E.I.R.STRATEGIC ALERT

E.I.R.STRATEGIC ALERT



WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Volume 29, No. 48 - November 26, 2015

Terrorist Attacks in Paris Produce a “Global Pearl Harbor” Shock

The blind terror attacks in Paris, that left 130 people dead and many more injured, was a wake-up call to the world that the US-led phony war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria can no longer be tolerated, and that a genuine campaign to wipe out the scourge of Anglo-Saudi backed jihadist terrorism cannot be delayed. The urgency to do so was confirmed just three days later, when it was announced that the downing of the Russian Metrojet Airbus on Nov. 1, killing all 224 people aboard over the Sinai Desert in Egypt, was also the result of a terrorist bombing.

Meanwhile, the “Pearl Harbor effect” of the Paris attacks was evident within 24 hours, when representatives of 20 countries gathered in Vienna to devise a strategy for ending the tragic five year Syrian war. Unlike prior meetings, that were sabotaged from the outset by Washington and London’s anti- Russia policies and sectarian conflicts in the region, the Nov. 14 Vienna gathering hammered out the detailed outlines and timetable for a Syrian ceasefire, followed by a process of constitutional reforms, elections and a transition of power. While no final agreement was worked out on the future status of Syrian President Bashar Assad, the tone and content of the session was dramatically different.

Key to the breakthrough was the fact that US Secretary of State Kerry was freed from the personal animosity of Barack Obama and the White House toward Russian President Putin.

When the G20 heads of state gathered in Turkey on Nov. 15-16, Putin was the main attraction. This underlined the vast change in the international strategic situation from just one year ago, when at the previous G20 meeting in Nov. 2014, Western leaders shunned the Russian President, who ended up leaving the event early (cf. SAS 47/15). In the meantime, Russia, backed by China, has taken the lead in the fight against radical jihadism. This year, even President Obama held a 35 minute meeting with Putin, and admitted that the Russian military intervention in Syria could be a positive factor in defeating the IS.

Very importantly, at the event, Putin raised the issue of funding for the jihad, which is key to taking it out. He announced that Russian intelligence had a dossier of 40 oil brokers and financiers of ISIS, including individuals living in some G-20 countries. (As our readers know, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Emirates are high on the list, which is why it is so important to release the 28 pages on the financing of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S.)

While President Obama and the EU leaders, emphatically David Cameron, cannot be trusted to genuinely abandon the confrontationist drive against Putin and Russia, their behavior at the G20 and afterwards clearly indicated that the world has changed, since Nov. 13, and that nothing short of a unified global response to the terror atrocities can be credibly presented.

Jihadists’ New Modus Operandi Demands Global Response

Following the attacks in Paris, Vladimir Putin spoke frequently over the next days with French President Hollande, and the two men agreed to joint Russian-French military operations against the Islamic State. The French aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, arrived in the Eastern Mediterranean, and began runs against ISIS targets, while Russian ships in the area are assigned to protect the French carrier.

Clearly reacting to the new strategic situation, as defined by Russia’s and China’s initiatives, Hollande has publicly pressed for a trilateral alliance to wipe out ISIS, including France, Russia and the United States. After meeting with Cameron on Nov. 23, he flew to Washington the next day, to meet Obama and will then go to Moscow on Nov. 26 to meet with Putin.

The Paris attacks are understood to be a phase change in IS strategy, not a one-time event. In the past several weeks, the group bombed the Russian airliner out of Sharm el-Sheikh, carried out blind terrorist attacks in southern Beirut, in a Hezbollah stronghold, and hit Paris. Al Qaeda terrorists stormed a luxury hotel in the capital of Mali, killing hostages before being killed by Malian, French and American commandos. Brussels, which houses the European Commission and the NATO headquarters, is under lock-down, in expectation of a terrorist attack like Paris.

World security officials acknowledge that such blind terrorist attacks, as that in 2008 in Mumbai, India, can be carried out in any big metropolitan area. Groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda are part of a criminal underground with access to weapons, explosives and logistical support to organize them. Western security officials estimate that ISIS has a war-chest of $2 billion, largely amassed from black market oil sales and from the looting of every household in ISIS-held territory. Massive amounts of gold, diamonds, and other precious items, looted from the population are sold on the black markets via Turkey and Dubai.

