Who orchestrated the "cartoon" show?

[Philippine LaRouche Society (PLS)]

To see how the cartoon caper was unleashed by the proponents of a "clash of civilizations," with war on Iran and Syria on their plate, you must look to Jack Straw and George Shultz. The following appear in the current EIR.  Mike Billington

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From Islamophobia to War: The Danish Cartoon Affair

by Michelle Rasmussen, Tom Gillesberg, and Dean Andromidas
Feb. 10, 2006

 

On the evening of Jan. 31, British Foreign Secretary Jack
Straw held a ministerial dinner at his official residence
in London, where he played the instrumental role of
mediating an agreement among his American, French,
Russian, and Chinese counterparts that would open the way
to bringing the Iranian nuclear issue to the United
Nations Security Council. This would be a decisive step in
the drive for a near-term U.S. military attack on Iran.
 Within a few hours, on the morning of Feb. 1, leading
dailies in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands,
and the British-government-owned BBC-Online, published a
series of highly inflammatory cartoons of the Prophet
Mohammed. Their publication sparked an explosion of
seemingly spontaneous demonstrations, riots, and violence
throughout the Islamic world. Originally published in the
Danish daily {Jyllands-Posten} on Sept. 30, 2005, the
issue had been confined to a controversy between Danish
Islamophobic ``free speech'' neo-conservatives, the Danish
Islamic community, and diplomatic tension between Denmark
and many Islamic countries.
 Then, at the end of January, coinciding with Jack
Straw's dinner, the situation escalated. On Feb. 1,
several big European newspapers published the cartoons,
and it was as if the ``Clash of Civilizations'' had
exploded internationally, with Denmark at the epicenter.
Demonstrations took place throughout the Muslim world,
Danish flags were burned in the streets across the Middle
East, peaking with the burning down of Danish and Swedish
embassies in Damascus, and the Danish consulate in Beirut.
As a result, a massive boycott was announced by Arab
countries against Danish products.
 Thus the international stage was set for the
International Atomic Energy Agency on Feb. 4 to refer the
Iran nuclear question to the UN Security Council.
 Make no mistake: This whole controversy is being
carefully orchestrated on both sides. As LaRouche warned
on Feb. 3, it is the ``London-centered synarchist circles
who are orchestrating this showdown,'' whose aim is to set
up a one-world fascist bankers' dictatorship. Cooperating
with London is Dick Cheney's controller, U.S. resident
synarchist George P. Shultz.
 The Danish Schiller Institute, Lyndon LaRouche's
chief collaborators in Denmark, hit the streets of
Copenhagen with a mass leaflet entitled, ``Stop a Clash of
Civilizations That Will Give Us Permanent Chaos and War.''
 On Feb. 7 Danish Schiller Institute leader Michelle
Rasmussen intervened on a live webcast of the well-known
``Sputnik'' program of Denmark's mass circulating daily,
{Politiken}. Rasmussen warned that ``If this crisis is to
be solved, it is necessary to unveil how this is feeding
into a larger agenda. Historically the British elite have
used a divide-and-conquer strategy, especially in the
Middle East. They are misusing this crisis to promote
their agenda. The British are using their influence with
Cheney and the neo-cons on the one side, and the Muslim
Brotherhood on the other, to get a new war with Iran. It
is time to listen to the wise words of Lyndon LaRouche so
that we can stop being manipulated.''

 

