TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 2016
Volume 2, Number 135
EIR Daily Alert Service
P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390
- New York Times Blows the Whistle on Killer Hillary Clinton
- Is New York Times Having Second Thoughts on Hillary Endorsement?
- Crazy Crap Only Spurs Trans-Atlantic Financial Disintegration
- HSBC Puts Out Debt Warning on Oil Sheikh Countries
- Kotegawa: Massive Stimulus, Jail the Bankers, Shut Down Wall Street
- Syria Truce Holding Despite Efforts at Sabotage
- Military Commander Says China Is Prepared To Defend South China Sea
- South Korea’s Planned Lunar Missions Move into High Gear
- Argentina’s President Macri Begins Takedown of Science
- Merkel Defends Her Refugee Policy in National TV Interview
EDITORIAL
New York Times Blows the Whistle on Killer Hillary Clinton
Feb. 29 (EIRNS)—The New York Times has published a devastating documentary account of the pivotal role played by Hillary Clinton in the regime-change and assassination program, carried out in 2011 against Libyan head of state Qaddafi. The detailed exposé, based on interviews with more than 50 current and former Obama Administration officials and others, makes it clear that it was Hillary Clinton, above all others, who drove the Libya overthrow, and who is more responsible than anyone else for the destruction that has followed.
If Libya has emerged as the latest beachhead for the Islamic State terrorists, blame Hillary Clinton. If Africa has become a bloody battleground, with massive weapons spreading out from Libya all across the continent and into Syria and Iraq as well, blame Hillary Clinton. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates quit the Obama Administration over Hillary Clinton’s Libya war, and he told the New York Times that it was Clinton who pushed through the decision to bomb Libya, under the fraud that it was a “humanitarian” intervention, rather than the regime-change that was intended all along.
Lyndon LaRouche told colleagues during the weekly LaRouche PAC Policy Committee dialogue on Monday afternoon that the New York Times account presented the real picture of Hillary’s role in the Libya disaster, and that role was “most ugly, evil and astonishing.” It raises some obvious questions: Who is the real Hillary Clinton? This, LaRouche warned, goes to the essence of the matter: “What are we being sold?” The New York Times, LaRouche concluded, “has presented Hillary Clinton as a sold-out person. It is clear today that she was the author of the Obama killer policies.” Hillary Clinton went right from being the Presidential candidate running against Barack Obama in 2009 to being the one “who did all the dirty work for Obama.”
Regardless of what the New York Times intended, in publishing the exhaustive account of Hillary Clinton’s central role in the Libya program, it has shed some critical light on what kind of disasters the world would face under a Hillary Clinton Presidency.
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
Is New York Times Having Second Thoughts on Hillary Endorsement?
Feb. 29 (EIRNS)—The New York Times, which endorsed Hillary Clinton for President in January, prior to the New Hampshire primaries, published a devastating documentary account of Clinton’s central role in the decision to overthrow Libyan head of state Qaddafi, to have him assassinated, and the horror that followed. The lengthy account, based on interviews with more than 50 current and former Obama Administration officials and other knowledgeable figures, made clear that Hillary Clinton was the “tilt” factor in the decision to bomb Qaddafi and ultimately unleash total chaos across Africa. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who quit the Administration and broke with Clinton over the Libya regime-change operation, made clear that it had been her personal intervention that tilted the decision in favor of war.
In one devastating segment on the failure of the pre-war diplomacy, the Times recounted that at the very outset of the bombing campaign, retired U.S. Rear Adm. Charles Kubic received a communiqué from a Qaddafi representative, proposing a 72-hour ceasefire, during which Qaddafi was prepared to negotiate his own departure from power and an end to the fighting towards Benghazi. It turned out that Qaddafi had earlier reached out to the Obama Administration through Gen. Wesley Clark and even Tony Blair, attempting to reach Secretary of State Clinton to halt the war. All the efforts were rejected, Qaddafi was killed, and Libya descended into total chaos, with a flood of weapons hitting the black markets on a scale not seen since Vietnam.
