E.I.R.STRATEGIC ALERT

E.I.R.STRATEGIC ALERT



WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Volume 29, No. 40 - October 1, 2015

Russia Launches Diplomatic Offensive at UN to Complement “Facts on the Ground” in Syria

The intense Russian military deployment in and around Syria has presented President Obama with a fait accompli, preempting his plans to ally with Turkey and Saudi Arabia in establishing a no-fly zone for jihadists in northern Syria, aimed at the overthrow of the Assad government and the creation of a Salafist haven on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean.

That is off the table for now, as a result of President Putin’s bold and timely actions to make the fight against ISIL and other jihadists the number one priority. In addition to the deployment of at least two squadrons of Russian MIG fighters to the Latakia area, Russian engineers have now arrived at the naval port of Tartous, to expand the facilities to accommodate larger Russian warships and supply ships. Putin has also ended Israel’s domination over Syrian air space, bluntly telling Prime Minister Netanyahu Sept. 21 that Russia will not allow Israeli planes to freely attack Hezbollah convoys inside Syrian territory.

The fact that major allies of the United States in Europe, in particular Germany, France and even Great Britain, expressed support for working with Russia to combat terrorism and to stop the outflow of refugees, added to the pressure on the White House (cf. below). Turkish President Erdogan, after visiting Moscow on Sept. 23, also completely reversed his own position, joining those same EU countries to acknowledge that President Assad could have a role to play in a transition period, albeit not in the long run.

Ultimately, President Obama was forced to allow his Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to establish a military-to-military channel of contact with Russian counterparts (cf. SAS 39/15). Some limited degree of “deconfliction” contact has already been established at the ground level, although not officially, and some more reasonable U.S. military circles are pushing for Russian-American intelligence sharing and eventual coordinated operations against the Islamic State and other jihadists.

The revelations on the utter failure of the Pentagon’s program to train and equip Syrian “moderate” rebels to fight ISIS make the Russian call for a coalition all the more urgent. After 70 U.S. trained fighters joined the 4 (!) remaining men on the ground last week, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis had to admit that those fighters were attacked by Al Nusra forces, and had to surrender their equipment to avoid being killed or captured (cf. SAS 38, 39/15).

The Kremlin’s moves catapulted the crisis in Syria to the top of the agenda of the UN General Assembly, and of the numerous high-level discussions on the sidelines, including between Presidents Putin and Obama. Western leaders are also finally seeking to actively include Tehran in a long-term stabilization effort, which Iranian President Rouhani, at the UN, welcomed.

Obama the Narcissist Still Attempting to Stage a Provocation against Putin’s Initiative

While President Obama’s forced about-face on Syria is significant, one should have no illusions about his underlying intentions, Lyndon LaRouche stressed on several occasions last week. Obama remains hell-bent on confrontation with Russia, and he could take some kind of irrational action in the framework of the United Nations gatherings to escalate the conflict, rather than acknowledge the merits of the Russian offers of genuine counter-terrorist cooperation. That latter option would mean recognizing that his own strategy has failed miserably, which is unacceptable for him.

LaRouche also emphasized that leading officials in Washington, including in the Senate, are blocking out the reality of the U.S. President’s narcissism and his personal venom toward Vladimir Putin. Therefore, they fail to see the imminent danger of such a provocation against Russia by Obama, despite all the signs.

Senior U.S. Administration officials indicated that Obama would attempt to use his meeting with Putin at the UN to discuss Ukraine, in order to change the subject from the positive Russian initiative. LaRouche, however, does not believe the Russian President will fall into the trap: “he’ll handle the meeting just fine; let Obama get stuck.”

You can’t negociate with Obama, LaRouche stated again Sept. 25, he has to be boxed in, as he has been on Syria. To avoid the danger of world war, Obama must be removed from his position as Commander-in-Chief, and President.

