EDITORIAL
No Time for Complacency: British/Saudi/Obama Terror Machine Will Stop at Nothing until Destroyed
Dec. 11 (EIRNS)—ISIS is on the run from the Syrian and Russian forces in Syria; one election after another (Brexit, Philippines, U.S., France, Italy, South Korea) shows that the populations are disgusted with the economic dictatorship of the British/American banking empire and the attempt to start wars against Russia and China; China and Russia are building partnerships with over 100 nations to cooperate on great development projects to create modern nations and eliminate poverty, as has been nearly accomplished in China.
All this is reason for optimism. But, as Helga Zepp-LaRouche said today, we must not be complacent. The wounded beast of the British Empire and its puppet neocons in the U.S., including emphatically Obama, will stop at nothing to blow up the emergence of this new paradigm, especially in the U.S. As ISIS is being defeated in Syria, the Saudi-created terrorists are going berserk internationally, with murderous suicide attacks in Egypt, Turkey, Yemen and Nigeria just in the last days, killing over a hundred and wounding many others. Obama and factions in the CIA are wildly claiming that they didn’t lose the election in the U.S., but that Putin stole it! In a manner that makes the Harry Truman/Joe McCarthy Communist witch-hunt of the 1940s and ’50s look like child’s play, Obama has called on James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, to head a team to investigate the so-called Russian stealing of the election for Trump.
Remember that it was Clapper who swore to the U.S. Congress that there was no mass monitoring of U.S. citizens by the U.S. intelligence community—a lie which was a major cause of Edward Snowden’s decision to reveal that they were doing exactly that, and far more, worldwide. In that light, Donald Trump was right to reject the “ridiculous” claim of this faction of the intelligence community of Russian interference (other factions refute the lie), reminding us that these are the people who launched the destruction of the Mideast with the intentional lie about Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, even while the UN team in Iraq was reporting that the WMDs did not exist.
On the other hand, optimism can not become complacency. Trump is an unknown quantity. While he has surrounded himself with leading generals who have strongly opposed Obama’s military adventures in the Mideast and want to work with Russia to crush the terrorist scourge, and has also called for restoring Glass-Steagall, he is at the same time surrounded by Goldman Sachs officials who have led the looting of not only the U.S., but much of the world on behalf of the financial empire in the London and New York. What policies will guide the U.S. and the West in the coming months will be determined by the level of courage and determination of the people in the U.S. and Europe who will go beyond “throwing out the bums,” and demand a truly new paradigm—replacing the rule of the City of London and Wall Street with Glass-Steagall and Lyndon LaRouche’s Four Laws, while demanding that the U.S. and Europe join the New Silk Road, working with China and Russia rather than threatening war. (LaRouche PAC has released a 28 minute video on LaRouche’s Four Laws—“A New Era for the United States.”)
The potential for a New Paradigm based on development rather than geopolitics was addressed this week in Shanghai in a forum sponsored by the Shanghai Institute for International Studies and the Dialogue of Civilization Research Institute (DOC), preparing cooperation between the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) launched by Russia and the One Belt, One Road initiative launched by China. As DOC founder Dr. Vladimir Yakunin posed as a question to be resolved: “How do we make sure that the simultaneous development of these different centers of growth leads to synergy, not conflict? The Silk Road Economic Belt and the Eurasian Economic Union may yet show the way.”
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
‘Trump Didn’t Win! The Russian Are Coming!’
Dec. 11 (EIRNS)—The British Empire is having a field day in their former colony, through their colonial puppet President Barack Obama and their press whores at the Washington Post and the New York Times.
The above headline would have been appropriate for the garbage coming from Obama’s mouth and through the sewer press about the CIA report that it is “quite clear” (with no proof, of course) that the Russians not only hacked into the elections but that they are the source of the leaks to WikiLeaks which so dramatically exposed the crimes of the Democratic Party machine in stealing the primary for Hillary, and other Hillary crimes. Obama on Dec. 9 ordered a “full review” of supposed Russian hacking, to be headed by DNI James Clapper—the man who lied to the Congress that there were no sweeping NSA surveillance programs of the American people, before the Snowden revelations exposed the lie.
