EDITORIAL
Obama Wades Further into the Sea of Blood
Nov. 29 (EIRNS)—If you didn’t already know that Obama is a serial murderer, and that, for example, he has a “Terror Tuesday” meeting every week in the White House to choose the next round of murder victims from what are called “baseball cards,”— if you’re one of the few who has managed to remain ignorant of this for almost seven years,— then a decision handed down on Nov. 23 from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, will remind you of what the rest of us have long known.
That decision, as reported by Marcy Wheeler and also by Cora Currier, makes it clear that Obama’s lawyers are busy cooking up new, secret, “legal” justifications for Presidentially ordered murders, including murders of U.S. citizens. Do you still remember the secret legal opinions written by the Justice Department lawyer John Yoo and others in the Bush Administration, arguing that torture was legal? Well, Obama is doing the exactly same thing, but he’s doing it wholesale.
The Court had been at the point of releasing a 2002 Bush Justice Department memo on Ronald Reagan’s Executive Order 12333, which prohibits assassinations by the U.S. government. (It contains some other provisions as well.) The Court’s hearing record and its opinion, made it clear that the issue involved Presidential assassinations. For one thing, they cite speeches by Obama’s then-State Department lawyer Harold Koh, by his then-Attorney General Eric Holder, and by Obama’s then-Assistant to the President John Brennan,— all of them justifying Obama’s right to murder at will.
Obama officials intervened to insist that this 2002 Bush Administration memo justifying Presidential murders, remain classified. Why? Only because lawyers acting under Obama’s orders, are using that memo right now as raw material to cook up new secret “legal” opinions, “legalizing” Obama’s murders.
Another blatant coverup by Obama for his own murders, occurred on Nov. 25, when the Army leaked to the press their phony investigative report on Obama’s Oct 3 mass-murders at the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, when 30 or 31 patients and staff were massacred over an hour-long period by a U.S. warplane, while the doctors frantically telephoned the U.S. Army, which already had the coordinates of the hospital.
The phony investigative report blamed low-ranking U.S. service-members and supposed equipment malfunctions. But Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) does not accept it. That report raises “more questions than answers,” said MSF General Director Christopher Stokes. What about MSF’s hour-long record of documented telephone calls to the U.S. military to stop the bombing? And why are these damning reports being released the day before Thanksgiving (when the U.S. press is guaranteed to ignore them)?
Obama is plausibly a Satanic personality, said Lyndon LaRouche. He has all the characteristics. Why is he still President? Isn’t there something wrong with our Constitutional processes? Aren’t they being violated? Isn’t this treason against the Constitution? But cowardice makes traitors of us all.
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
U.S. and Russia on a Hair-Trigger for Nuclear War
Nov. 28 (EIRNS)—Hair-trigger nuclear alerts might be more dangerous now than at any time during the Cold War, according to a warning issued by Bruce Blair, a former nuclear launch officer and a co-founder of Global Zero, in an article posted by Politico Magazine, on Nov. 27.
“Low-level military encounters between Moscow and Washington are fanning escalatory sparks not witnessed since the Cold War,” Blair writes. “And there exists a small but steadily growing risk that this escalation could morph by design or inadvertence into a nuclear threat.” The backdrop for this is the launch-on-warning posture of the nuclear forces of both the U.S. and Russia. “Our nuclear command system and forces practice it several times a week,” Blair notes. “So do the Russians.” Indeed, top Russian commanders, he says, can now launch missiles from their command posts directly, bypassing the entire human chain of command, in only 20 seconds. “In short, the slope between the low-level military encounters, the outbreak of crisis and escalation to a nuclear dimension is a steep and slippery one,” writes Blair.
Blair goes through all of the elements of the U.S.-Russia confrontation that have developed since early 2014, the most significant of which is the Aegis destroyers that have been forward stationed in Rota, Spain—not because of their BMD capability but of something much more direct. In addition to the BMD missiles they carry, they also carry dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can hit targets in Moscow from the Black Sea. “That they may pose a decapitation threat probably underlies Russia’s escalatory response,” Blair writes, including the harassment of U.S. ships with fighter jets and the deployment of submarines in the Black Sea. “Do U.S. leaders understand that the Russians may fear a decapitation threat is emerging, and that this threat may be the underlying driver raising the stakes for Russia to the level of an existential threat warranting preparations for the use of nuclear weapons?” Blair asks. “I doubt they do.” Furthermore, Russia does not know for certain that those cruise missiles are not nuclear armed.
