Stop NATO's War Drive

Der Spiegel in Germany has now added its voice to the warning that the massive US/NATO military deployment on Russia's border - the largest since Hitler's preparation for the Operation Barbarossa invasion of the Soviet Union - has gone "too far" and is provoking "real war." Today's issue of the EIR Daily Alert Service reviews Obama's escalating drive for war this summer -- a war of annihilation -- as well as Russia's preparations, and updates on the continuing disintegration of the western financial system.

    To subscribe to the EIR Daily Alert, contact me at mobeir@aol.com                Mike Billington

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2016 Volume 2, Number 207 EIR Daily Alert Service P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390 NATO’s Catastrophe Nuclear Bluff against Russia: You Can Help Stop It Now Der Spiegel in Last-Minute Warning: NATO Exercises ‘Going Too Far’ Russia Won’t Dramatize NATO’s Exercises, but Will Watch Them Is the U.S. Preparing for an Offensive Nuclear Attack on Russia? ‘A Spiral Difficult To Escape’: Russian Counter-BMD Exercises San Francisco Seminar with LaRouches Poses Alternatives: Join the Silk Road, or Nuclear War Will Fed Soon Join Suicidal Negative-Interest-Rate Parade? System Breaking? Two Huge Banks Cut Ties with Central Banks French Senate Votes for ‘Gradual Relief’ of Sanctions vs. Russia; Follows National Assembly’s April Vote Prime Minister Modi Tells U.S. Joint Session of Congress India’s Development Goals EDITORIAL NATO’s Catastrophe Nuclear Bluff against Russia: You Can Help Stop It Now June 8 (EIRNS)—From Germany’s Der Spiegel this afternoon came a last-minute warning: NATO’s “Anaconda” combined war maneuvers along the Russian borders in Poland and the Baltics are “going too far” and “playing at real war,” nuclear war. EIR has already warned that these massed war “games” can trigger a very real World War III, and we learn today that the exercises are even larger, involving some 50,000 NATO troops. The Obama Administration has at the same time cut off all discussion with Russia of the ballistic missile defense systems being built by NATO around Russia, east and west; and Russian air force pilots and aircraft are themselves now practicing strikes to destroy these very BMD systems around the Black Sea. Russia’s Consul General in San Francisco, at the Schiller Institute’s seminar today in that city, responded to a question from former U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel: “I share the understanding, that we are very close to a major conflict. And I add that there is no possibility of a ‘limited nuclear war.’ If that starts, it will be end of the world.” Helga Zepp-LaRouche bluntly laid out the escalating world war threat—intended to frighten both Russia and China into submission to Obama rules and dictates—to that seminar today. She also asked, and answered, “How did this all come about?” and “How do we overcome it?” The Obama Administration and NATO are really bluffing—a bluff that carries the threat of human extinction, but a bluff nonetheless. The trans-Atlantic economies are bankrupt, have lost all productivity potential, building up to another collapse. Obama’s U.S. economy is at its end without a complete reconstruction. And the Asian powers’ ”New Silk Road” and related outreach of new infrastructure and space exploration, are the only potential source of that complete reconstruction. NATO is deploying only the “arrogance of the appearance of power.” Economic bankruptcy is making Obama see Eurasian development as a threat justifying war—and making his threatened global war a bluff. This tragic situation can be upended, Zepp-LaRouche told today’s seminar, by non-linear actions. The mobilization to force out the truth about the Saudis and British in the 9/11 attacks on America is now in high gear; if it succeeds soon, it could cause a real “catharsis,” she said, and repudiation of the whole policy of perpetual war which sprang—by lies—from 9/11. And the more American citizens and residents who get active in forcing through this victory, the better the chance of remaking the real American republic. The petition—“The Warsaw Summit Prepares for War; It’s Time To Leave NATO Now!”