EIR Online
Online Almanac
From Volume 8, Issue 28 of EIR Online, Published July 14, 2009

return to home page

9/11 Cover Is Blown
by Jeffrey Steinberg

July 10—In the report that follows, you will discover that some of the most fundamental assumptions that you have been clinging to, since Sept. 11, 2001—assumptions that Lyndon LaRouche warned against—have been a total fraud. Much of what you have been told about the events of 9/11 have been a hoax. The truth, which is clearly revealed in newly declassified documents, available through the National Archives, is that two leading, presumed U.S. allies—Saudi Arabia and Great Britain—were up to their eyeballs in the attacks on New York City and Washington. The United States was betrayed by leading elements within the Saudi Arabian Royal Family and intelligence services, in league with the British Empire....

In-Depth articles from EIR, Vol. 36, No. 27
...Requires Adobe Reader®.

This Week's Cover

Feature

  • A Sequel on Economics as Science:
    The Rule of Natural Law
    by Lyndon LaRouche, Jr.

    In this sequel to his 'Economic Science, in Short' (EIR, June 19), LaRouche insists on viewing the universe from the standpoint of the creative powers of the human mind, rather than that of Euclidean apriorism, or the 'foggy bottom' of reductionist mathematics. Therefore, Leibnizian natural law must supersede imperialist law, or Liberalism.

International

Science & Technology

Economics

National

  • Under Obama's Policies, the Nation Is Headed for Meltdown
    The nation is fast approaching a situation in which state and local governments that are responsible for the general welfare do not exist. 'There will not be much left of the United States, come October,' said Lyndon LaRouche, July 6.

Interview

  • Dietrich Murswiek
    Professor Murswiek is a professor of constitutional and administrative law, as well as German and international environmental law, at the University of Freiburg, Germany.

Editorial

This Week's News

U.S. Economic/Financial News

California's Bond Ratings Fall Further; Will Arnie Tattoo the Poor?

July 7 (EIRNS)—Fitch's rating service downgraded California's long-term bond rating to BBB—the lowest of any state government. This vote of "no confidence" in both Gov. Arnie Schwarzenegger's and the legislature's ability to achieve a balanced budget, places the state's rating at near-junk-bond status, and will add significant costs to long-term borrowing for public works projects (should there be any).

Schwarzenegger continues to show signs of his Nazi upbringing (his father joined the Nazi Party and served Hitler as a policeman in Austria), demanding the fingerprinting of both patients and caregivers in the state's In-Home Supportive Services program, allegedly to counter fraud. This program provides care to more than 460,000 elderly poor, disabled, and blind Californians. (One observer sarcastically commented that it might be preferable to tattoo them, as the Nazis tattooed identification numbers on prisoners in the concentration camps.) Schwarzenegger argues that this will prevent $380 million in fraud, and is part of more than $2 billion in savings he claims could come from tightening eligibility for such programs, along with cutting services.

There is a growing recognition that he is going too far in his attacks on society's most vulnerable members. Today, there will be a rally of both health-care recipients and providers at the Capitol, under the slogan, "People's Day of Reckoning: The State Budget Is Killing Me!" The sponsors of the event note that Arnie's cuts-only budget will cause unnecessary human suffering. In a related development, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) boycotted yesterday's meeting with the Governor, saying that his demands are unrelated to closing the deficit. Sources say that Bass has become increasingly angry at his latest demands, which include plans to reduce pensions for new public employees, and hiring nonunion labor for schools.

CIT Group: Is Bankruptcy Around the Corner?

July 11 (EIRNS)—The Wall Street Journal reports today that CIT Group Inc., a lender to almost a million small businesses, has hired the law firm of Skadden, Arps to help it prepare for a bankruptcy filing. CIT is reported to have had $68 billion in liabilities as of March 31 and has historically relied on the bond and short-term-debt markets for funds to lend, but has been largely unable to tap those markets since mid-2007. CIT received $2.3 billion of TARP bailout money last December, and has applied with the FDIC to participate in a program that will allow it to sell bonds at low interest rates, despite its current junk bond rating, but the FDIC has yet to respond to its application.

Machinists Chief Buffenbarger Backs FDR Jobs Program

July 7 (EIRNS)—The president of the International Association of Machinists (IAM), R. Thomas Buffenbarger, issued an open letter to President Obama today, calling on the Administration to recognize the failure of its policies and return to the proven policies of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins, to put millions of people to work immediately and rebuild American manufacturing capacity.

Buffenbarger quotes Department of Labor figures that 30.2 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, and that all sectors of employment are collapsing. "It holds both peril and opportunity," he writes, "for the political party that first recognizes this isn't your father's recession—or your grandfather's depression, for that matter." He adds: "To those [like Fed chairman Ben Bernanke] who see green shoots, I urge them to look closer. They may notice how the soil seems to be drying out and cracking across the entire corn field. No one should expect the crop to be knee high by the Fourth of July—this year or next."

He calls for a second stimulus package, noting that the first was a failure. However, he adds that it must first be acknowledged that, "For much of the last decade, our banks and investment firms printed commercial paper, stamped it 'Made in America,' and lived off the commissions and interest generated by those now toxic assets. We cannot go down that path again....

"I would recommend that we employ a Works Progress Administration approach. Harry Hopkins proved that the Roosevelt Administration could put 3.4 million Americans to work in one year—1935—in thousands of projects that had a lasting impact on our national life.... President Roosevelt's basic strategy can be re-engineered for the modern manufacturing sector. Today's unemployed can be put to work renovating factories and installing new equipment" as well as public works projects.