Xi Jinping Announces $2 Billion More to Poor Nations, 600 Foreign Assistance Projects

After his state visit to Washington on Sept. 25 (cf. below), itself preceded by two days of discussions on the West Coast with American industrial leaders, Chinese President Xi Jinping was at the United Nations as of Sept. 26, where he spoke at the UN Sustainable Development Summit and a South-South cooperation forum. He used the occasions to announce more major Chinese development programs for the world, above

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and beyond the Silk Road projects, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the New Development Bank of the BRICS, the special development funds, and more, already put in operation earlier.

Xi began by pledging $2 billion as part of the pool of international funds to fight poverty in the poorest countries, as an “initial investment.” This raises the Chinese contribution to the UN fund to $12 billion over the next 15 years.

At the South-South forum, Xi said that China will launch 600 development projects in developing nations over the next five years, 100 each in agriculture, poverty reduction, trade, environmental protection, health care, and education. He said that “cooperation and unity with the developing world remain the unshakable foundation of China’s foreign relations.”

At the Sustainable Development Summit, Xi castigated the current coercive, politicized structure of aid designed by the West. He said China’s hope for the future was that all nations, all peoples would receive equitable assistance, and not just “certain countries”, and that the smaller and poorer countries must be heard “in the making of international rules.”

It is certainly true that the UN’s Millennium Goals program of the past 15 years, which the Sustainable Development Goals are intended to replace, were entirely coercive in nature -- if a poor country was “good” and did everything it was told, it would get a few pennies.

Promoting education is a central part of the Chinese leadership’s policy. In that context, Xi announced at the UN the establishment in China of an International Development Knowledge Center to help developing countries. In addition to debt relief for the poorest countries, China will also provide 270,000 scholarships for students from the developing world to come to China for higher education or vocational education, while offering training for 500,000 more students in their home countries.

Xi Jinping Quotes Lincoln to Obama: “The Best Way to Predict the Future Is to Create It”

At the State Dinner at the White House on Sept. 25, Chinese President Xi Jinping, in his toast, welcomed the “extraordinary achievements” of China-US relations over the past 30 years, and expressed his conviction that their future “will be even more bright.”

And in a reference to an American historical figure whom he evidently would prefer Obama emulate, he said: “As an ancient Chinese saying goes: ‘Only those who take actions can achieve their goal. Only those who strive forward can reach their destination.’ President Abraham Lincoln once said: ‘The best way to predict the future is to create it.’”

Earlier in the day, in a joint press conference in the Rose Garden by the two Presidents, Obama did refer to cooperation between the two nations in counter terror, the Iran deal, and a few other issues, but railed against China’s supposed responsibility for hacking in the US (“it has to stop!” Obama demanded), currency manipulation, intellectual property offenses, and human rights issues regarding Christians, Tibetans, lawyers, NGOs, and on and on.

Xi took the high ground. After presenting China’s call for the US to participate in “peaceful development” and a “new model of major-country relationship without conflict, without confrontation, with mutual respect and win-win cooperation,” Xi read a prepared answer to a question from People’s Daily as to whether China was attempting to “challenge the U.S. leading position in the world.”

In his reply, Xi presented China’s view of the cooperation. “The Cold War has long ended. Today’s world has entered into an era of economic globalization where countries are interdependent upon each other.

“People should move ahead with the times, and give up on the old concepts of you lose, I win or zero-sum game, and establish a new concept of peaceful development and willing cooperation.

“If China develops well, it will benefit the whole world and benefit the United States. If the U.S. develops well, it will also benefit the world and China.”

China, he went on, wants to work with all countries “to firmly defend the fruits of victory of the Second World War, and the existing international system, and at the same time, promote them to developing a more just and equitable direction.”

The One Belt One Road initiative and the AIIB, Xi stated, aim to “expand mutual and beneficial cooperation with other countries and realize common development. These initiatives are open, transparent, inclusive. They are consistent in serving the interests of the U.S. and other countries interest. And we welcome the U.S. and other parties to actively participate in them.”

Swiss Parliament Sticks to Its Guns, Votes up Bank Separation Again

A welcome step toward reining in the casino economy was taken on Sept. 23 in Bern, which could have far-reaching consequences. On that day, the Swiss National Council (Lower House) again voted up two motions calling for a type of Glass-Steagall, filed by the Socialist Party (SP) and the Swiss People’s Party (SPP).

