E.I.R.STRATEGIC ALERT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

E.I.R.STRATEGIC ALERT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
Volume 30, No. 38 - September 22, 2016
Zepp-LaRouche Appeal to UN: Establish a New Paradigm for the Common Aims of Mankind This year’s General Assembly of the United Nations, on Sept. 13-26, could take the truly historic decision to shift interna tional policy to one of cooperation and mutual development. Such is the spirit of the appeal launched Sept. 16 by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute, which, given the importance of the intervention, the Strategic Alert has exceptionally decided to publish almost in full. It is crucial that the General Assembly of the United Nations now convening in New York, build on the progress that the G20 Summit has achieved under China’s leadership. The course has been set toward a new financial architecture, and the chance is greater than ever that all nations can participate in the building of the New Silk Road on the basis of win-win cooperation, and that the productivity of the world economy will rise on the basis of innovation, while poverty and the consequences of war are overcome. The main problem, however, is that the West continues to cling to the status quo of a uni-polar world and the neo-liberal financial system, although both of those objectives have long been unachievable. The rise of Asia signifies that one nation cannot set the rules, but that solutions must be found through dialogue and negotiation. The neo-liberal system is in the throes of an existential crisis. The first twin of globalization -- the policy of regime-change and alleged humanitarian interventions -- has cost the lives of millions of people, brought untold suffering to millions more, destroyed entire regions, created the breeding grounds for the spread of terrorism, and set off huge waves of refugees. The wars against Iraq and Afghanistan alone, according to the study of Professor Neta Crawford of Brown University, have cost five trillion dollars -- and what is the result? The second twin of globalization -- the system of maximum profit for the TBTF banks, which are supposedly “too big to be allowed to fail” -- has led to an unbearable gap between rich and poor. And if certain banks have to pay the full sum of their fines for criminal methods, they must declare bankruptcy because their capital base is insufficient. Hence, a new meltdown threatens, with even more catastrophic consequences than the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, now that central bank instruments are exhausted and no longer effective. In that context, two reports released in Great Britain offer an extraordinary opportunity to re-assess and correct the current policy.... [See the report below.]
That same overall review of the current policy should, of course, include the implications of the 28 pages of the official Joint Congressional Inquiry Report, which deals with the circumstances of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as well as the JASTA bill, which necessitate a completely new investigation. In light of the horrendous suffering this failed policy has caused: the millions of dead and injured; the traumatized children and soldiers (including in the nations waging war); the destruction of cities, villages, infrastructure and irreplaceable cultural wealth; it is not only appropriate, but a moral obligation for the countries that took part in these wars in the different “coalitions of the willing,” to examine the political process in their parliaments and to fully participate in the reconstruction of the regions that have been devastated. This will not bring the dead back to life, but the admission of guilt and a genuine change of policy towards development would give the people living there today hope for a future. The status quo cannot be maintained. As a result of both twins of globalization, there has been an enormous loss of trust among the population in the trans-Atlantic world. Rightwing populist and right-extremist parties are massively gaining strength; the conditions of the 1930s threaten to reappear in a new form; the European Union is crumbling; and the refugee crisis will not be solved by securing the external EU borders, but only relocated and removed from the news. The U.S. economy is collapsing, while the society is more than ever torn and overtaken by violence. Either this process will lead to an escalation of the confrontation with Russia and China, and to the extermination of mankind in a great war, or the leading politicians in the West will have the moral integrity to correct the errors of the past. The Solution Is At Hand To come back to the positive proposition in the beginning of this appeal, the course has been set toward a way out of this crisis of civilization since the G20 summit. Not only has China presented a new level of cooperation based not on geopolitics, but rather on a policy in the mutual interest of all, it has also pledged to industrialize Africa and other low-income countries, an approach that could both solve the refugee crisis and eliminate the terrorist environment. Clearly, the extension of the New Silk Road to the Middle East and Africa both requires and will bring about growth rates of 7 to 10%. And just as promptly, the Club of Rome stepped in with a
