EUROPEAN NEWS DIGEST
Retired German Defense Official Pens 'Real Shocker'
The article that appeared in Issue No. 30 of the Deutsche Militaerzeitschrift (German Military Journal) by Andreas Von Buelow, the former German Deputy Minister of Defense and longtime Bundestag (Parliament) member, on the subject of Sept. 11, is a "real shocker," according to well-informed Washington observers. It details, as only Lyndon LaRouche and EIR have otherwise detailed, the total hoax of the "official story" of the Sept. 11 attacks. Coming at a moment when the Clash of Civilizations utopian apparatus is driving the world towards war in Iraq, as an extension of the "war on terrorism," the article will prompt leading policy makers to think, and, hopefully, muster some courage to act against an Anglo-American-led imperial adventure.
EIR has prepared a summary which will appear in the next issue of EIW; however, some of the main points made by von Buelow, who has conducted an in-depth study of the Sept. 11 attacks, are as follows:
*At the outset, von Buelow notes that the United States, with 26 separate intelligence agencies, was unable to prevent the 9/11 attack, and had no idea, in advance, that it was coming. Yet, 48 hours later, the FBI claimed to have a detailed list of all the perpetrators. Within 10 days, it turned out that at least seven of the men who purportedly perished in the hijackings, were still alive. To this day, von Buelow noted, the head of the FBI has refused to address this contradiction.
*As a result of 9/11, the U.S. Administration has proclaimed that the nation is "at war." But any government must first figure out who the enemy actually is. The United States admits that there is no evidence that could stand up in court against any of the accused hijackers. They talk about Mohammed Atta as the leader, but even CNN has admitted that there is no evidence from the passenger manifests, proving anything about what happened.
*Von Buelow turns to the broader issues behind 9/11. With the help of this horrible attack, he observes, the Western mass democracies have been subjected to "brainwashing" (Gehirnwaesche). The old Feindbild (enemy image) of the communists is no longerthe new Feindbild is hatred of the peoples of the Muslim faith.
This idea of the new Feindbild came from Zbigniew Brzezinski and Samuel Huntington, von Buelow explainstwo preeminent thinkers of the American foreign and secret intelligence policy establishment. In the mid-1990s, Huntington said Europe and the U.S. needed somebody to hate, to strengthen Americans' identification with their own society. As far back as the Carter Administration, Brzezinski said that the United States had the general right to ownership over the raw materials wealth of the world, especially oil and gas.
*Von Buelow states that people may deride him as a "conspiracy theorist," but the planning of the 9/11 attack was a technical and organizational masterpiece. In just a few minutes, four jumbo jets were hijacked and guided with complicated flight manuevers to their targets.
*It is inconceivable that this could have occurred without many years of support from the secret apparatus of state and industry, he argues. (An accompanying box quotes him saying that "The attack was only possible if it was backed by U.S. intelligence services.")
He adds that, with all the horrors of the deed, he doesn't ever lose his clear view of who drew the advantage, and who suffered the disadvantage from this. When in doubt, he notes, it is always useful to look at a map. Where are the raw materials concentrations and routes of access? Map all of the ongoing civil wars and hot-spots. They all match. And everywhere where this pattern persists, the American secret services are not far away.
Second Great Depression ComingDie Welt
"The second great depression is coming," is the headline of an article in the economic section of Germany's Die Welt daily July 11, saying that a profound crisis of confidence in the system as such, typified by the latest rounds of Wall Street scandals and revelations, has developed in the United States.
A second article deals with the rage building among the American people about the way economics and politics are conducted, and makes reference to similar sentiments among Americans in the wake of the 1929 crash.
Meanwhile, in the July 11 issue of the German weekly Die Zeit, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer is quoted forecasting a "crisis of global capitalism." In an interview, Fischer said: "We are presently going through a crisis of global capitalism, which will not go away again, today or tomorrow. The unbridled deregulation and the even more unbridled greed of the enterprises is striking back against the system, now. Without an effective, independent state order and control, market economy just doesn't work. Neoliberalism is presently experiencing its economic and moral debacle in the USA, and we should draw a quick lesson from that, in our own reform debate.
