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Former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska, a 2008 candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination and longtime trenchant critic of U.S. foreign policy, including that of the Obama Administration, told the United Nations press Monday, in New York, that China's policy offers solutions to world economic and political crises. Gravel pointed to China’s "One Belt, One Road" global infrastructure development policy for the solution to the world economic crisis, and said he sees no solution from inside Obama's United States.

"This is the Silk Road that has nothing to do with militarism," he explained. "This is the Silk Road that is designed to unify, economically, the Asian and the European continents through Eurasia — and it would be a system of rail transportation, of roads, of investment on the way through that process, then going down vertically to the various extensions of that into Arabia, into Iran. “So when you look at the total plan — and the organization of the EIR, the Executive Intelligence [review], has put out a booklet of that, which is just fantastic, in the details that it has. "There is no hegemonic plan involved," Gravel added: "You come in, you join them, and there is no requirement that you have to agree with every facet of their policy.... And the BRICS are also advancing a financial institution to counter what is happening with the IMF and World Bank."

Senator Mike Gravel speaking to the UN Press Correspondents Monday, September 14, 2015. Video courtesy of Nizar Abboud.

Senator Gravel also expounded on the "horrible" U.S. foreign policy pushed by U.S. neo-Cons like Victoria Nuland with Obama's support in Ukraine. Russian President Putin responded and acted with intelligence to stop war from escalating by annexing Crimea, Gravel asserted. Obama, he said, is the continuation of the 1988 Bush Administration and its neo-Cons. Gravel's two-hour press conference featured many questions from the 20-30 press in attendance. They included China's People's Daily, China Daily, Xinhua, and Wenhui Daily; Itar Tass of Russia; Deutsche Welle Radio, the German Press Agency, and taz.de of Germany; The Wall Street Journal and wnd.com from the United States; Italy's La Stampa and Ansa news agency; Canada's Global Research; Pakistan's The Dawn and Associated Press of Pakistan; Al Akbar of Beirut; Al Hurra TV, of the Mideast Broadcasting Network; Salima Press, Iranian, Bulgarian, and Japanese press, and others.

Senator Gravel was introduced by UN Correspondents' Association Member Joe Lauria of the Wall Street Journal, who reported that he had traveled with Gravel early in 2008 when, as a Democratic Presidential candidate, he debated eight candidates including Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Lauria said that in 1971, Daniel Ellsberg had acted to expose the top secret intelligence contained in the Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam War, but "only Sen. Mike Gravel had the courage to undertake reading that classified intelligence into the Congressional Record." (Because there was no quorum for Senate business, Gravel had to call a hearing of the Buildings and Grounds Subcommittee he chaired on June 29, 1971, and with the press in attendance, read the Pentagon Papers to the hearing, which were later published by Beacon Press, as "The Senator Mike Gravel Edition of the Pentagon Papers.")

Senator Gravel told his press audience Monday,

"We don't need to evangelize this failed democracy around the world. Obama is the continuation of the 1988 Bush Administration and its neo-Cons. In 1998, these neo-Cons pressed President Bill Clinton to attack Syria, Iraq, and Iran. The National Endowment for Democracy; U.S. Institute for Peace head Steven Hadley called for bombing Syria and militarizing Ukraine. NATO is an extension of this whole complex, and its impact extends into domestic policy."

Senator Gravel gave "Obamacare" as an example; which, he said, is three times as expensive as comparable medical care in the rest of world, and added that the United States has the worst delivery system. The people of the United States wanted a single payer system, he said; Obamacare supports the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies.

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