E.I.R.STRATEGIC ALERT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

E.I.R.STRATEGIC ALERT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
Volume 30, No. 51-52 - December 22, 2016
Flash: Obama’s Responsibility in Terror Attacks As this issue of the Strategic Alert was being put to bed, news came in of the assassination of the Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov in Turkey and then of the terror attack at the Berlin Christmas market that killed 12 and wounded 48 people. “Put Obama on the list of suspects,” Lyndon LaRouche said after the assassination. He was referring to the direct threat to Russia that the U.S. President had issued on Dec. 16: “I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections, that we need to take some action”, Obama said. “And we will; at a time and place of our choosing.  Some of it may be explicit and publicized; some of it may not be.” That same day, Lyndon LaRouche characterized that statement as a death threat against high-level personalities, a threat “to murder people of importance. Because this is the way Obama’s stepfather taught him,” and it’s the way in which Obama conducts the infamous Tuesday sessions for authorizing lists of targets to be killed by drone. “The threat is murder”, LaRouche stated. The choice of Ambassador Andrey Karlov was not accidental. He had played a key role in the normalization of relations between Turkey and Russia, which enabled the rapid success of the military operations in Syria with the liberation of Aleppo. President Obama’s Anti-Russian Ploy Will Fail What on the surface might appear to be an effort to challenge the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s election as President, by asserting that his victory was arranged by Russian intervention, is in reality a desperate operation to keep President Obama out of prison, while allowing the continuation of his war policies against Russia and China. This view was expressed by Lyndon LaRouche, when he was presented with a briefing on the escalation of hysterical attacks from Barack Obama, CIA Director John Brennan, political figures in both parties, and mainstream U.S. media, blaming Hillary Clinton’s loss of the election on “hacking” by Russian intelligence and President Putin. “The whole thing is a foolish fraud,” LaRouche stated, “coming from the politically-deceased Obama.” Those pushing the fraud are co-conspirators with Obama in his killing spree, who are hoping that they may escape the “hangman’s noose”, which they so richly deserve. The killings include Obama’s illegal “regime change” wars and the drone attacks he personally orders, as well to as increasing death rates due to his economic policies, including both the in
crease in suicides and drug and alcohol related deaths, and the deliberate collapse of the health care system. There is no evidence to back up the charges being made against Putin, LaRouche said, only the usual “anonymous sources”, backed by the non-existent credibility of the administration and the intelligence services. For example, by the end of last week, Brennan said “there is a strong consensus (among intel chiefs) on the scope, nature and intent of Russian interference in our presidential elections.” That was later denied (cf. below). Obama in his final 2016 press conference proclaimed he believes the alleged “interference” in the election “was done at the highest levels in the Kremlin,” and warned that the U.S. will retaliate! LaRouche concluded that Obama protection racket will fail, because the bankrupt Transatlantic system this crowd hopes to save is disintegrating, while Putin, as an “independent figure”, is succeeding in organizing a New Paradigm. For his part, Trump has remained above the fray, tweeting “If Russia or some other entity was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?” After the Liberation of Aleppo, the Prospect of a Negotiated Settlement Opens  The Syrian government, supported mainly by Russia and Iran, completed the operation to liberate Aleppo from Al Nusra and other terrorist groups by Dec. 17. After the Obama Administration systematically refused to separate the so-called “moderate rebels” from the terrorists, and to agree to joint measures for the removal of Al Nusra from Eastern Aleppo, Damascus was left with no other option but to go for a military solution, as painful as the decision was (cf. SAS 50/16). According to