E.I.R.STRATEGIC ALERT
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
Volume 30, No. 17 - April 28, 2016
President Obama Rallies European Leaders
Behind the Unipolar World
The United States government and NATO have engaged in escalating
military provocations of both Russia and China, in a
desperate attempt to impose a unipolar, Anglo-American world
order. That is the common denominator of the flare-up of conflicts
in the South China Sea, around Korea, and in South-West
Asia, as well as of the dramatically increased U.S. military presence
in the Baltic and Black Seas.
But the fact of the matter is that the international power center
over the past years has shifted away from a trans-Atlantic
world in the throes of economic decay and financial collapse, as
reflected in the formation of the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia,
India, China, South Africa) and new financial institutions.
That was confirmed on April 18, at the meeting of the Foreign
Ministers of China, India, and Russia in Moscow for the
14th trilateral RIC Summit. They discussed strengthening cooperation
on a number of strategic fronts – countering terrorism,
fostering a world economic recovery and coordinating
their positions in addressing “global hotspots,” such as Ukraine
and Syria.
Concerning the South China Sea, (cf. below), the three foreign
ministers signed a joint statement endorsing Beijing’s position,
which is that any conflicts should be dealt with through
direct negotiations among the concerned parties, on the basis
of existing international treaties, as against the action at the
Permanent Court of Arbitration action taken by the Philippines,
at the behest of Washington and London. That statement indicates
that India has rejected Washington’s claim to a unipolar
world, despite U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s recent armtwisting
in New Delhi.
President Barack Obama, on his recent visit to Europe, laid
out a very different perspective. In the UK, in addition to lavish
praise for the Queen, he urged British voters to reject the
Brexit, and in so doing, unintentionally pointed to the real nature
of the European Union. In his op-ed in the April 22 Daily
Telegraph, he wrote that the British people “should be proud
that the EU has helped spread British values and practices – democracy,
the rule of law, open markets – across the continent
and to its periphery. The European Union doesn’t moderate
British influence – it magnifies it... it enhances Britain’s global
leadership.”
Helga Zepp-LaRouche reacted with a biting comment on the
same day: “What are these British values? Wars based on lies
that provoke waves of refugees to Europe, tax havens and funding
of illegal operations as revealed in the Panama Papers....,
recycling of drug money through banks such as HSBC, a credit
policy that has plunged the Third World into bitter poverty, and
the list can continue much further.”
From the UK, Obama went on to Hanover where he attempted
to persuade the Europeans that unbridled free trade,
in the guise of TTIP, will be good for them. But there is massive
popular opposition to the deal, including in Germany, although
European leaders may very well ignore the democratic procedure
once again and okay the deal anyway once it is finalized.
Then, in a summit on April 25 with Angela Merkel, François
Hollande, Matteo Renzi and David Cameron, Obama urged
them to support his war drive against Russia and China.
Now more than ever, the two perspectives are on the agenda,
and European nations will have to decide whether they will
drop geopolitics, and go for development with the great majority
of the world population.
Panama Papers Lead to London, Part II
While the media focussed their attention on the holders of the
secret accounts that were revealed in the Panama Papers, more
informed observers, as we reported, pointed to the need to
dismantle the entire network of offshore banking which was
historically set up by the British monarchy and is still run from
London (cf. SAS 15/16).
In France, that issue was taken up by Jacques Attali, the
former grey eminence of President Mitterrand, in his regular
column in L’Express headlined “When will we see the London
Papers?”. The debate around the revelations, he wrote, has
been very confusing.
While many pretend to be scandalized by the fact that so
much wealth avoids paying taxes, “we have known for a long
time that that is the case for more than one third of the wealth
produced worldwide and that those same resources are sorely
lacking everywhere, but especially in the poorest countries.”
Secondly, we pretend to believe that it is only “in a few exotic
places that fortunes can be hidden from the tax authorities,
when many countries, including the most respected, provide
the means to do so.”
Attali concludes that a serious fight against excessive tax havens
is difficult, knowing that we find leading the ranks “several
states of the United States, including Delaware, and several
European countries, such as Great Britain or Luxembourg. I
look forward – with great pleasure -- to the publication, one
day, of the ‘London Papers,’ which will unveil how the oh-so
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respectable City shelters many fiscal and financial turpitudes,
at the expense of countries in which that wealth is created.