         - From Islamophobia to World War III -
 Following the burning down of the Danish legations,
Denmark's Foreign Minister, Per Stig Moeller, declared,
``There are forces who want a Clash of Civilizations.'' If
the Foreign Minister is concerned about the ``forces,'' he
should take careful note of LaRouche's warning, and he
hasn't got far to look.
 {Jyllands-Posten}, which first ran no fewer than 12
defamatory cartoons on Sept. 30, is Denmark's leading
right-wing daily, well-known as a follower of London's
line from the days of the Cold War, through the Balkan
crisis of the 1990s, and has now become the leading
mouthpiece for the neo-conservatives, and particularly for
the spreading of Islamophobia.
 After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, {Jyllands-Posten}
was the only Danish daily to ignore an appeal to the
Danish media by then-Social Democratic Prime Minister Paul
Nyrup Rasmussen, not to publish inflammatory editorials
comparing the attacks to the Clash of Civilizations. On
Nov. 20, 2001, {Jyllands-Posten} published an editorial
stating that the attacks ``demonstrate the truthfulness of
the sensational thesis that professor Samuel P. Huntington
put forward ... in his book on {The Clash of
Civilizations}.'' The editorial went on to tout the
``freedom ideals of the West,'' and the
``Middle-Ages-darkened perception of the world'' of Islam.
It took up Huntington's racist notion that ``time is on
the side of Islam'' because of the high birth rate in
Islamic countries, and warns its readers not to ``sell
out'' to the ``realists'' who claim that only a minority
of the Islamic world abides by the fundamentalist creed.
Since that editorial, the daily has been well known for
its Islamophobic line.
 Another very significant reflection of where
{Jyllands-Posten} stands politically, is the fact that it
had been instrumental in founding and financing a new
Danish think-tank called CEPOS (The Danish Center for
Political Studies). With half a million crown donation
($80,000) from the Jyllands-Posten Fund, CEPOS opened its
doors on March 10, 2005, and is modelled after two of
Washington's high temples for the neo-conservative
movement, the American Enterprise Institute and the
Heritage Foundation, as well as the London-based Adam
Smith Institute, and the Institute of Economic Affairs.
 On its advisory board, and an honorary member of its
board of directors, is George P. Shultz. (Shultz not only
hand-picked key members of the Bush Administration, he is
the controller of Vice President Dick Cheney, and one of
the architects of the war drive against Iran.) Other
members of the advisory board, although lesser lights than
Shultz, hail from the American Enterprise Institute, the
University of Chicago, and British, as well as other
American universities and institutes.
 Flemming Rose, culture editor of {Jyllands-Posten},
commissioned 12 cartoonists to draw cartoons of the
Prophet Mohammed, after being informed that another
Islamophobe, the author Kaare Bluitgen, was unable to get
cartoonists to illustrate a children's book on the life of
Mohammed. Despite being warned by religious experts that
pictures of the Prophet are prohibited by the Islamic
religion, and that it would be highly inappropriate and
offensive to publish them, Rose, in a statement announcing
the publication of the cartoons, wrote that the concern
about making fun of religious feelings ``is less
important'' than what he called following the ``slippery
slope of self-censorship.''
  In October 2004, Rose travelled to the United
States, where he had been a correspondent for another
Danish daily in the 1990s. He went to Philadelphia, where
he interviewed Daniel Pipes, director and founder of
Middle East Forum, and the website ``Campus Watch,'' which
has been accused of ``McCarthyite intimidation'' of
professors who criticize Israel. Pipes, who is one of the
top Islamophobes in the United States, is also a member of
the Committee on the Present Danger, whose co-chairman is
George Shultz.
 Upon his return to Denmark, Rose published a highly
favorable interview with Pipes, entitled ``The Threat of
Islam.'' After this Rose-Pipes connection was circulating
on the Web, Pipes posted a statement claiming he was the
victim of a ``conspiracy theory.'' While acknowledging the
interview, Pipes claims he has had no contact whatsoever
with Rose since, and has nothing to do with the cartoons.
Nonetheless it is obvious that a bond in the realm of
``common ideals'' persists.
 Coming to the support of Rose, vice chairman of
CEPOS, David Gress, in an interview Feb. 8 on Danish
Radio, called the conflict between Islam and the West the
``new Cold War,'' in which those who refuse to support
{Jyllands-Posten} are like those who were ``appeasers'' of
the Soviet Union, and those who are fighting the new
``cultural war'' are like the Cold Warriors of old.
 Between 2001 and 2003, Gress had been the ``John M.
Olin Professor of History of Civilizations'' at Boston
University. This is the same Olin family of the infamous
Olin Foundation, which has given millions to finance the
neo-conservative movement in the United States. Gress, was
formerly a journalist for {Jyllands-Posten}, and is one of
two CEPOS founders on the board of directors of the Danish
daily.
 The bringing of Denmark into the epicenter of the
Clash of Civilizations, is forcing members of the Danish
political elite to protest loudly. Uffe Ellemann-Jensen,
Denmark's former Foreign Minister, and former head of
Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen's European-style
Liberal party, Ventre, already has called the publication
of the cartoons a ``stunt,'' and called for
{Jyllands-Posten} chief editor Carsten Juste to resign
because of his ``mistaken judgment.'' Ellemann-Jensen
added, ``I am saying this now, because the current Foreign
Minister and Prime Minister can't say it, but as an
ordinary person who has a certain judgment of how the
world works, I can do so....''
 Ellemann-Jensen, who also is a founding member of
CEPOS, strongly supported 22 former Danish diplomats with
expertise in Islamic countries, who had denounced the
publication of the cartoons, and demanded that the
government take positive action and meet with Muslim
leaders to resolve the crisis.
 The publication of the cartoons in French and other
European papers on Feb. 1 was a straight international
synarchist operation. For example, the French-based and
internationally active ``Reporters Without Borders,''
which has been instrumental in supporting the publication
of the cartoons, is in fact an Anglo-American-French
synarchist intelligence operation. On the French side, it
receives financing from the office of the President of
France, the Foreign Ministry, as well as top corporations.
On the American side, it receives financing from the
National Endowment for Democracy, and the right-wing
Miami-based Center for a Free Cuba, a notorious
anti-Castro group. In its work with the latter
organization, Reporters Without Borders cooperates closely
with Otto Reich, who is currently President Bush's Special
Envoy to the Western Hemisphere. More importantly, Reich,
an old Iran-Contra hand who is from Florida, and has been
the chief advocate of the anti-Castro groups, is in fact a
crony of George Shultz, for whom he served as ``Special
Advisor'' between 1983 and 1986, when Shultz was Secretary
of State.
 Another indication of the control of this operation
by financier synarchists, is the fact that the editor
responsible for publishing the cartoons in the French
daily {France Soir}, Jacques Lefranc, is the former
general manager of the French-based Banque de
Participations et de Placements. BPP is very active in the
Middle East, and enjoys many links with the French
intelligence services. The publication of the cartoons
cost LeFranc his job.

