EDITORIAL

Obama Is a British Agent and Will Act Accordingly, Until He Is Kicked Out of Office!

Sept. 15 (EIRNS)—President Barack Obama’s continuing threat to veto the JASTA bill (Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act) is a clear reminder that the President of the United States is in reality an agent of the British system, and he will do whatever he is told by the British Crown—the American people be damned. EIR Founding Editor Lyndon LaRouche warned today that no one should expect Obama to do the right thing by signing the JASTA bill into law and letting the justice system deal with the Saudi monarchy, the facilitators of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.  “Obama will wiggle and dodge the issue until the last moment—and then he will veto JASTA—unless there is such an outpouring of pressure from the American people that it leaves him no choice,” LaRouche declared. “After all, Obama is a British agent and he will act accordingly.”

LaRouche added, “Obama is a faker and he must be smoked out.” He is being propped up by a string of Big Lies, peddled by the U.S. mainstream media, that repeat the Administration’s lies, including the insane claim that the U.S. economy has improved, wages are rising, unemployment is at a low point, etc. These are all lies, as any honest American in the lower 90% income bracket knows. Some 93.5 million working age Americans are not even counted in the labor force. The Big Lie campaign propping up Obama can be smashed.  The U.S. has become a country of unbounded statistical fakery.

Just as JASTA must be passed now, whether by forcing Obama’s hand or by an overwhelming vote in the Senate and the House that overrides an Obama veto, so too Glass-Steagall must be passed into law immediately—before the total disintegration of the trans-Atlantic financial system occurs, which could be any time. Don’t count on Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to lead this fight—she is too compromised by her partisan desires to defend Obama and Hillary Clinton.  “Just do it!” LaRouche said again today.

The actions taken this week by the British House of Commons, which dumped David Cameron from his parliamentary seat for his role in the Libya war, all based on lies, is a wake-up call for the same action to be taken by the U.S. Congress against Barack Obama. He must be kicked out of office now.

Among Obama’s many crimes is the brutal way he terrorized and then used Hillary Clinton, particularly around the 2011 Libyan invasion and assassination of Muammar Qaddafi. That action, where Hillary Clinton fully caved in to Obama and was never the same after, was the start of the Obama war drive against Russia and China. LaRouche called it at the time of the Qaddafi assassination and everything that followed from those 2011 events has proven the case. The danger of war against Russia and China has now reached a point where all of mankind is in danger, every day Obama remains in office with the power to start a thermonuclear world war. And as events of the last week have made publicly clear, Hillary Clinton is broken down and she needs to get out.

The American people desperately need help and serious consideration of their plight. Instead, the Club of Rome has resurfaced, to demand a global genocide, under the guise of its claim that “one percent growth” is all that the world needs and the New Silk Road program should be scrapped. The Club of Rome remains the same genocidal outfit that launched the original Limits to Growth Malthusian campaign back in 1972. At that point, Lyndon LaRouche and the LaRouche movement took the lead in exposing the Club of Rome as a gang of murderous liars, whose real agenda was to kill billions of people—the same identical agenda as that of the British monarchy, most clearly expressed by Royal Consort Prince Philip.

That policy must now finally be put to rest.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Russia and China Step Up Coordination in G20 Aftermath, and on the Way to the BRICS Summit

Sept. 15 (EIRNS)—The senior security representatives of the BRICS countries are meeting today in New Delhi, as part of the preparations for the Oct. 15-16 BRICS summit in Goa, India. “The Chinese side would like to see BRICS countries play a bigger role in international and regional security issues, step up coordination and cooperation on major issues concerning security, and contribute to peace, prosperity and stability of the world,” reported Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

The Hindu reported that “Analysts say that the BRICS countries are expected to converge on a common approach of battling the Islamic State, in its breeding grounds in Syria, Iraq and its permeation in other parts of the world including South Asia and China’s Xinjiang province. Terrorism emanating from the Afghanistan-Pakistan zone is also expected to be high on the agenda.”

Russia is represented at the meeting by Nikolai Patrushev, China by Yang Jiechi, and India by Ajit Doval—the national security chiefs of their respective countries. Doval will additionally hold bilateral meetings with Patrushev and Yang on the sidelines of the BRICS gathering. Patrushev, in turn, flew to Delhi straight from meetings in Beijing with both Yang Jiechi and with Chinese President Xi Jinping himself, where they discussed not only security matters, but also economics: One Belt, One Road and the Eurasian Economic Union.