The recent Russian bombings of those oil facilities are intended to bankrupt the Islamic State, at the same time that the ISIS capital of Raqqa is cut off from Turkey and Iraq.

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ASEAN Rejects War Plans Against China

With European countries increasingly rejecting Barack Obama’s criminal “regime change” policy in Southwest Asia, the U.S. President flew to Manila on Nov. 16 and then to Kuala Lumpur for meetings of APEC, ASEAN, and the EAS (East Asia Summit), undoubtedly hoping that his demands for confrontation would be more successful in Asia.

However, earlier this month, at a meeting of Defense Ministers from the Southeast Asia nations (ASEAN), the U.S., China and others in Kuala Lumpur, Washington’s demand, delivered by Defense Secretary Ash Carter, that the final communique include an attack on supposed Chinese “aggression” and “militarization” in the South China Sea was firmly rejected. In fact, in an unusual move, the Defense ministers refused to even issue a communique (cf. SAS 46-47/15).

Nonetheless, in Manila last week, Obama visited a used Coast Guard Cutter the U.S. had given to the Philippines, declared it battle ready (!), and blustered that China must stop building up islands under their control in the South China Sea. Again, the issue was not brought up at the APEC Summit, where the Asian nations are far more interested in collaborating with China’s One Belt One Road Silk Road development programs than in confronting their neighbor.

Even more important, the Philippine Senate, just one week earlier, voted to reject Philippine President Noynoy Aquino’s subservient military deal allowing the U.S. military bases to be set up, despite a Constitutional restriction against any foreign bases on Philippine soil without Senate approval. Aquino had resorted to the subterfuge of calling the US military “guests” of the Philippine military, and then declared the deal an “executive agreement” which did not need Senate approval. But the Senate disagreed, ruling 15-1, that it involves a treaty which requires their consent, which is unlikely to happen.

Obama is accusing China of “militarizing” the South China Sea by building a few small islands, some light houses, and some air strips. But the charge is quite ludicrous in contrast to Obama’s plan to place the most modern air, sea and land war fighting equipment and troops all over the Philippines -- including two such bases in the South China Sea itself, on the Philippines island of Palawan.

Nonetheless, the U.S. President moved on to Malaysia for the ASEAN summit with the firm intention of raising his accusations against China again, only to find that the draft communique, drawn up by the host nation, excludes any mention of the South China Sea. It appears that Obama’s war mongering is rejected in Asia, as it was at the G-20 summit in Turkey last week.

Labour Leader Corbyn Proposes Sanctions Against Entities Supporting ISIS

Speaking in Parliament on Nov. 18, during Questions to the Prime Minister, British Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn asked David Cameron: “Surely a crucial way to help defeat Isil is to cut off its funding, its supply of arms, and its trade. Can I press the Prime Minister to ensure that our allies in the region, indeed all countries in the region, are doing all they can to clamp down on individuals and institutions in their countries who are providing Isil with vital infrastructure?

“Will he, through the European Union and other forums if necessary consider sanctions against those banks and companies and if necessary countries which turn a blind eye to those who do dealings with Isil who assist them in their work?”

Corbyn’s questions followed statements he had made after the Paris attacks, where he argued that “Saudi Arabia, maybe not at Government level, but certainly at aid-level, has been providing support to Isil.” �������������������������������������Corbyn has also been critical of Turkey’s role in bombing Kurdish positions of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria, when the latter have been crucial in combatting ISIS.

David Cameron, in response to Corbyn, attempted to turn the issue around to drum up support for British military action in Syria. “We cannot dodge forever the question of how to degrade and destroy Isil both in Iraq and in Syria,” the PM stated. “yes, go after the money, go after the banks, cut off their supplies, but don’t make that a substitute for the action that’s required to beat these people where they are.”

In fact, Cameron is reportedly preparing a “coherent strategy”, involving military action against ISIS, to submit to a vote in the House of Commons, which has rejected any such move until now.

What is missing from the debate is the role of London itself, which has been the major recruiting center for jihadists in Europe for decades now. So much so that it has earned the name Londonistan.

