “French policy of France is not made on the stock exchange,” to underline the difference with today, when the financial markets dictate all aspects of countries’ policies.

Amid an overall attack on austerity, Chesney pointed in par

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ticular to the hypocrisy of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in demanding the Greeks pay their debt – while he, as former prime minister/finance minister of Luxembourg, allowed companies working in Greece to practice tax evasion in his tax haven. He also called for establishing which debts are legitimate and which are not: “A debt is illegitimate when it was not undertaken in the interest of the population and the creditors knew this.” He mentioned that ECB President Mario Draghi has still not answered as to the role of Goldman Sachs, his employer at the time, in using derivatives to fake the debt of Greece to make it eligible for the Eurozone.

Professor Chesney concluded his interview by calling for bank separation “as in the United States from 1933 to 1999 with the Glass-Steagall Act. Banks could only engage in exaggerated risks with their own money and not with that of their customers and taxpayers.”

Professor Chesney joined Helga Zepp-LaRouche and numerous other speakers at the May 2015 conference on the BRICS in Zόrich, organized by the Swiss citizens’ initiative, Impulswelle.

In Sept. 2013, the Swiss National Council (Lower House) set an example for Europe by passing a Motion obligating the government to prepare a Glass-Steagall plan in anticipation of the next financial crisis. That Motion was eventually rejected by the government. Now, with elections taking place in October, Glass-Steagall should be put on the agenda again.

Foreign Policy in the U.S. Presidential Election Campaign

The “war party” in the United States – that strange alliance between the neo-cons on the Republican side, and the “liberal interventionists” (under the fraudulent guise of “Responsibility to Protect”) -- continues to dominate U.S. foreign policy, with no serious dissent emerging thus far in the 2016 presidential election.

This alliance has manifested itself in the shared commitment to regime change -- from Saddam Hussein to Qadaffi and to Assad in Syria – which has resulted in the emergence of the barbaric Islamic State and other jihadist forces. And in Ukraine, the U.S. and NATO have increased military backing to the Kiev regime, which was brought into power by an alliance between U.S. neo-cons, such as Victoria Nuland, and liberal interventionists such as Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton, who backed the coup, which was largely carried out by neo-Nazi forces.

Similarly, the same forces running the Obama administration have increased the threats to China, in the “Asia pivot,” which includes a major U.S. military buildup around China, and re-armament of Japan.

Despite the glaring dangers, all Republican presidential candidates, with the partial exception of Sen. Rand Paul, are demanding more bellicosity, toward both Russia and China. Typical is Sen. Marco Rubio, who called President Putin a “gangster”, and described China as “a rising threat to U.S. security.” Virtually every one of the candidates has demanded delivery of “lethal” weapons to Ukraine, and all have been nearly apoplectic in their efforts to blame China for last week’s near meltdown of global stock markets.

As for the Democrats, not one of the leading contenders (Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley) has yet said a word against the provocations by President Obama of Russia and China, nor offered an alternative to the close collaboration of the last 15 years between the United States and the Sunni jihadist backers of Saudi Arabia.

In that context, it is crucial that Hillary Clinton take the advice of Lyndon LaRouche, and tell the truth about President Obama’s unconstitutional war in Libya, which benefitted Al Qaeda and ISIS, and led to the murder of U.S. Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi. Such a confession would end her presidential aspirations -- but it would also lead to the ouster of President Obama, and open the door to remove the war party operatives from the Executive branch, and from Congress.

Russia’s Take on “Nuclear” Diplomacy in Middle East and Africa

During the week of Aug. 23, Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted separate meetings with the leaders of Egypt, Jordan and Abu Dhabi, where discussion ranged from seeking a solution to stop the war in Syria, to the building and financing of nuclear power stations by Russia. All three leaders also attended Russia’s main aviation and space show, MAKS.

On Aug. 27, President Putin and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah El Sisi signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Moscow for a 1,000 megawatt nuclear power station that Russia will build and finance. The meeting had been arranged by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in Ismailia during the opening ceremony of the Suez Canal in the first week of August. This was El Sisi’s third official visit to Russia since becoming President a little over one year ago.

In addition to nuclear technology, Putin said during their joint press conference, that Russia would also increase its grain exports to Egypt and form a trade zone to enhance bilateral trade. Also on the agenda was an industrial zone to be founded in the New Suez Canal Development Area with Russian assistance.

For his part El Sisi said the Egyptian people welcome cooperation with Russia in different fields, “including the economy but also the fight against terror in a region suffering from terrorism.” El Sisi called for a political solution to the ongoing conflict in Syria based on the Geneva conference, which calls for holding fresh presidential elections as well as constitutional amendments.

Putin also met in Moscow with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, where discussion of a Russian-built nuclear power station in Jordan were high on the agenda. On a solution to the Syrian war, King Abdullah II told Putin: “Your role and the role of your country in uniting all the opposing sides at the negotiation table for a peaceful solution are critical,” according to a statement released by the Kremlin.

In separate talks with the Crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, he and Putin discussed the conflict in Syria. Russia is also involved in the very ambitious nuclear power program of the United Arab Emirates, of which Abu Dhabi is a member.

As for the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in speaking to the Lebanese TV Al Manar, he welcomed Russia’s ongoing efforts to try to revive the long-stalled peace process, but expressed doubt as to whether the Russian-proposed coalition against the murderous Islamic State can be formed, when it includes states that are supporting terrorism, meaning Turkey and Saudi Arabia, in particular. However, he did not rule out that the meetings in Moscow of representatives of Syrian opposition groups, will lead to a “Geneva-3,” which could be successful.