Xi made remarks at the meeting with Patrushev, according to Xinhua, in which he “called on the two countries to give full play to the existing cooperation mechanism to further enhance security consultation and exchange.” Xi also told Patrushev that, when he last met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, “Both of us agreed that China and Russia need to strengthen mutual support on major issues and consolidate political mutual trust,” and that both countries are “contributing to safeguard world peace and stability as well as international equity and justice.”

Xi also emphasized the importance of integrating China’s Belt and Road initiative (OBOR) with the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Patrushev concurred, stating that Russia attaches great importance to OBOR and will work with China in that regard. He also emphasized that the two countries are “important stable factors in international affairs, as both countries conduct close communication on major global and regional security issues,” Xinhua reported.

Russian Army Chief of Staff in Ankara for Talks on Military Cooperation, Syria

Sept. 15 (EIRNS)—The chief of the Russian army’s general staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, was in Ankara today to discuss Syria and military cooperation with Turkey, according to Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov, reported Interfax. Gerasimov met with Turkish Chief of Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar to “discuss the current situation and the prospects of resolving the crisis in the Syrian Arab Republic,” Konashenkov said.

The meeting should be seen in the context of the agreements between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan last Aug. 9 where it was decided that the two nations’ chiefs of staff should be in direct contact, especially regarding cooperation in Syria.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari has also been in Moscow for the past three days, where he met on Sept. 14 with, among other Russian officials, Presidential envoy for the Middle East and Africa, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, for discussions on Syria and other regional matters. “Considering the speed of events in the Arab region, and the depth of the changes, it is imperative that Russia and Iran hold regular consultations,” Ansari said following the meeting.

Both sides called for observing the ceasefire in Syria and holding the intra-Syrian negotiations in Geneva at an early date. The talks focused on the situation in and around Syria and the implementation of the Sept. 9 Russian-U.S. agreements on consolidating the cessation of hostilities in Syria.

John Kerry on Syrian Agreement with Russia: What Alternative Is There?

Sept. 15 (EIRNS)—U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry defended the Syria ceasefire agreement that he worked out with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, during an interview aired on National Public Radio (NPR) yesterday, making the point that there is no other choice. In its coverage of the interview, Reuters notes that the Pentagon and the U.S. military have been loudly saying that Russia cannot be trusted. “Well, the President of the United States is ready and I think the military therefore will be ready,” Kerry said. “Nobody’s asking people to abrogate our standards, but it is important for us to keep our part of the bargain.”

“What’s the alternative?” Kerry went on to say in the NPR interview, indicating that the only alternative was continued warfare of much greater levels of violence, given that the U.S. has decided not to send in ground troops. “If you fail to get a cessation in place now, and we cannot get to the table, then the fighting is going to increase significantly,” he said. When asked about the problem of separating U.S.-backed opposition groups from terrorist groups, Kerry insisted that U.S.-supported groups will be separated from Al-Nusra. “We are not going to support people who are fighting alongside al-Qaeda,” he said.

The separation question was apparently at the center of a telephone conversation between Kerry and Lavrov that took place yesterday. “Lavrov pointed to the need for the fastest implementation of the U.S. promise to separate Washington-sponsored moderate opposition forces from Jabhat al-Nusra and the groups that have in fact merged with that part of al-Qaeda,” TASS quoted the Russian Foreign Ministry as saying.

A Washington source stressed to EIR yesterday that Kerry and Lavrov intend to push forward as hard as possible on the ceasefire, despite the opposition against it in both Washington and in Damascus.

Russia-China Naval Exercise Underway In South China Sea

Sept. 15 (EIRNS)—Three warships of the Russian Pacific Fleet have joined with the Chinese PLA Navy for “Joint Sea 2016,” an exercise which runs through Sept. 19 in the South China Sea. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said today that the exercise should help strengthen stability in the region, rather than destabilize it, according to a report in TASS. “We believe that all actions which take place there must be pondered, balanced and not add instability, but rather work on strengthening stability and mutual understanding to solve conflicts,” she said.

In addition to the three warships, the Russians have sent two supply ships, two helicopters and a contingent of 96 marines. They join ten Chinese vessels, including destroyers, frigates, landing ships, supply ships and submarines, as well as 11 fixed-wing aircraft, eight helicopters and 160 marines. Xinhua reports that the two sides will undertake joint air defense, anti-submarine operations, coordinated three-dimensional island seizing, search and rescue, landing and examining and weapon use.