That will be infinitely more important and meaningful than the
revelations from Panama.”
Le Monde, in its April 17 print edition, also took on the City
of London, in an article titled “Offshore Centers, the Jewels of
the British Empire”. After running through the development
of the City of London historically, from the time of the Middle
Ages, the French daily notes that “of the 30 countries on the
list of non-cooperative tax entities, 23 (!) have a close link to
London.”
Helicopter Money “Is Closer Than You Think”
When Albert Einstein made his famous statement about insanity
(“Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
different results”), he may not have imagined that it would
apply to the major central banks today.
Although Quantitative Easing has failed, central banks keep
doing more of the same; their negative rates go more negative
and their purchases extend to corporate bonds, while they prepare
the ultimate form of monetary expansion, which can only
lead to hyperinflation. “helicopter money” is every bit as absurd
as its name suggests: throwing money out of helicopters. The
problem with Keynesian monetary expansion in all its forms is
that it is a monetary measure, whereas an intervention on the
physical economy is needed.
Originally launched by Milton Friedman, the most famous
proponent of “helicopter money” is former Federal Reserve
chairman Ben Bernanke, which earned him the nickname “Helicopter
Ben”.
Both ECB chief Mario Draghi and Bank of Japan head Haruiko
Kuroda have recently addressed the issue, without rejecting
the proposition. However, under the current rules, those
two central banks are not allowed to implement measures of
economic policy. As Kuroda put in front of the Diet on April
19: “unless the existing legal framework changes, helicopter
money isn’t possible.”
That is also what Bernanke wrote in his recent Brookings
blog post advising a helicopter money policy. It is illegal, and
central bankers would need to have the law changed before
they could place hyperinflationary, newly-printed money directly
into the accounts of governments, businesses, and households,
he wrote. Nonetheless, it may soon be found to be the
best policy.
In fact, speculation has already begun in the media on which
form “helicopter money” will take: money directly to governments,
to banks or to the people? The fact that Deutsche Bank
issued a vademecum on how to implement it should set off the
alarm bells. That is likely “a straw in the wind”, as Larry Elliott
wrote in the Guardian (April 18). He suggests that after the
collapse of QE, the helicopters may take to the air in 2017.
“Put your ear to the ground though, and it is possible to hear
the blades whirring. Far away, preparations are being made for
helicopter drops of money onto the global economy. With due
honour to one of Humphrey Bogart’s many great lines from
Casablanca: ‘Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but soon.’
Helicopter money is closer than you think.”
Pressure Mounts on Obama to Come Clean
on London-Saudi Role in 9/11
As President Obama arrived in Riyadh on April 20, headlines
in the United States were dominated by his cover-up of the
authorship of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, that had killed 2,977
innocent people in New York and Washington. Since then, every
top Congressional leader, from House Democratic Majority
leader Nancy Pelosi to Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid, to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and House Intelligence
Committee Chairman Devin Nunez, have demanded that
President Obama immediately declassify the 28 pages from the
original Congressional Joint Inquiry report into 9/11,which
provide vital evidence of the role of the Saudi Royal Family in
backing the 9/11 hijackers (cf. SAS 16/16).
Some of that evidence centers around the role of Prince
Bandar bin-Sultan, the long-serving Saudi Ambassador to the
United States, who was so close to the Bush family that he
was dubbed “Bandar Bush.” While Barack Obama, before being
elected President, had promised the families of victims of
the attacks that he would disclose the 28 pages classified by
George W. Bush, he has consistently refused to do so for over
seven years now (cf. below).
But as of last week, it may be impossible for him to continue
on that line. On April 22, an editorial in the New York
Times signed by The Editorial Board demanded the immediate
release of the 28 pages. This is tantamount to a declaration
by the Eastern Liberal Establishment that time has run out on
the coverup racket defending the Saudis. Whatever the motive
behind that editorial, it was a shot across the bow at Obama.
In addition, the Interagency Security Classification Appeals
Panel (ISCAP), a little-known but powerful government intelligence
unit that has the final say over the declassification of all
Executive Branch documents, has been steadily releasing staff
documents from the Joint Committee and the later 9/11 Commission.