The Solution to the Refugee Crisis in Europe Is Development

The atrocious discovery of 71 dead bodies in a refrigerated truck in Austria has added a new dimension of horror to the drama of desperate migrants seeking refuge in Europe. The glaring lack of any coherent policy to deal with the problem has discredited

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European leaders even further, while feeding into the xenophobic, extremist movements in the various countries.

What the EU bureaucracy deliberately leaves out of the overall debate is that the primary cause of the influx of migrants, who are ruthlessly looted by the human traffickers, is the wars and chaos that the Western powers, beginning with the United States, have waged in the Middle East and Afghanistan over the past decades, based on geopolitical lies, Syria being the most recent tragic case in point.

Today, according to UN figures, there are 60 million people on the march throughout the world. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that more than 300,000 refugees have attempted to cross the Mediterranean this year, up from 219,000 last year. Of them, at least 2,500 have drowned. Over land, the flow has been at least 250,000 with an unknown number of deaths. Figures given by individual countries are even much higher than the UN’s. One report from last May found that transporting migrants had brought over $320 million to the ISIS and other terrorist, jihadist groups.

And yet, there is a reasonable, dignified solution to the problem which should be obvious to all: put an end to geopolitics, and promote economic development and the prospect of building a peaceful future in those countries from which the civil populations are now fleeing at the risk of their lives.

A blueprint for doing so is given in the study presented last year by the Schiller Institute, The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land Bridge. A chapter of this outlines the type of development projects urgently needed in South-West Asia and North and Central Africa. The vast desert areas could be greened, infrastructure could be built, and agriculture and industry could be developed, which would bring now warring factions into collaboration. Rather than pouring money into Frontex and other repressive programs, or putting up barbed-wire fences, the EU should invest in such projects.

One example of such an attempt at real development comes from Egypt, where President El Sisi has mobilized the population around the prospect, first, of completing the new Suez Canal, and now of carrying out an ambitious project involving infrastructure and industry. While many problems remain to be confronted, the Egyptians have responded with enthusiasm to the national plan, rather than attempting to flee the country.

Todenhöfer Pens an ”Open Letter to the War Politicians of the World”

Appearing on the popular “Maischberger” TV talk show Aug. 25, Jürgen Todenhöfer, a former Christian Democrat Bundestag member from 1972 to 1990, exposed the chaos in the Middle East and Northern Africa as “a part of the strategy of the U.S. which they started with their bombing of Afghanistan, against Iraq, Libya ... and the results could not be worse.”

Todenhöfer also dared to break the overall media blackout in Germany (and in Europe) by mentioning the intervention of the former head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael Flynn. The latter had stated that building up the groups that became ISIL and ISIS had been “a willful decision” by the U.S. Administration (cf. SAS 33/15).

On Aug. 26, Todenhöfer posted an exceptionally harsh-worded “Open Letter to the War Politicians of the World” on his website, charging: “Through decades of a policy of war and exploitation, you have pushed millions of people in the Middle East and Africa into misery. Because of you, refugees have to flee all over the world... More and more wars, waves of terror and refugee crises will determine the future of our planet.”

Addressing the heads of state and government, he charged: “You are total failures,” but you refuse to talk responsibility for the disaster. “You should stand trial in front of the International Criminal Court.” He went on to call for a mass movement against these policies: “As once Gandhi did – in non-violence, in civil disobedience. We should create new movements and parties. Movements for justice and humanity.”

Korean Event to “Promote the Spirit of the Silk Road” Hears from Helga Zepp-LaRouche

The organization “Renaissance of Silkroadia” held its first international conference Aug. 21-24 in Gyeongju, South Korea, the ancient capital of Korea. The event was part of a months-long cultural and educational expo to revive the history of this cultural city, which was the end of a martiime Silk Road connecting to the ancient land-based trade route from China through Central Asia and Europe.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche was invited as International President of the Schiller Institute to chair the panel on “Concepts and Significance of the Silk-Road,” and to give a presentation, which she titled: “A New Era of Mankind Where We Become Truly Human”. Since she was unable to attend personally, Michael Billington, the Asian editor of Executive Intelligence Review, chaired the panel and read her speech, after which he gave his own presentation on “Peace Through Development--The Unity of East and West.”

The New Silk Road, Zepp-LaRouche began, should be seen as “a synonym not only for a new just economic order,” based on completely different economic and scientific principles from the previous system of globalization, “but also for a new paradigm concerning the identity of the human species as the only creative species known so far in the universe.”

During the event, the Silk-Road Universities Network (SUN) was established to “serve as an international intellectual arena where diverse ideas, knowledge and findings pertaining to Silk Road are presented, exchanged, and enriched”, according to its website, and to promote the study of the Silk Road as “an independent academic field.”

The idea to launch the network came from Prof. Hwang Sung-don of the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, who explained in his presentation: “It is time to form harmonious relationships among higher education institutes to promote [the] values and [the] spirit of the Silk Road.” In total, Professor Hwang said, 43 universities in 22 countries will create a joint curriculum on the Silk Road.

The SUN has three different organizations: one is made up of presidents of universities; another includes scholars who are studying the trade routes, and the third brings together students from the member universities.

This Korean initiative comes at a time when South Korean President Park Geun Hye is striving to improve relations with Beijing and to settle the conflict with North Korea.

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