After that, Blair returns to the nuclear launch-on-warning danger, noting that the President of the U.S. might have 3-6 minutes of warning time to make a decision, and the President of Russia as little as 2-4 minutes. “This situation is a mistaken launch waiting to happen,” Blair says, and it’s aggravated by the cyberwarfare threat.
Putin Refuses To Meet with Erdogan in Paris
Nov. 28 (EIRNS)—Russian President Vladimir Putin aide Yuri Ushakov said on Nov. 27 that the Russian President will not meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan until there is an apology for Turkey’s shooting down the Russian Su-24.
“We see Turkey’s unwillingness to simply apologize for the incident with the plane,” Ushakov told reporters when asked why Putin has refused to talk with Erdogan.
While Putin is not likely to meet Erdogan in Paris on the sidelines of the UN COP21 climate summit, he will be meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the Syrian crisis and Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He will also meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel for talks about Syria and Ukraine, Ushakov said.
Denouncing the shooting down of the Russian Su-24, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Rossiya 24 television channel, “Now, when there has been no invasion, nobody can treacherously shoot the Russian plane in its tail.” The Russian President said yesterday that “everything about the Turkish President is a concern of Turkish voters; it is not our business. Our concerns are, of course, bilateral Russian-Turkish relations that have been badly damaged.”
“Russia was unprecedentedly challenged and the response is in line with this threat,” he said.
“The hotline [between Russia and Turkey], which was created especially for prevention, was halted,” Peskov said. “From our point of view, the level of predictability of the Turkish leadership is very hard to assess.”
The Speaker of the State Duma Sergey Naryshkin said Nov. 27 that Russia has the right to militarily retaliate for Turkey’s downing of the Russian Su-24 warplane. Naryshkin told Romanian television station Digi24: “This is intentional murder of our soldiers and this deed must be punished.”
“We know those who did this and they must be judged. At the same time, the response from the Russian side will surely follow, in line with international law. And aside from this, Russia has also the right to military response,” added Naryshkin, who was attending a meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (PABSEC) in Bucharest.
“Even yesterday, military resources were allocated, (for) the S-400 Triumph, which is the most advanced missile defense system, with the role to maintain flight safety of Russian planes, of our military and air forces whose task is to destroy terrorist infrastructure of the so-called ISIL and other organizations operating in Syria.”
Putin and Hollande Meet in Moscow, Agree on Coordination, Targetting Oil Smuggling; Obama Sidelined and Exposed
Nov. 27 (EIRNS)—French President François Hollande and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Moscow on Nov. 26, following Hollande’s meetings with his German, Italian, and American counterparts in the days before. For Hollande, the contrast is dramatic between his time at the White House on Tuesday, Nov. 24—the day the Turks downed the Russian Su-24 warplane—with Obama, who denounced Russia as an isolated loser, and Hollande’s time with Putin yesterday, where the two of them made joint commitments to defeat terrorism.
Recall Obama’s exact, wild-man words on Nov. 24 at the Obama-Hollande press briefing: “Russia right now is a coalition of two—Iran and Russia—supporting Assad…. Russia is an outlier.”
In Moscow yesterday, Putin and Hollande, after their meeting, gave statements, then took reporters’ questions.
Putin said that they had “agreed to step up our joint efforts on the anti-terrorist track, to improve the exchange of operational information in the fight against terrorism and establish constructive work between our military experts in order to avoid overlapping incidents and to focus our efforts on ensuring that our work in fighting terror is more effective, avoiding any strikes against territories and armed forces that are themselves fighting terrorists.” He also expressed confidence that a political settlement could be found in Syria after terrorism is eradicated.
