E.I.R.STRATEGIC ALERT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Volume 27, No. 11 - March 14, 2013


In an analysis written March 9, Helga Zepp-LaRouche characterized
the current strategic situation as a multi-dimensioned
fight over the issues of “war and peace, fascist dictatorship or
defense of constitutional rights, hyperinflationary collapse of the
trans-Atlantic financial system or a reorganization in due time.”
The situation “in all these areas, with interconnected internal dynamics,
is so tense that a breaking point is no longer remote.”
NATO and the U.S.have clearly opted for a policy of “encircling”
Russia and China, as seen in the anti-missile system being
set up in Europe and the consolidation of military alliances in
the Asia-Pacific region. In fact, a recent paper published in the
Strategic Review Quarterly of the US Air Force’s Air University
shows that the U.S and NATO are actively pursuing a strategy
of “counterforce” attack, i.e., disarming the adversary by destroying
its nuclear capability. The authors, Professors Keir A.
Lieber and Daryl G. Press, have been warning of such a danger
since at least 2006, but this is the first time one of their articles
has appeared in a professional publication of the U.S. military.
“Very accurate delivery systems, new reconnaissance technologies,
and the downsizing of arsenals from Cold War levels
have made both conventional and nuclear counterforce strikes
against nuclear arsenals much more feasible than ever before.”
Lieber and Press write. During the Cold War, they note, neither
the U.S. nor the Soviet Union could launch a disarming first
strike against the other because each side had so many weapons
deliverable by different modes that an attempted counterforce
strike could not prevent a retaliatory reply. This is no
longer the case, as the reduction of nuclear arsenals on both
sides means there are now fewer targets to hit.
Lieber and Press go further to argue that the U.S. is knowingly
pursuing a strategy of strategic primacy against potential
adversaries. That effort to neutralize adversary strategic forces
does not only involve nuclear weapons, but “spans nearly every
realm of warfare: for example, ballistic missile defense, antisubmarine
warfare, intelligence, surveillance-and-reconnaissance
systems, offensive cyber warfare, conventional precision
strike, and long-range precision strike, in addition to nuclear
strike capabilities.”
The two authors also argue that, because of U.S. policy, it
will be much harder, in the coming decades, to deter the use of
nuclear weapons during conventional wars.
Statements by Russian officials and military leaders leave no
doubt that they have long since drawn their own conclusions
from this NATO-U.S. strategy, and not about to accept it. That
means that the fuse to the Third World War has been lit.
At the same time, the danger of dictatorship is growing rapidly
on both sides of the Atlantic, and provoking a counterreaction
in defense of constitutional rights, i.e. of national
sovreignty against supranational dominance. In the U.S., Sen.
Rand Paul’s filibuster (cf. below) has strengthened the resistance
to Obama’s policy of regime change and constitutional
violations And opposition is growing to the Federal Reserve’s
QE policy, while support soars on the level of State legislatures
for the reintroduction of the Glass-Steagall Act.
In Europe, a fight is raging, although behind the scenes, over
the future of the entire euro policy (cf. below) and the hyperinflationary
course of the ECB. Here, growing resistance to the
euro in Europe should expand into a movement for a real Glass-
Steagall, Zepp-LaRouche proposed. “Only if the original system
of banking separation, in the tradition of Roosevelt’s Glass-
Steagall Act, is reintroduced, putting an end to the toxic system
of speculation and cleaning up the multi-trillion financial toxic
waste of derivative contracts, can we stop the hyperinflationary
dynamic which threatens to plunge the trans-Atlantic region and
the entire world into an unimaginable social catastrophe.”
However, Glass-Steagall is only the first step. Once the “junk”
is out of the system, the remaining liquidity will not be sufficient
to finance a recovery. Therefore a credit system in the tradition
of Alexander Hamilton’s first National Bank of the United
States must be established, giving sovereign governments the
right to issue productive credit, subject to the laws of the general
welfare and the scientific criteria of physical economy.
