GEOPOLITICAL NEWS & VIEWS (9th Feb 2023)
from Executive Intelligence Review + full transcript of Biden SOTN speech + Seymour Hersh bombshell article on Nord Stream Pipeline blasts + Zelensky visits King Charles III
Zelenskyy Visits London; Nuclear War Danger Soars; Zepp-LaRouche Demands Answers on Nord Stream Sabotage
Feb. 8, 2023 (EIRNS)—Whenever there is a danger that peace might break out, you can count on the British to jump into the fray to prevent that from happening, whatever the cost.
That is what occurred today, with the fully choreographed “surprise” visit to London by British puppet Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s President, to meet with the King, the Prime Minister and the Parliament to ensure a sharp escalation of the Ukraine conflict towards nuclear war, by providing sophisticated British fighter jets to the Kiev regime.
Spoiling that choreography, the same day veteran American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a bombshell article extensively documenting that the United States government had deliberately blown up the German-Russian Nord Stream pipelines in September of last year.
Schiller Institute founder and chairwoman of the German party Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (BüSo), Helga Zepp-LaRouche immediately issued a public statement demanding: “In light of this monstrosity, Germany must act immediately! I demand that there be a full investigation into Seymour Hersh’s revelations in the Bundestag! At the same time, I call on the German government to demand accountability from the U.S. government.”
The Nord Stream sabotage was an integral part of the Global NATO war drive against Russia, a drive that is now rapidly escalating towards a nuclear confrontation with that country. Hersh’s explosive revelations will certainly strengthen forces in Germany and elsewhere to resist Global NATO’s disastrous war and sanctions policy against Russia, and could help derail that policy altogether.
The policy was on lurid display throughout Zelenskyy’s trip to London. The fighter jets Kiev will soon get from the U.K. (and similar aircraft that will now be demanded of the United States and other countries), combined with the Abrams and Leopard tanks recently promised, along with long-range precision missiles, are designed to equip Kiev with the military hardware needed, not to defeat Russia on the Ukraine battlefield, as is frequently claimed, but to launch offensive attacks deep into Russian territory—emphatically including Crimea, which Russia has frequently warned is the reddest of red lines.
British policy guiding the Global NATO escalation against Russia was stated explicitly by Malcolm Chalmers, Deputy Director General of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Britain’s oldest and most venerable think tank, in a May 20, 2022 commentary calling openly to fabricate a “Crimean Missile Crisis”—a demented strategy of using a nuclear eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with Russia to try to force Russia to back down and, at last, submit to London’s unipolar world.
The British nuclear war gambit is driven by desperation as much as imperial arrogance and stupidity.
In addition to the fact that their entire financial system is hopelessly bankrupt, over recent weeks there has been a growing chorus of voices internationally demanding an end to the military escalation, in many cases supporting the Pope’s offer to host negotiations with no preconditions. There have also been indications from some circles within the Western Establishment that they realize that a negotiated solution is needed to stop a total train wreck: a RAND Corporation study warning against permanent warfare against Russia; a Henry Kissinger recommendation that trying to dismember Russia would be counter-productive; the explosive Hersh revelations about Nord Stream; and a Tony Blinken leak to David Ignatius of the Washington Post that the U.S. is considering a deal which would include Crimea remaining with Russia, Ukraine receiving in-depth military hardware, and the establishment of a Korea-style DMZ between Russia and Ukraine.
There is of course no indication that Russia is willing to accept any of these possible, so-called “offers.” But they do reflect the fact that there is growing nervousness among relative “realists” within the Western Establishment.
All of that, combined with the open revolt among nations of the Global South and the first stirrings of a mass peace movement in the United States and Europe, has been more than enough to push the British into action—again.
• Watch Harley’s Updates with Harley Schlanger on Thursday February 9, 2023: Every weekday morning on The LaRouche Organization, Schlanger will give you the strategic briefing you need to start your day.
STRATEGIC SHOWDOWN
Helga Zepp-LaRouche: ‘Biden Lets Nord Stream Blow Up—German Government Must Act Immediately!’
Feb. 8, 2023 (EIRNS)— The following statement was issued today by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder of the Schiller Institute and chairwoman of the German party Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (BüSo):
An article just published by the well-known U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh describes with meticulous accuracy how U.S. President Joe Biden had the gas pipelines Nord Stream 1 and 2 blown up in the Baltic Sea. This article must leave every normal person stunned in view of the complete lawlessness of the American government towards its “partners.” If the German government fails to act in the face of this utterly scandalous revelation, it will no longer have any justification to remain in office.