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new report under the cynical title in the German translation of One Percent Is Enough , which would lead in consequence to population reduction, a fascist policy for which the Club of Rome is infamous. The UN recently stressed that Africa needs a growth rate of at least 7-8%. When one of the authors of the Club of Rome report, the Norwegian Jorgen Randers, comes out with the absurd statement, “My daughter is the most dangerous animal in the world,” because she consumes 30 times more energy than a girl in a developing country, it serves to show on what image of man the Club of Rome bases its argument, i.e. on a bestial one. But man, in contrast to all other creatures, is able to use his creative potential to continually discover new insights into the laws of the universe; this is called scientific progress. The unlimited process of perfecting the human mind has a correspondence in the laws of the physical universe, which develops to ever higher energy-flux densities. We are not in a closed system on the Earth -- as the Club of Rome and similar organizations claim -- rather, our planet is an integral part of the Solar System, the galaxy and the universe, about which space research is discovering more and more. This research yields many advantages for Earth itself, and it is therefore fantastic that China announced at the G20 summit, that it would share with developing countries the most advanced research results for their space and lunar exploration projects. Mankind has arrived at a crossroads. If we continue to walk the well-trodden paths with a policy of “more of the same,” the world threatens to come apart. If, on the contrary, we can agree on the common aims of mankind -- an economic and financial order that serves the well-being of all mankind, and which makes possible a decent life for every person on this Earth; the securing of raw materials and energy through higher technologies such as thermonuclear fusion; the exploration of space to safeguard our planet and a renaissance of classical cultures -- then we will be able to usher in a new, better era in the history of our species. The General Assembly of the United Nations is the fitting place, where the new paradigm of our one mankind, above all the differences among nations, must be established and celebrated. Barack Obama Continues to Protect  Saudi Monarchy and Terrorism Since the House of Representatives followed the Senate by passing the JASTA bill by unanimous voice vote on Sept. 9, President Barack Obama and his spokesmen have repeatedly stated that he will veto the bill, which will lead to a frontal confrontation between the White House on the one side, and the US Congress and the American people on the other.  JASTA (Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act)  is the law that would allow the survivors and the families of the 2,997 people killed on Sept. 11, 2001 to sue the Saudi Monarchy and other officials for their role in supporting the terrorists. President Obama has until Sept. 23 to either sign the bill or veto it. Leading Senators and Representatives from both parties, who have come under heavy pressure from their constituents in the matter, have stated they would have more than a 2/3 majority in both houses to be able to override a presidential veto. But the White House is teaming up with Riyadh and other states of the Gulf Cooperation Council to arm-twist members of the Congress to accept their position. The evidence of the Saudi hand in international terrorism and jihadism, as we have consistently reported, is overwhelming. Therefore, the LaRouche Political Action Committee is de
manding that President Obama be immediately impeached if he vetoes the bill and continues to support in whatever way terrorist networks. This is not about the past, by the way. Those same networks are still active in Syria and many other countries. And while Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov worked long and hard to put together a ceasfire agreement in Syria, effective as of Sept. 12, the Obama Administration is otherwise acting to sabotage it. They blocked, for example, a UN Security Council meeting scheduled for Sept. 16 to pass a resolution supporting the plan. That was even before the U.S.