 

 Britain's Muslim Brotherhood Assets Target Arab
Leaders

 

 A senior European security source told {EIR} that the
publication of the cartoons in February by other European
countries was clearly a ``guided'' operation on both
sides, to mobilize Islamophobia throughout Europe.
Nonetheless, it is also ``guided'' in the Middle East. The
``guides'' in Southwest Asia are run through British
intelligence assets in the Muslim Brotherhood, who are
active from Morocco to Pakistan. Recall that the first
round of cartoons was an almost non-issue in the Islamic
world until a second set of far more inflammatory cartoons
began circulating at the end of January, some of which had
never been published in the Western press. Circulation of
these cartoons expanded tremendously after Feb. 1.
 The same source pointed out that only 200
demonstrators took part in burning down the Danish
consulate in Beirut. They were clearly part of an
orchestrated operation by ``certain groups'' in Lebanon.
As far as the entire country was concerned, it was not an
issue, and in fact served to destabilize the very
sensitive Lebanese internal political situation.
 He warned that the demonstrations in Damascus were
most likely backed by elements within the government,
since no one could get away with such an action, without
some official backing. Syria, he said, is playing a
dangerous game, and falling into a trap by thinking it can
get some political support in the Arab street, in an
attempt to take the lead on the issue, before the Muslim
Brotherhood could use it to launch a destabilization.
 The way hardliners in Iran are taking up the issue
reveals that they, too, are playing their part in this
British-orchestrated crisis. In reaction to the cartoons,
Iran threatened to launch an economic boycott against
Denmark, which provoked the European Union to threaten
economic sanctions in retaliation. Thus, Iran is offering
an opportunity to launch sanctions independent of the
United Nations and the nuclear issue!
 Similarly, the cartoons served to inflame the streets
of Gaza just at the time that Hamas, which had just won
the Palestinian elections, was in sensitive negotiations
with various Palestinian factions, and Egypt, to form a
government that could continue to receive financial
support from the European Union. The chaos also gave
hotheads in the Israeli security services an excuse to
escalate targetted assassinations of Palestinian
militants.
 A senior Danish journalist, with many years of
experience, told {EIR} that this whole controversy is
aimed against Jordan, Egypt, and other western-oriented
states. He feared the inflaming of the Arab street would
serve as a cover for the assassination of a major Arab
leader.
 There are no forces, either in Europe or Southwest
Asia, who are politically capable of stopping this
orchestration. Only through blocking this synarchist drive
in the United States, is there hope for stopping this
Clash of Civilizations.
  --30--