Russian General Sergey Rudskoi, chief of the General Staff, nearly 110,000 civilians were evacuated as of that date, some 3,400 gunmen of the moderate opposition laid down their arms, and over 3,000 of them were already amnestied. The departure of thousands of opposition fighters to rebel-held areas continued on Dec. 19. On the same day, the UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution authorizing the dispatching of neutral UN observers to Aleppo to oversee the continuation of the evacuation. Thus, a new phase can begin, hopefully involving a ceasefire, political talks, anti-terrorism actions and delivery of aid. A framework group for negotiating Syria’s military and political future is already being formed, involving Russia, Turkey, Iran
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and Kazakhstan. China has also weighed in heavily in favor of a negotiated settlement and against foreign interference in Syria. The Presidents of these four countries have all agreed on setting as the medium-term aim, a national ceasefire agreement in Syria. The group is due to hold formal discussions with Syrian opposition figures for the first time on Dec. 27. But according to TASS , at least twice in 2015, Syrian opposition groups met in Astana, Kazakhstan for talks. The Russian, Turkish and Iranian Foreign Ministers have called on the international community to provide humanitarian aid. As of this writing, Western countries have not  been forthcoming with relief for the Aleppo civilians over whom their leaders cried crocodile tears. As for the role of the United States, it remains to be seen if the President Obama will maintain his commitment to provide lethal weapons and financial support to the rebels and any other “foreign forces” supporting the American military operations in Syria, over the remaining four and a half weeks of his term  (cf. SAS 50/16). A sinister sign is that ISIS was able to regain positions in Palmyra over the past two weeks, while the Syrian forces were concentrated on Aleppo. The ISIS jihadists evidently sent troops and equipment there from Raqqa, after the U.S.-led coalition suspended military operations against the ISIS stronghold. Zepp-LaRouche has already urged that the longer-term economic reconstruction of Syria be put on the agenda of the G20 immediately, with the perspective of having it join China’s New Silk Road initiative, when political conditions permit (cf. below). Zepp-LaRouche: Shape the G20 Agenda  with a Marshall Plan for Middle East and Africa In a strategic overview article written Dec. 17, Helga ZeppLaRouche takes up the issue of Syria, after the liberation of Aleppo, and the defeat of the jihadi forces there. What is now needed is a large-scale reconstruction program supported by the countries in the region, she wrote, together with Russia, China, India and Egypt, but also Germany, France and Italy. The concrete approach to be taken has already been laid out by the Schiller Institute in its Phoenix Program for the Reconstruction of Aleppo and the Extension of the New Silk Road to SouthWest Asia . It is just as urgent and necessary, Zepp-LaRouche continues, to implement “a comprehensive industrialization and development program for Africa. A first baby step in the right direction was just taken by German Development Minister Gerd Müller, who wants to get German entrepreneurs to invest more in Africa. That is progress at least compared to the funding from NGOs, whose Sunday sermons on democracy and human rights have brought next to nothing.” Zepp-LaRouche notes that China, India and Japan are already active in Africa with “significant investments in infrastructure and industrial zones, while Africans speak openly among themselves of how the Europeans will soon have no relevance on the continent unless their indifference toward Africa changes very quickly.” As for Chancellor Merkel, she announced in a video message that Germany wants to make the development of Africa a major theme of the G20 Summit next July in Hamburg, which Germany will chair. “Preparations for this summit and then the summit itself could become a turning point for the reconstruction of the Middle East and the industrialization of Africa, but only if the German government adheres to the high standard set by China in the last G20 summit in Hangzhou, where President Xi Jinping pledged that China was committed to industrializing Africa.”