Raitre Posts Historical Interview with
LaRouche Forecasting Collapse
The the third Italian national TV channel, Raitre, has finally
posted on its website an historical interview with Lyndon La-
Rouche, which was originally broadcast on May 22, 2003. After
broadcasting a short clip from it again in 2012, recognizing
how LaRouche’s forecast of the crisis had been on the mark.
The 31 minute interview, Anatomy of a Collapse -- Lyndon La-
Rouche, can now be viewed in full at http://www.lastoriasiamonoi.
rai.it/puntate/ anatomia-di-un-collasso/15/default.aspx.
This is a truly extraordinary document, because LaRouche
describes precisely the nature of the pending crisis, stating
that the entire banking system and the Federal Reserve are
EIR STRATEGIC ALERT
2 WEEKLY NEWSLETTER n°11 / 2013
bankrupt and showing the famous Triple Curve diagram. Although
the predicates, of course, only concern developments
up until 2003 -- focusing on the Russian debt crisis and the
ensuing “Wall of Money” operation pushed by George Soros
-- it remains totally topical. The interviewer, Myrta Merlino, is
a prominent economics journalist.
The interview is presented in a “thriller” format, reconstituting
the dynamic of the assassination of the economy as well as
identifying the killer.
Brennan Confirmed as CIA Director,
but Obama Weakened
In his proclamation of victory after John Brennan was confirmed
as CIA Director, President Obama seemed unaware that
he was celebrating a classic Pyrrhic victory. In fact, the final
vote, in which 34 Senators out of 97 present voted against
confirmation, was another blow to an Administration which
has been acting increasingly as an “imperial presidency.”
The 13 hour filibuster by Sen. Rand Paul, against Brennan’s
confirmation, highlighted the problems Obama is facing. First,
the general opposition to Brennan forced an open debate on
the killer drone policy, which the Administration did not want.
Paul proclaimed victory, when Attorney General Holder was
forced to admit, in writing, that the President does not have
the “authority to use a drone to kill an American not engaged
in combat on American soil.” As Paul pointed out during his
filibuster, the fact that it took so long for Holder to make this
limited concession raises serious questions about the policy.
(Note that Holder’s letter does not limit the President’s assertion
of his right to kill Americans abroad, nor to conduct
murderous assaults against alleged combatants placed on a secret
list, nor to conduct “signature strikes” which cause civilian
casualties.)
Second, the admission that there are Constitutional limits to
the power of the President may embolden those calling for
Obama’s removal for repeatedly crossing that line. In an op-ed
written for the Washington Times after the vote, Sen. Paul
wrote, “We have separation of powers to protect our rights.
That’s what government was organized to do, and that’s what
the Constitution was put in place to do.
“The President does not have the power to act as judge, jury
and executioner,” he continued. “Are we so afraid of terrorism
that we’re willing to just throw out our rights and freedoms?”
Third, there was a bipartisan effort against the Brennan
nomination, as a prominent Democrat, Wyden of Oregon, supported
Paul’s filibuster, and two Democrats, Leahy of Vermont
and Merkley of Oregon, were joined by Sen. King, a Maine
Independent, in voting against Brennan. Wyden referred to the
filibuster as an action by “the checks-and-balances movement,”
adding, “I think there is a new political movement emerging in
our country and it crosses party lines....”
Wyden said that forcing a letter from Holder represents
“winning a two-year battle,” as he had been requesting the release
of documents since 2011, while Leahy said his “No” vote
reflects his “waning patience” with the administration’s failure
to answer questions about the drone policy.
Finally, the hypocrisy of war-hawk Republicans was exposed,
as Senators McCain and Lindsey Graham tried to ridicule Paul.
McCain said the filibuster was a “political stunt,” referring to
Paul and Sen. Cruz of Texas as “wacko birds.”