 

Addendum:
Shultz and Aznar: Nazis Seeking War With Islam

 

It's not surprising to find that among the leading
promoters of war against ``radical Islam,'' and Iran,
are two men best known for their promotion of {Nazi}
policies over recent decades. Both are also leaders of
the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), one of the
prominent war-mongering institutions on the global
scene.
 On the one hand, we have George P. Shultz,
co-chairman of the U.S. CPD, and godfather of the
George W. Bush Administration. Shultz spoke at a CPD
press conference in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 23, where
he announced its policy of ``regime change'' for Iran.
He also is found on the advisory board of the Danish
foundation CEPOS, along with representatives of the
{Jyllands-Posten} newspaper, which launched the
current campaign of provocations against Islam,
through defamatory cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.
 The octogenarian Shultz, however, is best
identified for his role in the Nixon Administration,
when he played a crucial role in supporting the
fascist coup of Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Chile, and
the subsequent bloodbath across the continent, known
as ``Operation Condor.'' Nor was Shultz embarrassed in
the least to admit his support for Pinochet, whose
Chicago School economic policy--an all-out looting
spree against the Chilean working population--he
considered to be wonderfully ``successful.'' Among the
economic accomplishments of the Pinochet regime which
Shultz prized, was none other than the privatization
of Social Security, a program which has immiserated
the retirement of the majority of the Chilean
workforce.
 What else can you call an economist who supports
the fascist policies of the Pinochet government, but a
Nazi? And is it any surprise that such a Nazi would
support a Clash of Civilizations war against Islam,
which is what a war against Iran would represent?
 Working right alongside Shultz in this endeavor,
we have the former Spanish Prime Minister, Jose
Maria Aznar. Aznar functions as the co-chairman of the
international adjunct of the CPD. He is also the
founder the Foundation for Analysis and Social Studies
(FAES), which produced a report in October 2005,
demanding that NATO be reorganized ``in order to
combat and defeat Islamist terrorism.''
 Aznar personally presented the FAES proposal,
titled ``NATO: An Alliance for Freedom,'' at NATO
headquarters on Nov. 30, 2005. Many in Europe do not
yet agree that ``Islamic
jihadism/extremism/terror''--a phrase appearing over
20 times in the document--is an ``existential threat''
to countries, but ``the threat of Islamist terrorism
will end up becoming the greatest priority sooner or
later,'' FAES confidently asserted in 2005.
 The Prime Minister's NATO vs. Islam proposal
received its first international endorsement on Nov.
15, 2005: from Shultz's CPD.
 Who is Jose Maria Aznar? He was previously the
head of the Partido Popular (the Popular Party) in
Spain, the direct heir of the political tradition of
fascist dictator, Francisco Franco, until Aznar was
ousted by the current Prime Minister, Jose
Rodriguez Zapatero. As Prime Minister of Spain, Aznar
fully endorsed the (Nazi) pre-emptive war policies of
the Bush Administration, and promoted the Clash of
Civilizations approach to Southwest Asia. True to the
fascist tradition, which adopted methods directly from
the Tomas de Torquemada Spanish Inquisition, Aznar
and his associates are agitating for a new Crusade.
 Do these two ideologues understand that the
detonating of war against Iran, will usher in a global
era of irregular warfare that will ultimately destroy
the United States and Europe, as well as the poorer
countries of the world? Or are they simply treacherous
fools, useful to the higher-level synarchist bankers,
like those Nazis whom the British financed into power
more than 70 years ago, launching a wave of mass
murder and destruction, which ultimately consumed
themselves?




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