These are same two motions introduced in 2013 by Corrado Pardini (SP) and Thomas Aeschi (SPP), calling on the government to draft a bill for a “fundamental separation of commercial and wealth management banks from banks involved in proprietary trading.”

The motions explain that “In the last years, risks ensuing from a bank crisis have been reduced with several measures, but were a systemic relevant bank to find itself in serious troubles, that could ravage the national economy and the state would be forced to bail out those banks, which in the worst case, could lead to a national bankruptcy.”

Both the Swiss government and the Upper House (Council of States) rejected both motions in the past. Nonetheless, the SP and the SPP, the two largest parties which are usually at loggerheads on “left-right” issues, decided to reintroduce them, thus forcing the Council of States to review the question again.

In the meantime, the Schiller Institute has kept campaigning aggressively in Switzerland in favor of a strict separation of banks, in the context of the perspective for the country to join in the BRICS dynamic. The Swiss organization Impulswelle has also kept the issue up front.

At the same time, the threat of a new financial crisis is acutely perceived among the Swiss, as well as the danger for the Swiss economy were one of the two major “too big to fail” banks, UBS and Credit Suisse, to go under.

Added to that is the fact that the discussion on bank separation in the form of the Glass-Steagall Act has grown significantly internationally, thanks to the presidential campaigns of Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders in the United States and to Jeremy’s Corbyn victory in the UK Labor Party, as we reported.

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German Shift on Syria Has Immediate Strategic Dimensions

Lyndon LaRouche recently stressed that the German government held the keys for war and peace in its hands, as we reported. Washington’s drive for confrontation with Russia cannot work, he said repeatedly, if Germany openly breaks with Barack Obama’s policy.

That has now occurred in a spectacular way. The Chancellor in person, following on indications from several cabinet members, made known on Sept. 23 that Germany had shifted away from the regime change policy in Syria and rallied to Russia’s position that President Assad should be involved in negotiations.

“We have to speak with many actors, this includes Assad, but others as well,” Merkel told a press conference after the EU summit on refugees. “Not only with the United States of America, Russia, but with important regional partners, Iran, and Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia.” It is significant that the Chancellor mentioned Iran, a key nation that needs stability in Syria.

The new German government line was reiterated the next day in Parliament by the faction leaders of the two coalition partners, CDU and SPD, Volker Kauder and Thomas Oppermann, both of whom supported talks with Assad.

On Sept. 25, when Angela Merkel was in the New York for the UN General Assembly, Deputy Chancellor and SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel went even further, calling for lifting sanctions against Moscow. Stressing that Russian cooperation is necessary to solve the crisis in Syria, he commented: “Everyone should be smart enough to know that you cannot on the one hand maintain sanctions permanently and ask for cooperation on the other hand.” He also called on Washington “to do more, as they are co-responsible in part for why the refugees are fleeing, because of their war in Irak”.

This shift is opposed in pro-Atlanticist political circles, especially in the CDU-CSU and in the Green Party. However, it is backed by elder statesmen and prominent figures in the German establishment.

Former Foreign minister Hans Dietrich Genscher for example, a protagonist of the detente policy and of German reunification, recalled, in an interview with the Sept. 27 Welt Am Sonntag, that “In 1990, East and West agreed on the Paris Charter for the large area from Vancouver to Vladivostok. Twenty five years later, we should all attempt again to achieve that.”

Another example is the strategic memorandum authored by four prominent German figures: former Helmut Kohl national security advisor Horst Teltschik, former chief of Bundeswehr general staff Harald Kujat, former senior diplomat Frank Elbe and current head of the Weizsäcker Society Bruno Redeker.

They issue a very stark warning about the danger of nuclear war, noting that tensions are rising between Russia and the United States, which possess 90% of the nuclear weapons in the world. “True, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki no nuclear weapon has ever been used, but we see no compelling reason why this should be forever the case.”

They also urge European leaders and legislators to act to bring about direct US-Russia negotiations to “resolve the Syrian and Ukrainian conflicts”.