Paul responded with a sharp retort to McCain. “If you’re going
to be dismissive of people who want to protect the right to
trial by jury, the right to due process, the right to be indicted
and charged (before being murdered by a drone), you’re really
arguing against the Bill of Rights.”
This is precisely why the LaRouche movement has been insisting
that Obama must be impeached, for multiple violations
of his oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. The fact that
the fight has become public means that opposition to the imperial
presidency is gaining strength.
Anti-Euro Sentiment Growing in Germany
The results of the recent elections in Italy have upset the deadlines
of European policy, and once again put a spotlight on the
impossible situation with the euro. While the German government
claims that the Italian developments have not changed
anything, some mainstream media have begun to provide a
platform for skeptical views on the euro.
For example, Wolfgang Reitzle, the CEO of Linde, a leading
firm in industrial gases, cooling techniques, stated on the
“Forum Manager” program of Phoenix TV that Greece has no
future in the euro system, its only chance is to return to the
drachma. In his view, the euro had a constructional defect from
the start, and it will ruin Europe over the long term. Reitzle
pointed out that the EU is already struggling with the enormous
problems from Greece, and will not be able to handle the
problems expected from Italy, which has a much larger national
economy. Most interesting is that he said that his was not an
isolated viewpoint among industrial CEOs, that many agree
with him in private, but avoid saying so in public because of the
pressure they are under.
Then, on March 7, former Economics Minister Rainer Brüderle,
actually not much of a euro-skeptic, stated on a prime-time
talk-show (Maybrit Illner), that an Italian exit from the euro
could not be ruled out, and would not even give him much of a
headache, whereas certain economic problems of French industry
and banks that had serious implications for the Eurozone,
did. The chairman of the German Foreign Trade Association,
Anton Börner, also said that prospect of Italy leaving the euro
did not scare him. Germany, he told the March 4 Focus weekly,
could also go for “something else” than the present euro.
In addition, a new euro-skeptic party is in the making, called
Alternative für Deutschland. The group is for the dissolution of
the Eurozone: “Germany does not need the euro, and the euro
harms other countries.” They call for “the reintroduction of national
currencies or the creation of smaller and more stable currency
unions.” Under the euro system, the group charges, “the
will of the people on decisions [related to the euro] is never
asked and is not represented by the Bundestag.” The government,
they charge, resorts to disinformation of the public, puts
pressure on the Constitutional Court, and takes far-reaching
decisions in committees with no democratic legitimacy.
“Alternatives for Germany” will hold a founding convention
in Berlin in mid-April, and is counting on the populist appeal
to an increasingly europhobic electorate. It has enlisted some
prominent euro-skeptics for its campaign: Hans-Olaf Henkel,
former president of the Federation of German Industries, and
the widely-known economists Joachim Starbatty and Wilhelm
Hankel, both of whom have challenged the euro bailouts at the
Constitutional Court.
The real “Alternative for Germany”, however, is not such a
monetarist project, but rather the BüSo party. As Helga Zepp-
LaRouche observed, in her March 9 article (cf. above), given
the magnitude of the strategic and financial problems the world
faces today, “such a narrow view of only being against the euro
falls far short of the mark.” What is needed, minimally, is real
EIR STRATEGIC ALERT
n°11 / 2013 WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 3
banking separation as a first step, and the introduction of a
credit system for relaunching the economy.
Argentine President Urges European Leaders
to Stand up to “Financial Predators”
In opening the new legislative session of the National Congress
on March 1, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner
took world leaders to task for refusing to defend the welfare
of their populations.
Cristina Fernandez discussed Argentina’s default in 2001-
2002 and the subsequent restructuring of the sovereign debt,
which forced bondholders (mostly foreign) to take a haircut on
the nominal, but bloated, value on those bonds, pointing to the
plight in Europe today. “It’s very likely that many other countries,
sooner or later, despite denials, restructurings, bailouts
...are going to have to restructure their debts with big haircuts
and long [repayment] periods. Otherwise, how are countries
like Greece, Spain, and now Italy, as we’re discovering, which
has the drama of having no government, going to pay?”