The Post reports sound like something out of the 1950s Truman/McCarthy anti-Communist witch hunts. You can almost hear the Post editor saying: “I have in my hand a list of Russian sympathizers in the Trump transition team.” The Post writes today: “The simmering distrust between Donald Trump and U.S. intelligence agencies escalated into open antagonism Saturday after the president-elect mocked a CIA report that Russian operatives had intervened in the U.S. presidential election to help him win. The growing tensions set up a potential showdown between Trump and the nation’s top intelligence officials during what some of those officials describe as the most complex threat environment in decades.” Trump compared the accusations to the “slam dunk” CIA evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
However, the Post apparently felt compelled to acknowledge that other factions in the intelligence community reject the claim, insisting that there is no evidence to prove any Russian involvement in the hacking, let alone interference in the election. FBI officials testifying before the Congress this week are said to have reported that the evidence of Russian involvement was “ambiguous,” much to the distress of the anti-Russian mob.
Former “regime change” Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul not only backed the charges against Russia, but called for reporters from RT and Sputnik to be required to register as “foreign agents” rather than journalists, accusing them of creating “fake news.”
Not surprisingly, when Hillary Clinton reappeared (she said she had been “taking selfies in the woods” since the election) to join in Harry Reid’s farewell party on Dec. 10, she gave credence to the claim that the Russians stole her election, and backed “bipartisan legislation” that looks to give Congress more power to respond to “foreign propaganda,” saying, “It is imperative that leaders in both the private and pubic sector step up to protect our democracy and innocent lives.” Except those in Libya and Syria, apparently.
The Drug-Pushing New York Times Denounces Duterte’s War on Drugs in Philippines
Dec. 11 (EIRNS)—The notorious drug-pushers at the New York Times, who don’t seem to be concerned about the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report released this week which shows a massive increase in opioid overdose deaths in the U.S.—52,000 in 2015—issued a screeching attack today on Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte for his war on drugs. Signed by the editorial board, the piece is titled “Slaughter in the Philippines.” They write: “In the name of eliminating drug crime, President Rodrigo Duterte has plunged the Philippines into a nightmare of brutal slaughter,” saying that police have killed 2,000 drug dealers (not mentioning that they resisted arrest) since July 1.
With the clear intent to justify another criminal “regime change” operation—before Obama leaves office—the Times sent a reporter to take pictures of alleged drug deaths in the Philippines, saying that the report “is hard to read and the images are hard to view. But they bring home, in a way mere numbers cannot, the horror being inflicted on a population living in fear that death can strike anyone, at any moment, with impunity.”
Living in fear? There is a reason that over 75% of the Philippine people strongly support Duterte—namely, that they no longer have to live in fear that their children will be destroyed by the drug pushers, and can finally expect that their economy will get out from under the current disastrous state, providing a future for their children, since Duterte is joining the Silk Road and distancing the nation from the Wall Street looters who controlled nearly every administration since the U.S. coup against Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.
But the Times is not only promoting regime change against the Philippines—they write that it is “deeply shocking” that President-elect Trump spoke with Duterte and offered his support for the war on drugs. They clearly want to make sure that the drug-addicted Wall Street banks run his administration, and that there is no effort to stop the drug epidemic here at home.
For Lack of Mission: Drugs, ‘Deaths of Despair,’ and Mortality Increase in Obama’s U.S.A.
Dec. 9 (EIRNS)—Deaths from drug overdoses were one leading factor driving the stunning increase of mortality rates and decrease in life expectancies in the U.S. reported yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Overdose deaths from all drugs rose 11% in 2015, with more than 52,000 Americans dying from this Dark Age epidemic. Heroin deaths rose 23% in one year (reaching almost 13,000); deaths from synthetic opioids by 73% (nearing 10,000); deaths from prescription painkillers, the largest killer, increased by 4%. Overdose deaths far exceeded deaths in car crashes (almost 38,000) or by guns, homicides and suicides combined, even as these deaths rose significantly also.
A shocked Robert Anderson, who oversees death statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Associated Press, “I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this. Certainly not in modern times.”
Dr. Jiaquan Xu, lead author of the CDC mortality study, also cited the opioid epidemic as a significant factor in the overall increase in mortality, the medical online journal STAT reported. Pointing to the rise in such preventable causes of death generally, Xu noted that “what’s really significant is that these things are happening more to people of younger ages,” which impacts life expectancy estimates more significantly.
Declines in life expectancy are neither natural nor normal, but have always been the starkest markers of civilizations falling into a dark age throughout human history. Americans today are dying because their nation has been dying, stripped of any commitment to fostering the general welfare of the human species, under 16 years of Bush-Cheney and Obama destruction.
Shannon Monnat, an assistant professor and research associate at Penn State University, just published a study which found a strong vote for Trump in counties with the highest drug, alcohol, and suicide mortality rates, many of those counties having experienced significant losses in employment in manufacturing over recent decades.