-led coalition forces carried out a bombing raid against the Syrian Army, killing well over 60 soldiers and wounding 100 others, after which ISIS quickly took over the position they had been defending. The U.S. is still refusing to coordinate action and information with Russia. At the same time, in the United States itself, the anti-Putin and anti-Russia campaign is reaching fever pitch. Media that used to be considered at least somewhat objective and measured have been running glaring headlines accusing Vladimir Putin not only of manipulating the U.S. election campaign, but also of hacking the emails of the Democratic National Committee as well as the email accounts of former Secretary of State Colin Powell. However, not a shred of proof or even convincing evidence for the charges has been presented by those same media. President Obama joined in the fray himself, by comparing Vladimir Putin on Sept. 13 to none less than... Saddam Hussein. But then again, that is not quite as radical as Hillary Clinton, who has likened him to Hitler! House of Commons Issues Scathing Report on David Cameron for Libya War In what is being described as another Chilcot report (cf. SAS 28, 29/16), the Foreign Affairs  Select Committee of the House of Commons released a report on Sept. 14, charging that the invasion of Libya was ill-conceived, and puting the blame directly on former Prime Minister David Cameron, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S. President Barack Obama, and of course Democratic Party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who was Secretary of State at the time. With obvious foreknowledge of the report, Cameron resigned from his seat in Parliament two days before its release. “There is a debate about whether that intervention was necessary and on what basis it was taken, but having been achieved, the whole business then elided into regime change and then we had no proper appreciation of what was going to happen in the event of regime change, no proper understanding of Libya, and no proper plan for the consequences,” the Select Committee chair Crispin Blunt said. “If the primary object of the coalition intervention was the urgent need to protect civilians in Benghazi, then this objective was achieved in March 2011 in less than 24 hours. This meant that a limited intervention to protect civilians drifted into an opportunist policy of regime change by military means,” the report concludes. The result of the intervention, the report found, “was political and economic collapse, inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of Gaddafi regime weapons across the region and the growth of Isil in north Africa... Through his decision-making in the national security council, former prime minister David Cameron was ultimately responsible for the failure to develop a coherent Libya strategy.”
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It was Nicolas Sarkozy, according to the report, who first proposed the idea of intervention. Crispin Blunt told the BBC:  “We were led by the French enthusiasm to intervene”. According to Le Figaro , Sarkozy came up with the idea after receiving the Libyan opposition back in March 2011. And it was Obama, the report asserts, who laid the military bases for regime change. Former US Ambassador to NATO, Ivo Daalder, is quoted thus: “Cameron was pushing for a no-fly zone, but in the US there was great scepticism...When President Obama... asked how this was going to be effective. Gaddafi was attacking people. A no-fly zone wasn’t going to stop him. Instead, to stop him we would need to bomb his forces attacking people.” The report stated further: “The United States was instrumental in extending the terms of Resolution 1973 beyond the imposition of a no-fly zone to include the authorization of all necessary measures to protect civilians. In practice, this led to the imposition of a no-drive zone and the assumed authority to attack the entire Libyan Government command and communications network.” It was a U.S. air attack on his convoy which allowed the rebels to capture and then brutally kill Muammar Gaddafi. At “Produce in France” Forum, Cheminade Calls for “Cooperative Economic Patriotism” In France, as in other European countries, there is a growing recognition of the need to bring back production sites relocated abroad and to revive industries at home. That is the objective of an organization founded in 2010 (“Produire en France”) specifically to promote products made in France, which held its second convention in Reims on Sept. 9, with the participation of 450 directors of small, medium and intermediate-sized enterprises (PME and ETI in French) , that practice “economic patriotism”. During the round tables, a number of them explained how they were able to stay in France, or to bring production back, and still remain competitive. Since it is virtually impossible to compete with low-wage countries with entry-level (low-end) products, many stressed the importance of moving upmarket, by