Questions To Be Raised In and Around the Paris Attacks

The savage terrorist attacks in Paris raise obvious and urgent security issues, mainly related to two aspects: 1. The apparent unpreparedness of French law enforcement and intelligence agencies; 2. the vulnerability of the EU “open borders” system.

A terror attack can take even the best intelligence by surprise, but the nature of what happened in the French capital, in terms of the number of persons involved, the logistics, preparation and training time, etc., was such, that it seems almost impossible that police and intelligence did not get wind of it.

One explanation raised by some is that French and other intelligence agencies were not at all blind to the existence of the terrorist capability, but let it develop undisturbed or even protected, because it was part of the recruitment base for the war against the Syrian government. In fact, jihadists travelled back and forth from European countries to Syria and their moves were regularly detected by the police. In one case, one of the terrorists travelled six times through Italy, and was not arrested despite the fact that he could have been under Italian law.

Another element highlighted, among others, by veteran Italian anti-terrorist fighters, is that Sarkozy’s decision to reorganize the intelligence services in 2008 severely weakend their capabilities. It led to an “almost violent” turnover of some 60% of the personnel, preventing a normal, gradual transfer of jurisdictions, responsibilities, and data.

However, in the view of the former head of the Italian domestic intelligence agency SISDE, Mario Mori, the main responsibility lies with Belgium, which “has nurtured a center of Islamic integralism in a major part of its capital and let it grow.”

The second key element of vulnerability lies in the EU system of security as such. Borders among EU member countries do not exist anymore, so that each and every country is dependent for its security on all other countries.

What Can Germany Do at This Decisive Point in History?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche kicked off the national party congress of the Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (BüSo), in Berlin on Nov. 14, with a detailed overview of the international strategic situation, which is currently fraught with dangers, but also with opportunities for positive change.

In that context, she came to the role of Germany. While Ger

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mans tend to think that they, as a middle-sized country, have little sway over world politics, that is not true, Zepp-LaRouche said. In fact, Germany can do a great deal.

To begin with, she said, a debate must be launched on what the actual existential interests of Germany are. Such a discussion has been banned from both the media and political parties. “Quite obviously it is not in the German interest to be cannon fodder for the imperialist plans to launch a third world war on behalf of an Anglo-American empire. In that case, there would be nothing left of Germany.” In that light, to re-establish good relations with Russia, the sanctions should be lifted immediately. Zepp-LaRouche also denounced the policy of NATO extension to Eastern Europe.

Secondly, the Bundeswehr (German Army) must cease all military operations that are part of a first strike scenario against Russia.

Thirdly, a public debate should be launched on the security interests of all countries, including those of Russia and China.

Fourthly, Zepp-LaRouche went on, it is urgent to analyze the actual causes of the current refugee crisis, which are primarily the policy of Western wars built upon lies and support for so-called “good rebels” to dictatorial regimes. In that context, Finance Minister Schäuble should immediately resign, she said, to help solve the refugee crisis. “His ‘black zero’ [zero-deficit] policy had already plunged all of Southern Europe into disaster, pushing in particular Greece to the brink of the abyss.” And now, it is preventing the means to deal with the refugee crisis. In addition, his policy is stoking the flames of right-wing violence in Germany.

Zepp-LaRouche also called for the creation of intelligence agencies which actually defend German national interests, contrary to the Verfassungsschutz (domestic) and the BND (external), which should be dissolved.

Most importantly, Germany should accept President Xi Jinping’s offer to cooperate with the New Silk Road.

Alarming Rise of German Anti-Immigrant Party

The xenophobic Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is reaping the benefits of the mainstream media’s coverage of negative aspects of the refugee crisis. An INSA poll from last week put AfD as the third-largest party in Germany, with 10.5%, just after the SPD with 23.5% and the CDU-CSU with 35%. Taken after the terrorist attacks in Paris and the panic-dominated political debate since then, the INSA poll has the added effect of boosting even more the anti-Muslim group, whose events and rallies feature calls for Angela Merkel to resign.

The entire crisis and the political debate “is like a program tailored to promote the AfD,” said Mainz-based political analyst Prof. Jürgen Falter on German TV on Nov 19. The AfD, he said, “is approaching double-digit figures nationally -- in the eastern states it reached them long ago. In other words, here we have a political force coming into state parliaments, and eventually into the national parliament, which will steer the political game in a totally new direction. This force will be considered as unfit for a coalition by the other parties.”

