In this issue:

Cannes Film Festival Gets a Dose of Reality from LaRouche

Italian Weekly Covers LaRouche on 'Impeach Cheney'

French Website Spotlights LaRouche Activists

Prominent British Think Tank Warns Bush of Failure in Iraq

Leaked British Foreign Office Memo Worries About Iraq War

Dutch Coalition Partners Look for Iraq Exit

Bulgaria Builds Momentum To Leave Iraq

Milan Prosecutors Reopen 'Piazza Fontana' Terror Case

Madrid: Crime Under the Eyes of the Police

German Neo-Cons Seek Perks from U.S. Brethren

From Volume 3, Issue Number 22 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published June 1, 2004

Western European News Digest

Cannes Film Festival Gets a Dose of Reality from LaRouche

The hot topic at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival was the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. Michael Moore's documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," which viciously exposes the follies of the Bush Administration's Iraq War, was the big attraction, winning the Palme d'Or the festival's top award. In addition to Moore's film, an independent video entitled, "9/11—The Greatest Lie Ever Sold," by Anthony Hilder, which include footage of Lyndon LaRouche from his campaign's Sept. 11, 2003 press conference in Los Angeles, was viewed by many distributors, and picked up by a German company called Savada Distributors. The two-hour video shows clips of LaRouche throughout, going after the "Children of Satan," and exposing the lies of 9/11.

The title to Moore's film is a reference to an 1953 science fiction classic by Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, written as an attack on McCarthyism, and later turned into a film, about a society in which books are burned. The title refers to the temperature at which paper will burn.

Italian Weekly Covers LaRouche on 'Impeach Cheney'

An Italian leftist weekly reports Lyndon LaRouche's leading role in the "impeach Cheney," campaign, and early reports from the 9-11 Commission.

On May 21, La Rinascita della Sinistra (Rebirth of the Left) the official political organ of the Partito dei Comunisti Italiani-PdCI (Italian Communist Party) published an article written by Paolo Raimondi, President of the Movimento Solidarieta, which details the first results of the 9-11 Commission, pointing to the responsibilities of Cheney and reporting the leading role of LaRouche in the "impeach Cheney" campaign.

The same article was published on May 11 by Il Campanile, the daily of the Alleanza Popolare (Popular Alliance) party. The article indeed had been originally written for La Rinascita, but publication was postponed for a week because of the breaking stories of the torture in the Iraqi prisons.

La Rinascita has a weekly circulation of 15,000 copies and goes to all the militants of the party. The PdCI is part of the opposition and works with a group of deputies and senators in the Parliament. The historical leader of this party is Armando Cossutta, who, when the Italian Communist Party (PCI) broke into pieces as part of the post '89, post '92 political processes, decided to form a new party to keep alive the political tradition and orientation of Enrico Berlinguer, the PCI leader who was in dialogue with Christian Democrat Aldo Moro for a government of national unity in the years of the "strategy of tension."

French Website Spotlights LaRouche Activists

"LaRouchists in Paris" is the title of a two-page article posted on the "actuality" (current news) online information page of the website "Yahoo.fr" on May 21. The article looks like a "politically correct" attempt to put out the key features of LaRouche's analysis and viewpoint, by underlining two main campaign foci: the financial blow-out and our attack on the neo-con clique responsible for the Iraq disaster. The accompanying two-and-a-half minute video clip features images of the LaRouche Youth Movement intervention with sound car, book tables and large banners at Place Monge at the exit of the Paris Mosque, and includes a discussion of the systemic bankruptcy of the world financial system, LaRouche's plan for Southwest Asia.

On the U.S. neo-cons, narrator Sebastian Drochon says people thought that "LaRouche went too far," but now have to face the truth: "LaRouche has fought for years to defend national sovereignty, general welfare and the rights of posterity."

The article concludes with mention LaRouche's associates' slate for the European elections.

Prominent British Think Tank Warns Bush of Failure in Iraq

The annual global survey of the prestigious International Institute of Strategic Studies in England warned that "if Iraq fails, or reverts to a dictatorship, positive recent developments may fade, [and] the U.S. would be seen as an unredeemed aggressor. A failed Iraqi state would be a strategic nightmare for the US and the West. It is key to regional security—and the stability of the international system—that the U.S. and its allies get Iraq right."

Leaked British Foreign Office Memo Worries About Iraq War

The depth of misgivings in London about U.S. conduct of the war in Iraq was leaked to the May 23 Sunday Times, in the form of a six-page memo, intended for senior ministers and top officials, which lists as "Problems": "We should not underestimate the present difficulties.... Heavy handed U.S. military tactics in Falluja and Najaf some weeks ago have fueled both Sunni and Shi'ite opposition to the coalition and lost us much public support inside Iraq." This has also "spread fighting" to the southeast of Iraq. The scandal of the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib has sapped the moral authority of the coalition, inside Iraq and internationally," the memo states. It also calls for "Iraqization": "We shall want to minimize the profile of coalition forces after July 1, and get the Iraqis out in front as much as possible." The British also want to turn their Iraqi prisoners over to Iraqi police, to try and deflect from the torture scandals.