relying on innovation and a highly skilled work force, and generally proposing high quality goods, be it specialized machines, glass, equipment for the disabled, or even call centers. This year, in view of the presidential elections in Spring 2017, the organization invited all the declared presidential candidates or their representatives to present their views of the matter. Jacques Cheminade was among them, and certainly the only one who brought in “the big picture”, that is, the need for a complete break with the current system, in which Wall Street and the City of London lay down the law. Cheminade touched on the perspective that was presented by China at the G20 summit in Hangzhou, coupled with that of the BRICS. Their approach is, of course, not perfect, he said, but it is oriented to great infrastructure projects and against austerity. Addressing the fear that China will flood European markets if awarded the status of a free market economy, Cheminade proposed instead that France should negotiate cooperation sector by sector, “on the basis of the principles of the intelligent protectionism of a Friedrich List and a Maurice Allais, to ward off unfair competition.” That implies that emerging industries should be protected, confirmed dumping should be excluded, and the fundamental interests of France should be defended. “No TAFTA” (Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement) and “no CETA” (free-trade agree
ment between Canada and the EU). In fact, we don’t need the EU at all, Cheminade said (more on Europe below). At the same time, on a national level,  a true separation of banking activity, “as in the Glass-Steagall of Roosevelt or the system France had in 1945” must be established, so that deposit and credit banks no longer depend on speculation on financial markets. France could then “implement a policy of public credit to finance the development of French companies. Economic patriotism means being able to control both the currency and credit, which can then be channeled into companies producing in France.” Other national measures Cheminade outlined concern a fairer VAT, much more public credit for R&D, in particular among medium-sized companies, and preferential conditions for citizens’ savings that are invested in companies that produced in France. Cheminade: The Euro System Has No Future Jacques Cheminade had the following to say about the European Union. “We cannot accept an EU that scorns nations by serving the markets instead of our economy. Something else is needed: to get out of the European Union and the euro as they are today. We do not need the Europe of bureaucratic institutions that has produced austerity for more than 20 years, but together with the few European countries with similar economic conditions to ours, we need a Europe of fatherlands, in the spirit of the 1962 Fouchet Plan, based on great joint projects, coherent with those of the BRICS, while striving at the same time to bring America into this new international order. An illusion? A step backward in time? No, because it is the Europe of Brussels that betrayed its own purpose by indulging in financial liberalization and free-trade, and imposing the rule of ‘the winner takes all’ instead of solidarity among fatherlands. “Economic patriotism thus means relaunching a Europe of the fatherlands around great joint projects and a progressive fiscal and social harmonization negotiated among States, in line with the German rate of company tax, rather than continuing with the current Europe of predatory co-owners. We need to get out of the current EU in order to rebuild, and to get out of the euro to re-establish a national currency for producers and workers.” To those who object that that would bring about a devaluation of the currency, Cheminade responds that although the French debt was contracted in euros, 97% of it was issued under French law. Therefore, under the lex monetae , it must be reimbursed in the national currency. Moreover, a devaluation would decrease the total indebtedness, and could thereby boost exports. In any case, he continued, such issues need to be negotiated on a European and international level, because the current system of debt-accumulation and negative interest rates is headed to the wall. “Of course, a common currency for the member countries of the Europe of fatherlands, such as the Ecu used to be, should be implemented for outside trade, with parities decided upon by the countries concerned.” What the Germans Should Re-Learn  from the Chinese The German government, in line with the overall negative attitude of the European Union, has stonewalled on the issue of expanded cooperation with the Chinese, while maintaining a minimum of diplomacy. On the regional level, German companies and institutions have been somewhat active in China and along the New Silk Road, but an overall strategy is missing.