"There is more capital than can be invested for revenue in the industrial nations. That is why ever riskier gambles are being organized at the exchange, which are based on just the illusion of a creation of wealth, but do not create real wealth. This house of cards will collapse, if the capital flows are not directed into other areas," Fischer said"the young societies of the South."
Fischer called for a "new economic order" that can turn "the capital from the First World to the development engine for a new world economy."
Die Zeit reveals, in a box that accompanies the interview, that since last summer the staff of Fischer's Foreign Ministry and of its French counterpart have been working on a position paper on globalization.
German Unemployment Highest in Four Years
German joblessness is at its highest level in four years, and will haunt Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder right up through the September elections. The figures for June, published by the Federal Employment Agency in Nuremberg, show that at 3.94 million, national unemployment is the highest since June 1998. This June showed the highest increase in job losses since June 1993.
For the five eastern German states, unemployment reached the level of 1.4 million, the worst in 12 years. Especially dramatic is the increase in youth unemployment (age 16-25), which is 21.5% above last June's figure. Apprentice jobs offered by the industry are 34% down, from June 2001. Youth unemployment is between 12% (mostly in the western states) and 20% (mostly in the eastern states).
Long-term unemployment (more than one year) has reached 30-45% of total unemployment, in crisis regions like the Ruhr, Bremen, Berlin, Saxe-Anhalt, and the easternmost regions of Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, Saxonia, and along the German-Polish border. These are also the regions which have higher than the average jobless levels (average being 7.6% in the west, 17.8% in the east), in the range of 14% to 28%. If one adds the "hidden" unemployment, some regions are already in the range of 30-40%.
Differences reflecting the depth of deindustrialization are immense, between the various German regions: the western state of Baden-Wuerttemberg has the lowest average unemployment, with 5.1%, whereas the eastern state of Saxe-Anhalt, a former center of machine-building, has the highest, with 19.8%.
Italian Senator Calls for New Bretton Woods
Italian Senator Riccardo Pedrizzi, president of the Senate Finance Committee and a member of the government coalition party Alleanza Nazionale, on July 2 issued a statement calling for a New Bretton Woods, the formulation universally identified with American economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche. Senator Pedrizzi was the first signer of a motion presented more than a year ago calling for a new Bretton Woods. The recent statement has been published in the daily bulletin of the Agenparl, a press agency that covers political and parliamentary developments. Other press agencies also reported, at least partially, Pedrizzi's statement.
"After the shocking cases of Enron and WorldCom, both linked to the Arthur Andersen story, it is clear that even the American system of control has failed. For Italy it is necessary to define some reference points in a way that whoever is a consultant cannot at the same time also have the role of internal auditors and certification firms. In this regard we are studying a specific law. Financial globalization is creating interdependencies and fallouts from one system to another. We have to develop measures of protection for market minorities, often representing citizensshareholderssavers, because the ultraliberal idea of a market that is able to reform by itself, which produces virtues through the sublimation of egoism, is largely contradicted by reality. While governments are not able to influence the fundamental economic processes, the speculative bubble is getting out of the control of the big finance that created it."
Facing such a scenario of "global crisis," for Sen. Pedrizzi there is only one answer: "To organize at the international level the necessary forces for a reform of the global monetary and financial system, a New Bretton Woods decided by the governments, that, through continental great projects of economic development, can relaunch the world productive economy, a renewed dialogue, peaceful cooperation and employment."
Britain's Blair Government Proposes Marijuana Decrim
British Home Secretary David Blunkett told the House of Commons last week that the Tony Blair government seeks to amend the narcotics laws to stop arresting people for using marijuana. Blunkett said that "Cannabis ... is not comparable to heroin, crack or ecstasy." Bloomberg news service (whose founder, New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has been quoted on his enjoyment of pot) quotes London Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Ian Blair to the effect that decriminalization would enhance the "credibility" of the police. Instead of arrest, pot users would receive a warning (or, perhaps they would suspect that they are receiving a warning).
Keith Hellawell, a British government adviser on drug policy and former senior police official, quit in protest over the decriminalization proposal. Hellawell said, "I don't know where [Blunkett] has got his advice from, but he hasn't got it from me."
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