Hollande stressed that unity is essential but not enough. There must also be action. Nations must take responsibility, as France is doing with the deployment of the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier. He also emphasized the importance of a transition process in Syria, the emphasis of which is largely in line with the Vienna document, but he added that “it goes without saying that Assad does not have any role to play in the future of his country.” Despite that, in order for the transition to succeed, “it is imperative that Russia should play the main, one of the main, roles in this process.” As for the specifics of Franco-Russian cooperation, Hollande said that they had agreed on three points: 1) stepped-up intelligence cooperation; 2) coordinating intensified strikes against ISIS; and, 3) concentrating those strikes on ISIS and terrorist groups.
In response to questions, Putin once again went hard after the matter of oil smuggling from ISIS-controlled territory into Turkey. He pointed out that at the G20 summit in Turkey just a few days before the shoot-down, he had shown to other G20 leaders the photographs taken from Russian aircraft of lines of oil trucks extending as far as the horizon.
“Oil is being supplied from territories controlled by terrorists in Syria at an industrial scale. It comes from these territories, not from somewhere else,” Putin said. “We can see from above where these trucks are heading. They are driving towards Turkey, day and night. I can presume that Turkey’s top leaders are unaware of this. This would be hard to believe, but it is possible theoretically. However, this doesn’t mean that the Turkish authorities shouldn’t cut off these illegal transactions.” And if Turkey is destroying all of this oil, as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claims, “we don’t see any smoke or flames” from it.
Putin also raised the point: what use is the Oct. 20 Memo of Understanding between Russia and the United States, if the U.S. does not preclude such incidents at the Nov. 24 strike on the Russian jet?
“We exchange information with them, but now we’re very worried about the nature of this exchange and the results of this cooperation,” he said. “Look, we informed our American partners in advance when our pilots were going into action and where, in what air corridors. The American side, which leads the coalition, to which Turkey is also a party, knew about the location and time of our operation. And this is precisely where we were hit.” The question that arises, therefore, is “why did we pass this information to the Americans? Either they are not in control of what their allies are doing, or they hand out this information every which way without understanding the implications.”
Israel’s Defense Minister Ya’alon, Russian Planes Do Not Intend To Attack Us. Why Shoot Them Down?
Nov. 29 (EIRNS)—In an interview with the Israel Radio Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon referred to the barbaric act by Ankara in shooting down the Russian Su-24 on Nov. 24. He said, “When we understood that the Russians were planning to act inside Syria, we immediately met—also the Prime Minister—with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, including the [Israeli] Chief of Staff and the Assistant Chief of Staff. We created an open channel for coordination so as to prevent misunderstandings, because Russian planes are not trying to attack us, and therefore it is not necessary to automatically, even if there is a mistake, to shoot them down,” Times of Israelreported today.
He described the manner of Israeli-Russian cooperation with regards to Syria. “From the beginning, of course, [the Russians] notify when they are nearing our territory; it’s part of the coordination channel, and we don’t hamper them from acting, and we don’t interfere as a policy. This is what happens in Syria and it’s good that it’s like that; they also don’t hamper us from flying and acting according to our interests.”
On Nov. 28, Amos Gilad, director of the Political-Security Bureau in the Defense Ministry, said at a public event in Beersheba that Russia has breached Israeli airspace more than once since it began intervening in Syria, but that the close security coordination between Israel and Russia had prevented any incidents like the one on the Turkish-Syrian border last week.
Turkey Arrests Two Generals and a Colonel for Stopping Arms-Filled Trucks Heading to Syria
Nov. 29 (EIRNS)—The Turkish news daily Today’s Zaman reported Sunday the arrest of Ankara Gendarmerie Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Aydin, former Adana Gendarmerie Brig. Gen Hamza Celepoglu, and former Gendarmerie Criminal Laboratory Head Col. Burhanettin Cihagiroglu. These senior military officials were arrested because they had stopped Syrian-bound trucks in southern Turkey in January 2014, after they received information from an anonymous source that the trucks were illegally carrying weapons to Syria, Today’s Zaman said. The newspaper quoted Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, bristling with anger over the military officials’ act, saying: “Yes, I’m saying this without any hesitation. That aid was going to the Turkmens. There will be a war next door and we will watch our Turkmen, Arab and Turkish brothers being massacred.”