Whether it will really be considered as “unfit” remains to be seen. The two major parties, the SPD and the CDU-CSU, keep losing constituencies, dropping from a combined 85% of the vote in the last national elections in 2013 to less than 60% today. If the combined scores for the SPD and CDU-CSU in the next national elections are below the 50% level, the CDU-CSU might find an AfD with 15% of the vote attractive as a coalition partner. Alternately, Germany might become ungovernable, with a minority government in place after 2017.

In any case, the rise of the AfD establishes for the first time a right-wing-radical German equivalent to the French Front National, something which in the past 70 year post-war period has been unthinkable in Germany.

When asked by our newsletter for her assessment of the AfD, Helga Zepp-LaRouche replied laconically: “Everything is lacking in the AfD: the analysis of the reasons why the refugees are fleeing South-West Asia and Africa, the rationality needed to define a solution for the crisis. As for the German culture which supposedly must be defended, I haven’t found a trace of it in the AfD.”

Bankers Support Glass-Steagall Against Universal Banking

Lyndon LaRouche has reiterated his call several times over the past week for Wall Street to be shut down, given its total, irremediable bankrupcy. In that context, the 16^{th anniversary of the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act (Nov. 12, 1999) gave rise to a renewed push to get such legislation reinstated.}

Democrat Marcy Kaptur, who initiated the bill to re-enact banking separation in the House of Representatives (H.R. 381) took the floor on Nov. 5 to urge her colleagues to act now on that legislation, which has a total of 70 co-sponsors.

One heavyweight who came out again pleading for re-enactment of Glass-Steagall was none other than the former chairman of Citibank, John Reed. His op-ed in the Financial Times of Nov. 12 was headlined “We Were Wrong About Universal Banking.”

He comes to the following conclusion: “As I have reflected about the years since 1999, I think the lessons of Glass-Steagall and its repeal suggest that the universal banking model is inherently unstable and unworkable. No amount of restructuring, management change or regulation is ever likely to change that.”

Three days later, the same London daily published a letter a Seattle corporate CEO completely backing Reed’s argument. The article by Michael E. Andrews, head of ClinIntell Inc., is headlined, “The incompatibility of two vastly different cultures.”

“For many years in the 1970s and 1980s, while Glass-Steagall was in force in the U.S.,” Andrews writes, “I provided legal counsel to money centre banks, traditional bankers of old. Since then, I have had many years to experience investment banking and its culture. My experience of both informs me that Mr. Reed is correct. The cultures of these two types of institutions are vastly different and not compatible within the same institution.... This is neither a healthy nor -- as Mr. Reed points out -- a necessary marriage....

“Of course, the traders in the investment banking side ever will advocate for universal banking, as the implicit comfort of deposits guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation mitigates investment banking risks.”

Note that back in 2012, another former CEO of Citigroup, Sandy Weill, created a surprise by calling for re-enacting Glass-Steagall legisation.

U.S. Campaign: Wall Street Emerges as Dividing Line in Democratic Party

In the second Democratic Presidential debate on Nov. 14, and in subsequent events, Hillary Clinton’s alliance with Wall Street has been center stage -- in part due to her own foolish response to a challenge by Senator Bernie Sanders.

Sanders criticized Clinton for her cozy relationship with Wall Street, as evidenced by the large amounts of money her cam

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paign has received from executives and employees of the major banks. They would not give such large contributions if they didn’t expect something in return, Sanders implied. “Maybe they’re dumb,” he quipped, “But I don’t think so.”

To describe Clinton’s response as a “gaffe” is an understatement. Indeed, she claimed that those contributions are the result of what she did to help Wall Street recover from the terror attack of September 11, 2001. “I did spend a whole lot of time and effort helping them rebuild. That was good for New York; that was good for the economy.”

This was pounced on immediately, for two reasons: first, invoking the terrorist attacks to justify aiding Wall Street is seen as the kind of cheap emotional appeal more characteristic of George W. Bush than Clinton; but second, and most important, it was the speculative excesses of those banks she “helped” after 9/11, which were responsible for the financial bubble which popped in Sept. 2008, and those same Too Big to Fail banks received bailouts and continued preferential treatment ever since.