"We need to redouble our efforts to ensure a sensible and sensitive U.S. approach to military operations. The message seems to be accepted at the highest levels but not always implemented lower down the command chain," the memo states. Britain needs to prevent the U.S. from doing anything "which would jeopardize our objectives.... We still need to tie the U.S. down to language which reflects our principles."

The Ministry of Defense also is considering whether to extend the area in southern Iraq "patrolled" by British soldiers—under British command. The memo has a one-page supplement on the "public" line to be taken, saying ministers should go no further than admitting that "the security situation in Iraq is difficult." The memo also notes that they will use the upcoming 60th anniversary celebrations of D-Day to try to draw France into Anglo-American plans for Iraq.

Dutch Coalition Partners Look for Iraq Exit

The Dutch government is split over the Iraq deployment. with public support eroding rapidly. With 1,300 soldiers deployed, the Dutch maintain one of the larger allied contingents in Iraq. The mandate of the Dutch parliament for the contingent expires on June 30.

Conservative Prime Minister Jan Balkenende wants to extend that mandate, and even increase the contingent, but the liberal D 66 Party, Balkenende's coalition partner, says "no" to any extension. Only the right-wing populists of the LPF party, back Balkenende now, since the Labor Party, part of the main opposition party, opposes the Iraq mission and would not even keep Dutch troops in Iraq under a United Nations mandate. A majority for a pullout of troops after June 30 is becoming likely.

Bulgaria Builds Momentum To Leave Iraq

Led by the Socialist Party, the opposition in the parliament of Bulgaria is calling for a vote that would end the mandate of the country's troop contingent in Iraq, which for the time being has moved out of Karbala because it has no mandate for combat missions.

The Defense Minister of Bulgaria, Nikolai Svinarov, wants the troops to stay, but that decision rests with the Parliament. The chief of general staff, Nikola Kolev, favors a pullout because his troops are not able to carry out peacekeeping work in the present situation.

Milan Prosecutors Reopen 'Piazza Fontana' Terror Case

The appeals court in Milan was presented by prosecutors with a motion to lift the 2003 acquittals of three neo-fascist chief suspects in the Dec. 12, 1969, bomb at Piazza Fontana in Rome that killed 17 and wounded more than 80, during Italy's "strategy of tension." The acquittal freed the three members of the Ordine Nuovo group of Italian neo-fascists, who had been sentenced previously in 2001. The prosecution charges the judges decided the acquittal, with insufficient attention to the evidence, and with false conclusions; the acquittal was justified, in 2003, by the strange procedure in which, on the one hand, the role of Ordine Nuovo in the Piazza Fontana bombing was acknowledged, but on the other hand, the three main suspects were said not to be involved.

A reopening of the Piazza Fontana investigation would also shed light on two other terrorist attacks: 1) a 1973 bomb at the Milan police headquarters, which killed four; and 2) a 1974 bomb against a labor union rally at the Piazza della Loggia in Brescia, which killed seven.

Madrid: Crime Under the Eyes of the Police

Germany's Neue Zuercher Zeitung May 27 devotes almost a full page to new questions concerning the background of the March 11 train bombings in Madrid. The article reports leads and facts previously reported by EIR, which, to NZZ's amazement lead to the conclusion that the alleged perpetrators were not sophisticated sleeper-agent types, but were, instead, well-known for years to the secret services and police of Spain and other European countries. For example, Jamal Zougham, one of the main suspects, who was arrested after March 11: He was under arrest for a short period in 2001 after 9/11, and he is well-known to police and intelligence of Spain and France, and has been under investigation ever since, yet, he has been allowed to travel around in Europe. Zougham was in France, Germany, Britain, and Norway, where he met people also known to the agencies there.

Furthermore, at least two of those arrested in Madrid are well-known to the police because of their role in drug-trafficking. The mystery, therefore, is why such people in were able to prepare a bomb attack of such dimensions, the NZZ asks, which suggests the real operation was carried others than these alleged suspects.

German Neo-Cons Seek Perks from U.S. Brethren

Michael Glos, parliamentary chairman of Germany's conservative CSU party, held a series of meetings in the United States May 16-19, including with U.S. Vice President, and senior neo-con, Richard Cheney, along with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, and Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Elizabeth Jones. Glos has an influential position in the second echelon of conservative leaders in Germany, after CDU chairman Angela Merkel and Edmund Stoiber.

Glos made the rounds of several U.S. think tanks, including the Woodrow Wilson Center, the American Center for Contemporary German Studies, the Atlantic Council of the United States, and the Heritage Foundation, where he gave a speech, attacking Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder for his anti-Bush position at the UN Security Council, and for his push for a genuine European defense capability, together with France and Belgium.

Glos also met Republican Senators Hegel, Sessions, Shelby, Nickles, Kyl, and Lott, as well as Congressman Gutknecht. The Christian Democrats eagerly expect, after such a high-powered trip, that if Bush is re-elected, the White House will remember "who stood by the American allies, and who didn't," a Christian Social Union source told EIR May 27. The CSU, which is the CDU's partner in Bavaria, hopes the U.S. will rethink plans to start shutting down U.S. military bases in that state, in 2005.

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