Nuclear Rearmament in Europe: The Alarm Is Sounded

The revolt against the new nuclear arms race in Europe initiated in Belgium by the LaRouche-allied Agora Erasmus (cf. SAS 38, 39/15) has spread to Germany. A report in Frontal 21, a news magazine on the Second Channel (ZDF) on Sept. 22 raised the issue of the new tactical nuclear weapons that are to be stationed in Germany, provoking denials and counter-denials from Washington and Moscow.

Frontal 21 reported that in an official Pentagon paper, it is reported that the German Tornado aircraft at the Büchel air base will begin to be “integrated” with the new B61-12 guided nuclear bombs as of the third quarter of 2015. They are to replace the old B61 bombs which are currently there. But they represent in fact a new capability for tactical nuclear weapons.

Experts warn that their increased precision of delivery, potentially much lower explosive force, and greater stealth actually risk lowering the nuclear threshold for their use. That is, nuclear rearmement has begun.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, questioned by Sputnik, claimed that the ZDF revelations are false, since the B61-12 bombs will not be ready before 2020. However, Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, confirmed to Agora Erasmus founder Karel Vereycken what he had already explained to the Frontal 21 reporters, i.e. that “preparations to make the aircraft capable of carrying the new weapon are already underway”.

Vereycken himself told Sputnik on Sept 24 that he was happy that the debate in Europe had expanded to Germany. “’As initiator of the Agora Erasmus petition in Belgium, I am extremely happy about these developments since our petition is aimed exactly at creating such a public outcry. A small fly in the ear of a big bull can drive the latter crazy,’ Vereycken remarked with a touch of humor.”

He is further quoted: “Of course, being afraid is a good start but not enough. As Helga Zepp LaRouche outlines it in her call to the leaders of the world, we should all work together and make the United Nations Jubilee meeting a birthplace of universal enduring peace based on mutual development and free of the financial dictatorship which is dividing our leaders and our people,” Vereycken emphasized.”

That same day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that Russia will take countermeasures to the US nuclear rearmament in Europe. “This may lead to a strategic imbalance in Europe”, Peskov said, “and, therefore, naturally, this will make Russia take according steps and countermeasures to establish parity, because, naturally, this is not a step toward boosting stability, increasing trust, or providing security in Europe.”

How France Should React to Putin’s Intiative on Syria

That was the theme of a lively meeting held at the offices of Solidarité & Progrès on Sept. 24, near Paris and webcast live. In addition to the direct participants, over 500 connections were made over Internet.

The speakers at the event, which was both fascinating and complicated because of the major shifts ongoing in the world, included former French ambassador Michel Raimbaud, Bassam Tahhan, a Franco-Syrian geostrategist, Alain Corvez, an international strategic consultant, Jacques Cheminade, chairman of Solidarité & Progrès, and Christine Bierre, editor of Nouvelle Solidarité. They are part of a long-standing group of resistants to the policy pursued by France, in particular since the war in Libya, which Nicolas Sarkozy, Alain Juppé, Bernard Henri Lévy, etc., supported with such enthusiasm.

All the speakers welcomed President Putin’s proposal for reviving the Geneva agreement on Syria, while looking forward to his intervention at the UN.

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Bassam Tahhan called ISIS “a monster created by the United States,” noting that the head of the organization, al Bagdadi, and many of its leaders, were recruited to the jihad in American army jails in Iraq in 2004. Then, suddenly, Bagdadi “was freed in 2009, when it was decided he should fight against the Syrian government and create the Islamic State.”

Ambassador Michel Raimbaud pointed out that Oxford emeritus professor of international relationsAvi Shlaim has established three criteria that define rogue states: 1) regular violations of international law, 2) possession of weapons of massive destruction, 3) practice of terrorism to terrorize civil populations. All three apply fully to... the three major Western powers!

Jacques Cheminade welcomed the policy shift that the French government has apparently effected, involving increased support for the Minsk agreements and possible lifting of the sanctions against Russia in December, while accepting that Bashar al Assad must participate, for now, in the process of ending the war in his country.