Both Sanders and the third Democratic candidate, Martin O’Malley, have tied this to her refusal to support the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall banking regulation, as further evidence that she would be a puppet of the major banks and financial institutions, if elected. While Wall Street supporters have profited enormously in the post-2008 period, millions of Americans have been plunged into poverty and economic insecurity.

Sanders went further in a speech at Georgetown University on November 19, when he invoked the anti-Depression policies of Franklin Roosevelt as a model for addressing inequality today. “Against ferocious opposition of the ruling class of his day, people he called economic royalists, Roosevelt implemented a series of programs that put millions of people back to work, took them out of poverty and restored their faith in government....That is what we have to do today.” Sanders included restoring FDR’s Glass-Steagall legislation as a fundamental part of his plan for the future.

Meanwhile, Clinton is still trying to explain why Wall Street is funding her campaign!

COP21: Reality Shoots a Hole Through the Global Warming Lobby’s Plans

The international UN-sponsored Conference on climate change, which opens in Paris on Nov. 30, is headed toward the exact opposite of the “smashing success” which the population reduction lobby, emphatically including the British royal family and the IPCC, were counting on. In fact, the recent series of terrorist attacks as well as the refugee crisis and the nuclear war danger, have pointed to some much more real and imminent threats to the planet today (cf. below).

French President François Hollande, who is hosting the Paris extravaganza, has based his own “political legacy” on the importance of obtaining a binding agreement on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions – with the backing of President Obama.

However, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry threw cold water on that idea by stating outright on Nov. 11 that there would be no binding agreement decided upon at the Paris conference. Even Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, a rabid proponent of population reduction and of the total decarbonization of the world economy, is resigned to the fact that at the COP21, “there will be no international force to check and enforce carbon cuts, as nations would not allow such a challenge to their sovereignty”, according to the Guardian.

Moreover, in the United States, the Senate passed two resolutions blocking key sections of the administration’s anti-coal program, which President Obama had planned to showcase at the COP21 event.

The first rejects the rule imposing a 32% cut in carbon emissions from coal-powered power plants, and the second rejects the banning of the construction of new coal-powered power plants in the United States.

In addition, just as at the last UN climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009, major developing countries refuse to go along with such measures of CO2 reduction which would severely hinder their economic development.

COP21: The Only Subject to Discuss Is How To Protect Refugees From the Cold

If people are really alarmed about the effects of climate change on the planet, the COP21 should be formulating a plan to prevent the freezing to death of tens of thousands of refugees in Europe. This is the theme of a new statement, “Terrorism and a Cold Winter Refugee Crisis,” posted Nov. 19 by scientists Paul Driessen and Joe D’Aleo, with Allan MacRae and Madhav Khandekar, taken up on many websites.

After noting that dramatic swings in temperature are caused not by human activity, but by the Sun and other related factors, they point out that overall, there are 20 times more deaths from extreme cold, than extreme heat. For the refugees, in “extreme poverty, [with] poor nutrition, inadequate clothing and blankets, pre-existing diseases, and makeshift housing,” the excess winter death toll could be staggering; even higher than the 50,000 excess winter deaths in the U.K.

“When a million refugees are freezing in squalid conditions with inadequate shelter, food, heat, clothing and medical care, and 1.3 billion people still do not have electricity -- why would the world commit to spend billions on alleged future global warming catastrophes?” they ask. “We must acknowledge that horrific computer model scenarios do not reflect planetary reality...

“It would be an unconscionable crime against humanity, if the nations gathering in Paris implement policies to protect our planet’s energy-deprived masses from hypothetical manmade climate disasters decades from now, by perpetuating poverty and disease that kill millions more people tomorrow. These are the real reasons climate change is a critical moral issue. We need to recognize that, and stop playing games with people’s lives.”

Paul Driessen is an analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and author of Eco-Imperialism, Green Black Death. A recent interview with Driessen appears in the new EIR Special Report, “Global Warming Scare Is Population Reduction, Not Science.” Joe D’Aleo, an American Meteorological Society Fellow, co-founded The Weather Channel.

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