Buffenbarger also calls for a 10% investment-tax credit for new equipment, so that "businesses could retool their factories."

He concludes: "I urge you to make JOBS Now! the highest priority of your Administration. And I pledge to you an unprecedented level of political activity by the Machinists Union in support of such an initiative."

Global Economic News

NASA's Puttkamer Stresses Mission to Mars

July 11 (EIRNS)—In an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the first manned Moon landing, Jesco von Puttkamer, who has been working with NASA for about 50 years, says, among other things:

"Mars is the planet of our destiny. There's the well-founded hope that we might find traces of extraterrestrial life there for the first time, even if it's only fossilized microbes. A human scientist who can take and analyze samples on the ground is much better suited to this search than a robot, no matter how sophisticated it is. But the most important thing is the fact that people will one day set foot on Mars and populate it. The red desert planet Mars, provided it doesn't have any life of its own, could become a green Mars through so-called terraforming—in other words, active transformation. If that is successful, humankind will have created itself a second home, just in case an asteroid impact or other major catastrophe wipes out life on Earth. Only through having Mars as a reserve planet will the human race really become immortal."

United States News Digest

Obama Just Ain't Delivering for the Empire

July 10 (EIRNS)—California Sen. Barbara Boxer, who chairs of the Environment and Public Works Committee, announced yesterday that the committee would not take up the climate-change/cap-and-trade bill until after the Summer recess. "We'll do it as soon as we get back" in September, she promised, vowing that they would stay "until Christmas" to get the job done.

On July 7, when committee hearings began on the bill, Boxer said she intended to finish work on it before the Aug. 7 recess. The word is out, however, that the Obama crew only has 45 votes lined up for the bill, so the railroad is stalled.

Today, the Democratic leadership of the House announced that the scheduled unveiling of the Nazi health-care reform bill today would have to be postponed until next week, because opposition within their own ranks required more meetings. And, therefore, committee work on the bill-that-has-yet-to-be would not begin until next week, at the earliest.

The Democratic leadership had been inundated in the last two days with letters from Democratic Congressmen, demanding changes in the bill. The biggest problem was the letter to Nancy Pelosi from the 40-strong "Blue Dog" caucus, expressing their "strong reservations about the process and direction" of the yet-to-be released bill.

In addition to those 40 votes, two junior members of the House garnered 60-plus signatures on a letter siding with prescription drug-makers and President Obama against Rep. Henry Waxman's (Calif.) call to reinstate some price controls on prescriptions; 22 wayward New Democrats expressed their hope that government-sponsored health coverage would piggyback on Medicare's pre-existing network, despite opposition to the idea from caucus leaders; and a mix of 20 rural and Western Democrats made their case for why the bill should reward providers in their states for their "low-cost, high-quality" Medicare delivery, enabled by their lack of poverty.

Not to mention that the three House committee chairmen charged with writing the health-care bill, which has yet to be produced (Charles Rangel, Ways and Means; Henry Waxman, Energy and Commerce; and George Miller, Education and Labor) have announced that they are not bound by any secret deals the Obama team might have struck with the health-care "industry."

House Overwhelming Rejects Obama 'Signing Statement'

July 10 (EIRNS)—By a 429-2 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday rebuked President Obama for his June 26 signing statement, in which he said he would ignore the conditions placed by Congress on U.S. funding of the IMF and World Bank, through a $108 billion credit line. Obama had agreed to the supplemental IMF funding at the London G8 summit.

The conditions placed by Congress on the IMF/World Bank funding, required the Administration to pressure the World Bank to strengthen labor and environmental standards, and required the Treasury Department to issue a report on IMF/World Bank activities. These provisions were part of a deal to obtain support from Republicans and others who were threatening to kill the IMF funding provision.

Obama objected in his June 26 signing statement, that those conditions "would interfere with my constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations by directing the Executive to take certain positions in negotiations or discussions with international organizations and foreign governments, or by requiring consultation with the Congress prior to such negotiations or discussions."

It wasn't his first signing statement, despite his campaign rhetoric about how "it's a clear abuse of power to use such statements as a license to evade laws that the President does not like." Less than six months into his term, Obama has issued six such statements asserting his right to ignore specific Congressional enactments.

Soros's Drug Pushers Target Population for Dope Slavery

July 10 (EIRNS)—George Soros has put his drug legalization apparatus into high gear in the United States, with the Drug Policy Alliance Network, which he finances, taking advantage of the bankruptcy of states, to move marijuana legalization ahead. A target is California, where the Soros network wants Gov. Arnie Schwarzenegger to legalize marijuana so that it can be taxed—yielding about $1 billion a year—to offset the $24 billion state budget deficit. This week, National Public Radio praised the pot lobby as the one group that wants to pay taxes to help Arnie's budget deficit.

Due to "medical marijuana" legalization, California has become a virtual narco-state, with an industry that is $14 billion a year, according to the dopers' own figures. Soros's hitmen are pushing the line that "the depression" will bring about "legalization," just as the 1930s depression ended Prohibition.

Blago Plea Agreement Implicates SEIU as Agents for Obama

July 8—(EIRNS) In an arrangement with U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's aide John Harris pleaded guilty to wire fraud, and will go to prison. Harris was chief of staff to Blagojevich from December 2005 to December 2008. Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 9, 2008 on Federal charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery. The plea document states, "On or about November 6, 2008, Blagojevich met with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Official A [probably Illinois SEIU chief Tom Balanoff—ed.], who had been presented to Blagojevich and defendant [Harris] as an emissary working on behalf of President-elect Obama with respect to filling the Senate seat."