Seymour Hersh’s article, using both public and private sources, demonstrates that President Biden, through his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, had reviewed the proposed destruction of the pipelines as early as 2021 and later gave the green light for the operation. Also implicated were members of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, the U.S. Departments of State and Treasury, and the governments of Norway and Denmark.
The explosives were placed in June 2022 during the BALTOPS 22 military exercise via a special diving team and were then detonated remotely by signal on September 26, 2022. Germany’s purchase of cheap natural gas from Russia had long been a thorn in the side of the U.S. government, Hersh said.
This confirms the suspicion already circulating and at the same time adds minute details to it. Hersh demonstrates that the architects of this act of destruction knew it was an “act of war” and therefore demanded absolute secrecy.
In light of this monstrosity, Germany must act immediately! I demand that there be a full investigation into Seymour Hersh’s revelations in the Bundestag! At the same time, I call on the German government to demand accountability from the U.S. government. The German government has a constitutional duty to prevent harm to the German people. The destruction of energy infrastructure strikes at the very foundation of our standard of living and economic stability.
The federal government cannot be indifferent to the fact that Germany and its people are the victims of the geopolitics of an obsessive war faction that not only accepts the destruction of its “allies,” but even a third world war and the potential extinction of humanity.
Hersh Exposes Biden Administration Plot To Blow Up Nord Stream Pipelines
Feb. 8, 2023 (EIRNS)—Seymour Hersh, the ostracized but most senior American investigative journalist since the Vietnam War, has issued a shocking exposé, depicting with precision who and how the U.S. Establishment and military rallied to plan and carry out the blowing up of the Russian/German Nord Stream pipelines. This project, according to Hersh, traces back to early 2021.
Titled “How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline,” Hersh begins by saying outright that the command headquarters selected to run the physical assault on the pipelines was the highly secretive “U.S. Navy’s Diving and Salvage Center “ in Panama City, Florida. “Last June,” he writes, “the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a ... midsummer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.”
White House spokesperson Adrienne Watson has already been deployed to answer an email stating about this charge: “This is false and complete fiction.”
Per Hersh’s account: The choice of the Panama City facility was based on its covert status. As Navy personnel, its actions are not subject to those covert operations that must be reported to and briefed in advance to the leadership of the Senate and House. Navy divers are also famed for their “successful” espionage infiltration into a high-level Soviet era communications system used by the submarine division of the Soviet navy.
Whatever the covert operation formalities, however, Hersh makes clear that leading Republicans, most notably Ted Cruz, was involved as soon as Biden was to be inaugurated, to demand that aggressive action be taken against the pipelines. Hersh provides a detailed description of how the pipelines were a pivotal benefit for the German economy, and an exemplification of the Willy Brandt-era, “realist” “Ostpolitik” policy, which, though Hersh doesn’t say so, gave Germany a margin of sovereignty, which now the Anglo-Americans are demanding be erased.
Hersh writes: “Opposition to Nord Stream 2 flared on the eve of the Biden inauguration in January 2021, when Senate Republicans, led by Ted Cruz... repeatedly raised the political threat of cheap Russian natural gas during the confirmation hearing of Blinken...” By then, Hersh continues, the Senate “had successfully passed a law that ... ‘halted [the pipeline] in its tracks” according to Cruz. When Biden, in communication with Zelenskyy in Ukraine, flinched in moving against the pipelines, Senate Republicans retaliated, blocking all of Biden’s foreign policy nominees and delaying passage of the annual defense bill until deep into the fall. “It was not clear to Washington just where Olaf Scholz, Germany’s newly appointed chancellor, stood,” Hersh notes.
The operational planning for a physical attack on the pipelines got underway starting December, 2021. The presumed reason for top level secret meetings held at that time in the White House, was the claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin was about to invade Ukraine. Those called together from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, State and Treasury Departments, began to realize that this topic—Ukraine—was completely linked in the secret proceedings to plans to destroy the pipelines.
