From Volume 38, Issue 41 of EIR Online, Published October 21, 2011
Russia and the CIS News Digest

Huge Attention in Russia to LaRouche's Record

Oct. 10 (EIRNS)—As the systemic blowout of the monetarist system grows in intensity, Russians are remembering what they heard from Lyndon LaRouche, whether yesterday, or 20 years ago, and talking about it in many places. Typical was discussion over the weekend in the top-ranked economics blog called Aftershock, where host Alexsword posted Russian Railways CEO Vladimir Yakunin's speech at the Rhodes Forum—Dialogue of Civilizations. As EIR Online reported last week, Yakunin discussed the utter failure of "globalization" and the destructive "world casino" that the global financial system has become. Exchanges in the Aftershock discussion included this one: "Alex, ... no questions on Yakunin. Especially since everybody knows that he, too, pays attention to LaRouche." Alexsword: "Yakunin not only reads LaRouche, but has said he talks to him, and I would say that he thinks in the same conceptual framework."

A post by the blogger Stalin_Ist under the provocative headline, "M. Qaddafi Is Pro-American!" was reprinted on dozens of sites. This article was on the anti-Wall Street, anti-Federal Reserve upsurge in the United States, which the author called "a stunning victory for Lyndon LaRouche." If the United States acts badly in the world, he wrote, "it is because they are performing the role assigned to them by England, from the Queen's palace in Great Britain," and the Federal Reserve System is a major instrument of this purpose. The author said that he has known of the Fed's role since "long ago," because LaRouche's friend Prof. Taras Muranivsky briefed him on it.

Calling the Fed "an enemy of humanity with its masters in London," the author wrote that forces typified by the Fed, and the London circles behind it, "are the ones who have ordered, designed, and directed the war in Libya, while the participants in this crime, like Obama or Sarkozy, are their pitiful court lapdogs." Therefore he has no doubt that Qaddafi supports the just struggle of the people of the United States against the Fed.

Also noteworthy is what one Muscovite put out in a Twitter message several days ago: when visiting lecturer Bill Engdahl was asked about LaRouche at a Moscow event on the world crisis, held by the Club of the Public Chamber Club last week, and responded with the cowardly slander that LaRouche was a "sham opposition" figure, there was immediate "consternation in the hall"—because so many people in the Russian audience knew what LaRouche really stands for.

V. Ivanov: NATO Refused To Cooperate with Russia against Dope

Oct. 12 (EIRNS)—In comments to the Interfax news agency on Oct. 8, Victor Ivanov, director of Russia's Federal Narcotics Control Service, accused NATO of refusing to cooperate with the Russian government in fighting drug trafficking from Afghanistan, despite promises to do just that. The cooperation is unproductive, said Ivanov; formally it exists, but as a practical matter we see that what they [NATO nations] say is very different from what they do.

Ivanov pointed out that since the mid-2000s Moscow has provided NATO and the U.S. intelligence on narcotics trading and possible insurgents in Afghanistan and surrounding nations. The intelligence reportedly came primarily from a network of Kremlin spies and informants operating throughout Central Asia. Russia is a major route for illegal narcotics moving to Europe, and an estimated 100,000 Russian citizens die annually of drug addiction-related causes, with most deaths linked to heroin brought into the country from Afghanistan. Russian officials have repeatedly accused NATO of failing to act on Kremlin intelligence pinpointing drug traffickers and drug manufacturing labs in Afghanistan.

"They [NATO] have helicopters and attack jets right there [in Afghanistan]; I wanted to find out, why does it take so long to get them to do something?" Ivanov said. Brussels officials have said an aggressive campaign to destroy the crops of tens of thousands of Afghan poppy farmers could damage NATO's efforts to control the Taliban-led insurgency.

On Oct. 10, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, addressing a conference on communicable diseases in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region, said the United States is aggravating the HIV/AIDS problem in Russia and the West by refusing to use its forces to destroy opium crops in Afghanistan. "It is hard for us to understand why our American partners don't want the International Security Assistance Force to do this," he said. "This issue is crucial to the fight against the drug threat and, consequently, the spread of HIV/AIDS."

All rights reserved © 2011 EIRNS