Russians Propose SDI-Plus

Oct. 18 (EIRNS)—Russia Today television, citing Kommersant daily, reported that Russia is proposing to break the deadlock over the planned European Missile Defense System, with an alternative plan that would go beyond the original Ronald Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative and take up the full scope of scientific and technological cooperation envisioned by Lyndon LaRouche, in his original plan for U.S.-Soviet cooperation in bringing an end to the era of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

While details of the Russian proposal have not been publicly revealed, a senior U.S. intelligence source confirmed that the Russians had put the idea of a Strategic Defense of Earth (SDE) on the table in the past month, as part of ongoing talks with the U.S. and NATO over the European missile defense system. Quoting Kommersant, RT said that "the idea was put forward by Dmitry Rogozin, Moscow's envoy to NATO ... and has been nicknamed Strategic Defense of Earth.... The system would be targeted against possible threats to Earth coming from space, including asteroids, comet fragments, and other alien bodies," Kommersant's sources are cited as saying.

Russia Draws the Line on Syria

Nov. 1 (EIRNS)—A top-level Russian deployment to a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) resulted in a public drawing of the lines against the British Empire's war drive against Syria. Speaking Nov. 1, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared that Russia supported the efforts of the Arab League to resolve the Syria crisis, but then clearly took aim at the war-mongering from the British-French-U.S. crew which ran the operation in Libya. "We advocate an approach which, among others, is applied in Yemen," Lavrov said. "There was an initiative of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf. And everyone, be it the Council itself, the Arab League, the EU, US, Russia or China, acted responsibly, without setting artificial deadlines, waiting for months until the goal was achieved."

"Isolation is not our approach," Lavrov continued. "If something goes wrong in Syria, many countries of the region will feel a negative impact. We can't support isolation because of the lesson we drew from Libya."

Lavrov attended the first ever Russia-GCC Strategic Dialogue meeting, which reports in the U.A.E. government press said would discuss cooperation on major regional projects, including rail, and nuclear and other electric power.

In the run-up to the meeting, Dr. Vladimir Titorenko, the Russian ambassador in Qatar, also addressed the situation with Syria. He clarified that Russia condemned the use of force by the Assad government against the demonstrators, but also criticized the refusal of some opposition groups to negotiate. Titorenko alleged that some outside elements appear to be arming the demonstrators, who have begun to shoot at the army and police. President Bashar Assad, in an Oct. 31 interview with Russian TV, referred to the Titorenko charge, and said that his government was working to unmask external plots against Syria.

Putin 'Disgusted' by Media Broadcast of Qaddafi's Execution

Oct. 26 (EIRNS)—Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin voiced disgust at TV coverage of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's death. "Nearly all Qaddafi's family was killed. His corpse was shown by all TV channels around the world. It was impossible to watch without disgust," Russian news agencies quoted Putin as saying. "What is this? They showed a man all bloodied and wounded, but still alive, and how he was beaten even more."

The Russian Prime Minister spoke at a meeting of the Russian Popular Front in Moscow, at which delegate Yekaterina Lakhova, head of the national Union of Women, had raised the question of the media's role in demoralizing society. Putin continued, talking about the Qaddafi murder coverage: "Nothing like this is permitted, morally, by any of the world's religions. Not Christianity, not Judaism, not Islam—none of them allows such things to be shown in the mass media." The political component and the civil war going on in Libya are a separate question, Putin said. "But the fact that this is shown on TV, and millions of people watch it, including children, and it's not an animation or some artistic rendition, but real footage: there's nothing good in that."

Russia and China Continue Security Talks

Oct. 20 (EIRNS)—Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev visited Beijing for the sixth round of the Russian-Chinese strategic security consultations, beginning Oct. 20. On the agenda was cooperation in fighting terrorism, extremism, and separatism.

New Kyrgyz President To Oust U.S. Air Base

Nov. 1 (EIRNS)—Former Kyrgyzstan Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev, elected President of the country Oct. 30, announced that the contract for the U.S. Air Base at the Manas Airport near Bishkek would be allowed to lapse in 2014, a campaign promise of his. The base is a critical supply point for the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Former President Bakiyev had threatened to close the base in 2009, but agreed, under pressure, to keep it open in exchange for a higher rent.

Atambayev pointed to the war policies in Washington as a danger to the region: "We know that the United States is often engaged in conflict. First in Iraq, then in Afghanistan, and now relations are tense with Iran. I would not want for one of these countries to launch a retaliatory strike on the military base."

Atambayev has met often with Vladimir Putin and is considered a friend of Russia.

Putin Marks Oct. 19 Landmark in Russian History and Culture

Oct. 20 (EIRNS)—During a mid-October summit of the Community of Independent States, the Eurasian Economic Community, and the EurAsEC Customs Union, held in his native city of St. Petersburg, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Oct. 19 attended a ceremony in the suburban town of Pushkin, formerly called Tsarskoye Selo ("the Tsar's Village"). The occasion was the 200th anniversary of opening of the famous Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, known by its French name as the "Lycée," in 1811. Two members of the first entering class of 12-year-olds were to become outstanding people in history, for the creation of Russia's national identity and for the still-not-fully-realized potential of Russian-American collaboration. They were Alexander Pushkin, Russia's national poet, and Prince Alexander Gorchakov, who 50 years later, as Tsar Alexander II's foreign minister, would negotiate Russia's alliance with Abraham Lincoln against the British Empire, during the U.S. Civil War.

1811 was a seminal moment for the U.S.-Russian relationship. The next year, the British would attack the United States in the War of 1812, while Anglo-Venetian stooge Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia. The American ambassador in St. Petersburg, then the capital, was future President John Quincy Adams. Adams's dialogues on strategy and statecraft with the Russian Chancellor, Count Rumyantsev (who called himself "American in my bones," and whose personal library formed the core of the national Lenin Library collection), are reminders of the potential that was lost when a great moment found small-minded, manipulated leaders during the Congress of Vienna.

The education that Pushkin, Gorchakov, and their classmates received at Tsarskoye Selo testifies to the power of the German Classical curriculum, developed by Wilhelm Humboldt and others in this period, and to the potential of the application of American System economics in Eurasia, as well as in its birthplace. The initial headmaster of Tsarskoye Selo was Vasili Malinovsky, who in 1807 had issued Alexander Hamilton's "Report on Manufactures" in a Russian translation, stating in the introduction that its contents were fully applicable to the Russian Empire, among other reasons because of the shared transcontinental vision of both Russia and the United States.