Several more meetings occurred. There was scepticism in reaction to “the CIA’s enthusiasm for a covert deep-sea attack.” Hersh writes: “Some working guys in the CIA and the State Department were saying, ‘Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out. Nevertheless, in early 2022, the CIA working group reported back to Sullivan’s interagency group: ‘We have a way to blow up the pipelines.’ ”
Soon after, Biden met in D.C. with Scholz, who was pushed into support of the U.S. team. That was the press conference where Biden sputtered, “If Russia invades... there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2.” Biden was merely repeating, Hersh notes, what Victoria Nuland had said 20 days earlier, at a State Department briefing: “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.” (Note: Hersh makes it clear that the war hawks desperately wanted Russia to attack Ukraine.)
Further intelligence leads introduced by the article will be evaluated by the EIR staff, which pertain to the close ties between Norway and its former prime minister, long-term NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, with U.S. intelligence, and other elements pertaining to the BALTOPS manoeuvres.
Zelenskyy Travels to London To Help Orchestrate a New Escalation in War
Feb. 8, 2023 (EIRNS)—The British Empire staged a “surprise” visit to the United Kingdom today by their well-rehearsed puppet, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which included: a visit by the former standup comedian with King Charles III at Buckingham Palace; a speech before a joint session of Parliament in Westminster Hall; a meeting with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at 10 Downing Street; a visit to Dorset army base; a joint press conference with Sunak.
Zelenskyy played his assigned role, praising Britain, thanking former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in particular, and then demanding that the Kiev government be given advanced fighter jets—and not just training of pilots—with which to escalate the NATO provocations against Russia. “Freedom will win—we know Russia will lose,” he told the joint session of the U.S. Parliament. “We have freedom, give us wings to protect it.” He dramatically thanked “Boris” for all the help he has provided to Kiev. The Spectator reported that “hundreds of MPs and peers packed into Westminster Hall to hear Zelenskyy speak to rapturous applause.”
It was then Boris Johnson’s turn to read his lines: “It is time to give the Ukrainians the extra equipment they need to defeat Putin and to restore peace to Ukraine. That means longer range missiles and artillery. It means more tanks. It means planes. We have more than 100 Typhoon jets. We have more than 100 Challenger 2 tanks. The best single use for any of these items is to deploy them now for the protection of the Ukrainians—not least because that is how we guarantee our own long-term security.”
At the joint press conference with Zelenskyy, Prime Minister Sunak was asked if the U.S. would, indeed, be sending fighter jets. “Nothing is off the table” and jets remain “part of the conversation,” he replied. He remarked that the U.S.’s Typhoon jets are “very sophisticated pieces of kit” and it could take “three years” to train a pilot to fly one—but the British press report that Ukrainian pilots have already been training for two and a half years. Sunak’s spokesperson promised that Defense Secretary Ben Wallace was “actively” looking into the possibility of sending the planes, and that the government has not yet made a decision—but wants to start the fighter training for Ukrainian pilots as soon as possible.
Russia’s Embassy in London took due note of the dramatic escalation involved in Zelenskyy’s visit and the British response, warning the U.K. government to not send fighter jets to Ukraine, as this would have “military and political consequences for the European continent and the entire world.”
Gilbert Doctorow Considers Russia’s Nuclear Doctrine May Be Under Revision
Feb. 8, 2023 (EIRNS)—Gilbert Doctorow, a leading expert on Russia affairs, titled his latest article “The Coming Existential Threat: Do We Act in Common or Is It Going To Be Every Man for Himself?” He describes the rapidly spiralling relationship between the U.S. and Russia, which he says is “very close to Doomsday.” He reports from his viewing of Russia’s “Sixty Minutes” TV program the other day, hosted by State Duma member Yevgeny Popov, that Russia has taken the escalations by the West very seriously. Popov highlights comments from U.S. Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. forces in Europe in 2014-2017, who, in recent appearances on CNN and in The Economist, has made aggressive calls for the West to escalate its military aid to Ukraine with a full line-up of ATACMS and other long-range missiles to retake Crimea, and to be able to strike deep into Russia.
Doctorow then says this: “One of the regular panelists on ‘Sixty Minutes’ then faced the cameras directly and said that Russia’s nuclear doctrine is under revision in light of these aggressive plans being aired in the United States, so that Russia is headed towards a policy of ‘preventive’ tactical nuclear strikes, similar to what the United States has. Moreover, if Ukraine targets Crimea and heartland Russia, then Russia will respond according to plans now being laid down. These plans foresee counter strikes against U.S. military installations in Europe and in the continental United States using hypersonic missiles. The panelist calls for this threat of counter strikes in Europe and the U.S. to be made public and explicit, so that no one is in doubt about what to expect from the Kremlin.”
