Western European News Digest
Neue Zuercher Zeitung Covers LaRouche vs. Strauss
Switzerland's leading daily acknowledged U.S. Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.'s central role in the ongoing exposure of the neo-conservative Strauss faction in the U.S. government.
Under the headline "Traditions of Conspiracy in AmericaLeo Strauss, LaRouche and the Neo-Conservative Cabal," the piece takes up over two-thirds of a page in the June 13 issue of Neue Zuercher Zeitung.
The author, Hans-Rudolf Kamer, who was NZZ's former Washington, D.C. correspondent, notes suspicions that the Bush Administration has come under the control of neo-conservative hardliners, who staged the war against Iraq and secretly aim for world domination. Current accusations over allegedly missing WMDs in Iraq are interwoven with traditional conspiracy theories, Kamer writes, and then launches into a convoluted explanation of what neo-conservatives are or are not, concluding that those so accused in the Bush Administration are not "classical" neo-conservatives.
As for "conspiracy theories," Kamer refers to Hillary Clinton's lashing out against a "right-wing conspiracy" at the time that President Clinton was threatened with impeachment. Thanks to coverage of such conspiracy theories in the New York Times and The New Yorker, these charges are not resonating in Europe now, Kamer says.
Kamer points to Lyndon LaRouche, who published a pamphlet called "The Children of Satan," just a few weeks before the Times and New Yorker articles. Kamer reports that LaRouche talks about the "Nietzschean fascism of Leo Strauss" and the "world government utopias" of Bertrand Russell and H.G. Wells, which he associates with the new American preemptive war strategy. Moreover, LaRouche claims that 9/11 was a new "Reichstag Fire."
LaRouche, lies Kamer, is a mixture of Kant and anti-Semitism, paranoid tirades against everything from British empiricism to Ollie North. But isn't it strange that politics makes such strange bed-fellows, and of course, Prof. Strauss is not a fascist, Kamer protests, but a "good democrat," who now is under attack from "neo-socialists like LaRouche."
Deception About Iraqi WMD 'Worse than Watergate'
A continental European political-diplomatic insider told EIR June 10, "In the Watergate scandal, no American died. Now, a lot have died, and are dying, because of a 'threat' which never existed."
A close reader of LaRouche material, he then said, "LaRouche is absolutely right, when he says that Cheney is the 'chief duck.' This has been the case from the beginning. I saw a high-level American on CNN last week, a man about 70, who formerly served in the CIA, including at a senior level in Iraq, who charged that the architects of American strategy now, are trying to realize their Mein Kampf.
"Just as Hitler openly described his ideas for world domination, so have Cheney and his collaborators clearly set out their plans for world domination. The main problem is not Bush himself, but Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld."
This individual fears that, feeling desperate, this mob might now "try to provoke another 9/11," and takes very seriously LaRouche's warnings about a possible "economic 9/11" in the making. Moves to consolidate a Middle East process, "independent of the flawed 'Roap Map' as such," and to bring Russia squarely into Europe, through LaRouche's Eurasian Land-Bridge and related initiatives, are now more crucial than ever, he insists, to outflank and neutralize this Cheney-led grouping.
Russian Strategist Agrees Bringing Cheney Down a Good Idea
"Mr. LaRouche's idea to bring about the downfall of Dick Cheney is an excellent idea, very good, and it comes just at the right time," said a senior Russian strategist, who rarely shows such exuberance.
"I consider this exactly the thing to be done now, in fact, I have been myself thinking about the need to move against Cheney, during the past days," he commented. "Mr. LaRouche's move will be supported by many Republicans, who resent Cheney. First of all, some financial groupings in the Republican camp are angry about his maneuvers with oil. More than that, there are energy groups, in both the U.S. and Britain, who are angry about how Cheney has used his oil connections, for his own gain, and against them.
"Cheney can be isolated.... It is necessary to divide the Republicans. Bush is the most foolish, but he's not the worst.... And I'm sure Colin Powell would be happy to see Cheney go."
He pointed to three other things. One, is that because of his health, Cheney is vulnerable to attack and pressure. Second, various people around Bush were not so happy to hear Cheney say so directly that he would be around for a second term, if Bush were re-elected. Third, the timing of LaRouche's move is perfect, at a time when both the U.S. and Britain are being rocked by the "Iraqi weapons of mass destruction" scandal. "This is the time to move. In a few days, there will be attempts to bury the whole matter, probably with some sensational sex scandals."
The Moscow source further commented that "it is perfectly understandable to me, that LaRouche would be getting such attention now in Britain, with the June 6 Glasgow Herald article and the June 9 BBC interview. This reflects the depth of the crisis around Iraq, in Britain. This positive attention is very important."
He also attributed great importance to the John Dean article on the potential worse-than-Watergate dimensions of the "Iraqi WMD" scandals.
Iraqi-American Researcher Exposes Fraud by 10 Downing Street
In a telephone interview June 6, Ibrahim Al-Marashi explained how his research into the organization of the Iraqi intelligence services, was lifted to provide material for the dossier released by the British government, to motivate war against Iraq.
EIR: What research were you doing, and how did it end up in the dossier?
Al-Marashi: It was part of a project of historical interest. I was looking at the invasion of Kuwait which led to the 1991 war. I examined the documents which the Iraqis left behind, after their withdrawal. They were 300,000 documents, which I went through. The purpose was to provide a guide to help the reader understand how the Iraqi intelligence services functioned, and therefore, to be able to understand the single documents. The research was conducted in 1998. I took part of it, and compiled an article, which appeared in the September 2002 Middle East Review of International Affairs.