The revelation that the SEIU was presented as an emissary from Obama himself is credible, from the record of the SEIU's crucial role, under George Soros's direction, in electing Obama to the Presidency and in pushing the Soros/Obama political agenda.

Harris admits that Blagojevich asked the SEIU officials (Balanoff and president Andy Stern) to be appointed Health and Human Services Secretary, in exchange for appointing Obama confidante Valerie Jarett as the Senator to replace Obama. Jarett is currently senior advisor to President Obama.

Discussions described by Harris included appointing Blagojevich to a post to be created for him, as Coordinator of the Change To Win Federation—the anti-AFL-CIO split-off engineered by the SEIU—in exchange for the Jarett appointment; and for the SEIU to get Blagojevich into a position with one of the "private foundations" the SEIU gives money to. In recent days, leaders of the other labor unions that followed Andy Stern's SEIU out of the AFL-CIO into Change To Win have all attacked Andy Stern as a bosses' flunkey.

Administration Ignores Shutdown of Public Health as Flu Spreads

July 7 (EIRNS)—Dozens of the 3,000 U.S. counties, whose health departments are on the front line of bio-defense against disease, have resorted to holding public briefings and issuing press releases to appeal for help, because the departments are being shut down, in whole or in part, under state budget/economic breakdown crises, while the Obama Administration refuses even to acknowledge the danger. This is in the face of the official declaration of a worldwide A/H1N1 pandemic, made in June by the World Health Organization.

"Now is not the time to cut the budget and play games with money going to public health ... when people's lives are at risk," commented Julie Pryde, administrator of the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District in Illinois, who, on June 25, joined health officials from five other counties for a press conference, to appeal for assistance on anti-flu defense.

In response, the Obama Administration continues its drive for Hitler-style health-care "reform" that will cut services and costs, meaning to cut lives. One week into the new fiscal year for 46 states, several state governments, including Illinois, are in straits similar to that of California, where drastic cuts in government functions are underway.

Nationwide, some 12,000 public health worker jobs were eliminated last year. Now the rate of elimination has increased.

Meantime, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is issuing meaningless pandemic-fighting plans, involving coordinating anti-flu vaccination drives this Fall with state and local public health officials—who won't be there.

Ibero-American News Digest

Soros Helps To Throw Mexican Elections to London's Dope, Inc.

July 8 (EIRNS)—The politically most significant result of Mexico's national mid-term elections on July 5, in which the entire 500-person House of Representatives and many governorships were up for election, was the reported narrow defeat in the northwestern state of Sonora, of Alfonso Elías Serrano, the strongly pro-PLHINO gubernatorial candidate of the opposition PRI party.

Elías Serrano had campaigned avidly for the PLHINO—the Northwest Hydraulic Plan—a great infrastructure project which Lyndon LaRouche and his associates in Sonora and across Mexico have championed for decades.

Back in early September 2008, LaRouche had warned that the drug mob would very possibly lash out violently against the PLHINO, because their economic and political control of the region and the country are threatened by such economic development projects. When a wave of bloody drug murders shook Mexico in the following weeks, LaRouche stated bluntly: "It's Soros; it's the British. It's Soros—attacking the flank of the United States."

On July 7, Elías announced that he will challenge the election results. His defeat was a striking anomaly in the overall national electoral results, where his PRI party swept up more than 230 out of 500 congressional seats, and held on to numerous governorships as well. Moreover, Elías had led PAN candidate Guillermo Padrés in the Sonora polls by as much as 25%, just one month before the elections.

But then on June 5, a very convenient tragedy occurred. A suspicious fire burned down a daycare center in the city of Hermosillo, killing 48 infants and children. Local media and Soros-linked organizations immediately blamed Sonora's PRI Gov. Eduardo Bours, and, by implication, Elías Serrano.

On July 4, a 20,000-person demonstration was held in Hermosillo, against "those responsible." This orchestrated campaign, combined with large quantities of cash, which reportedly entered Sonora from the neighboring state of Sinaloa (as in "Sinaloa Cartel") in the few days leading up to the election, was sufficient to throw the election against Elías—much to the satisfaction of George Soros and his British financial controllers.

High-level sources in Sonora report that they believe the drug cartels are involved in the monkey business, and that the state PRI intends to seriously fight for justice.

The LaRouche Youth Movement in Mexico is expected to issue a statement on the elections.

Argentine Cabinet Shift Brings in Soros Mouthpiece

July 9 (EIRNS)—As the result of a July 7 cabinet reshuffle, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has brought in as her chief of staff, former Justice Minister Aníbal Fernández, the most vociferous proponent of British agent George Soros's drug-legalization policy in the country.

Aníbal Fernández has spent the last two years aggressively promoting Soros's "harm reduction" fraud and drug decriminalization, which the government officially backs, and hopes to soon ram through as legislation. He keynoted the August 2008 conference on drug policy, held in the National Congress, and organized by Soros's national and international drug legalization apparatus. This year's conference will occur on Aug. 6-7, at the same venue, and Fernández can be expected to show up.

The cabinet changes occurred in the wake of the June 28 midterm elections, in which candidates of the government's Victory Front were defeated in several provinces, including in the capital and the all-important Buenos Aires province. Here, former President Néstor Kirchner lost to right-wing Francisco De Narváez, a Colombian-born millionaire who is suspected of ties to the drug cartels. The British hand in the elections was far from invisible.