Scioto County, Ohio, which became the pain pill-mill capital of America, typifies her findings: Before the 1990s, it was the home of shoe, steel, brickyard, nuclear energy and soda factories; today, it houses pawn shops and scrap yards. Scioto County’s drug, alcohol, and suicide mortality rate more than doubled between 1999 and 2014 (from 32.9 to 74.8 per 100,000). Trump got 33% more of the county’s vote than Romney did.
As Monnat put it, Trump received great support “in America’s new post-industrial ‘heroin beltway,’ ” places where “good jobs and the dignity of work have been replaced by suffering, hopelessness and despair,” where “downward mobility is the new normal.”
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Introduces ‘Stop Arming Terrorists Act’ against U.S. Government
Dec. 9 (EIRNS)—Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) yesterday introduced a bipartisan bill to stop the Obama administration’s arming of Syrian and other terrorists dubbed “moderate rebels.” This “Stop Arming Terrorists Act” (SATA), is modeled on the Boland Amendment which finally shut down George Bush’s CIA program of arming the Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s. In this case, the bill would both “prohibit any Federal agency from using taxpayer dollars to provide weapons, cash, intelligence, or any support to al-Qaeda, ISIS and other terrorist groups,” and also “prohibit the government from funneling money and weapons through other countries who are directly or indirectly supporting terrorists,” Gabbard specified.
Gabbard announced the bill—even as President Obama issued his desperate “more lethal weapons for the terrorists” directive—with a hard-hitting press release and one minute during the “General Speeches” period in Congress:
“Under U.S. law it is illegal for any American to provide money or assistance to al-Qaeda, ISIS or other terrorist groups. If you or I gave money, weapons or support to al-Qaeda or ISIS, we would be thrown in jail. Yet the U.S. government has been violating this law for years, quietly supporting allies and partners of al-Qaeda, ISIL, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and other terrorist groups with money, weapons, and intelligence support, in their fight to overthrow the Syrian government,” she charged.
“The CIA has also been funneling weapons and money through Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and others who provide direct and indirect support to groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda. This support has allowed al-Qaeda and their fellow terrorist organizations to establish strongholds throughout Syria, including in Aleppo….
“This madness must end. We must stop arming terrorists. The government must end this hypocrisy and abide by the same laws that apply to its citizens. That is why I’ve introduced the Stop Arming Terrorists bill—legislation based on congressional action during the Iran-Contra affair to stop the CIA’s illegal arming of rebels in Nicaragua….”
SATA is co-sponsored by Democrats Peter Welch (VT) and Barbara Lee (CA), and Republicans Dana Rohrabacher (CA) and Thomas Massie (KY).
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
LaRouche: Obama Order To Arm Syria Terrorists ‘Will Never Happen; the Power Is Not There To Do It’
Dec. 9 (EIRNS)—In yet another desperate, dying gasp of the old geopolitical paradigm, lame duck President Barack Obama issued an order yesterday that the U.S. should supply weapons to foreign “forces”—i.e., international terrorists—operating in Syria as “essential to the national security interests of the United States.”
“It isn’t going to happen,” Lyndon LaRouche stated emphatically today. “The power is not there to do it.” Obama and the British are merely going on a rampage with their failed policies. All that it really means is the use of intimidation to try to frighten people in different parts of the world, and to screw things up, LaRouche explained.
That is why, the American statesman added, it is essential to present an economic program to create a certain kind of peace through development. We have to defend suffering people around the world, so that they are no longer terrified into submission.
The Obama determination, in the form of a memorandum to the Secretaries of State and Defense, waives existing laws, and justifying it as “essential to the national security interests of the United States.”
President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated today: “The worst outcome of this decision would be terrorists coming into possession of various types of armaments, including portable anti-aircraft rockets, including shoulder-launched missiles. This will run counter to international conventions on that score and pose a serious threat not only to this region. Should terrorists get the shoulder-launched missiles, all countries of the world might be in danger.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov commented drily: “I don’t think this will significantly change the situation in eastern Aleppo, because the rebels are encircled and they are unlikely to receive reinforcing.”
U.S. Presses South Korean Defense Ministry To Deploy THAAD before Park Is Ousted
Dec. 11 (EIRNS)—The Korea Times reports today that the R.O.K. Defense Ministry plans to “speed up the procedure” of deploying the THAAD missiles by May of next year—i.e., before any new administration is elected if (as is probable) President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment is approved by the Constitutional Court or she is forced to resign. They even announced that they would waive the environmental studies required by law to save time.