EIR: Was the article published on your initiative?
Al-Marashi: Yes. I knew one of the editors. Iraq was coming up in the news, and I thought I could explain how the intelligence services were managing to maintain the regime.
EIR: How did it end up in the British dossier?
Al-Marashi: The authors of the British dossier must have taken it from the Internet. They must have made an Internet search on "Iraqi Intelligence Agencies" and my article would have been the first item. I know they used the online version, because they kept the mistakes that were there, misplaced commas, and the transliteration of Arabic terms. The No. 10 Downing Street dossier took material from three sources, and all three used different methods to transliterate Arabic names. These differences are in the dossier. They didn't go to the trouble of correcting or unifying them.
EIR: What were the other two sources?
Al-Marashi: Articles in Jane's Intelligence Review, one by Sean Boyne in 1998, and the second, by Ken Gause, in November 2002. Both were on Iraq's intelligence agencies.
EIR: What exactly did the dossier compilers lift?
Al-Marashi: They took material on the responsibilities of these agencies, the organizations, their functionsthey lifted it wholesale.
EIR: What did they change, to motivate going to war? You mentioned in your Daily Telegraph article that they changed the wording of one sentence, to make the case that Iraq had capabilities to harbor and assist al-Qaeda. Did they make any other changes?
Al-Marashi: Besides what was in that article, nothing. Because nothing in my article stated the case for war. The dossier is made up of three sections: sections 1 and 3 go into the intelligence agencies, and how they obstructed UN inspections teams; section 2 is on the Iraqi intelligence agencies. Section 3 stressed the obstructions, so they made the case that, since the intelligence agencies were obstructing inspections, they were guilty, and therefore, one should go to war. They used my research as a justification for war.
EIR: The British intelligence services are certainly not amateurs. How can you explain something like this? How could it happen?
Al-Marashi: I think it's indicative of a bigger picture, that is, the tensions between British intelligence and 10 Downing Street. Maybe intelligence sectors were not sharing information with 10 Downing Street. They went and plagiarized an open source, saying it was intelligence. It has to be seen in the context of the rivalry between No. 10 Downing Street and intelligence.
EIR: Who wrote the dossier?
Al-Marashi: Four staffers in the communications department, under Alastair Campbell.
Emergency Measures To Stem Panic over British Pensions
The British government is taking urgent measures to calm its citizens over shrinking pension funds, the London Times reported in banner headlines June 12. Government was forced to announce "unprecedented emergency measures to shore up confidence in company schemes. A 'lifeboat' fund will be set up to rescue final-salary occupational pensions in firms that go bust."
As a consequence of the recent three years' stock market crash, pension schemes of top British corporations have been devastated. The "black hole" among the FTSE-100 companies pensions officially amounted to 65 billion pounds at the end of last 2002, and for all British corporations, totals about 100 billion pounds. This means that in recent cases of bankruptcies, such as the Welsh steel company ASW, pension schemes could just cover the pensions of those workers that had already retired, while those who are about to retire often lose their entire pension and have no chance of finding a new job.
The government will now force the corporations to pay into the new "lifeboat" fund that will be activated for corporations that go bankrupt, on a compulsory basis. Corporate pension fund managers immediately came out claiming that exactly this emergency measure will make matters much worse, because it puts additional financial pressure on the companies.
Worse, the emergency measures "would sound alarm bells with credit-rating agencies already concerned at the size of pension deficits in British companies. Downgrade by rating agencies would lead to further stock losses, thereby aggravating the pension crisis, ballooning the deficit to 300 billion pounds."
Malaysia and Italy Can Work Together for Global Peace
Malaysia's King, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin, addressed a state banquet hosted by Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi at the Quirinale Palace June 11. The Tuanku told assembled guests that Malaysia and Italy may be geographically far apart, but they had shown readiness to shoulder their responsibilities for peace in their contributions and involvement in peacekeeping missions and other initiatives undertaken by the United Nations. He said the joint aspirations and objectives would enhance the close ties between Kuala Lumpur and Rome in various aspects.
Addressing the banquet, he said: "My visit will herald a new era in bilateral relations and foster closer ties in defense, trade, tourism, science, and technology."
President Ciampi, referring to Italy's taking over the Presidency of the EU later this year, assured the Tuanku, "A strengthened European Union will also be beneficial to relations with Asia." He added that ASEAN's commitment to peace and stability in the region as well as the economic strength, makes it a special partner and a locomotive force driving relations between Europe and Asia. He noted that the opening of the Delegation of the European Commission in Kuala Lumpur signifies the political and economic importance the EU attaches to Malaysia and Southeast Asia.
The Tuanku and his wife, Raja Permaisuri Agong Tuanku Fauziah were on a four-day state visit, on the invitation of Italian President Ciampi.
Earlier, the King conferred the Malaysian Government's Award "The Most Exalted Order of the Crown of the Realm" on Ciampi. He bestowed the "Grand Knight of the Most Distinguished Order of the Defender of The Realm" on Senate President Senator Marcello Pera and President of the House of Representatives Pier-ferdinando Casini. Two people received the "Grand Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of the Crown." Two received the Panglima Setia Mahkota and eight the Seri Mahkota Malaysia. Ciampi then presented the King with the highest Italian order, Cavallere Fi Gran Croce Decorato Di Gran Cordone, in the form of a gold medallion.
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