Hillary Clinton State Department aides, including Ann-Marie Slaughter, acknowledged that Clinton will always err in favor of action versus inaction. Libya was the clearest case of this flight-forward profile, where the war was launched on a fraudulent claim that it was a humanitarian intervention to prevent a bloodbath in Benghazi, rather than the actual intent: bloody regime-change and an assassination of a head of state, who had dismantled his WMD arsenals and was a leading ally in the fight against al-Qaeda and other jihadist forces—who today rule over much of the country.
Lyndon LaRouche commented during today’s LaRouche PAC Policy Committee dialogue that the Times account provided a chilling and comprehensive picture of Hillary Clinton’s role, not before assembled in one location. He called it “ugly, evil, astonishing. Hillary Clinton represents the reality of the Obama killer principle.” He added that the Times profile takes us to the heart of the matter: “Who is the real Hillary? What are we being sold?” In effect, Secretary Clinton was the author of the Obama killer program. It goes all the way back to the 2008 Presidential primaries. After Obama won the election, “she came in and did the dirty work for Obama.”
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Crazy Crap Only Spurs Trans-Atlantic Financial Disintegration
Feb. 29 (EIRNS)—Citigroup’s latest worry is that the primary market for investment-grade bonds has been freezing up over the last 12 months. Specifically, Citigroup analysts warned that on 75 days in the past 12-month period, no new corporate bonds were sold by anybody; “ ‘no go’ days … in which the primary market was essentially shut.” Bloomberg noted that this is “a higher rolling 12-month figure than was seen during the depths of the financial crisis in 2008-2009.”
Bloomberg points out the obvious: Sales of new bonds (primary market) can affect the resale of bonds (secondary market) “with the potential to create contagion if companies find they are unable to refinance existing debt.”
Sales in the junk bond (“high-yield”) market have fallen off the cliff altogether, with the value of new bonds issued since the beginning of 2016 being 75% lower than in the same period in 2015 (two-thirds of those sold came from just two major merger and acquisitions deals).
So, according to the Financial Times, instead of trying to sell bonds, bond fund managers are now putting their money into credit derivatives, where they make can quick bucks off bets, which they expect to get out of quickly in a pinch (such as investors demanding all their money back).
That’s bad enough, but even worse is that bond managers, with the connivance of the banks, are increasingly relying on playing arbitrage with credit derivative indexes to cover their bankrupt asses. That is, they buy the default derivative index, now cheaper than the individual credit default swaps which make up the index, and then make a profit by selling the individual contracts swaps in the index!
Meanwhile, various trans-Atlantic central bankers spent the past weekend, in and around the G-20 meeting, warning again that their policy of quantitative easing (flooding the system with hyperinflationary liquidity) is no longer working. These types are beginning to worry about what the European Central Bank (ECB) can and will do when they next meet on March 10, but since they refuse to give up their genocidal monetarist system, they aren’t able to come up with a policy which can work.
HSBC Puts Out Debt Warning on Oil Sheikh Countries
Feb. 29 (EIRNS)—The (bankrupt) HSBC bank has put out an advisory that the Gulf Cooperation Council countries—Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman—are in a similar state, and may have a hard time refinancing the $94 billion of their overall $610 billion debt that comes due in 2016-2017, given the low price of oil, and a fiscal and current account deficit estimated by HSBC at $395 billion over the same period.
U.A.E. and Qatar hold the largest portion of the debt coming due 2016-2017.
As for the Saudis, Bloomberg news service reported today that their foreign assets fell below $600 billion in January, for the first time since July 2012, after a decline of more than $10 billion in January, for the third month in a row.
Kotegawa: Massive Stimulus, Jail the Bankers, Shut Down Wall Street
Feb. 29 (EIRNS)—Daisuke Kotegawa, who oversaw various aspects of Japan’s reaction to its financial institutions’ crisis in 1997-2003, and served as Japan’s representative at the International Monetary Fund from 2007-2010, told EIR today that the necessary measures to deal with the pending collapse of the Western financial system must begin with a “world-scale fiscal stimulus, such as the one introduced by China in the form of the AIIB,” that is, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. If this is done, he said, it would “create real demand and create new employment.”