On the contrary, Helga Zepp-LaRouche goes on to warn, if Merkel’s Africa program fosters the approach of the “decarbonization of the world economy” laid out by Joachim Schellnhuber, CBE, and Dirk Messner (cf. below), then “Germany will be discredited, the Asian countries will expand their influence in Africa and Europe will marginalize itself. The worldwide revolution underway is directed against that very thinly disguised neo-colonial policy, for which Schellnhuber is exemplary.” Germany could meet the challenges of the year 2017 in a very different way, concludes Helga Zepp-LaRouche, namely by taking up China’s offer for win-win cooperation in building the New Silk Road, as promoted by EIR and the Schiller Institute. In that way, Germany could become “a force for the good” in 2017. Japan’s Abe and Putin Consolidate  a New Era of Cooperation Vladimir Putin’s two day visit to Tokyo Dec. 15-16, and his talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe yielded a number of agreements on economic cooperation. In an exclusive interview with TASS , Abe was enthusiastic, exclaiming: “President Putin and I have come to the conclusion--in case of common effort, Japan and Russia have unlimited opportunities for development of relations in all spheres.” He had earlier told the press that “We need to work hard in every area to help Russia and Japan build win-win relations and open a bright future of prospects, including the resolution of this issue in the future”--referring to the disputed Kuril Islands. Besides the establishment of a joint investment fund and other economic accords, the two leaders agreed to create a “special economic regime” on the Southern Kurils, an area of festering territorial claims and conflict for decades, which can be seen a breakthrough. VIPS: Email Leaking Is Not Traceable Hacking The claims of the CIA that “the Russians” and President Putin are responsible for the hacking of the U.S. election are so preposterous that even other intelligence agencies have had to issue mild reservations. The Director of the National Intelligence James Clapper said there was no conclusive evidence of Russia’s involvement to help Donald Trump, while Mike Rogers, the director of the NSA, believes the emails released did not affect the election results, while the Director of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, found no evidence of any hacking of the elections themselves, but these are mainly nuances. A very solid refutation of the CIA’s allegations came from the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS),  a group of former high-level intelligence officers, in a memorandum released Dec. 13. For these experts, all with senior-level experience in cyber-intelligence and security, it is “child’s play to dismiss” the claims. “The email disclosures in question are the result of a leak, not a hack. Here is the difference between leaking and hacking: “ Leak : When someone physically takes data out of an organization and gives it to some other person or organization, as Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning did. “ Hack :  When someone in a remote location electronically penetrates operating systems, firewalls, or any other cyberprotection system and then extracts date. “All signs point to leaking, not hacking. If hacking were involved, the National Security Agency would know it -- and know both the sender and the recipient.”  The NSA’s “extensive domestic data-collection network” is such that it would collect any data from the servers of the DNC or of Hillary Clinton. The
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authors then give the technical explanations of how and why records are available of all such data transfers, internationally. They point out that the statements of the anonymous intelligence agency spokesmen are “equivocating” -- they say things like “our best guess” or “our opinion,” etc., which shows they are cannot trace the emails across the network, otherwise they could provide the evidence “without any danger to sources and methods. Thus, we conclude that the emails were leaked by an insider...” The memo is signed by members of the VIPS Steering Group, William Binney, Mike Gravel, Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern, Elizabeth Murray, and Kirk Wiebe./ One of them, Mike Gravel, a former U.S. Senator from Alaska, gave an interview to LaRouchePAC on Dec. 15, in which he elaborated on the theme, dismissing the claims offhand as “ridiculous” and “far-fetched”. As for Barack Obama’s threat to retaliate against Russia, Gravel noted that the United States government unquestionably “does more activity in the cyber world than anybody else.” Russia might be a distant second, “but there’s nobody that holds a candle to what we are capable of doing.” Why the Fed Raised Interest Rates On Dec. 14, the Federal Reserve raised central bank rates by one quarter-point, to be followed by three more next year. In an FOMC statement, the decision was motivated by the allegedly “solid” economic recovery. But that was refuted in a report issued by two prominent institutions (cf. below). So, what game is Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen playing? A widespread narrative says that the Fed is moving preemptively to counter a perceived threat of inflation arising from President-elect Donald Trump’s announced investment program. Of course, raising rates is a proven way to make that program more expensive and is certainly not in the public interest. But central bankers today are dominated by a linear way of thinking that gives them no other choice than “wag-the-dog” type of monetary measures. In 1933, as Franklin Roosevelt was launching the New Deal