Obama’s Shootdown of Russian Military Plane Puts the World On the Edge of Thermonuclear War

Obama’s Shootdown of Russian

Military Plane Puts the World

On the Edge of Thermonuclear War

EIR
December 4, 2015
Below is the transcript of the International LaRouche
PAC Webcast for
Friday, November 27, 2015
.
Megan Beets:
Good evening. It’s November 27,
2015. My name is Megan Beets, and I’d like to wel
-
come all of you to our regular Friday evening broadcast
here at LaRouche PAC. I’m joined in the studio tonight
by Jason Ross and I’m also joined, via video, by Jeffrey
Steinberg.
Now in discussions earlier this week, Mr. LaRouche
made it very, very clear that the key issue facing all of
us, is whether the people of the United States, in par
-
ticular, both the people in positions of leadership, such
as the Congress, but also the population in general,
have the guts to stop compromising with Obama, to tell
the truth, and to throw him out.
Now, what we’ve seen shaping up over the past
weeks is a very dramatically and a
very rapidly shifting world strategic
situation, including ongoing Russian
military intervention into Syria; also
including the recent wave of terrorist
attacks, such as the bombing of the
Russian plane over Egypt, and of
course, the terrorist attacks which oc
-
curred just two weeks ago in Paris,
which were followed by a shift in dy
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namic among world leaders, away
from the failed Obama policy, and
toward broader collaboration with
the Russians to defeat ISIS.
However, throughout all of this,
Mr. LaRouche has been unequivocal
that unless, and until, you get Obama
out of the U.S. presidency, the world
stands on a razor’s edge of thermo
-
nuclear war.
Now the spectre of that danger arose sharply this
Tuesday, with the Turkish shooting down of a Russian
plane which was involved in operations near the Turk
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ish-Syria border. And Mr. LaRouche immediately
issued a public statement which said that “Obama has
organized an act of war, and thus endangered the
United States, as well as all humanity.” He said that it
“was a deliberate attempt by Obama to force general
warfare.”
Now this act by Turkey and by Obama, and its af
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termath, has catalyzed a very significant change in the
world global dynamic, which we’re seeing manifest,
for example, in Europe, among other places. This shift
is also the subject of tonight’s institutional question,
which makes reference to the ongoing talks in Vienna
which are aimed at resolving the situation in Syria. The
question reads as follows:
LAROUCHE PAC NOV. 27 WEBCAST
Obama’s Shootdown of Russian
Military Plane Puts the World
On the Edge of Thermonuclear War
SAC Helen Farrer/RAF Mobile News Team
The Turkish Air Force was flying an American F-16 like this, when it shot down the
Russian SU-24 on Nov. 24.
December 4, 2015
EIR
Deeper into the Sea of Blood
5
“Mr. LaRouche, please give us your view of how
Russia and Turkey can move once again to collaborate
to save Syria under the Vienna process?” So now I’m
going to turn it over to Jeff to give Mr. LaRouche’s re
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sponse to that question, as well as an elaboration of the
general strategic picture.
Obama’s Deliberate Provocation
Jeffrey Steinberg:
Thank you, Megan.
Well, I think that the starting point must be to tell the
truth as we know it about the events of last Tuesday. It
was immediately understood by leading political and
military circles in the United States, in Europe, and
most emphatically in Russia, that the action that was
undertaken by the Turkish government in shooting
down that Russian SU-24 over the Turkey-Syria border
area near the Mediterranean coast, was something that
(1) was ordered top down in Turkey from President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and (2) that Erdogan would
never have undertaken such an action if he did not have
advance approval from Obama and the British.
So, for the Russians, this represented a major act of
war, and I can tell you that within the U.S. governing
institutions, there was a deep and profound split re
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flected immediately in actions that were diametrically
opposite. Secretary of State John Kerry and leading cir
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cles within the Pentagon, all the way up to the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, immediately activated channels with
Russia, knowing full well that there was a very real
prospect that Russia would retaliate immediately after
this unwarranted military provocation. And so, you
have one element of the U.S. command that is not under
British control, that moved immediately to at least tem
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porarily forestall a situation that was potentially mo
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ments away from a general war between NATO and
Russia. And as we’ve been saying, as Mr. LaRouche
has been warning since virtually the beginning of the
Obama presidency, any such war between NATO and
Russia would very rapidly devolve into a thermonu
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clear war, in which the overwhelming majority of hu
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mankind would likely not survive.
So you had actions. There were red phone line com
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munications activated immediately between those ele
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ments in the U.S. Command that were not on the British
line, and top Russian officials. The first objective was
simply to secure a commitment that the situation would
not immediately go to a hot war. In other words, this
was the most dangerous situation since, and probably
more so, than even the Cuban Missile crisis. Because in
the Cuban missile crisis, there was no shootdown of an
American or Soviet ship or plane.
On the other hand, President Obama, who was
closer to Turkish President Erdogan than virtually any
foreign leader, perhaps with the sole exception of David
Cameron in Britain, immediately got on the phone with
Erdogan and then issued public statements certifying
that, in his mind, Turkey acted perfectly within its sov
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ereign rights to shoot down a plane flying over its terri
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tory.
Now, never mind the fact that there are serious
questions and disputes of whether that plane, that Rus
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sian plane, actually ever even entered Turkish airspace.
The fact is that, if it passed through Turkish air space at
all, number one, there was never any intent—and
nobody in Turkey even claimed there was any intent on
the part of the Russians—to carry out any kind of mili
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tary action or provocation against Turkey. And sec
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ondly, even after the first 24 hours following the shoot-
down, the Turks were even acknowledging that that
plane, if it ever in fact crossed into Turkish territory,
was there only for a matter of brief seconds, and no
longer.
Now that also tells you that to shoot down that plane,
was a premeditated, pre-determined decision. There
was not enough time for the Turkish air force to consult
up the chain of command all the way to President Erdo
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gan, and to then get response orders back, and to fire at
the Russian plane—all within a matter of a timeframe
that at most has been characterized as 17 seconds. So,
again, it was a premeditated act of war; and Erdogan on
his own never would have undertaken that. It was done
in conjunction with both Obama and the British; and
therefore, the responsibility lies there.
Sabotaging Collaboration with Russia
Now, let’s again visit what the immediate context
was of this incident. It occurred last Tuesday at a point
that French President Hollande was in Washington to
attempt to organize President Obama to join a trilateral
military alliance of France, Russia, and the United
States, to wipe out the threat of ISIS and Nusra, and all
allied organizations inside Syria and inside Iraq primar
-
ily. And so, the events that took place just as Obama and
Hollande were sitting down, hijacked the agenda of that
discussion.
All you have to do is read the transcript, or even
better, watch the video of the press conference that took
place later that same day between Obama and Hol
-