“But,” he added, “in order to avoid any attack by these weird investment banks, we have to at least block the national economies from the attacks from these bad investment bankers—and more favorably, we should destroy all of them—close down all of these investment banks.
“If you conduct a real examination of the balance sheets of these banks, using the method of ‘line sheets’ examination, this would surely reveal that these investment banks are actually insolvent.”
Kotegawa has long insisted that Glass-Steagall legislation is required internationally, and that the bankers responsible for the past and pending disasters must be jailed.
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
Syria Truce Holding Despite Efforts at Sabotage
Feb. 29 (EIRNS)—The U.S.-Russian truce in Syria seems to be holding on its third day, but efforts to blow it up are in high gear. According to a report in Reuters, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, today, that the cessation arrangement, by and large, was holding. But French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, speaking in Geneva, where the ceasefire task force of the International Syria Support Group was meeting, told reporters, “We have received indications that attacks, including by air, have been continuing against zones controlled by the moderate opposition.”
The Russian coordination center in Latakia reported nine violations, yesterday, in the previous 24 hours, including one incident in northern Latakia province in which militants of Jabhat al-Nusra fired on an opposition group covered by the ceasefire.
The Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee (HNC), which has really been aiming at regime-change in Damascus, is threatening that if the Russians and the Syrian army don’t stop violating the truce, it will collapse. In a letter sent to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, yesterday, the opposition said violations would undermine international efforts to guarantee the continuation of the truce and would lead to the collapse of the UN-adopted political process.
The HNC claimed that Russian warplanes on Feb. 28 staged 26 bombing raids on areas where rebel groups abiding by the truce were operating; it accused Moscow of deploying cluster bombs on residential areas, and it alleged that these caused many civilian casualties. UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said violations would be discussed, but a Western diplomat told Reuters that de Mistura has been pointing out that airstrikes are down from 100 a day to 6-8 a day, so there needed to be some perspective about the situation.
In any case, HNC spokesman Salem al-Muslat said that the Riyadh group would stick to the agreement, anyway. “The decision is to remain quiet, not to do anything, and I believe they will stick to the truce,” Muslat said. “Yesterday was the first day people can really go out and walk in the streets.”
The Russian Defense Ministry announced, yesterday, that the monitoring center at their airbase will be issuing daily reports with actual data on measures for the reconciliation of opposing sides. These will be sent to the American center in Amman, to the working group in Geneva, and be published on the Defense Ministry’s website. Lt. Gen. Sergei Kuralenko, the chief of the Russian center, reported yesterday, that nine violations of the ceasefire had come to their attention in the previous 24 hours. “In general, the ceasefire regime is being observed in Syria,” Kuralenko said.
U.S. Central Command apparently agrees. A spokesman for the U.S. military in Baghdad told Russian broadcaster Sputnik that “As seen in numerous reports it appears as though the cessation of hostilities is largely holding.”
Military Commander Says China Is Prepared To Defend South China Sea
Feb. 29 (EIRNS)—In his first public remarks as the new commander of the Southern Theater, Gen. Wang Jiaocheng said that China’s army would be vigilant against any threats in the South China Sea, and that the military will be capable of dealing with any security threat.
“No country will be allowed to use any excuse or action to threaten China’s sovereignty and safety,” Wang said, adding that while his aim was to provide “security in border controls and maritime defense,” the “foremost mission would be to safeguard rights and interests in the South China Sea.”
General Wang said that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had planned for all possible scenarios regarding military risks in the region.
SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE
South Korea’s Planned Lunar Missions Move into High Gear
Feb. 29 (EIRNS)—About a third of South Korea’s $603 million space program budget this year will be devoted to moving ahead in its lunar exploration program, the government said yesterday. As early as 2008, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), the country’s space agency, had presented the goal of sending a spacecraft into lunar orbit by 2020, and one to land on the lunar surface in 2025.
Overall, the Korea Herald reports, the budget for KARI will increase 20% from last year’s budget, which is a record for international space agencies, and “despite deteriorating economic conditions.”