program, European central bankers gathered at the Bank for International Settlements and attacked his program as “inflationary”. The loudest such protests came from Alberto Beneduce, Mussolini’s economic czar. The Fed uses the same reasoning. Neither monetary expansion nor monetary tightening is going to solve the problem of a bankrupt financial system. Quantitative easing and negative rates have made banks dependent on central bank money and destroyed direct funding (deposits). The effect of the recent Fed move was rightly remarked by the Chinese press agency Xinhua on Dec. 15: “The Fed’s rate hike will inevitably cause fresh financial turbulence, and worsen the situation of those countries that overly depend on external financing and are insufficiently capable of paying (off) debt, especially those emerging markets”, Xinhua wrote. As to the Fed claim that the US economy is growing, the U.S. Council on Competitiveness (USCC) and the Gallup Organization have published a study titled No Recovery: An Analysis of U.S. Long-Term Productivity Decline . Specifically, the study concluded that for the past 15 years, per capita GDP in the U.S. has grown at an annualized rate of just 1%, and of only half that rate since the 2008 financial crash. In addition, U.S. “multi-factor productivity” has grown at a very low 0.4% annualized rate over the past decade. Multifactor productivity is an attempt to measure the efficiency with which factories or other productive facilities use additional la
bor and additional capital investment, making it is an approximation of the lift to the economy of invention and technological progress. From FDR’s to JFK’s presidencies, it contributed between 3.0-3.5% annually to productivity growth, during the years; the 0.4% of the Obama years (and several years of the George W. Bush Administration) is a far cry from that. Prominent Consultant to Berlin:  Germany Should Leave the Euro Roland Berger, an advisor to the German government, and founder and head of the global consulting firm that bears his name, was straightforward in his remarks to Handelsblatt Global of Dec. 14: “We shouldn’t think so much about whether or not Greece can be saved,” Berger said. “Instead, we should consider whether or not it’s more logical for Germany to leave the Eurozone in order to preserve the EU as a whole.” This senior strategy consultant believes radical solutions are needed to save Europe  from its “catastrophic condition,” which he argued has been caused primarily by the single currency. However, he said he fears Germany would never dare to take such a radical step. The Handelsblatt Global editors stressed the weight of his statements in a newsletter previewing the interview:”When a consummate German insider like Roland Berger, the wellknown strategy consultant, recommends that his country leave the euro common currency to save the European Union, you know something may be up in Berlin.” If Mr. Berger is talking about it, it’s not inconceivable that his clients in the Chancellery and Finance Ministry are too.” Wolfgang Schäuble: Greek Pensioners  Don’t Deserve a Merry Christmas When Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras decided to give a Christmas bonus to 1.6 million pensioners living on €800 or less a month taken out of the higher than expected budget primary surplus, Wolfgang (Black Zero) Schäuble saw red. Tsipras also suspended the increase in the Value Added Tax on the Greek islands which are suffering from hosting most of the more than 50,000 refugees. While there are attempts to stir up resentment against the Greek pensioners in other EU countries, which receive no bonus, it must be stressed that most retirees in Greece receive only €400 a month, and many of them have to support their unemployed children and their families. Nonetheless, German Finance Minister Schäuble has publicly demanded that pensions, which have already been cut by up to 50%, be slashed even further. Following these decisions, Klaus Regling, the director of the European Stability Mechanism (the bailout fund) announced the suspension of the very minor reduction in interest rates on the Greek debt, which had just been decided upon at the Dec. 5 Eurogroup meeting, because Tsipras had not sought prior permission from the “creditors”. Of course, neither Regling, a stooge of Schäuble, nor the ESM have the power to suspend the program since it was approved by the Eurozone Finance Ministers. But shortly afterwards, another stooge of Schäuble, Dutch Finance Minister and Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem, issued a statement through his spokesman rubber-stamping the ESM move. The Greek PM seems defiant and while visiting the northern city of Thessaloniki on Dec. 14, announced that his government would spend €11.5 million next year to extend free meals to 30,000 underprivileged schoolchildren. Over the past seven
