WESTERN EUROPEAN NEWS DIGEST
Amelia Robinson Received by Lombardy President
American civil rights heroine Amelia Boynton Robinson, now a leader of the LaRouches' Schiller Institute, was received in Milan by Roberto Formigoni, the President of Italy's Lombardy region, on Sept. 24. Formigoni presented Mrs. Robinson with the official medal of the Lombardy region, in recognition of her work for civil rights and peace, and noted that her name is well known in Italy, as the work which she carried forward with Martin Luther King, Jr. has had a significant impact in Italy.
During their meeting in Milan's Pirellone tower, Mrs. Robinson stressed the importance of working for peace through improving the economic conditions of peoples around the world, and Formigoni clearly stated his opposition to a new war in Iraq, and his support for an increased role for the United Nations in the current situation.
During her two-day visit to Milan, Mrs. Robinson also met with a City Commissioner who has been in contact with the LaRouche movement for years, and addressed a meeting of 35 contacts mostly youth of the Solidarity Movement in Milan. She told of her past experiences in the fight for voting rights, and urged people to work with Lyndon LaRouche to change the disastrous conditions in which the world finds itself. She said that countries should refuse to support or participate in a war with Iraq, so that George W. Bush will have to change his policy, and she denounced the political and cultural degeneration in the United States as a departure from the tradition of the U.S. Constitution.
While in Milan, Mrs. Robinson gave several interviews, including to one of the largest-circulation magazines in Italy. On Sept. 25, the national daily Libero ran a picture of her and Formigoni with a short article about her visit, mentioning that she was addressing a meeting of the Solidarity Movement.
Le Monde: War of Attrition Has Already Started Against Iraq
The Sept. 25 issue of the Paris-based Le Monde published an article headlined "The War of Attrition Against Iraq Has Already Started," by military specialist Jacques Isnard. It describes in detail the war that the U.S. and Britain are already waging against Iraq, which Isnard calls a "double-pronged" strategy aimed at "weakening gradually the existing Iraqi potential, and at activating the deployment of forces which will be mobilized, with the allies, once George Bush decides to go."
For the past month, British and American airplanes have been carrying out heavy raids, no longer at land-to-air missile ramps, but against "fixed or mobile centers of command, control and communications contributing to the Iraqi defenses." It is a "war of attrition" against the infrastructure through which Saddam Hussein could counter the coming attacks. Isnard notes that the U.S. is avoiding targetting areas where they think that Saddam's troops would be willing to turn against him. This is the case in Basra, in the southern part of the country, where the U.S. believes, rightly or wrongly, that two out of five regular Army corps and three out of the six Republican Guard units are weak and undecided.
The attitude of the Republican Guards (60,000 men) is apparently closely scrutinized by the U.S., because Saddam has distanced himself from them and replaced them with another special unit (25,000 men) working closely with the Special Security Service, the Moukhabarat intelligence networks, and the secret police. In the meantime, Washington is accelerating troop deployments which will reach 60,000 men in the area by mid-October, excluding the troops, helicopters, and airplanes aboard six aircraft carriers.
Americans and British, in a smaller deployment, are already setting up bases in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Turkey, and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Isnard says the military targets and order of attack have already been established and reports that, according to Aviation Week and Space Technology, six military reconnaissance satellites have already redeployed solely into surveillance of Iraqi territory.
European Strategist: Major Conflict Heating Up Between U.S., Europe
According to a senior Western European strategist just returned from the U.S., "There is a major conflict erupting between the United States and Europe, and that is the real significance of this push for war with Iraq."
"This is very clear to me," he added, "after having been in the U.S., and being immersed in the American environment, which is completely different from that here in Europe. After some time, I began to feel physically, this different environment. And once you understand this, you see that it is no secret, that a very big anti-European mood has developed among policy circles and commentators on the other side of the Atlantic."
Aside from a growing divide between how the European nations and the Americans approach certain internal and social problems, this source claimed there is a growing set of differences on the approach to international problems. "The Europeans think in terms of treaties, conventions, and international law, but the crowd now running the show in the U.S. thinks in terms of force. As long as the Soviet Union existed, such differences were kept under the rug, but now they have come to the surface."