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Therefore, the tremendous openings offered by Beijing’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) strategy are far from being exploited in Germany, although the interest is growing in NorthRhine Westphalia (NRW), Germany’s most populous state. To further that drive and use it to effect a policy shift nationally, EIR is holding a one-day seminar in Essen on Oct. 21, on the theme “Opportunties for Germany with the New Silk Road”. Otherwise, in September alone, four international events dealing with aspects of the OBOR have been or will be held in NRW, in Cologne, Duisburg, and twice in Düsseldorf. At the conference “China meets NRW 2026”, organized by the Rheinische Post in Düsseldorf on Sept. 15/16, the limits of the overall German approach were still all-too-visible. The broader implications of the Chinese strategy, particularly its win-win features which fly in the face of geopolitics, were scarcely addressed. But the panel on Sept. 16 on the sister-city partnership between Düsseldorf and Chongqing was more interesting, because in Chongqing, China has taken giant steps forward in infrastructure development and city-building. It was openly acknowledged that the Chinese are applying virtues that Germans used to have but have lost: an iron discipline, a focus on clearly-defined great projects, and a fixed schedule for actually finishing them that is strictly kept. That is also penalizing German exports. One speaker noted that the Chinese, with their approach, have taken over infrastructure markets in rail and powergeneration, which used to be a strong trademark of Germany. China offers a complete package, including the project, material, and finance, which no EU country is allowed to do. A German architect whose firm has carried out several large projects in China, said the dynamic he encounters there, reminds him of what it must have like in America 100 years ago. The moderator of the same panel also pointed out that the 350 million Chinese will migrate from the countryside to the cities between now and the year 2030, a number equal to the entire population of the United States, which poses a giant challenge, but that China’s elites are committed to build the urban residences needed... and to do so in time. The Philippines Is No Longer  America’s “Little Brown Brothers” Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte continues to assert his governement’s refusal to obey the orders handed down from Washington which the previous government had readily accepted, including provocations against China (cf. SAS 29, 37/16). On Sept. 12, Duterte declared that all remaining U.S. Special Forces would have to leave Mindanao, where the government is escalating the fight against ISIS-related terrorists. The next day he announced that he had canceled the U.S.-Philippines joint naval patrols of “contested waters” in the South China Sea. “We will not join any expedition or patrolling the sea. I will not allow it, because I do not want my country to be in involved in a hostile act,” the President said. He added that he would dispatch his Defense Secretary to Russia and China to see about purchasing weapons more appropriate for fighting terrorism than confronting China, and without “conditions.” Then on Sept. 15, speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay, repeated Duterte’s stern words to the Obama Administration that the Philippines will no longer accept lectures or dictates on human rights or national policy. He turned the tables on Obama, arguing that the fight for human rights had been at the core of the nations’ battle for independence.
Summing it up during the Q&A, Yasay said: “”Even before America became a colonial power in the Philippines..., the Filipinos had already fully understood the sanctity of human life, the dignity of human life.... These have already been well established in the minds of Filipinos and this was precisely at the core of our struggle for independence and our right of self-determination. So it is in this context that I am asking our American friends and our American leaders to look at our aspirations. We cannot forever be the little brown brothers of America.” The latter was a reference to the infamous statement by future U.S. President William Howard Taft while serving as the first governor general of the Philippines from 1901 to 1904, who told President McKinley, in regard to the Philippines, that “America’s little brown brothers would take 50 to 100 years of close supervision to develop anything resembling Anglo-Saxon political principles and skills.” The neocons at CSIS were reportedly appalled at the defiance shown. In fact, in addition to a wave of negative media reports of Duterte in the U.S. and Europe, a “color revolution” has already been launched against him. In Senate hearings in Manila, scurrilous charges about “death squads” under Duterte when he was mayor of Davao were trotted out by puppets of Washington’s “human rights” mafia. The Center of Western Classical Music Today Is in China David Stern, the son of the renowned violinist Isaac Stern, is artistic advisor and principal conductor of the Shanghai Baroque Festival, among other positions In a recent interview on vio linst.com, he reflected back on the historic trip his father made to China in 1979, to work with young violinists. “So much has happened since then. The number of musicians who are playing in China, the number of orchestras that exist, the halls that are being built, the festivals that are being created throughout China.... There are projects and investments in classical music going on today in China that are not happening anywhere else in the world. And it’s not just money. Yes, there is a wealth that is going towards classical music, but there has to be a decision to make that wealth go towards classical music.” “We’re finding ourselves in the very funny position, in terms of world society and civilization,” he went on, “where we have to defend classical music as a necessary thing in Paris, and yet you go to a small town in China and they’re building concert halls that are equivalent to some of the greatest halls in the world.” All with public money. Moreover, the concerts are always filled, and “the audiences are between 20 and 40 years old”. Soon, Stern notes that “it’s no longer the paradigm of the Asian going to the West to study; soon there will be scholarships for people in New York to come study in China. What kind of shift is that? It’s huge!”