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years, he said, the Greek people “have made huge sacrifices in the name of Europe. We have carried the weight of the refugee crisis”, and suffered from extremely harsh austerity. He also told local mayors that the aid would not derail the program of tough fiscal targets Greece has agreed to meet. The Christmas bonus was then approved by the Parliament with a 2/3 majority, with the main opposition party, the New Democracy abstaining. After attending the EU Summit in Brussels on Dec. 15, Tsipras traveled to Berlin to meet the allegedly “most powerful woman in the world”, Chancellor Angela Merkel, and ask for even more debt relief. Merkel’s reply: she has no power over the issue which, she claimed, is totally under the control of the creditors. Everyone knows that Greece’s debt is unpayable and illegitimate. It should be dealt with following the same principles as the 1953 conference on German debt. The ESM debt could be converted into the capital of a European Infrastructure Investment Fund, aimed at building connectivity with the  New Silk Road, as outlined in an article published in the Jan. 23, 2015 EIR. Radical “Decarbonization Fundies” Plot  to Hijack the Agenda of the G20 Summit Ominously, a key role in planning the German proposals for the G-20 meeting to be held in Hamburg next July has been given to Joachim (“John”) Schellnhuber, the founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a member of the German Scientific Advisory Council on Global Environmental Change (WBGU). What he plans for the agenda was laid out in a press conference in Berlin on Dec. 13 by himself and fellow WBGU member Dirk Messner, together with Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks and Science and Technology Minister Johanna Wanka. In sum, they argue that the G20 member countries must “decarbonize” their economies by 2050, in order to save the planet from alleged overheating due to emissions created by burning fossil fuels. Concretely, Schellnhuber insists that the production of automobiles with fossil fuel engines must be stopped by 2030, and human meat consumption limited to one day per week! This is necessary, the speakers at the press conference insisted, because the “carbon dioxide budget” of Earth’s atmosphere will be used up in less than 20 years. In a book by the WBGU titled Great Transformation , Schellnhuber advocates forcing mankind back to the pre-carbon era – that is, to the point where the world was in the 18th century. He was promoted chief ecology guru of the German government in 2009, and has held the position since then. He is also said to be the main author of Chancellor Merkel’s 2011 decree to exit nuclear power production entirely in Germany, just after the Fukushima catastrophe, which was actually caused by an earthquake and a tsunami, and not a nuclear accident. Germany’s march into the post-nuclear, post-carbon era is actually so expensive that it can be ruled out as a model for the rest of the world, and should be rejected by the G20. Electricity bills for industry are now 50% higher than in France so that energy-intensive industries in Germany can hardly survive, the citizens are plundered in two ways: via heavy, taxpayer financed subsidies to keep the pipe dreams of a wind, solar and biomass future alive, and via rising electricity costs of private households. The subsidies for the “renewable” energy sources, which barely account for 25% of total German energy consumption, exceed €22 billion annually. For the same sum, new nuclear power plants could be built every year. In addition, the cost of shutting down the country’s nuclear power sector and
dismantling the power plants by 2022 is at least €30-35 billion, another deficit which the taxpayers will have to pay. In Memoriam: John Glenn’s Life of Service Former fighter pilot, astronaut, and United States Senator John Glenn, who died on December 8 at the age of 95, has left as a lasting legacy his steadfast commitment to a mission, his willingness to take personal risks to accomplish it, and his holding to his ideals. He was a quintessential expression of the optimism of President Kennedy’s early 1960s, and maintained that outlook throughout his life. John Glenn had an overriding drive for public service, reflected in his wartime (World War II and Korea) deployment as a Marine fighter pilot, his volunteering for a high-risk Project Mercury mission, becoming the first American to orbit Earth in 1962, and his 24 years in the U.S. Senate. He continued his commitment to public service at the John Glenn Institute at Ohio State University, until the end of his life. But he never lost his drive to go back to space. In 1998, in the last of his 24 years in the Senate, John Glenn finally got the chance. At the age of 77, he flew on the Space Shuttle for an 8-day mission, to carry out dozens of experiments with himself as subject, to study the effect of microgravity on the process of aging. As a former astronaut and a 20-year member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, John Glenn knew that many of the characteristics of the adaption to microgravity mimics many of the maladies suffered later in life. In 1998, he wrote the introduction to the exercise guide published by the National Institute of Aging. John Glenn was a role model and an inspiration to all classes of astronauts who came after him. Mark Kelly, who recently completed a year in space, said, “working with John Glenn was like a kid getting music lessons, while Mozart composed in the next room.” “We are more fulfilled when we are involved in something bigger than ourselves,” said John Glenn, at his keynote address at Ohio State University’s commencement in 2009. Fifty years earlier, in the April 9, 1959 NASA press conference introducing all of the Mercury 7 astronauts to the public, he had stated: “We are placed here with certain talents and capabilities. It is up to each of us to use those talents and capabilities as best you can. If you do that, I think there is a power greater than any of us that will place the opportunities in our way, and if we use our talents properly, we will be living the kind of life we should live.” As is most appropriate, John Glenn will join 11 other astronauts and three Space Shuttle Columbia crew members, when he is laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. Seasons Greetings Best wishes to our subscribers for the holiday period. The next issue of your Strategic Alert will be dated January 5, 2017.