In an obvious dig at the U.S. and certain of its allies, Zhang Junshe, senior research fellow at the Military and Academic Institute of the Chinese Navy, told Xinhua that the joint exercise is “essentially defensive and totally different from the island landing and retaking drills that a few countries engage in year after year in the West Pacific region against an imaginary enemy.” He added that “an exercise on such subjects can only be operated between navies with a high level of mutual trust.”

U.S. ECONOMIC & POLITICAL

Washington Post Froths against Putin, Reports U.S. Intelligence Shifts Focus to Russian ‘Aggression’

Sept. 15 (EIRNS)—Perhaps they missed their rabies shot this year, but today’s Washington Post prominently features a frothing article on how U.S. intelligence agencies are shifting resources and their focus to counter Russia’s “aggression.” Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the Post reports that U.S. agencies “that had previously diverted attention [sic] from Russia to focus on terrorist threats and U.S. war zones,” are now focusing back on Russia “on a greater scale than at any time since the end of the Cold War.” They assert that Russia is “reasserting itself” in Crimea, Syria, and by hacking U.S. computers, and that the U.S. was “caught flat-footed by Moscow’s aggression.”

The most hysterical part of the article involves a discussion about how U.S. agencies just can’t figure out what President Vladimir Putin is up to. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) is quoted saying, “The failure to understand Putin’s plans and intentions has been the largest intelligence failure since 9/11.” A senior U.S. official is cited complaining that “divining Putin’s intentions is a particularly daunting task because of the Russian President’s leadership style.” Last year, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper explained the matter more simply: We can’t figure out what Putin’s plan is, because he doesn’t know either! “What his long-term plan is, I’m not sure he has one. I think he is kind of winging this day to day.”

The Post article at least had the good sense to note that other intelligence officials disagree with Clapper, arguing that Putin clearly does have a game-plan, but we just haven’t been able to figure out what it is, allegedly because he takes great precautions to not discuss matters on the phone or in e-mails. (The Post displays not a scintilla of understanding about Putin’s flanking approach to grand strategy.)

Other media are beating the same drums. WTOP all news radio in Washington today ran a feature on how U.S. intelligence is gearing up to respond to Putin’s aggressions, and Bloomberg had a feature on how the Kremlin is clearly favoring Donald Trump in the U.S. elections, and is meddling actively in them.

Obama Was Co-Responsible with Cameron for the Libya Fiasco

Sept. 15 (EIRNS)—The British Parliamentary investigation which excoriated the Cameron government for the 2011 regime-change war against Libya, also placed blame right on the doorstep of U.S. President Barack Obama—and rightly so. According to an article in the Sept. 14 Libya Herald, the Parliamentary report said that the Obama administration “was instrumental in extending the terms of [UN] Resolution 1973 beyond the imposition of a no-fly zone to include the authorization of ‘all necessary measures’ to protect civilians.” The Libya Herald continues, “It was President Obama who noted that a no-fly policy alone would not stop Qaddafi. ‘This led to the imposition of a no-drive zone and the assumed authority to attack the entire Libyan government command and communications network,’ ” the British Parliamentary report stated.

Cameron has been driven out of the House of Commons by these revelations. So why is Obama still in the White House?

NEW WORLD ECONOMIC ORDER

Russian-Iranian Banking Partnership Aims To Drop Euros and Dollars and To Trade in Rials and Rubles

Sept. 15 (EIRNS)—Russia intends to create a banking partnership with Iran so as to facilitate trade in the Iranian currency, rials, and in Russian rubles rather than dollars and euros. This comes at a time when, despite the lifting of some sanctions and assurances from the U.S. that Western financial institutions can operate with Iran, nothing is happening. Despite the U.S. statement, the reality is that U.S. banks are not allowed to operate in Iran and this is warning off European banks.

Russia has had no banks in Iran, but that is about to change. So far $5 billion worth of trade with Iran has been done in dollars and euros via Russian subsidiaries based in Cyprus and other offshore zones. This is expected to change as well. “Iran is emerging from years of sanctions, the quality of banking services there has declined and Russian players can enter the market with interesting products for business and the public,” Anatoliy Aksanov of Russia’s Association of Regional Banks told Izvestia.

Bahram Amirahmadiyan, the former head of the Russia-Iran Friendship Society, and Professor at the University of Tehran, told Sputnik that the Russian-Iranian Chamber of Commerce is actively working on opening a joint Russian-Iranian bank. “This is really a very important topic, particularly in the context of trading and economic links between Russia and Iran. Even under the Shah, before the 1979 Islamic revolution, Russian-Iranian banking cooperation was very active. There was even a joint bank which conducted trade operations,” he explained. In 1924 two bilateral institutions were set up, the Russian-Persian Commercial Bank and the Russian-Persian Trade Company. “After 1979 that bank, along with many other joint banks, was closed, and bilateral transactions stopped,” Amirahmadiyan said.