Phase 1 of the program is the creation of a test orbiter, to push forward the key technologies. In Phase 2, the lunar orbiter and a landing module to be launched will be developed. KARI says the scientific payload will be developed with other countries, and a deep space network will be built by South Korea. It has acquired about 70% of the key technologies needed for lunar exploration, KARI reports, due to its extensive development of satellites. The lunar probe will be launched on a South Korean rocket.
The lunar program will also be supported through cooperation with the U.S. in space technology and science, the Ministry for Science ICT, and Future Planning, announced today. The Ministry pointed out that this is the first government-to-government agreement the U.S. has had on space cooperation with an Asian nation, since those with Japan, India, etc. are between space agencies. One of the areas explicitly outlined by the Ministry is U.S. help in developing South Korea’s lunar orbiter and lander. NASA, of course, has no lunar lander program; the Altair project was killed by Obama. NASA would also help, as it has with European missions, with communications and navigation through its Deep Space Network of antennas.
Korea’s space agency describes the capability to explore the Moon as “an indication of a nation’s achievement in the field of science and technology,” and that 72% of Koreans are in favor of the budget for lunar exploration.
Argentina’s President Macri Begins Takedown of Science
Feb. 29 (EIRNS)—On Feb. 23, Argentina’s Energy Minister Juan José Aranguren, former CEO of the Argentine branch of Royal Dutch Shell, promised that the Macri government intended to build the new nuclear plants—Atucha III and IV—in collaboration with China and Russia, as per 2015 agreements signed between those nations’ heads of state and then-President President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
But today, the state-run Telam news agency reported that 600 workers at the Atucha III construction site have received their pink slips and will lose their jobs on March 31. Although these are contract workers, they are supervisors, managers, and technical personnel whose contracts have always automatically been renewed every three months, for the past year. Facundo Ocampo, lawyer for the Union of Construction and Related Workers of the Argentine Republic (UECARA), told Infocielo that the government, and specifically Energy Minister Aranguren, had made the decision on the firings.
Moreover, Diario Popular reported today that 2,200 workers at the Atucha II reactor were not paid January salaries, and are also threatened with job loss. The construction union, UOCRA, is now in a “state of alert,” and its secretary-general reports that the labor situation throughout the nuclear sector is “very grave”; he anticipates problems at the Atucha I plant and at the Embalse plant in Cordoba.
President Mauricio Macri has made clear he prefers “green” energy to nuclear or even hydroelectric energy, and has filled his Environment Ministry with agents of Greenpeace and Prince Philip’s World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF, World Wildlife Fund) who spend their time attacking the high-technology agreements made with China and Russia. On Feb. 23, the daily Pagina 12 reported the announcement by Communications Minister Aguad that the Arsat-3 geostationary satellite, which was scheduled to be launched in 2019, is now “delayed, for budgetary reasons.” Macri’s government replaced the management of the Arsat company, which has built the country’s satellites, to make it more “business-oriented.”
OTHER
Merkel Defends Her Refugee Policy in National TV Interview
Feb. 29 (EIRNS)—On the popular Anne Will broadcast on ARD TV last night, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was the exclusive guest for the full hour, patiently answering some nasty questions about the backing for her refugee policy among the population and inside her own party.
Merkel defended her views, stating that she was confident about being able to convince even her own, many critics, sooner or later; however, she missed a big chance to change the restrictive Q&A agenda of the show, by not addressing the reconstruction of Syria aspect in any detail. She did several times mention “finding solutions at the roots of the problem,” in Turkey, in Jordan, and in Lebanon, and also mentioned the Syrian ceasefire as a sign of hope, but left it at that.
Merkel kept her firm opposition to the many proposals inside and outside of Germany for setting upper limits for the numbers of refugees taken in, reiterating that her policy was to reduce the figures by talks with Turkey and with the EU partners, to protect the southern borders of Europe, that a European-wide approach had to be found instead of individual national decisions. She also criticized the exclusion of Greece from the recent Austrian-led meeting of 10 West Balkans states. The Chancellor said that the Greeks must not be left alone with all the refugees coming in, and that she was committed to granting Greece administrative and financial support, that she was in close contact on the situation with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.
Merkel told Will that she had no (national) Plan B in case her pro-European approach failed, and that she intended neither to change her views nor to step down as Chancellor or CDU party chairwoman.