He continues: “So here we are. The Russians are stripping away the fiction of a proxy war and revealing the co-belligerent status of the U.S. and its NATO allies in preparation for a kinetic war with NATO. As our illustrious former President, a man of few words, would say: ‘Not good!’ ”
Doctorow ends by saying that anti-war movements are urgently needed in the U.S. and Europe if this madness is to be stopped.
Chinese Defense Ministry Refused Call from U.S. Defense Secretary After Balloon Shoot Down
Feb. 8, 2023 (EIRNS)—Some real repercussions are starting to flow from “Balloongate.” CNN reported late yesterday that the Chinese Defense Ministry refused a call from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. The Pentagon, it reported, submitted a request for a call between Austin and China’s Minister of National Defense Wei Fenghe immediately after the U.S. shot down the balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, but China declined the request. “We believe in the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between the United States and the [People’s Republic of China] in order to responsibly manage the relationship,” Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said in Pentagon statement.
In Washington the hysteria continues to balloon, so to speak, to massive proportions. The country that spies on everybody, including even its own supposed allies, is accusing China of running a massive surveillance program, one in which balloons play a key role. “The U.S. intelligence community has linked the Chinese spy balloon shot down on Saturday to a vast surveillance program run by the People’s Liberation Army, and U.S. officials have begun to brief allies and partners who have been similarly targeted,” the Washington Post breathlessly reported last night. “The surveillance balloon effort, which has operated for several years partly out of Hainan province off China’s south coast, has collected information on military assets in countries and areas of emerging strategic interest to China including Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines, according to several U.S. officials, who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.”
Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, the Post reports further, led a briefing on China’s balloon espionage for some 150 people from about 40 embassies, said a senior administration official familiar with the matter. The department has also sent to every U.S. Embassy a “detailed information” on the espionage that can be shared with allies and partners.
COLLAPSING WESTERN SYSTEM
Prominent Figures Demand U.S., NATO Lift Sanctions Against Syria
Feb. 8, 2023 (EIRNS)—While NATO trolls call to not send aid to earthquake-struck Syria, a number of prominent figures around the world have spoken out against the obvious hypocrisy.
Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto has tweeted that human lives go before sanctions. “The earthquake hit two nations and both should be helped, with equal determination. Humanity in the face of tragedy does not stop at state borders, does not judge and must override everything. Even sanctions,” Crosetto tweeted.
Chairman of the Italian Bishops Conference Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi spoke out for “suspending or revoking” sanctions on Syria.
Another voice from Italy came from the Sant’Egidio Community, an NGO often informally used by the Vatican for diplomacy. It posted the following release datelined Feb. 7: “The ruinous earthquake that has destroyed an entire region on the Turkish-Syrian border is claiming thousands of victims, whose count continues to grow.” They say the war-torn country is made to suffer more because of “the international sanctions affecting the country. We believe it is time to suspend the sanctions to allow relief to arrive copiously and as quickly as possible to help the people exhausted by war and earthquake.”
The president of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Khaled Hboubati condemned the sanctions. “We demand for the lifting of economic sanctions and the siege in order ... to allow aid deliveries and humanitarian actions to be implemented by SARC and other bodies,” he said. “These sanctions are against whom?” he demanded to know, “Against the Syrian people?”
China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning responded to the ongoing crisis in Syria with a strong statement urging for the U.S. to lift the sanctions.
“In the wake of the catastrophe, the U.S. should put aside geopolitical obsessions and immediately lift the unilateral sanctions on Syria, to unlock the doors for humanitarian aid to Syria,” she said at today’s press briefing.
Federal Reserve Says To Expect More Interest Rate Hikes
Feb. 8, 2023 (EIRNS)—Since the Fed’s current policy of “Quantitative Tightening” has worked so wonderfully—collapsing the economy, blowing out various debt bubbles, and worsening inflation—the Fed is making it clear that interest rates will continue to climb up to the 5.4% range. During an event at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. on Feb. 7, Fed chair Jerome Powell said that the “disinflationary process” in the U.S. economy started, but it “is going to take quite a bit of time, and is not going to be smooth. We will likely need to do additional rate increases.”
“Powell’s communication is consistent with another quarter-point hike in March and plans for more after that,” Chris Low, chief economist at FHN Financial, said yesterday in a note. Fed Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said Feb. 7 that the Fed needs to keep raising rates to as much as 5.4%. JPMorgan’s Michael Feroli said markets “shouldn’t expect the same degree of hand-holding” from the central bank as it gets closer to its terminal rate.