—is also spreading rapidly, circulating in yet another country today, Hungary. [to sign this petition, see  http://action.larouchepac.com/petition_to_leave_nato ] Don’t fear that Russia’s leadership would start world war, but it will finish it. Our mission is to upend Obama’s and NATO’s war drive with a new paradigm, and that can be done. STRATEGIC WAR DANGER Der Spiegel in Last-Minute Warning: NATO Exercises ‘Going Too Far’ June 8 (EIRNS)—In what is clearly an “alert” in Germany that the current NATO maneuvers threaten actual war, Der Spiegel today published an article warning that the “Anaconda” maneuvers in Poland unnecessarily “play out the scenario of a real war,” and mean that “the Alliance is going too far.” Der Spiegel wishes to put the blame for this on Poland, which it says is irritating other Alliance members by demanding actions “too clearly aimed at Moscow. For the alliance this is inconvenient: While Brussels has stressed that it intends to somehow restore the dialogue with Moscow, in Poland there is a war being played,” the magazine says, while strongly implying that some NATO members are participating in “Anaconda” only due to Polish demands. The article is called “Military Maneuvers in Poland: In the Stranglehold of ‘Anaconda.’ ” And Der Spiegel also writes that the upcoming NATO Warsaw summit in July may be “politically poisoned,” again it says, by Poland. “Warsaw is acting intentionally provocatively. Thus, it invited Georgia and Ukraine to take part in the Anaconda-16 exercise. Both would like to be part of NATO, but the alliance has rejected this idea for years. But for the Poles, it doesn’t matter. [And] Warsaw has declared the NATO-Russia Founding Act, the basic agreement with Moscow, obsolete.” But Poland has been urged on with this war provocation for months by British Prime Minister David Cameron and Obama Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. U.S. senior NATO officers have pushed the solidarity of all NATO members with Poland and the Baltic nations against “Russian aggression,” and have demanded support from non-members Sweden and Finland as well. This is an Obama provocation, employing Poland’s extreme right-wing government. Der Spiegel is obviously reflecting, as its name, “mirror,” implies, the fears of German military and elected officials that they may now find themselves near the start of World War III, and that the German government is doing nothing to oppose this. Russia Won’t Dramatize NATO’s Exercises, but Will Watch Them June 8 (EIRNS)—Sputnik reported, yesterday, that those who expect an aggressive response from Russia to NATO’s BALTOPS 16 exercise are have got it wrong. In Denmark, former Danish Brigadier General and historian Michael Clemmesen recently admitted the provocative nature of the exercise, supposedly aimed at keeping Russia at bay, while simultaneously warning of a “fierce Russian response,” says Sputnik. “He [Clemmesen] is dead wrong. Russia will not venture anything aggressive,” Russian Ambassador in Copenhagen Mikhail Vanin told Berlingske. “We will not dramatize the exercise, but instead keep an eye on it. However, we do not think that the exercise is wise. It is a provocation, and Denmark should have refrained from participating in this anti-Russian show.” Vanin warned that “Should it ever come to a war, it would not be just a conflict, but a war for total eradication,” which nobody wants. Is the U.S. Preparing for an Offensive Nuclear Attack on Russia? June 8 (EIRNS)—President Obama’s refusal to discuss the missile defense issue with Russia, as noted by Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov in remarks in Singapore last weekend, is taken by some analysts as an indication that the U.S. intention is to launch a nuclear first strike against Russia. “Russia’s concern is that, if the ‘Ballistic Missile Defense’ or ‘Anti-Ballistic Missile’ system, that the United States is now just starting to install on and near Russia’s borders, works, then the United States will be able to launch a surprise nuclear attack against Russia, and this system ... will annihilate the missiles that Russia launches in retaliation, which will then leave the Russian population with no retaliation at all,” reports Eric Zuesse, the Paris-based analyst writing in Russia Insider yesterday. Zuesse goes on to note that some strategists think the blowback from such a nuclear offensive “would be a manageable problem for the United States.” Zuesse cites “The Rise of Nuclear Primacy,” a 2006 article in Foreign Affairs, by Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, “which advocated for a much bolder U.S. strategic policy against Russia, based upon what it argued was America’s technological superiority against Russia’s weaponry, and a possibly limited time-window in which to take advantage of it before Russia catches up and the opportunity to do so is gone.” Lieber and Press, near the outset of that article, claimed that “for the first time in almost 50 years, the United