In that context, she said, the legal battles of Argentina
against those “vulture funds” which continue to demand full
payment, plus interest, on the bonds they held, are “leading
cases”, not only in terms of economics or finances, but also as
a political test. “The issue is whether the world’s major leaders,
the members of the G-20, the heads of large multilateral
lending agencies, and the governments of various nations of
the world are going to let a handful [of financial predators] --
they could fit in the palm of my hand -- ruin the entire world,
ruin societies with millions of unemployed, desperate people
who are committing suicide, who’ve lost their jobs, can’t go to
school, who’ve lost their homes; or whether they are going to
give priority to their societies, their nations, their people, their
histories and their patrimony. That is what is at stake in the
world today.” Fernandez said.
Referencing the drop in industry in Europe, she asked: “How
can it be that they [European leaders] want to sacrifice entire
nations to small groups”, which just like the vulture funds that
are preying on Argentina, “seek to impose their conditions on
the whole world?”
The Argentine President underscored that scientific and technological
development has been a cornerstone of her government,
and that of her late husband, Nestor Kirchner, over the
past decade, saying it was her passion to rebuild the scientific
infrastructure that had been decimated under the military junta/
IMF regime of the 1970s-1990s which drove tens of thousands
of scientists and university students out of the country.
This will continue to be a focus in the future, she noted, because
the country depends on it.
What infuriates the IMF, she said, is that “fundamentally,
we’ve been successful without following their policies. In fact,
we’ve gone against each and every one of the things they told
us we had to do, and we’ve been fine. That’s why they want to
punish us; they won’t forgive us for that.”
Slovenia and Bulgaria Also Victims
of EU’s “Scorched Earth” Policy
Loyalty to an absurd European Union policy has now caused two
more governments in recent member countries to fall. On Feb.
20, the Bulgarian government of Prime Minister Boiko Borisov
resigned following three weeks of mass protests against the
harsh austerity policy, and a week later, the Slovenian parliament
ousted conservative Prime Minister Janez Jansa.
Discontent is widespread in Slovenia, where membership in
the Eurozone has rewarded the country with a banking crisis,
a 12% unemployment rate and the fastest shrinking economy
in the Eurozone, although Jansa finally fell over charges of corruption
Rumors are rife that the country will soon ask for a
bailout, since it needs to repay 2 billion euros of debt in the
coming months. Alenka Bratusek, the leader of the opposition
Socialist Party who has been asked to form a new government,
said she opposes austerity and declared before parliament
“there will be no Greek scenario in Slovenia.” If she fails
to form a government, new elections will be called.
In Bulgaria, the poorest country in the EU, the average salary
is 250 euros a month and the average pension is 130 euros a
month, although EU officials are pleased to proclaim that the
country is now “competitive”. Borisov and his right-wing GERB
party had been fanatically implementing the EU’s austerity policy,
as well as its anti-nuclear and anti-Russian policy, so much
so that the government announced, unprompted, that Bulgaria
was interested in hosting the U.S. ABM system in Europe.
A rise in the price of electricity is what served to ignite the
mass demonstrations, which eventually led to the resignation
of Borisov, with new elections scheduled for May 12. Prior to
joining the EU, Bulgaria exported 14% of its electricity to Macedonia,
Serbia and Greece but as a requirement for joining the
EU, it had to close down blocks 3 and 4 of its Kozlouduy nuclear
power station, which produced half of its total capacity.
To compensate for the loss of energy, a new nuclear power
station, with Russian third generation reactors, was under construction
at Belene, after being fully approved by both the IAEA
and the EU itself, as the technology was considered among the
safest in the world. But then in March 2012, amidst a campaign
by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and other NGOs,
the government closed down the project, despite the fact that
a majority of the population had voted in Jan. in favor of it, in a
non binding referendum organized by the opposition Bulgarian
Socialist Party. The one completed reactor will be transferred
to Kozlouduy.