It is clear that Obama is panicked that the opposition parties, which strongly oppose the THAAD deployment as useless against North Korea but a serious provocation against China and Russia, will stop the deployment altogether if they come to power. The announcement of the rush to deploy is already causing a backlash from opposition parties, which have made clear that they will re-examine several disputed projects undertaken by the Park Geun-hye administration, including the THAAD missiles.
British Prime Minister Goes All Out To Defend Saudi Terrorists
Dec. 9 (EIRNS)—British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, at a conference in Italy last week criticized Saudi Arabia (along with Iran) for being a “puppeteer” of radical groups in the Middle East and provoking wars. “That’s why you’ve got the Saudis, Iran, everybody, moving in, and puppeteering and playing proxy wars,” he stated.
But Number 10 immediately disavowed Johnson’s remarks, saying that he was only expressing his personal views, and not those of Prime Minister Theresa May’s government. Saudi Arabia, the statement from 10 Downing Street reads, “is a vital partner for the U.K., particularly on counter-terrorism and, when you look at what is happening in the region, we are supportive of the Saudi-led coalition which is working in support of the legitimate government in Yemen against Houthi rebels.”
BBC diplomatic correspondent James Landale further explained: “The prime minister has just come back from the Gulf…. She has dined with the Saudi King, praised the Kingdom for its reforms and given thanks for the vital intelligence the Saudi security services have provided Britain over the years.”
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Showdown on Italian Banking Crisis
Dec. 10 (EIRNS)—The crisis of Italy’s Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) has dramatically worsened since the (still unofficial) report that the European Central Bank (ECB) has rejected the bank’s request to postpone the deadline for its recapitalization, currently fixed for Dec. 31. It is physically impossible for MPS to implement the so-called “market solution” by that date, since so-called investors have withdrawn from the original plan concocted by JP Morgan.
An MPS insolvency would unleash a systemic crisis. The EU and the ECB want Italy to enforce a bail-in and then go to the European Stability Mechanism and surrender to the Troika for a bailout, as Greece was forced to do earlier.
However, the Italian government is rumored to be considering a nationalization, by purchasing up to €4 billion worth of subordinate bonds, and turning them into shares. If confirmed, this would be the opposite of bail-in, i.e. a bailout of depositors, and a violation of EU rules. Brussels and Frankfurt (the ECB’s home base) won’t be amused.
This won’t solve the problem of non-performing loans; the next step should be to fire and prosecute the management and sort out the mess in the bank, according to procedures similar to those illustrated for Deutsche Bank by Lyndon LaRouche and Japanese economist Daisuke Kotegawa.
Evidence of the most blatant corruption of the current management, which was put in by JP Morgan as a condition for the (failed) recapitalization plan, is the report that MPS head Marco Morelli plans to pay JP Morgan a fee of €450 million. The Italian consumer association Codacons filed a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Authority Dec. 7
Further, the German financial regulator BaFin, according to Bloomberg, found evidence that Deutsche Bank rigged “indexes” in the case of the famous derivative sold to MPS. Basically, BaFin came to the same conclusion as Italian investigators, that DB concocted a scheme to help MPS to conceal losses after its disastrous acquisition of Antonveneta bank.
The purchase of Antonveneta cost MPS a total of €18 billion, and MPS concealed those losses through derivative schemes purchased from Deutsche Bank and Nomura. An investigative committee of the Tuscany Regional Council came to the conclusion that the Antonveneta purchase and the subsequent derivative losses are the main source of MPS’s troubles today.
Bank of England’s Carney: First ‘Lost Decade’ since 1860s
Dec. 10 (EIRNS)—Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, in the Roscoe Lecture at John Moores University in Liverpool on Dec. 5, titled “The Specter of Monetarism,” said that we have just experienced “the first lost decade since the 1860s.” Blaming both the current and last “lost decade” on the supposed “technological revolutions” in those eras, Carney proposes nonsense, such as “redistribution of wealth,” using the internet to expand “cottage industries,” “greening” the workforce, and more such drivel—Carney never mentions the bankruptcy of the banks or the massive bailouts and QE, let alone real solutions based on Glass-Steagall or the New Silk Road development process.
But he has no choice but to identify the current disaster, since he and his fellow Olympians are getting crushed everywhere by what the spokesmen for the British Empire love to call “populist” upsurges.
Carney notes that there is a growing consensus that monetarism itself is the problem. But this Lord of the City of London concludes: “In the end, monetary policy isn’t a specter but a friendly ghost.”