The arrest of the military officials for trying to prevent further arming of the terrorists operating within Syria, coincided with a report yesterday that said Turkey has increased weapons, ammunition, and equipment supply into Syria. Syria’s official SANA news agency quoted a statement from the Syrian Army’s General Command, which said “we have certain information that the Turkish government recently increased support for terrorists, and the level of supplying them with arms, ammunition and munitions to continue their criminal acts in exchange for oil and antiquities stolen from Syria and Iraq at low prices, taking advantage of the presence of terrorists whom it enabled to control border areas.”
Syria Endorses Russia-France Agreement To Block Flow of Terrorists across the Turkey-Syria Border
Nov. 27 (EIRNS)—As it has become evident that the Obama-advised Turkish attack on the Russian Su-24 bomber was designed to undermine the Russian efforts to eliminate the ISIS terrorists along the Syria-Turkey borders, visiting Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem in Moscow today endorsed the Russian call to coordinate practical steps to block the Turkish-Syrian border in cooperation with Damascus, TASS reported.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, following his talks today with Muallem, recalled that French President François Hollande had earlier voiced the proposal to adopt specific measures to block the Turkish-Syrian border, saying “We actively support that. We are open for coordination of practical steps, certainly, in interaction with the Syrian government,” TASS reported.
Muallem, in turn, welcomed a French suggestion that Syrian government ground forces could be used in the fight against Islamic State. Muallem, remarking on French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius’ statement today expressing France’s willingness to work with the Syrian Army, said at the Moscow news conference: “If Fabius is serious about working with the Syrian Army, and with forces on the ground fighting Daesh (IS), we welcome that. But this requires a fundamental change” in French policy on Syria.
At the same press conference, Muallem, expressing his fears, said he was concerned by growing terrorist threats in Turkey. “It has to do with Russia and the security of its citizens. Fighters are moving in different directions through Turkish territory. Regrettably, the Turkish government is reluctant to help solve an issue regarding our citizens,” Muallem said, APA, Azerbaijan Press Agency reported today.
Veteran Analysts Concur: Turkey Is Part of the ISIL-Led Terrorist Operation against Damascus
Nov. 27 (EIRNS)—Obama’s wholehearted support lent to Erdogan’s Turkey was in essence to preserve the ISIL terrorist group, and not to destroy it. Two recent statements stand out.
In Egypt, the 92-year-old doyen of journalism, Hassanein Heikal, who had served Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser as his advisor and spent 17 years as editor-in-chief of the leading Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram, said today that the Turkish government is a staunch supporter of the ISIL Takfiri terrorist group, FNA reported.
“There are no differences between Turkey and the ISIL, but on the contrary they have agreed to strike the positions of the Kurdistan’s Workers Party (PKK),” Heikal wrote on his Twitter account. He also pointed out that Ankara will be much displeased to see anti-terrorism coordination by Russia and France against the ISIL, as the Turkish government is seeking to bring NATO to the scene to support it against Russia, FNA noted.
In the United States, an almost identical view was expressed by a former senior advisor of the U.S. State Department and now Director of Columbia University’s Peace-building and Rights Program, David Phillips. Speaking to Sputnik, Phillips said: “Turkey’s role has not been ambiguous; it has overtly supported the ISIL. It has provided logistical support, money, weapons, transport and healthcare to wounded warriors.”
Phillips explained to Sputnik that Turkey has been supporting ISIL to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power and because of “a spiritual bond that exists between Turkey’s governing party and the jihadists.”
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
Saudi Royals Lavished Obamas with $1.3 Million in Gifts in 2014—Gold, Silver, Jewels, Perfume, Marble
Nov. 27 (EIRNS)—The Obama family received a cool $1.35 million in gifts from Saudi Arabia in 2014, according to the annual State Department accounting of such things, released Nov. 25. The gifts came from figures including the King, the Minister of the National Guard, and other top royals. Gifts were also showered on White House staff. Yesterday’s Yahoo! Politics carried a short list of the items:
To Barack: One $18,400 gold and silver watch from the Saudi King; $67,000, with which to buy “a white gold men’s wristwatch with leather band”; one $57,000 gold-plated brass replica of the Makkah Clock Tower, on marble base.
To Michelle: One $560,000 set of diamond and emerald jewelry (necklace, earrings, ring, and bracelet); a second such set, valued at $570,000.