The former Economic and Energy Minister, Petar Dimitrov
of the Socialist Party, warned that shutting down Belene would
drive up prices to an “unbearable” level, and force Bulgaria
to become a net energy importer. On top of that, the EU has
mandated that 16% of the country’s energy must come from
expensive “renewable” technologies. And both the EU and the
Obama Administration are demanding the country reduce its
relationship with Russia’s Gazprom.
European Space Agency Must Face
Challenges of Planetary Defense
As tensions continue to build between NATO and Russia over
the Western Alliance’s “enlargement policy” and installation of
anti-ballistic systems near Russia’s borders, Lyndon LaRouche
has insisted that the only reasonable policy is for the U.S. and
Europe to cooperate with Russia on deterring any such missile
attacks, and on defending the Earth from asteroids and
other threats coming from space. Such an approach would
have the dual advantage of driving scientific and technological
breakthroughs worldwide, and of serving as an effective waravoidance
policy.
In late 2011, Dmitry Rogozin, now Russian Deputy Prime
Minister, made such a proposal for an international “Strategic
Defense of Earth” program, which he reiterated after the Feb.
15 meteorite shower over the city of Chelyabinsk and the asteroid
flyby (cf. SAS 8/13).
Sergei Ivanov, the former Russian Defense Minister who
EIR STRATEGIC ALERT
4 WEEKLY NEWSLETTER n° 11 / 2013
now heads the Russian presidential administration, also supports
the idea. In comments to the March 5 Komsomolskaya
Pravda highly critical of the ABM systems in Europe, he proposed
that “the entire world community” “jointly build a space
threat protection system, since individual countries are unable
to achieve that on their own.” He pointed out that collective
methods were indispensable for such a task, since “no country,
not even the United States, can solve this alone. It is hideously
expensive, and very difficult.”
Rogozin’s proposal has been welcomed by the head of the
European Space Agency’s (ESA) Space Situational Awareness
(SSA) program, Nicolas Bobrinsky, who is coordinating the
search for dangerous asteroids (cf. SAS 9/13). In an interview
with RIA Novosti posted on Feb. 26, he noted: “Politicians are
becoming more and more aware of the necessity of creating a
system which could protect the population against events like
the one at Chelyabinsk.”
Bobrinsky definitely favors a joint anti-asteroids project between
ESA and Roscosmos: “If we cooperate in projects like
ExoMars, which is much more expensive, we could do the same
in an asteroids project.” Russian firms could help build telescopes
and other equipment, he added. The SSA has proposed
the construction of a system of six 1-meter wide-angle telescopes,
with which it would be possible to do a round-the-clock
monitoring of space for dangerous asteroids.
On the problem of deviating the trajectory of dangerous asteriods,
the ESA also recently announced a joint project with
NASA for launching a space ship against an asteroid in 2022, in
order to test the feasability of that approach.
Another promising project is the Hayabusa 2 asteroid mission,
by the German space agency DLR and Japan’s JAXA. They
are developing an asteroid lander, the MASCOT (Mobile Asteroid
Surface Scout), which is scheduled to fly to the asteroid
“1999 JU3” in 2014, on board a Japanese spacecraft, and take
measurements of the surface after arriving there four years
later. The 1999 JU 3 is one of the most common types of
near-Earth asteroids, which makes knowledge of its properties
invaluable for preventing impacts on Earth.
Fukushima Two Years Later:
What Has Been Learned?
March 11 was the second anniversary of the massive 9.0 earthquake
and tsunami on the East coast of Japan, north of Tokyo.
On that day, some 18,000 people lost their lives, almost all
from the awe-inspiring tsunami that washed kilometers inland
destroying roads, cars, buildings and people. There were two,
and only two, victims to date at the Daiichi Fukushima nuclear
power station, and they were both TEPCO employees doing
maintenance work, who were crushed by the rushing water
before there was any accident at the power plant or release of
radioactivity.