He said that "certainly Cheney and Rumsfeld embody this view on the other side of the Atlantic, but it goes beyond them, to encompass a whole set of influential people, a powerful group, in the American Establishment. This is no longer the thinking of an Eagleburger or a James Baker, but this comes from a powerful trend, mainly centered in the neo-conservatives."
The coming Iraq war will accelerate transatlantic differences, the strategist affirmed. "The Americans want this war, by hook or by crook. It is difficult to see the rationale. In any case, this will be the last enterprise of this type. The Yugoslav war already destroyed NATO forever. And if the Americans attack Iraq now, this will cause deep, deep, deep differences between the U.S. and Europe, which all will have consequences for the already fragile international economy."
The Western European source characterized the new Bush Administration strategic doctrine as "absolute and total madness, and confirmation, for me, that the conflict between the U.S. and Europe is getting ever-deeper."
White House Spokesman Fleischer Icy Towards Germany
In the aftermath of the Sept. 22 German elections (for full coverage, see our INDEPTH section), White House press spokesman Ari Fleischer warned Sept. 23 that relations between the U.S. and Germany would remain somewhat frosty, and indicated that there would be "no return to the status quo ante."
Asked whether President Bush had called to congratulate Chancellor Schroeder on his electoral victory, Fleischer said, "As you know, Secretary Powell received a phone from German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer yesterday, and the President was pleased that the Secretary took the call and extended his message."
Later, Fleischer was more explicit: "I think this is all very plain for everybody to know and plain to see, and I'm not going to belabor the point. Things were said that I think, in the President's judgment, were excessive during the campaign and raised a sense of anti-Americanism and criticism of the United States and the United States' policies from an ally. These criticisms were not muted. And it is the right of anybody to do that in a democracy, and German leaders exercise those rights. And now the German people have exercised their right, and they have spoken. And the United States government will work with whoever people elect around the world in freedom and democracy. And that's what will happen here."
"But nobody should be under any illusions or mistakes that now that the election is over, that everything goes back to the way it was," Fleischer continued. "That's not the natural result of the manner in which that campaign was waged. And I think that's plain for everybody to know and see."
The references were to the strenuous campaign Schroeder and his SPD ran to oppose an Iraq war, and in addition, the rumors that the German Justice Minister had likened President Bush to Adolf Hitler, while another German Cabinet Minister had compared him to Caesar Augustus, treating Germany like the "province Germania."
European Commission Pushes Back Balanced-Budget Deadline
Hit by economic reality, the European Commission has again pushed back its balanced-budget deadline by two years, to 2006, as Germany, France, and Portugal face deficits that surpass the "stability pact" limit of 3% of Gross Domestic Product in 2002. French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin hailed the EC's "sense of reality" in acknowledging that budget-balancing commitments "depend on growth." Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti said he "fully agrees" with the EC's approach.
Renewed Tensions Flare Between Spain and Morocco
The conflict between Spain and Morocco is intensifying again, two months after the outbreak of "war" over the tiny Mediterranean island, Perejil. At the beginning of last week, a meeting between Moroccan Foreign Minister Benaissa and Spanish Foreign Minster Ana de Palacios the first of its kind since relations had broken off in October 2001 was suddenly cancelled. The reason given was that Morocco claims that on Sept. 29, a Spanish military helicopter landed on Perejil. Spanish Defense Minister Frederico Trillo insists that is not true, that a military helicopter only took to the air, when the Spanish authorities noted that Morocco had dispatched a rubber dinghy from its coast.
In addition, the Moroccan Foreign Minister claims that Spanish authorities have violated Moroccan territorial waters and air space 87 times since July.
The meeting, which was to have taken place in Madrid, was supposed to settle the long-lasting dispute between the two countries, which also includes questions concerning fishing rights, the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, and the West Sahara.
Parliamentary elections are taking place in Morocco for the first time since 1997, and it may be that Moroccan King Mohammed VI may want to saber-rattle to get the voters mobilized.
Morocco is also concerned that since the crisis in July, Spain has strengthened its military units in the region. Spain, which settled the conflict by immediately involving U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, has cancelled all weapon sales to Morocco since July, while Spanish authorities are said to have put Morocco in the same category of "sensitive states" as Iraq. From that standpoint, the renewed frictions between the two countries should perhaps be seen in the wider context of the buildup for war against Iraq.
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