Otherwise, Cheminade insisted on the fact that the refugee crisis is primarily due to NATO’s wars in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, which have destabilized and destroyed those countries. Therefore, an end to the conflicts and economic development are the priorities, to allow those refugees who so wish to return home.

That implies eliminating not only ISIS but also the Al Nusra Front and its various components, which have formed the Army of Conquest. In addition to military measures, Cheminade stressed, their financial flows must be cut off. For ISIS, that means cutting the funds from the sale of oil and stopping the recycling of their money through European and American banks, often off-shore. And for the Army of Conquest, it means stopping the funding by various charities and social associations, in particular those in the Emirates, Kuweit, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Indian PM Modi Says Poverty, Not Carbon Emissions, Is the Priority

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon held a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sept. 25, for a private discussion of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The Indian PM raised the issue of a “trust deficit” with developed countries, that appear to be using “climate change” to prevent developing countries from improving the living standards of their people.

Modi said that developing countries should be allowed to develop, and that the West’s policy of imposing restrictions and controls on development – including through reducing carbon emissions -- was not the way to go. According to Indo-Asian News Service, he said “Positive measures like concessional financing of climate change projects and transfer of technology were needed to promote sustainable development instead of negative ones that focus on capping carbon emissions.”

Addressing a special summit of the UN later on the same day, Modi pointed out that countries such as China, India and Brazil are home to millions of people living in extreme poverty, that is on $1.25 a day or less -- 80 million, 280 million and 10 million respectively. It is not just about fulfilling the needs of the poor and upholding their dignity, nor about assuming moral responsibility for this, but realizing that the very goal of a sustainable future cannot be accomplished without addressing the problem of poverty, he said, the BRICS Post reported.

Contributing to the debate at the United Nations, representatives of Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) held a conference on Sept. 22 to present a new Special Report Global Warming Scare Is Population Reduction, Not Science to journalists and mission/consulate representatives associated with the UN. The report goes through the Malthusian, eugenicist theses behind the current propaganda on climate change, as well as the scientific evidence at hand (cf. SAS 38/15).

Ben Deniston of EIR and Tom Wysmuller, a NASA scientist, meteorologist, and member of the group “The Right Climate Stuff”, presented some new scientific material never before detailed. That caused the diplomatic audience to express a decidedly “undiplomatic” excitement about how the future could be shaped. In fact, they broke out in applause and relief at the conference’s conclusion.

Radiation Panic, Not Radiation, Caused Deaths in Fukushima

In an article posted Sept. 21 on the New York Times website, George Johnson revisits the effects of the tsunami that caused the shutdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan over four years ago. As the International Atomic Energy Agency reported in August, Johnson writes, “No one has been killed or sickened by the radiation”, and even among Fukushima workers, “the number of additional cancer cases in coming years is expected to be so low as to be undetectable.”

However, some 1,600 people died from the stress of the evacuation, a decision which was highly controversial, given the moderate radiation levels at the nuclear plant.

Johnson spoke to Dr. Mohan Doss, a medical physicist and expert in radiation.”The government basically panicked,” he said. “When you evacuate a hospital intensive care unit, you cannot take patients to a high school and expect them to survive.”

Other victims, Doss told Johnson, were residents of nursing homes, and those who committed suicide because of the fear of radiation.

Johnson writes: “Had the evacuees stayed home, their cumulative exposure over four years, in the most intensely radioactive locations, would have been about 70 millisieverts - roughly comparable to receiving a high-resolution whole-body diagnostic scan each year. By Dr. Doss’s calculations, most residents would have received much less -- about 4 millisieverts a year. The average annual exposure from the natural background radiation of the earth is 2.4 millisieverts.”

It is useful to recall that the accident at the power plant, caused by the mega-tsunami, set off a wild campaign of hysteria internationally against the use of nuclear power, in which scientific reasoning was thrown out the window. The most extreme case of irrational reaction came from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who, for purely ideological reasons, abruptly announced the total phasing out of nuclear power of Germany.

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Verantwortl. f. d. Inhalt: Dean Andromidas, Claudio Celani

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n°40 / 2015