As our readers are aware, this record natural catastrophe
immediately gave rise to a huge wave of irrational propaganda
against nuclear power, leading the Merkel government in particular
into a headlong rush out of that power source, in spite
of the costs Hair-raising scare stories made the rounds on the
risk of death and illness from the effects of “out-of-control”
nuclear radiation.
What do we know today? Two recent authoritative studies,
one by the Japanese government and the other by the World
Health Organization (WHO), have reached the same conclusion;
“the predicted risks are low and no observable increases in cancer
rates above baseline rates are anticipated,” according to the
WHO Feb. 28, 2013 report. The Japanese scientists found an
average radiation dose of well under 1 millisievert, whereas a
1 millisievert dose would increase the cancer risk for 10,000
people from 3,500 expected cases over a lifetime to 3,502 according
to the “generally accepted” (but flawed) low dose statistical
model. The highest effective dose measured was only 1.07
millisieverts. Background radiation from natural sources such as
radon gas is typically around 2 to 3 millisieverts per year, while
medical applications such as a chest X-ray or a CT scan of the
heart can produce 0.1 and 16 millisieverts, respectively.
Another study carried out by the Japanese Environmental
Ministry and released last week found that the thyroid abnormalities
in children from Fukushima Prefecture are actually
lower than elsewhere in the country. The study was conducted
after screaming headlines announced in February that
over 40% of some 133,000 children living there, aged 18 and
under when the disaster occurred, were diagnosed with small
lumps or cysts on the thyroid, all believed to be too small to
be of concern. The Ministry thus decided to conduct tests for
comparison, using the same devices and the same age group,
in three other other cities far removed. There, the percentage
of those diagnosed with small cysts or lumps was 56.6%, as
opposed to 41.2% in Fukushima. Larger cysts and lumps, requiring
follow up,were found in another 1.0% of the control
group, against 0.6% in Fukushima.
On the first anniversary of the tsunami, the Health Physics
Society of the U.S. estimated, as published in The Lancet, Britain’s
major medical journal, that “the risk of developing cancer
for those exposed in Fukushima will increase by about 0-002%,
and the risk of dying from the disease would rise by 0-001%.”
For the approximately 100,000 evacuated, the lifetime risk of
cancer is about two cases with a single fatality, even according
to the low dose radiation statistical model, which does not take
into account the beneficial effects of low radiation.
However, there were many fatalities due to “the psychological
trauma associated with evacuation, and the aggravation of
existing chronic conditions such as pneumonia and heart disease.”
Indeed, fueled by media hysteria, the evacuation measures
were drastic and rushed, on frantic orders of then Prime
Minister Naoto Kan, who actually came close to evacuating the
entire Tokyo metropolitan area of over 30 million.
Concretely, there are several logical (as opposed to ideological)
lessons to be learned from the massive tsunami which shut
down the electrical supply to Daiichi Fukushima. First of all,
priority should be given to investing in forecasting such natural
events as earthquakes and tsunamis. Secondly, we need to
quickly develop new generations of nuclear energy, which are
inherently safe and easier to handle, such as the HTR, rather
than continuing to rely on forty year-old boiling water reactors,
such as in Fukushima. Thirdly, investments need to be made
into new technologies for cleaning up the shut down nuclear
power plant.
E.I.R. STRATEGIC ALERT www.eir.de
Published by: E.I.R.GmbH, Bahnstr. 9a, 65205 Wiesbaden
Tel.: 0611/73650, Fax: 0611/7365101, Email: eirna@eirna.com
Verantwortl. f. d. Inhalt: Dean Andromidas, Claudio Celani
Subscription: EUR 3000/ ISSN 0936-7527
© E.I.R. GmbH Alle Rechte vorbehalten, auch die des Nachdrucks
von Auszügen, derphotomechanischen Wiedergabe und der Übersetzung,
Printed in Germany