States stands on the verge of attaining nuclear primacy.” Therefore, “It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike.” Zuesse reports that Putin has tried many times to raise this issue with President Obama, most recently in a public statement made on May 27, and that the remarks by Antonov in Singapore may have been following up on Putin’s publicly stated concerns, which Obama now explicitly refuses to discuss. Zuesse notes that Russia is making preparations for war but is not likely to attack first. “However, if Mr. Obama wishes to avoid a nuclear confrontation, then refusing even to discuss the opponent’s concerns would not be the way to go about doing that,” Zuesse writes. “Obama is therefore sending signals to the contrary—that he is preparing a nuclear attack against Russia—simply by his refusal to discuss the matter.” ‘A Spiral Difficult To Escape’: Russian Counter-BMD Exercises June 8 (EIRNS)—Russia is not a passive spectator while NATO is mobilizing as many as 50,000 troops along Russia’s western borders. The Russian Federation is moving troops westward and carrying exercises of its own. According to a report in Reuters, Russia is building a chain of bases stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, including along the frontier with Ukraine: “Each side says it is only responding to steps taken by the other, but the build-up risks locking NATO and Russia into a spiral of measure and counter-measure from which it will be difficult to escape.” As part of this response to the NATO build-up, the Southern Military District yesterday announced the start of a three-day exercise in Crimea and the Rostov region. “Taking part in the exercise are more than 50 aircraft, including Mi-28N, Ka-52 and Mi-35M helicopter gunships, Antonov-12 and Antonov-26 transport planes and the newest two-seat fighters, Sukhoi-30SM fighters and upgraded Sukhoi-27 fighters, and 2,500 air pilots, flight engineers and ground personnel,” the district press-service said. An article in Izvestia, translated into English and published in Russia Insider, titled “Russian Pilots Now Training in Crimea to Take Out Missile Shield on Russia’s Borders,” reports that Russian pilots are training for counter-ship operations on the Black Sea. That is, they’re training anti-ship missiles for the possibility they may have to sink NATO ships which carry, not only anti-missile missiles, but offensive land-attack cruise missiles as well. U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC San Francisco Seminar with LaRouches Poses Alternatives: Join the Silk Road, or Nuclear War June 8 (EIRNS)—The Schiller Institute’s Strategic Seminar in San Francisco today, drew 70 guests and experts to discuss the urgent topic “Will the U.S. Join the New Silk Road? Global Scientific Development or Nuclear War.” That question is to join the One Belt, One Road world infrastructure plan put forward by China, or stick with the collapsing Western economies, whose bankruptcy is fueling the danger of a global nuclear war. The high-level speakers included Lyndon LaRouche, renowned strategic and economic thinker; Helga Zepp-LaRouche, also known as “the Silk Road Lady” for her worldwide campaign to create the “New Silk Road” policy now put forward by China, and to have it adopted worldwide as the alternative to war; former U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel (1969-1981), who read the classified “Pentagon Papers” into the Congressional proceedings in 1971; Hon. Sergey Petrov, Consul General of the Russian Consulate in San Francisco; Dr. Howard Chang, internationally renowned expert on water sedimentation, and Kesha Rogers, twice the Democratic Party candidate in Houston’s 12th C.D.—the home of NASA. The Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Filipino communities were represented in the audience. Helga Zepp-LaRouche presented the audience with the fact of NATO’s deployment on Russia’s border, with the Aegis system in Romania, and a USS Ross in the Black Sea, leaving the Russians in a position where NATO missiles could reach Moscow in five minutes—necessitating a “launch on warning” policy. Unlike the 1980s, when thousands demonstrated against the nuclear missiles in Europe and Russia ready to “launch on warning,” today the neo-cons in the Obama administration have recreated this danger without protest in the West. There is also the danger of confrontation with China in the South China Sea. In this climate, China’s President Xi Jinping made a decision in 2013 to end geopolitics, and re-establish the New Silk Road, building water, power, and transportation infrastructure around