To daughters Malia and Sasha: $80,000 for two elaborate jewelry sets, described as, “diamond and emerald jewelry set, including earrings, necklace, ring, brooch, and wristwatch.”
To Obama family: A $39,915 gift collection, including a 10-inch model palm tree of silver and gold, on marble; perfume (named for the King of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), and lavish robes.
According to Federal protocol, such expensive gifts to Federal officials are either to be not accepted, or to be paid for by the recipient, at full value, or transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration. The Obamas have not paid for them. The State Department indicated that the disposition of the gifts is at the National Archives, with the notation, “Non-acceptance would cause embarrassment to donor and U.S. government.”
Call for 50,000 U.S. Troops in Syria by Robert Kagan, Mr. Victoria Nuland
Nov. 27 (EIRNS)—The husband of Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland (who orchestrated the coup by neo-Nazi forces in Ukraine), the deranged Robert Kagan, issued a call for large-scale U.S. ground troops in Syria, in a column last week, now making the rounds of neo-con networks. In the Nov. 20 Wall Street Journal, he wrote that a “safe zone” must be set up in Syria, to retain residents, and draw back refugees. “To establish such a zone, American military officials estimate, would require not only U.S. air power, but ground forces numbering up to 30,000 … the initial force would have to be largely American.
“In addition, a further 10,000 to 20,000 U.S. troops would be required to uproot Islamic State,” including in Iraq.
Kagan’s article is titled, “The Crisis of World Order.” He is at the Project for a New American Century.
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Developing Countries’ Leaders Attending COP21 Only To Ensure They Won’t Sacrifice Their Countries on the Altar of Climatism
Nov. 29 (EIRNS)—An article by Gal Luft today in China’s state-run English-language news daily Global Times, reports that COP21 opening tomorrow in Paris, will be the largest-ever gathering of heads of state and government,— 147 of them,— outside of UN General Assemblies. But, why are they coming? “Many of those leaders will not attend the summit out of concern for the world’s changing climate, but rather to ensure that their countries, mostly developing ones, don’t end up sacrificed on the altar of climatism.”
From India, the government in its official Twitter handle for the summit, issued a statement prior to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s departure for Paris. It said “the outcome of the Summit must support adaptation and development to affordable technologies balancing intermittent supply of solar and wind energy,” ANI reported.
Among those affordable technologies, coal is still today the main one. The Global Times article points out that “coal fires nearly 80% of China’s power sector. India, where the number of energy-poor is larger than the entire U.S. population, uses coal for 60% of its power generation. The combined 600 million people of the 10 Southeast Asian countries are also heavily dependent on coal.” The article sums it up saying the workhorse of developing Asia, where most of the world’s poor reside, has always been and continues to be coal.
The author is right in pointing, although unfortunately only implicitly, to the genocidal intent of COP21. The error is in failing to point to nuclear energy and fusion energy as mankind’s future, and in failing to indict the same British imperialists who organized COP21, for denying access to those higher technologies.
SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE
Chinese Scientists Working Abroad Are Flocking Home
Nov. 29 (EIRNS)—Chinese scientists living abroad are flocking back to China, a white paper released on Nov. 25 by science publisher Nature Publishing Group, part of Springer Nature reveals.
Based on interviews and a survey of more than 1,700 Chinese researchers, it concludes that “China’s long-lamented ‘brain drain’ has become a ‘brain boomerang,’ with the vast majority of Chinese scientists planning to return quickly to China after a period overseas.
“The estimate is that 85% plan to return within five years. The white paper, ‘Turning Point: Chinese Science in Transition,’ reports that the returning “haigut,” or “homing turtles,” reflect a “greater confidence in the country’s future, [and that] China’s increased efforts to attract, develop, and retain talented researchers are also securing greater numbers from abroad.”
The report includes recommendations for how China can become more successful during this “transition period,” in order to play a greater role in scientific research. Many recommendations were suggested by the scientists NPG interviewed. While many are bureaucratic and structural recommendations, they include more federal government funding for scientific research, and increased support for young scientists.
China has waged an active recruitment campaign, offering a variety of incentives to Chinese-born scientists who return home, as part of their plan to create a “knowledge-based” economy.