In July 2015, with no public announcement, ISCAP
declassified a Commission staff memo of 47 pages that identified
21 Saudi government officials who had direct ties to the
San Diego hijackers. Even more explosive, “Document 17” of
the ISCAP release made clear that the FBI, at the very top, was
essential to the coverup of the Saudis’ role.
The behavior of FBI Director Robert Mueller and top Bureau
officials was so egregious that the 9/11 Commission staff was
arguing for a tough Congressional crackdown on FBI criminality.
Indeed, FBI informants had housed two of the 9/11 hijackers,
which was covered up by Mueller. In Sarasota, Florida,
it was subsequently discovered, the FBI had withheld 86,000
pages of investigative files on other Saudi ties to the hijackers,
including to the ringleader Mohammed Atta, from the two investigative
bodies.
Interestingly, it was the same Robert Mueller who, in the
1980s, headed the FBI task force assigned to fabricate false
charges against Lyndon LaRouche and members of his political
movement in a transparent, but unsuccessful, attempt to shut
down the one political movement considered to be an existential
threat to the modern version of the British Empire.
Why Is the White House Covering
for the British Monarchy?
While the notorious links of the Bush family to Prince Bandar
bin-Sultan and others in the Saudi Royal family were cited as
the reason why the Bush-Cheney Administration was covering
up the dirty role of the Saudis, the case of President Obama
was more baffling. Why has he insisted on continuing the cover-
up?
For Obama, the issue is not just the Saudis, but the entire
British monarchy and the modern version of the “British
empire”. Obama has been an agent of that empire from the
outset of his political career, as became evident during his trip
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n°17 / 2016 WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 3
to London. There, he went so overboard in declaring that the
Anglo-American special relationship is “eternal”, that it should
have made clear why he is desperate to keep the lid on the 28
pages.
Indeed, the Persian Gulf region was de facto under the thumb
of the British Empire since the heyday of the British East India
Company, even long before it arranged the alliance between
the House of Saud and the Wahabbi fundamentalist clergy.
Saudi Prince Bandar, a central player in the funding of the
9/11 hijackers, is a self-confessed British agent, who was
trained in British military schools. In 1985, he engineered the
Al Yamamah deal with Margaret Thatcher, under which the
Saudi monarchy paid for British weapons exports with oil. The
deal led to the creation of a $100 billion-plus offshore slush
fund, which was used to finance terrorist organizations, coup
d’etats and assassinations.
In one specific case, funds from the Al Yamamah deal went
from the Bank of England into Bandar’s personal bank account
at Riggs National Bank in Washington, and from there on to
the two Saudi intelligence agents -- Basnan and al-Bayoumi --
who were managing the original two 9/11 terrorists who arrived
in the United States in early 2000.
Therefore, following the leads contained in the 28 pages on
the Saudis would also lead back to the British monarchy and to
what EIR has long dubbed “Londonistan”, i.e., the protection in
London of various terrorist elements who can be deployed, at
will, in various geopolitical destabilization schemes.
Jacques Cheminade Exposed Contents
of the 28 Pages Back in 2012
In the midst of the campaign to expose the Anglo-Saudi financing
of the 9/11 hijackers and the Bush family cover-up, Taiké
Eilé posted an article on April 21 on the powerful blog, Agora
Vox, titled “September 11th, the 28 Embarrassing Pages for
Riyadh and the $750 Billion Blackmail.” In the article, he recalls
most usefully that Jacques Cheminade had brought up this
key issue during the 2012 presidential campaign, in one of the
major national TV programs, Des Paroles et des Actes (Words
and Acts).
Eilé, a regular writer on geopolitical issues, quotes an excerpt
of that debate where top-level national journalists, Nathalie
Saint-Cricq, David Pujadas, and Fabien Namias, had tried to
ridicule Cheminade when he mentioned the need to release the
28 pages, dismissing it as unimportant. Cheminade went on to
say: “What astonishes me the most, is that Prince Bandar, Saudi
Ambassador to the United States, had two official agents who
looked after certain of the hijackers who went on to carry out
the attacks. Just as strange, however, Saudi Arabia had always
meddled in these operations. Why is an investigation of Saudi
Arabia not being pursued? Why not go further?”
Saint-Cricq even claimed that that information was no longer
a secret, which was absurd, as everyone knows today.