the world. Zepp-LaRouche pointed to China’s 20,000 km of fast trains built through 2015, whereas there are no fast trains in the U.S. She concluded, “Connect with China in self-interest, or face nuclear war.” Mrs. LaRouche addressed the problem of Obama remaining President, by pointing to the urgently needed release of the classified “28 pages” of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11. Obama’s refusal to release the pages, which are known to contain evidence of Saudi funding and sponsorship of the 9/11 terror attack, which could blow open U.S. politics, and make it possible to elect a qualified candidate, in the mold of FDR or President Kennedy. Questions from the audience followed. After Helga LaRouche, San Francisco Russian Consul Sergey Petrov offered, “For a big country like the U.S., it is useful to look at the world.” To a question from Sen. Mike Gravel, on whether he shared Helga LaRouche’s assessment, he replied, “I share the understanding, that we are very close to a major conflict. And I add that there is no possibility of a ‘limited nuclear war.’ If that starts, it will be end of the world.” Mr. Petrov described the U.S.S.R.’s dissolution into the Commonwealth of Independent States, with serious economic problems, and the steps in the long process of building the Eurasian Economic Union. The EAEU is now looking to conclude agreements with Mercosur, the SCO, and the EU on economic and humanitarian cooperation. The next step is to connect to North America. On that day, Mr. Petrov said, “I will feel I was a good diplomat.” COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM Will Fed Soon Join Suicidal Negative-Interest-Rate Parade? June 8 (EIRNS)—In the wake of official reports of the large shrinkage of the American workforce this Spring, with 1.2 million eligible workers dropping out in three months, the Federal Reserve has given up the pretense of any more interest rates increases, except in the rhetorical distance. On June 3, Fed Governing Board member Lael Brainard spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, and said that the Fed has a Labor Market Conditions Index which has been negative for all of 2016 in addition the last two months of 2015, getting worse with each month. She noted a Harris poll in which 43% of unemployed respondents said they had given up looking for work—including 59% of those unemployed for two years or more. Brainard also reported that since the “end of the Great Recession” in July 2009, average annual productivity growth in the U.S. economy has been just 0.4%—the “productivity paradox,” she called it—and average GDP growth only 1.25% annually. Based on these and other factors, Brainard claimed that right now, what she called the “neutral interest rate”—neither stimulating nor constricting the economy—would be the current Fed discount rate of 0.25-0.50%. She explicitly opposed any rate increase, and her implication was that the Fed might have to go lower, perhaps even negative, to deal with this “productivity paradox.” The Zero Hedge website added some long-term figures on U.S. employment picture: Since the start of 2009 (roughly the supposed “end of the Great Recession”), the workforce has grown by 21 million people, while the number of employed has grown by 5 million. The labor participation rates has plunged from 66.0% to 62.6%. The number of Americans who have left the work force is 16 million. Thus there has been a labor force 24% entry rate in Obama’s decade, even lower than the 30% in Bush’s decade; and the “normal” rate from the ’60s to the ’90s was 70% entry of new work-eligibles into the workforce. This is not due to retirement of the large Boomer generation; a record percentage of Americans over the age of 65 are working. Only 2 million full-time jobs, net, have been added since start of 2009. Real median household income remains lower than in 2007. System Breaking? Two Huge Banks Cut Ties with Central Banks June 8 (EIRNS)—In Germany and Japan, megabanks have begun moves to end their transactions with the European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of Japan respectively, in a first sign that negative interest rate policy may actually be breaking up the banking system. Germany’s second-largest, Commerzbank is becoming the first major European bank to store its cash rather than placing reserves at the European Central Bank, according to Reuters today. If other big banks follow, the news service says, “it could render the ECB’s negative interest rate policy ineffective.” Commerzbank said in a statement last month that the negative rate policy had wiped out its earnings. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said in April that the ECB’s record low interest rates were causing “extraordinary problems” for German banks. Under this completely dysfunctional policy, the ECB has pumped more than €1 trillion of fresh money into the system, most of which has gone to the largest banks in northern European countries, which have hoarded €850 billion right back at the ECB, rather than making loans. Now, even that is losing them money. In Japan, the national news agency NHK reported that Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Japan’s largest bank, is quitting as a primary dealer of Japanese government bonds, the first large bank ever to do so, and ceasing to buy government bonds. NHK notes that this “could have a ripple effect among the other major participating banks” and disrupt the government bond market. French Senate Votes for ‘Gradual Relief’ of Sanctions vs. Russia; Follows National Assembly’s April Vote June 8 (EIRNS)—The French Senate today voted up a resolution to gradually lift the EU-imposed sanctions against Russia implemented after the West’s “color revolution” in Ukraine in 2014. The resolution calls for a “gradual relief” of the sanctions on Russian trade imposed by the West, RT reported today. RT reported, “The vast majority—302 senators—voted for the move, with only 16 being against the lifting of anti-Russia sanctions. In all, 335 politicians were present at the meeting in the Luxembourg Palace.” In late April, 55 French Deputies voted up a similar resolution, of 101 Deputies voting on the resolution. The National Assembly’s resolution was stronger than the Senate’s, calling on the government not to extend at all the EU-imposed sanctions on Russia. The motions demonstrate an increasing revolt against the EU, based on sanity, but under EU rules the resolutions are non-binding, because the embargo is renewed in Brussels; to lift the sanctions requires unanimity of the 28 member states, Le Figaro reported. Another reason to abolish the EU. THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER Prime Minister Modi Tells U.S. Joint Session of Congress India’s Development Goals June 8 (EIRNS)—India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the U.S. Congress today, outlining India’s development in the recent period, and drawing parallels between his country and the United States. He stated that India’s development goals by 2022 include 800 new cities; new roads; 21 new railroad corridors; universal Internet access; and the creation of 21st century rail, road, and port infrastructure. Modi spoke of protecting “freedom” from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, and protection of the freedom of navigation. Modi stated, “India is already assuming her responsibilities in securing the Indian Ocean region.” He called for cooperation in the fight against terrorism, which “has to be fought at many levels.” Modi drew parallels between India’s democracy and the United States: “Modern India is in its 70th year. For my government, the Constitution is its real holy book,” where “freedom of faith, speech and franchise,” and equality of all citizens, regardless of background, are enshrined as fundamental rights. Of the 1.25 billion Indian citizens, 800 million are registered to vote. Prime Minister Modi pointed to heroes like Mahatma Gandhi, “whose non-violence inspired the heroism of Martin Luther King.” He referred to “The genius of Norman Borlaug [who] brought the Green Revolution and food security to India,” and pointed to the science and technology collaboration between India and the United States today in public health, education, and food and agriculture. America is India’s biggest trading partner. Civil nuclear cooperation was also named, although the Prime Minister did not specifically discuss a sale of Westinghouse nuclear reactors to India, reported in the media to have been agreed in his meeting Tuesday with Obama. Modi also called for cooperation in the fight against terrorism by deepening U.S.-Indian security cooperation. “Religion must be de-linked from terrorism, and humanity must come together to fight it as one.” Near his conclusion, Modi lapsed into environmentalism, saying, “The protection of the environment and caring for the planet is central to our shared vision of the world.... To take from nature only what is most essential is part of our civilizational ethos.” He cited “strong U.S. support for our imitative to form an International Solar Alliance.” [Text as printed in Hindustan Times plus audio of speech.]

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