|
|
US Senator Mike Gravel to TASS: Russia and U.S. Should Build Bering Strait Tunnel ’for the Benefit of all Mankind.’
15 July 2016
EIRNS—Under the headline, "Former Alaska Senator: A Tunnel Connection Between Russia and the USA is Long Overdue," the Russian news agency TASS today published an interview with former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, proposing that Russia and the United States join together in building a tunnel under the Bering Strait. "Instead of exchanging threats, what we need to work on is projects like this, which unite us," Gravel told TASS. "I am confident that in the XXI century," he underscored, "this tunnel will come into being, and it will be connected to the New Silk Road. I think it may take from 30 to 50 years before the project will be fully implemented." Although published today, the interview was actually conducted last April by TASS correspondent Ivan Pilshchikov, who attended the Schiller Institute’s conference in New York on April 7, and subsequently favorably covered a LaRouchePac anti-NATO rally in Times Square. At last count, at least forty Russian media have picked up the TASS interview with Sen. Gravel. Gravel told TASS that building the Bering Strait tunnel is "absolutely doable... we should use the technological capabilities that are involved now in the military-industrial complex, and involve them in the implementation of such projects. They are for the benefit of all mankind." He explained that eventually, the tunnel should become part of the "railway system carrying maglev trains travelling at 600 kilometers per hour from Canada through Alaska to Russia, and further on the New Silk Road, which the Russian Federation and China and working on." "This is what is needed for the benefit of people," Gravel emphasized, "rather than the system that exists now, when big banks rob entire countries, and the different elements, including the American neo-conservatives and supporters of liberal interventionism, launch wars for the sake of their political views. What is happening is wrong." Noting Russia’s significant experience in this field, Gravel pointed out that Russia "has actively exploited and continues to exploit the resources of the Arctic and Siberia for the benefit of the people", and "it is clear that by connecting two continents, we can also direct resources from Eurasia to the central regions of the Western Hemisphere." It should also be understood, "that Russia continues to have a certain cultural presence in Alaska, and we have monuments related to this." One of them, he explained, is a monument to Alexander Baranov, who oversaw Russian settlements in North America in the late XVIII and early XIX centuries. "We call him the Tsar of Alaska. The cultural relationship between us already exists, and it should be expanded and strengthened." |