The “attack dogs” in the media, on behalf of the political
“elite”, continually charged Cheminade with being a “farfelu”
candidate, not only for denouncing the organizers of international
terrorism, but also for warning of the next financial
crash, and calling for cooperation with the New Silk Road.
As Tensions Rise in South China Sea,
President Xi Takes Command
On April 10, the United States began implementing the Southeast
Asia Maritime Security Initiative (MSI), which was announced
last summer but is only now being funded. The plan is
to put $425 million into military support for the seven ASEAN
countries bordering the South China Sea, plus Taiwan, with the
aim of winning joint support for an American-led confrontation
with China. Much of the money is expected to go to the
Philippines.
At the same time, the White House continues to encourage
provocative military patrols by the U.S. Navy and its regional
“allies” (Japan and the Philippines), in the South China Sea
around the territory claimed by China. Until now, the conflict
has played out on the diplomatic front, but the situation remains
fraught with danger.
While Chinese leaders may have no plans to militarize the
island, they reserve the right to do so if necessary. And while
China is hoping that the maritime disputes will ultimately be
resolved at the negotiating table, the direct interference by the
United States is pushing them to quickly upgrade the country’s
military capabilities.
President Xi has already implemented a far-ranging reform
of the military regions in order to cope with possible problems
in the increasingly important maritime region. He created five
theater commands and has introduced greater inter-operatibility
between ground, sea, and air forces. He has also enforced
central control of the military by the formation of a Joint Command
Headquarters in Beijing, and has personally taken on the
role of commander-in-chief, an unprecedented move by any
Chinese leader.
In a visit to the headquarters last week, Xi told the officers
that they must have a clear sense of crisis and hone their
ability for informationized warfare. In China, as in the U.S.,
cyber warfare capabilities have become of premier importance
in war-fighting.
While it is not expected that China will react impulsively to
the provocations around their maritime borders, it is clear that
they will be prepared to act with vigor if faced with an existential
threat to the nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The Chinese Communist Party paper Global Times issued
an op-ed on April 18 signed by Wang Wenwen, who calls on
the government to “set a red line for the US and make clear
to Washington, that if it continues to infringe on China’s core
interests by challenging China’s territorial claims and not respecting
its sovereign rights, it should be aware of a dangerous
showdown with China.”
The author ominously warns of a possible military clash “dangerously
triggered by accident, given the Pentagon’s frequent
and escalating military provocation. But it will not happen unless
the US crosses the red line.”
China-Nigeria Cooperation:
the New Paradigm in Action
During Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to China,
on April 12, a major agreement was signed, under which China
will help Nigeria finance its ambitious infrastructural development
plan with a $6 bn loan, which amounts to fully one fifth
of the country’s entire budget.
In that way, Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa,
is bypassing the boycott of the International Monetary Fund,
which demands devaluation of the national currency, the naira,
as a conditionality for loans.
Were Nigeria to do so, its population would plunge into hunger
and poverty, as the country is highly dependent on imports
whose price would skyrocket.
The Chinese loan will allow the government to maintain its
investment plan in spite of the loss in revenue due to the oil
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4 WEEKLY NEWSLETTER n°17 / 2016
price collapse. Indeed, the government has not backed down
from its plans to invest one third of the budget in capital expenditures,
to ensure the future.
“We are embarking on major power, road, rail, seaport and
airport development programmes that will enhance the competitiveness
of manufacturing businesses in Nigeria”, President Buhari
told a Nigeria-China Business/Investment Forum in Beijing.
According to Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama,
China “is not looking for political gain, not looking to dominate
any country…they are ready to help us” with our economic
building blocks. China is already Nigeria’s largest trade partner.
The executive director of the Lagos-based BGL Capital, Femi
Ademola, is also optimistic. He told the Nigerian daily This
Day that if “we consider what China has been able to achieve
across Africa in terms of aiding African countries to develop
infrastructure, it would appear that this deal with the Federal
Government of Nigeria is a very good idea (…) Ethiopia is a
very good case study in what such a deal with the Chinese can
achieve,” (cf. SAS 14/16).
In addition to the loan, the Nigerian central bank and the
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China signed on to a currency
swap agreement, which will further strengthen the naira
in international trade. Nigeria is to become the clearing house
for yuan-denominated transactions for all of Africa. Thus, Nigerian
businesses can conclude their transactions in the Chinese
currency instead of the dollar.