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Forum on ‘Confluence of Silk Road Economic Belt and Eurasian Economic Union’ vs. Geopolitics
Dec. 11 (EIRNS)—The Shanghai Institute for International Studies (SIIS) and the Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute (DOC) held a joint seminar on Dec. 8 in Shanghai themed: “At the Confluence of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Eurasian Economic Union: Transnational Development on the Eurasian Continent.” The DOC website reports that “The main subjects under discussion were the prospects for implementing mega-infrastructure projects as part of the Eurasian Economic Union, One Belt One Road initiatives, identifying key trends in the creation of a single economic space, establishing socio-economic infrastructure, and developing human capital.”
Dr. Vladimir Yakunin, co-founder of the DOC, posed two differing concepts about globalization—the current neoliberal paradigm of “global governance, such as the IMF, the Federal Reserve, and even the UN,” or that currently led by China’s growing involvement in the world economy, based on development, through the Silk Road. The former, he said, has been rendered “defunct” by the latter.
Yakunin “also considered the potential for the U.S. presidential election results to impact the current dominant model of U.S.-led globalization, due to President Elect Donald Trump’s reluctance to intervene in other states’ affairs,” the website reported.
But Yakunin stressed that “key elements of the system … cannot be described as under China’s control,” adding that China “should not be left to take up this burden of global leadership alone, given the substantial financial-economic resources required.”
Yakunin promoted the convergence of the One Belt, One Road and the European Economic Union (EAEU), posing the question: “How do we make sure that the simultaneous development of these different centers of growth leads to synergy, not conflict? The Silk Road Economic Belt and the Eurasian Economic Union may yet show us the way.”
Li Xin, Professor at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies and a member of the Supervisory Board of DOC, noted that China is a “proponent of the New Silk Road and Sea Silk Road [i.e., Maritime Silk Road] initiatives as ways to ensure we do not fall into the static trap of becoming overly reliant on an established understanding of spheres of interests and alliances that fundamentally limit the development of new growing economies,” the website reported. He also noted that there is “potential for the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Eurasian Economic Union collaboration to take place under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).”
Kazakhstan Will Integrate Its Own Developmental Plan with China’s Belt and Road
Dec. 10 (EIRNS)—Briefing more than 80 representatives of foreign embassies and missions, including 50 ambassadors and heads of international organizations on Nov. 30, Kazakh Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov and Minister of Investment and Development Zhenis Kassymbek ticked off the “common points of Kazakhstan’s Nurly Zhol economic policy and China’s Silk Road Economic Belt initiative,” Astana Times reported Dec. 1.
“Implementation of the Nurly Zhol program will ensure the connection of the Kazakh regions to intercontinental routes, Western Kazakhstan, Western Europe, China and Iran, and will turn Kazakhstan into a major Eurasian transport and logistics hub that will connect the North with the South, the East with the West, the countries of the European Union, the Middle East and Southeast Asia,” Idrissov said. It is evident that integration of Nurly Zhol with the One Belt, One Road has the potential to create a multiplier effect for the development of a wide range of industries, and unimpeded trade across the Eurasian continent.
“The geographical location of Kazakhstan in the center of the Eurasian continent provides advantageous prerequisites for using Kazakhstan’s transport network for the establishment of Asia-Europe transcontinental routes. The advancement of transport and logistics is a pivotal component of the foreign economic and trade relations of Kazakhstan,” Kassymbek said.
Jordan’s Nuclear Research Reactor, Built by South Korea, Is Ready for Operation
Dec. 10 (EIRNS)—Jordan’s Research and Training Reactor, built by South Korea’s Daewoo Engineering and Construction, wrapped up its test run on Dec. 7, and is now ready for operation, reported Jordan’s Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning. South Korea’s Science Minister, Choi Yang-hee, took part in the ceremony, along with King Abdullah II. The 5 MW reactor in the northern city of Irbid will be used for training and research, and to produce medical isotopes. It will be operated by Jordanians, with “helping hands” from the Koreans for the next few years. The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute supported Daewoo in its bid for the project, and they won the contract at the end of 2009. Construction started the following year.
This is an important milestone for the Korean nuclear industry, in its drive for nuclear orders. It is the first export of Korea’s home-grown nuclear technology. “We will partner with Jordan for the country’s introduction of nuclear power reactors and its technological development,” said Science Minister Choi Yang-hee at the celebration of the completion of the project.
Korea Electric Power Corp. stunned the world by winning an $18 billion-plus contract from the United Arab Emirates in 2009 to build four Westinghouse-licensed nuclear reactors. All four of the reactors are under construction, and the first unit will go online next year.