Now, demoralization among the government's ranks appears to be driving disastrous policy decisions. This is also reflected in remarks by the new Finance Minister Amado Boudou, who identified as one priority, renegotiating defaulted debt held by the "holdouts"—the vulture funds and other speculators who refused to participate in the 2005 debt restructuring, and hold about $30 billion in defaulted bonds. For the past four years, both Presidents Néstor Kirchner, and now Cristina Fernández, have firmly refused to negotiate with these predators.

Capitulating on this issue is certainly a sign of government desperation over the impact of the global financial breakdown. Boudou cheerfully babbled that a deal with the holdouts will allow Argentina access to the "international markets," from which it has been shut out since its December 2001 default.

Mexico City Expects 'Imminent' Outbreak of A/H1N1 Virus

July 10 (EIRNS)—Mexico City's Health Secretary, Armando Ahued, is calling on health personnel to start mobilizing, warning that an outbreak of the A/H1N1 virus is "imminent," as the city moves into the Winter season.

The capital could expect developments similar, or worse, than what is now occurring in Chile or Argentina, Ahued said. "We can't let our guard down," he told a July 7 gathering of directors of hospitals and 220 clinics, adding that the virus has already mutated eight times since its appearance last April, and could do so again, and become even more lethal in coming months.

To meet this challenge, Ahued said, by August the city government will launch a prevention campaign, reactivating emergency measures that have been relaxed. Soon afterward, together with a campaign to vaccinate everyone under the age of 5 or over the age of 65, it hopes to have a government-run laboratory operating that will be able to perform quick tests of samples to diagnose the virus. It is also purchasing all necessary equipment, such as respirators, as well as stockpiling antivirals.

Ahued announced that IBM has donated software to the city that will allow it to closely monitor the virus's evolution, and create a data base that will be shared by all the city's clinics and hospitals.

Argentine Bishops: Decrim Will Send Our Youth 'to Hell'

July 10 (EIRNS)—With the poverty existing in Buenos Aires slums, combined with unemployment and school dropout rates, Congressional approval of drug decriminalization for "personal" consumption is the equivalent of murder, said Argentine Catholic Bishop Jorge García Cuerva, at a June 25 press conference in Buenos Aires.

García is a member of the Catholic Church's National Pastoral Commission on Addiction, which has publicly rejected the government's proposal to decriminalize drug possession for personal use. Commission chairman, Bishop Jorge Lozano, penned a document last December stating that such a policy is "synonymous with death."

It's as if "we're sitting on a powderkeg, on a box of dynamite," said Bishop García. "There are 400,000 youth in the province who neither go to school nor work.... These are young people who have no dreams, who feel alone and are likely to seek a 'solution' in drugs." The decriminalization which the state is proposing already effectively prevails in the slums, García warned. The consequences "are a type of Hell," as drugs are readily available for any kid who can pay a few pesos.

The bishops' statements earned the wrath of former Justice Minister and, now the President's chief of staff, Aníbal Fernández, a mouthpiece for drug kingpin George Soros's legalization policies. On June 26, he had the gall to tell the bishops that they shouldn't discuss matters "they know nothing about.... They're not specialists," and by attacking decriminalization, he charged, "they are bastardizing the prestige of the Church."

Western European News Digest

Top CDUer: Collapse Not Within, But Of the System

July 8 (EIRNS)—Lothar De Maiziere, prime minister of the first freely elected East German parliament, who governed only for six months before German reunification in October 1990, surprised a press conference in Munich this afternoon, by echoing what until now had only been stated publicly by Helga Zepp-LaRouche ("The Missed Chance of 1989").

Speaking about the agenda of next week's Munich session of the regular German-Russian Petersburg Dialogue, De Maiziere said that the difference between eastern and Western Germans is that the Easterners view the present global economic-financial crisis as a crisis of the system, whereas the Westerners still view it as only a crisis like many before, within the system. De Maiziere explained that, having gone through the collapse of the socialist system in 1989, eastern Germans feel that what they are watching happen today, is something they know from 20 years ago.

Has David Kelly's Ghost Come Back To Haunt Blair?

July 6 (EIRNS)—British weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly was writing an exposé about his warnings that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction, and about his work with anthrax, at the time of his death on July 17, 2003, according to the July 5 Daily Express, a British newspaper. His death came two days after he had testified to the House of Commons that a dossier which claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, commissioned by then-Prime Minister Tony Blair in order to justify the invasion of Iraq, had been "sexed up."

The allegations come from a new film about biological weapons being debuted in London on July 17, the sixth anniversary of Kelly's death, titled "Anthrax War."

The new report makes clear that Kelly was in the process of exposing not only that Blair's instigation of the invasion of Iraq was groundless, since Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, but also that Britain itself was involved in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, specifically anthrax.

The report says Kelly had several discussions with a publisher in Oxford about a book, and was seeking advice as to how far he could go without violating the British Official Secrets Act, the Daily Express reports.

Kelly's computers were seized after his death and it is still not known whether any rough draft was discovered by investigators, and, if so, what happened to it.

According to the Daily Express, Kelly intended to reveal that he informed Blair, weeks before the British and American invasion, that there were no WMD anywhere in Iraq, and was also intending to lift the lid on a potentially bigger scandal—Blair's secret dealings in germ warfare with the former apartheid regime in South Africa.