President Buhari also visited the China Aerospace Science
and Technology Corporation. Nigeria is the first international
customer of the Chinese corporation, having already purchased
two satellites and signed an agreement for two more.
Buhari’s successful visit to China has not amused the British
Empire. The Financial Times published an editorial April 13,
claiming that popular support for Buhari “is evaporating” and
that the current value of the naira is distorting “free markets”
and holding back growth. “Nigeria’s new start is in danger of
derailing” wrote the daily of the City of London in an ominous
warning.
News Generated Along the New Silk Road
From Wuhan to Lyon, France in a Fortnight. On April
21, the first direct container freight train from Wuhan arrived
in Lyon, France, once the silk capital of Europe. The train travelled
11,300 km in 15 days, crossing Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus
and Poland, before arriving in Duisburg, Germany, and
from there down to Lyon, on the Rhone river, which is France’s
second-largest urban region.
The 41 containers brought electronic and mechanical products
as well as clothing, and will take French agricultural products
back to Wuhan, a city in the center of China which is home
to one of the world’s leading steel producers. One third of
French investments in China are in Wuhan, where the French
built a highly protected P4 laboratory to study deadly viruses,
modeled on the one in Lyon.
There are over 30,000 Chinese workers, employees and scientists
now working in the Lyon region, and the city founded, in
1921, the first and only Chinese university outside of China.
The Wuhan-Lyon operation was closely planned and coordinated
between the Chinese transport firm Wuhan Asia-Europe
Logistics, the German firm Trans-Eurasia Logistics GmbH of
Deutsche Bahn and the French national railway company SNCF.
The 15 day rail connection compares with an average shipping
time of two months by sea.
Duisburg Port Counts on China. For two years now, a direct
rail freight connection has been running from Chongqing/
Chengdu, another booming industrial region in central China,
and Duisburg, in Germany, which has the world’s largest inland
port. From Duisport, direct contact is made to Europe’s largest
sea port, in Rotterdam, via the Rhine river. The CEO of the
port, Erich Staake, announced at an April 21 press briefing that
in spite of a global slump in maritime transport, Duisport is
looking with optimism to the development of trade with China
and the New Silk Road strategy with its enormous potential
for growth.
Therefore, Duisport plans to expand its logistical capacities
with investments of €20 million. Staake noted that rail connections
of the port with regions in China, as well as other markets
along the New Silk Road, will massively benefit from the
opening of a new railway bridge across the Bosphorus Strait
one year from now. This southern branch of the Silk Road
railway, going through Iran and Turkey, will cut travelling time
considerably.
Another railway connection will branch out into Georgia,
serving several directions, from the new container freight hub
which China and Georgia plan at the port of Anaklia on the
Black Sea Coast.
EIR Seminar in Copenhagen on the World Land-bridge.
The Schiller Institute in Denmark and EIR held a seminar on
April 19 on the importance of extending the New Silk Road to
the Middle East and Africa. The featured speakers were Helga
Zepp-LaRouche, Hussein Askary, Southwest Asia coordinator
for the Schiller Institute, and Abbas Rasouli, the First Secretary
of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Denmark.
The opportunities for Egypt, acting as a bridge between
Southwest Asia and Africa, to join the World Land-bridge perspective
were presented in some detail by Hussein Askary. He
brought the audience a vision of future African economic development,
by showing ambitious blueprints that have been lying
in the drawers, combined with some of the projects that the
Chinese are actually bringing to life now. He ended with a polemic
against “sustainable” economic development, and called
for a crash program to enable Africans to take their rightful
place in the future.
Mr. Abbas Rasouli described Iran’s commitment to participate
in the New Silk Road, and laid out the North-South, and East-
West connecting railroad project links that have been either
completed or planned, to enable Iran to connect East Asia and
Central Asia with Southwest Asia, Africa, and Europe. While
the West was implementing self-defeating economic sanctions
on Iran, trade with China grew tremendously. According to Abbas
Rasouli, bilateral trade went from $4 bn in 2003 to $53 bn
in 2013, and during President Xi’s visit to Tehran in Jan. 2016,
both sides agreed to intensify their cooperation.
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Verantwortl. f. d. Inhalt: Dean Andromidas, Claudio Celani
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