China Plus World Today Interview with Helga Zepp-LaRouche (China Plus is the official English website of China Radio International.)

Monday, May 31, 2021

WORLD TODAY: You’re listening to World Today. Denmark’s secret service helped the U.S. to spy on European politicians, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2012-2014, Danish media report. According to a report by Denmark’s radio, the Defense Intelligence Service collaborated with the U.S. National Security Agency to gather information, and intelligence was collected on other officials from Germany, France, Sweden and Norway. Similar allegations emerged in 2013. Then secrets leaked by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden alleged tapping of the German Chancellor’s phone by the NSA.

For more, we’re now joined on the line by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, a Germany-based political and economic think tank.

Thanks for joining us, Dr. LaRouche.

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, hello.

WORLD TODAY: Could you first tell us more about what the Danish media have found?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: It’s really a funny story, because all of this information essentially was known in 2015, namely that the NSA used the fact that in Denmark, you have transatlantic cables with which one can spy on everything going on in the East bloc, but also internationally. This all came out in 2015, but nothing really happened. Merkel, at the time, said “Oh, spying on allies—that doesn’t go at all,” but then absolutely nothing happened! Again, last year, the same story was leaked, and nothing happened.

So there is apparently one or more whistleblowers in the Danish secret service, who say, this is just too much. This is putting in question the sovereignty of Denmark, the interest of the Danish people. So they kept leaking the same information, and now, this was picked up by a whole network of European media circles—Le Monde and German TV, Norwegian and Swedish TV—and they have been given access to the internal documents of the Danish secret service, and that is what broke.

WORLD TODAY: Do you think Angela Merkel will perhaps respond differently this time? And what’s been the reaction to this report so far in Germany, and perhaps other parts of Europe?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think the intention of this whistleblower is, because he sees that there is no reaction, and therefore he keeps leaking in order to build up the pressure. So, now, [Peer] Steinbrück, who is a former [SPD] chancellor candidate, said this is a scandal. The Norwegian and Swedish ministers said that now they demand an investigation. We have to see what happens, because this all happened already last year, and I think it totally depends, if the population says that if these governments allow that everybody is being spied on then these governments are obviously not defending the interests of their respective populations. So I think we have to see how this unfolds.

WORLD TODAY: And following the news of the report on Sunday, Edward Snowden accused U.S. President Joe Biden of being deeply involved in this scandal, the first time around. Why would he say that?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: [laughs] Well, because it’s true! It’s fairly well known for everybody who has listened to Edward Snowden, and there is a whole group of American whistleblowers, who have said similar things, that the NSA is spying on everything—everything going on in the world. They’re spying on emails, laptops, telephone calls, and they collect all of this in gigantic storage facilities. And they’re not looking for a person or a subject, they’re collecting everything. And then, once they have it, later on they can go, and go with search words and call up specific things they want.

In reality, this NSA operation has become a world surveillance state. You know, they’re making a lot of noise about surveillance in China and Russia, and so forth, but the reality is, the British GCHQ, that’s the equivalent of the NSA, and the NSA, they’re just collecting everything. And I think that obviously Biden, both in his capacity as Vice President and now as President, is completely on top of that.

WORLD TODAY: OK, but why would the U.S. spy on its allies?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Because they think they are the guardian of an unipolar world, and it is, for them, they don’t have any sense that there may be something wrong with that. It’s for them, quite normal and self-evident that they can do that.

I mean, you know, the United States, unfortunately—and I think some officials in China have been aware of it—that the United States has turned away from their original values of the American Revolution, where they were created as a republic, and in the recent years—actually decades, one can say—they have turned into an ally of the British Empire, running the world on the basis of the “special relationship,” whereby they think that if they behave like the muscle of the British Empire, then that’s the way how they run the unipolar world.

WORLD TODAY: But do you think this is going to have an impact on America’s relations with its key allies, because Joe Biden is seeking to rebuild alliances?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, the question I’m asking myself, and many other people are asking themselves, is: Why is it that there was no reaction after these stories came out in 2015, in 2020? I mean, the Danish clearly knew what they were doing, but they didn’t want to make any fuss about it. They didn’t want to rock the boat. It’s almost like they would prefer to be the slave of the great master, than being kicked out of the club! You know, it’s a complete scandal: It puts into question, all this question about “Western values,” the great Western democracies, human rights, all of these things. Where are the human rights of the European citizens being protected by their governments?

I hope that some very clear questions will be asked of President Biden when he attends the G7 meeting. I mean, I doubt it, because these leaders have not shown—they’d rather be part of the “Five Eyes” and “Seven Eyes,” and whatnot rather than defending their own citizens.

WORLD TODAY: Thank you, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, a Germany-based political and economic think-tank. You’re listening to World Today.