House of Lords Votes Down Pro-Euthanasia Amendment

July 8 (EIRNS)—After a passionate debate yesterday, the Lords defeated a proposed amendment to the Coronors and Justice Bill, put forward by Lord Falconer and Baroness Jay, by a 194 to 141 vote. This amendment would have protected from prosecution those who help a person seek assisted suicide abroad (it is outlawed in the U.K.).

Peter Saunders of the Care Not Killing Alliance responded: "What a relief, we have fought them off for another year," and said that the vote was "a bigger margin than the defeat of the Joffe Bill." Lord Joffe had proposed legalizing assisted suicide in 2004.

During yesterday's debate, Peers, including bishops, lawyers, and medical experts, argued that the wording of the amendment was unclear, and that it would effectively allow people to help others commit suicide. Many Peers pointed out that disabled people would be placed under pressure to end their lives in order to relieve the burden they place on families and the health-care system.

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, who has spinal muscular atrophy, said: "By going with this amendment we turn the traffic lights from red to green on state-sanctioned assisted dying, albeit in another country. If this amendment were to succeed, I believe it will place a new and invidious pressure on disabled and terminally ill people, who think that they are close to the end of their lives."

Lord Elystan-Morgan, a former judge, warned: "This would inevitably lead to the legalisation of physician-assisted death."

Britain Calls for Italy's Expulsion from G8

July 7 (EIRNS)—On the eve of the G8 summit in Italy, the London Guardian attacked the Italian government, claiming that it had done nothing to prepare the summit, that there is no initiative on the agenda, and that "there is growing pressure from other [G8] member states to have Italy expelled from the group, according to senior western officials."

This a climax in the British media campaign which has gone on for weeks, whose purpose is to destabilize Italy, whose Finance Minister has opposed British bailout schemes for the bankrupt financial system. Italian Foreign Minister Frattini answered the Guardian allegations from Bucharest, saying, "The Guardian should be expelled from the [group] of major newspapers" (see below).

The British paper claims that Italy has no "substantive initiatives on the agenda" of the G8, and, therefore, "the US has taken control. Washington has organized 'sherpa calls' ... in a last-ditch bid to inject purpose into the meeting." The Guardian quotes an unnamed "senior G8 member state official" saying that "For another country to organise the sherpa calls is just unprecedented. It's a nuclear option. The Italians have been just awful. There have been no processes and no planning. The G8 is a club, and clubs have membership dues. Italy has not been paying them....

"The behind-the-scenes grumbling has gone as far as suggestions that Italy could be pushed out of the G8 or any successor group. One possibility being floated in European capitals is that Spain, which has higher per capita national income and gives a greater percentage of GDP in aid, would take Italy's place."

Then, the Guardian quotes a certain Richard Gowan, an analyst at "a New York center"—omitting to note that he is also a member of George Soros' European Council on Foreign Relations. "The Italian preparations for the summit have been chaotic from start to finish," says Gowan. "The Italians were saying as long ago as January this year that they did not have a vision of the summit, and if the Obama administration had any ideas they would take instruction from the Americans."

The British mouthpiece then recycles the rubbish that Italy has cut aid to Africa, and that "media coverage in the run-up to the meeting has been dominated by Berlusconi's parties with young women."

Frattini: Britain Fears Italy's Foreign Policy

July 9 (EIRNS)—Responding to the British media campaign against the Italian government, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini granted an interview to Il Giornale on July 8, in which he said that Italy is being attacked because it is a competitor of Britain in international politics. "The real target of certain British media," Frattini says, "is to oppose our role on the international scene ... a leading role in several contexts. Let me remind you of [Italy's] direct relationship with Russia, Turkey, Israel, and Libya." "Let us not forget the opening action towards Iran, which has been always attacked by the British press."

The line was confirmed by Obama's shift, Frattini says. "Who could really think that such a strong agreement [by Italy], for instance, with Russia on energy or Libya on gas, would not anger someone?"

Yesterday, the New York Times lead editorial joined the British line, claiming that Italy had failed to prepare a substantial agenda for the G8 summit, and that Obama should "take leadership." Berlusconi has displayed "showmanship" but no leadership. Obama should push the agenda: Iran, climate change, and aid to Africa. And pressure Merkel to increase Germany's financial stimulus.

Italian Journalist: Soros Behind British Attacks

July 9 (EIRNS)—Giancarlo Lehner, a journalist close to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, wrote in the Rome daily Il Tempo today, that the role of George Soros in the current British attacks against Italy, is reminiscent of the 1992 Britannia coup, when the Italian currency was attacked by the British agent Soros, the political system was overthrown, and the national economy was looted. An Italian gossip site, Dagospia.com, had written the day before that Soros has sent emissaries to Italy to prepare the ground for a "landing," in order to launch a campaign against the increasing power of the "right wing."

Without quoting EIR, under the headline "Financial Lobbies Against Our Future," Lehner wrote that "George Schwartz, alias George Soros, [is] a generous moneybag for all promoters of drug legalization and euthanasia, apparently because of liberal ideals, but the suspicion is strong that in these battles it is destabilizing aims are prevailing."

In June 1992, "the attack against our family jewels was elaborated on the Britannia yacht.... There, Soros coordinated the group of Italian, American, British, and Dutch bankers and managers aiming to destroy our state capitalism, in perfect synchrony with the destruction of the first republic," Lehner writes, recalling that three years later, former Prime Minister Romano Prodi gave Soros an honorary degree at the University of Bologna. With Soros on the scene, Prodi might not be far behind, Lehner writes.