NEW STRATEGIC AND ECONOMIC ARCHITECTURE
Modi Explains India’s Plans for a 500% Increase in Natural Gas Consumption
Feb. 8, 2023 (EIRNS)—India Energy Week took place this week, which saw energy industry leaders from 150 countries travel to Bengaluru. Speaking at the summit on Feb. 6, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced plans for large increases in natural gas and oil expansion, including a planned 500% increase in natural gas consumption in the coming years. “In order to meet the growing aspirations of crores of people who now form the ‘middle class,’ we will require unhindered oil and gas supplies,” said Modi. (A crore is an Indian expression for 10 million.)
Modi announced that India is lifting restrictions on mining, and will be opening up over 1 million sq km to new oil exploration. He encouraged international investors with expertise in the field to come and help, and announced new programs to encourage the growth in this sector.
India is entering “mission mode,” Modi said, and will increase its capacity in every sector. They plan to increase the total crude oil refining capacity from 250 MMT to 450 MMT (per annum).
The Great Reset advocates of deindustrialization and de-hydrocarbonization cannot be too happy.
U.S. POLITICAL & ECONOMIC
Congress Goes Ballistic Over Empty Chinese Silos
Feb. 8, 2023 (EIRNS)—In a letter to Congress dated Jan. 26, Gen. Anthony Cotton, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, wrote: “The number of land-based fixed and mobile ICBM launchers in China exceeds the number of ICBM launchers in the United States.” This was preceded by two sentences reporting that the number of missiles and warheads in China does not exceed those in the United States, but it was that third sentence that set the alarm bells ringing.
“China is rapidly approaching parity with the United States,” House Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers stated, according to the Wall Street Journal, without daring to correct the obvious misrepresentation by Rogers. “We cannot allow that to happen. The time for us to adjust our force posture and increase capabilities to meet this threat is now.” Rogers said that limits on long-range forces set by a treaty between the U.S. and Russia, known as New START, are inhibiting the U.S. from building up its arsenal to deter Russia and China. That accord, which China isn’t party to, is set to expire in 2026. This same logic was the underlying justification for the U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty in 2019, that the U.S. needed to be able to deploy missiles prohibited by the treaty against China.
Rogers, along with Senate Armed Services ranking member Roger Wicker (R-MS), Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) and Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE), issued a joint statement claiming that “It is not an understatement to say that the Chinese nuclear modernization program is advancing faster than most believed possible. We have no time to waste in adjusting our nuclear force posture to deter both Russia and China,” the lawmakers said. “This will have to mean higher numbers and new capabilities.”
“The [Chinese Communist Party] is rapidly expanding its nuclear capability. They have doubled their number of warheads in just two years,” Rogers said at the outset of a hearing yesterday. “We estimated it would take them a decade to do that.”
Global Times Editorial Responds to Biden State of the Union, ‘A U.S. That Unsettles the World’
Feb. 8, 2023 (EIRNS)—An editorial in China’s Global Times states that President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech failed to achieve any semblance of unity, despite how much he talks about it. “From the State of the Union address and the reaction in the U.S., we see the same politically divided, sensitive, anxious, and unconfident U.S. Such a U.S. has made the world uneasy and unsettled,” the paper writes. They point to the heavy partisan bickering in the Congress, including during Biden’s speech itself.
Referencing the change in America over recent years, they write: “The State of the Union addresses since the end of the Cold War have charted a clear trajectory that the U.S. has gradually changed from a highly confident, optimistic, and pro-diversity country to today’s sensitive, suspicious, and narrow-minded nation. This is regrettable.” In light of the recent hysteria around the Chinese balloon, these comments are to the point.
They label Biden’s emphasis on reigning in the supply chain and attempting to manipulate global trade, for example with the CHIPS Act and other measures of economic war against China, a policy of “you lose more, and I lose less.” It’s not even win-lose anymore, instead “Washington is performing self-harm while trying to hurt Beijing,” they write.
Reach the source at www.larouchepub.com
TWITTER HEARING FULL VIDEO (6 HRS)
https://thehill.com/homenews/3849163-watch-live-former-twitter-officials-testify-before-house-panel-on-handling-of-hunter-biden-laptop-story/
Our man in St Petersburg gives us the Russian opinion of some of the above stories:
https://youtu.be/R6T_Y3cfuxw