“We want to carry out all our trade operations in our national currencies, (although) this issue has not been resolved yet,” Amirahmadiyan said. “Of course, the prospect of Russian banks opening in Iran is very attractive and important because it can widen and improve our economic cooperation. At the moment, all banking operations between Russia and Iran are carried out in dollars or euros. It’s very inconvenient, because all these operations are controlled either by the EU or U.S. central banks.”

SCIENCE & INFRASTRUCTURE

China’s Tiangong-2 Space Lab Is in Orbit

Sept. 15 (EIRNS)—A perfect Long March 2F rocket launch this evening (10 a.m. EDT) has delivered China’s Tiangong-2 space module to low Earth orbit. The module will spend the next few weeks being checked out by Mission Control, while waiting for the Shenzhou-11 crew to dock with it next month. The module was originally built as a backup for the Tiangong-1 module, launched in 2011, but was not needed. Over the past five years, it has been substantially upgraded, and outfitted for 30-day longer-duration manned missions. The first module was described by aerospace expert Yang Yuguang on CCTV today as a “target” vehicle, because its main task was to practice and demonstrate the rendezvous and docking of two spacecraft in orbit. This second module is tasked with carrying out more than a dozen science experiments, and evaluating the performance of the hardware and the crew on a one-month mission, in preparation of the permanently manned station upcoming. Yang said this craft is, therefore, a laboratory.

Tiangong-2 will be in a 380 km orbit for its initial tests, and then raised to a 393 km orbit, higher than Tiangong-1, which was at 343 km. This is in preparation for the space station, which will be in a higher orbit, where there is less atmospheric drag, reducing the amount of fuel needed to reboost the station.

The Tiangong-2 launch was aired live on CCTV, preceded by hours of commentary, interviews with experts, film footage of launch preparations, and animations of China’s future space exploration plans. Scientists from Italy, Russia, Germany, France, Pakistan, and the European Space Agency were invited to be at the launch site. Next year, after the manned mission, the Tianzhou-1 cargo vehicle will be automatically docked with the module, to deliver supplies. It will be launched by the new Long March 7 rocket, which can carry the heavier, 13 ton cargo vehicle. The lighter Tiangong-2, at 8.5 tons, was launched on the smaller Long March 2F rocket.

OTHER

The Color Revolution Campaign Begins in the Philippines

Sept. 15 (EIRNS)—The woman leading the Philippine Senate inquiry into alleged extrajudicial killings in President Rodrigo Duterte’s War on Drugs, Leila de Lima, the former Justice Secretary under former President Noynoy Aquino and former chairwoman of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights, brought out a witness today, Edgar Matobato, who testified that he was part of the 300-member “Davao Death Squad” which he alleges was run on the orders of then-Mayor of Davao, Duterte. The Philippines Daily Inquirer reports that Matobato testified the death squad killed alleged drug dealers and criminals in the southern city of Davao between 1988 and 2013. More than 1,000 were killed in Davao City alone, he claimed.

Leila de Lima has been going after Duterte for many years, running a massive investigation into what she called criminal activity in Duterte’s cleaning out drugs and crime in Davao City, which everyone admits was successful. In all the investigations, de Lima came up with nothing, and never was able to prosecute anything. Matobato, it turns out, turned against Duterte in 2013 and was placed in a witness protection program by de Lima by at least 2014. De Lima clearly had access to all this testimony long ago, but never brought it forward—probably because there was no evidence and many people call Matobato a liar, who perhaps could be called the Philippines’ ”Curve Ball.”

Many people have come forward today to denounce the witness as a liar. Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, who supports the President, clashed with the witness and de Lima in the hearing, questioning Matobato’s credibility and accusing him of being part of a plot to overthrow Duterte. “I’m asking about you (de Lima), your motive and the motive of your party in this hearing because I am testing if he’s a credible witness or if this is part of the Plan B of the Liberal Party to grab Malacañang [presidential palace] and to destroy him (Duterte)” he said.

Duterte included de Lima on his list of officials with drug connections, saying that her driver was a drug courier (as well as her lover). He announced today that he has an updated list of about 1000 officials—judges, police, military, mayors, etc—who are involved in the drug trade, which he will release soon.