Russia and the CIS News Digest

Russians Give Obama a Cosmetic Success

July 6 (EIRNS)—Despite the fact that President Obama, from all accounts, approached his July 6-7 trip to Moscow from the standpoint of the narcissist that he is, the agreements achieved on that trip reflect his concession, however temporary, to the foreign policy directionality which has been established by his National Security team, led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, National Security Advisor James Jones, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The weeks leading up to this trip have seen the President more and more exposed as a bumbling incompetent, on both the economy and foreign policy. Thus he was desperate to get a public relations victory, if it meant that he had to go against his own policy. He was virtually forced to go in the direction of the Clinton-Jones approach, and there were clearly Russians in power who understood the situation, and gave him at least a cosmetic success.

The most striking result was the agreement on Afghanistan, which features the centrality of the war against narcotics trafficking, in the spirit which had been put forward by Victor Ivanov, the head of Russia's Federal Drug Control Service, and which the LaRouche movement had endorsed. The U.S. military has taken steps in the direction of this policy in the Afghan theater itself, despite the President's pro-drug-legalization predilections.

The two Presidents also signed an agreement on missile defense, which calls for "intensifying dialogue on establishing the Joint Data Exchange Center, which is to become the basis for a multilateral missile-launch notification regime." This seems to postpone the direct conflict that was brewing on this issue, on the eve of the Obama trip.

A Medvedev-Obama Commission was established, which will contain 13 task forces and work on long-term cooperation on various issues, ranging from drugs, to space, to crime. The real work on this Commission is expected to be done by Secretary of State Clinton and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. It was announced that Clinton would go to Moscow in the Fall to work on specifics.

On the Other Hand, Slim Results in Moscow

July 8 (EIRNS)—U.S. President Barack Obama can hardly be satisfied with the reaction of his Russian hosts during his brief trip there. As the New York Times noted today, "Moscow has greeted Mr. Obama ... as if he were just another dignitary passing through." Obama's speech at the New Economic School, which was supposed to be his "third major foreign policy address," was ignored by Russian television, being broadcast only by one cable station, and the English-language Moscow Times was the only Russian press at the joint business meeting hosted by Presidents Medvedev and Obama. Michelle Obama said almost nothing, and got scant attention in Moscow.

Obama was given a serious talking-to by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Russian press and NBC reported. Obama was in Moscow for only two nights, but devoted one of them to "family time" with his wife and daughters, in his swanky hotel penthouse, pushing a meeting with Putin to breakfast the next morning.

NBC's coverage was blunt: "A White House advisor said that the nearly two-hour private meeting between Obama and Putin was dominated by a 50-minute soliloquy from Putin on the state of U.S.-Russia relations. If Obama didn't get it before he got to Russia, he gets it now: Russia wants respect. By the way, our sources also made it clear they didn't view Putin's monologue to Obama as a lecture or a rant."

Lyndon LaRouche commented today that Obama is insane, but sanity still reigns in Russia.

Southwest Asia News Digest

Sources Confirm Saudi-Israeli Sykes-Picot Scheming Against Iran

July 6 (EIRNS)—A senior U.S. intelligence source has confirmed news reports over the weekend of July 4-5, that Israel and Saudi Arabia are secretly negotiating over air routes for an Israeli Defense Forces attack on Iran. The source reported that Israeli officials are in talks with representatives of many of the Gulf Cooperation Council states, and that at least three possible bombing routes are being negotiated, for Israeli attacks on Iran's purported nuclear weapons program sites. Saudi-Israeli talks, crucial to any such Israeli "breakaway ally" attack, are being mediated through Egyptian and Jordanian intelligence channels, according to the source. This may also explain news reports on July 5-6 about Israeli submarines passing through the Suez Canal, which had previously been barred.

The source emphasized that Saudi Arabia and Israel, today, are the two "anchors" of the Sykes-Picot British controls over the politics of the extended Persian Gulf/Eastern Mediterranean region. Under no circumstances, the source emphasized, do the British wish to see Iran and United States enter into a diplomatic normalization—especially a process that resolves the dispute over Iran's nuclear energy program. Exploiting U.S. President Barack Obama's well-profiled Nero complex, the British have seized the initiative on the Iran crisis, and have pushed a hard line against Tehran, intended to bolster the internal position of Supreme Leader Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad, and make U.S.-Iranian diplomatic talks far more difficult. "If the United States and Iran were to normalize diplomatic relations and solve the impasse over Iran's nuclear program," the source emphasized, "the entire British game would be up. So London is doing everything it can to heighten the tensions, weaken the Iranian opposition, and maintain their 'managed chaos' program for the region. A Saudi-Israeli agreement, based on the idea of a confrontation with Iran, is at the heart of the Sykes-Picot scheming today."

The recent statements from Sweden, on behalf of the European Union, condemning Iran for executing drug traffickers, is another aspect of the British games in the extended Southwest and South Asia region. The British are not only sabotaging any NATO cooperation with the U.S. in targeting the narco-terrorist apparatus in Afghanistan. The isolation of Iran is aimed at preventing a larger regional cooperation against the opium/heroin trade, which has destabilized the entire region, and funnels a reported $4 billion a year to Taliban and related terrorists.

The recent announcement by Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, that the United States is shifting its focus from crop eradication—which targets Afghan farmers, already being brutalized by the Taliban and other opium lords—to interdiction of traffickers, has London and other European NATO members up in arms, because it threatens the Dope, Inc. money flows into the international monetary system, through such offshore centers as Dubai.

In short, the number-one enemy of the United States in South and Southwest Asia is the British Empire. To the extent that Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other regional states play into the British game, they are working against the United States and their own self-interests.

'Surge' in Afghanistan: Another Quagmire

July 11 (EIRNS)—During his Jan. 22 webcast, Lyndon LaRouche warned that there was no reason to put additional U.S. troops into Afghanistan. "There's only one issue there of strategic interest," he said, "and that is the protection of the sovereignty of a government in that country. Because the problem does not lie in the country. The problem lies in those who have a market overseas for opium and heroin. Shut down the market!"

Shortly after that, the Obama Administration announced a new strategy for Afghanistan based on the counterinsurgency doctrine developed under CENTCOM chief Gen. David Petraeus. An additional 17,000 combat troops and 4,000 trainers were sent to join the 33,000 U.S. troops already there.

Now, it appears that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is about to announce that he has been given mission impossible. The Washington Post reported on July 11, that McChrystal is telling Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that there aren't nearly enough Afghan security forces to carry out the strategy. The 4,000 Marines that are on the offensive in Helmand province, according to the strategy, are supposed to be partnered with the same number of Afghan troops, but the Afghanis have only 650.

Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, the commander of the Marine force, said earlier this week, that he needs those Afghan troops because they can see things in the local communities and culture that the Marines can't. Without enough of them, his troops are, in effect, nearly blind.

Retired Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Col. Patrick Lang suggests, on his blog July 11, that a successful counterinsurgency strategy, which is an attempt to construct a society that is more attractive and viable than what the insurgents promise, may require "the commitment of a century of effort." Lang has exposed the "massive subterranean fire, burning" in the U.S. establishment, against counterinsurgency fantasies in Afghanistan.

Asia News Digest

Xinjiang Riots: British Destabilization of Asia

July 7 (EIRNS)—Lyndon LaRouche said today that the evidence is clear that the riots in Urumqi in western China's Xinjiang province are entirely a British operation, made possible by the role of the British agent in the White House, Barack Obama. The targets, as LaRouche has emphasized, are Iran, India, Russia, and China. British- and Saudi-trained terrorists are moving out of Pakistan into Central Asia, and into China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, providing the Anglo/Saudi apparatus with a further destabilization capacity across the entire "Arc of Crisis." This arc, identified as a British operation against Eurasia in LaRouche's "Storm Over Asia" TV broadcast in 1999, is now exploding, from British destabilization and threats against Iran; to terrorist attacks in the Caucasus; to renewed terror bombing in Iraq accompanying the U.S. troop withdrawal from the cities; to the bloody escalation in Afghanistan and Central Asia; to terrorism in the Islamic regions of the Philippines and Thailand; and now, the Xinjiang riots.

Videos from Urumqi show that the Uighur demonstrations, initially protesting a racial conflict in Guangdong province in which two Uighur workers were killed two weeks ago, turned into a riot, much like the Tibet riots of last year, in which Han Chinese residents of Urumqi were pulled out of cars and shops and beaten. Over 200 shops were damaged and 200 cars, including police cars, burned or otherwise damaged. Over 150 deaths are reported, with most reports indicating that about 30 were Uighurs, although this is unconfirmed.

From May 21-25, the Uighur separatist movement, the World Uighur Congress (WUC), held a conference in Washington—in the U.S. Capitol building!—titled "East Turkistan, 60 Years Under Communist Chinese Rule." (East Turkistan is the name for a separate nation intended to replace China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region). The conference was sponsored by a nest of British intelligence operations in Washington—the quasi-governmental National Endowment for Democracy, British MI6's Amnesty International, George Soros's Human Rights Watch, and the Unrepresented Peoples and Nations Organization (UNPO—an imperial organization set up in 1989 in The Hague to support indigenous people and separatist movements against nation-states).

The conference opened with the U.S. National Anthem and that of East Turkistan (a non-existent nation), and was addressed by members of the U.S. Congress, in addition to representatives of the sponsoring organizations. Only six weeks later, Xinjiang exploded in violence.

Rediya Kadeer, the president of the WUC, was accused by the Chinese government of instigating the riots in Urumqi, over the Internet, and through phone calls into the region. Interviewed by al-Jazeera today TVB, Kadeer admitted that she had called for the Uighurs to "go to the streets to demonstrate against Chinese oppression." But she blamed the violence on the Chinese, despite the films shown by al-Jazeera proving the opposite.

Chinese police are now reporting that they are dispersing groups of Han Chinese who were arming themselves with sticks and knives. They say that demonstrations in Kashgar (also, in Xinjiang), were dispersed without violence. Near the Tajik and Pakistan borders, Kashgar is the more dangerous location, as Pakistan-based insurgents travel back and forth through that area. China reported last month that seven "terror cells" had been uncovered and shut down in Kashgar over the past four months.

See also "British Imperial Assets Move To Explode Eurasia," in InDepth.

Africa News Digest

Obama, in Ghana, Blames Africans for Their Problems

July 11 (EIRNS)—In his address to the Ghana Parliament today, at the Accra International Conference Center, U.S. President Barack Obama shattered any illusions that Africans may have had that U.S. policy toward Africa would abandon the policies advocated by the British imperial system.

Making no mention of the collapse of the world monetary system, and the ramifications of that collapse on Africa, Obama advocated policies for each of the four areas that he focussed on, which are exact replicas of policies of the London-based financial cartel.

Taking the approach of George Soros's Open Society, Obama charged that African countries were failing because of corruption, and a lack of democracy and good governance. The Soros approach serves to focus the anger and demoralization of the populations in African countries, resulting from the collapse of their economies, on their leaders and local institutions, instead of the collapse of the global monetary system and British imperial policies. Obama stated that the United States would pay greater attention to corruption in human rights reports on African countries.

Obama said that if there is good governance in Africa, then the possibility of prosperity will be broadened by public-private investments. He said that Africa would be able to leapfrog over the "dirtier"—i.e., industrial—phase of development, by opting for the wind, solar, and biofuel. He promised that the United States would do more to promote trade and investment in this area.

These "clean energies" are incompetent and can never provide the power required for a vibrant economy.

On the health issue, Obama promised investment to continue George W. Bush's policy on HIV/AIDS, and a public health commitment to promote "wellness," advocating "e-health" initiatives.

Obama also said that war criminals would be held accountable by the United States. He did not refer to Sudanese President Hassan Omar al-Bashir by name, but this is being taken as a reference to him. Africans are wondering if "good governance" means that you are not allowed to defend yourself against a foreign-backed rebellion.

His comments on Zimbabwe were proof that his knowledge of Africa is superficial, and that he was reading from a prepared script. He stated that the "West" was not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwe economy. He apparently doesn't know that:

1) The British agreement to grant independence to Zimbabwe included the demand that the new government would have to assume the debts acquired by the Ian Smith outlaw regime;

2) The British government agreed to settle the issue of land distribution, but reneged on this agreement with the blunt announcement by U.K. Secretary of State for International Development Clare Short to that effect, shortly after Tony Blair became Prime Minister;

3) When the Zimbabwe government subsequently began implementing land reform on its own, the British government withdrew all budgetary aid to Zimbabwe, getting other industrial countries to do the same. The Zimbabwe government was hitherto dependent on aid for about 50% of its budget. The economy collapsed as a result of the retraction of this aid. The collapse was blamed on the Zimbabwe government.

Africans are wondering if Obama's idea of good governance means, being subservient, forgoing industrial development, and doing as you are told.

British Imperialists Strive To Reduce Kenya to a Failed State

July 10 (EIRNS)—A Nairobi daily, The Standard, claimed yesterday that former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan "deftly handed over Kenya ... to ICC [International Criminal Court] Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo." (Moreno Ocampo is controlled by the British Foreign Office's Lord Mark Malloch-Brown.) Annan had sent Moreno Ocampo a secret list of ten high-level Kenyans accused of responsibility for the violence that followed the December 2007 elections. It was the threat of this handover that led last month to the spectacle of two Kenyan cabinet ministers and the attorney general making a pilgrimage to The Hague to negotiate with Moreno Ocampo over the conditions under which the ICC would prosecute. The ICC, which has no official international status and of which the United States is not a member, has never prosecuted anybody who is not from Africa.

There is an ongoing project to label Kenya as a "failed state": The East African July 6 carried an article entitled, "Kenya: Going the Somalia Way? Apparently Yes." The article was based on the fact that the U.S. think tank Fund for Peace has ranked Kenya as 14 in the failed-state category. This is worse than Nigeria, Ethiopia, and North Korea. Corruption is the pretext for calling Kenya a failed state. By this criterion, every nation in the world is a failed state. Annan makes no demands for developing an industrial base in the economy which would create more wealth in the country, but says only that a more equitable distribution of resources is necessary.

The ICC imposition on Kenyan sovereignty threatens to lead to new violence and chaos by stirring up ethnic divisions. Since Somalia is being prevented from having a functioning government, Sudan will have difficulty preventing regional catastrophe if Kenya—where a third of the population suffers from severe food insecurity—were pushed into chaos.

After the 2007 violence, Annan was sent in by the British as chief mediator between the ruling Party of National Unity and the opposing Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) to form the current coalition government. A Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence (CIPEV) was also established, with a most peculiar composition: a Kenyan judge, Philip Waki, as chairman; a New Zealand police investigator; and an emissary from George Soros's Open Society Institute in Washington, Pascal Kambale, a national of D.R. Congo, trained at Harvard Law School. This Commission wrote a report and compiled the secret list of ten figures whom they consider responsible for the violence. The Commission called on the government to form a local tribunal to try the suspects, and said that if the government failed to do so within a limited time, it would forward the list to the ICC. In October 2008, it handed the list to Annan "for safe-keeping."

The coalition government has since been negotiating postponements with Moreno Ocampo directly. The cabinet has proposed a special court of foreign and local judges; the prosecutor and investigator will be non-Kenyans. But Parliament is opposing this attack on the nation. Isaac Ruto, a Kenyan MP, said today that Parliament regards Kenya as sovereign, and would not pass laws on the basis of agreements that subordinate the country to foreigners.

Annan shocked Kenya by sending the secret list to Moreno Ocampo, claiming there had been enough delay. Today the ICC announced it had already set up a team of 14 professionals to investigate the suspects. Kenyan Attorney General Amos Wako has promised Moreno Ocampo that he will send him police files soon, according to an ICC spokeswoman. Moreno Ocampo was interviewed on KTN, a Kenyan TV network, earlier this week. All of this is taking place despite the timetable that the ICC agreed to, for the government to demonstrate its commitment by Sept. 30 to try the suspects itself.

All rights reserved © 2009 EIRNS

top of page

home page