EIR Daily Alert Service
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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2017 Volume 4, Number 25 EIR Daily Alert Service P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390
EDITORIALIf Trump Links U.S. with China’s New Silk Road, History Will Remember Him as Great LeaderFeb. 5 (EIRNS)—The following Editorial is excerpted from a Helga-Zepp LaRouche’s keynote to the Schiller Institute conference on “The Win-Win Solution: One Belt, One Road,” in New York City on Saturday, Feb. 4. This is very much a defining moment in history, where the chances to build a completely new paradigm in the world is within reach and could be a reality in a very short period of time. That may be difficult to believe if you look at the world as it is right now, which is clearly in the biggest uproar I have experienced maybe in my lifetime. The election of President Trump in the United States has caused violent reactions in the United States, in Europe…. The characterization of this demonstration against Trump as a “color revolution,” was my first view on the matter, but also President Putin gave it the same name…. Both the governments of Russia and China characterized these efforts of color revolution as a complete form of war. Putin basically called it “a Maidan” against Trump, and that is what it is: It is by the same people, the same political apparatus, and for the same motives. To understand what is going on, in my view, one has to consider the entire history of the United States, because the British Empire at the time of the American Revolution, never accepted their most important colony, America, would become independent, and they tried to reverse that, first, in a military way with the War of 1812. They tried the same thing with the Civil War, where the British Empire was allied with the Confederacy against Lincoln, and after that, they realized it would not be possible to militarily reverse the independence of the United States. So, they changed tactics and from that point on said, “OK, if we can convince the American establishment to rule the world as an empire based on the British model, then we have it.” And they succeeded to a very large extent to accomplish that. This was the basis of the American policy since Teddy Roosevelt, with very short interruptions of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and to a certain extent, John F. Kennedy. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the neo-cons saw their moment and that of the British to establish this principle of an unipolar world where basically they would eliminate every government which would not submit to this unipolar world through color revolutions, through regime change, through wars based on lies, as it was in the case of Iraq before Afghanistan, Libya—and they tried the same thing in Syria. If you take the word or the concept “globalization,” as just being another word for this Anglo-American Empire, a system where the profit of the few is what counts; the system where the rich became unbelievably rich, where the poor became poorer, the middle class was vanishing—well, this left a lot of people who felt left out, the so-called “deplorables,” as Hillary Clinton called them. So, people had this tremendous sense of injustice caused by the EU, and that was the reason for the Brexit; not just the refugees, but the general feeling that the EU bureaucracy is not representing the interests of the people. This was the case clearly with the rejection of Hillary Clinton, where the American population, or at least a large part of them, felt they had no future; that in the rust belt, people would have a shortened life expectancy—this is the clearest characteristic if the country is collapsing, when the life expectancy is going down! Mr. Trump has been in office for two weeks and it is very clear that he is implementing all of his election promises. Some are good and hopeful; others are clearly more problematic…. Globalization was at the expense of the American working population, clearly. Because globalization meant outsourcing of industry—the United States has very little industry left, only the military-industrial sector and aerospace and a couple of other areas, but a lot of the productive, middle-level industries are not there anymore; they went to cheap labor markets. So it is correct when Trump says he wants to bring production back to the United States, especially because you have tremendous problems: you have the collapsing infrastructure, you have a huge drug epidemic, you have violence, you have a rising suicide rate for 16 years…. The ban on immigrants for 90 days—seven Muslim countries cannot come to the United States for that period—there was a huge outcry in Europe, but what a hypocrisy! European politicians felt that they had to lecture Trump on human rights and all of these things. What a double standard! The EU for a very long time has tried to prevent all refugees from coming to Europe. Alone in 2016, more than 5,000 people drowned in the Mediterranean officially, and that does not count the many uncounted. They are trying to keep people away from coming through Greece and Balkan routes, which is now blocked by NATO barbed wire…. The EU has no problem in leaving the Greek people alone with terrible refugee camps of 100,000 people, with really not much care. They don’t care about the refugee camps in the Balkans, where people without heating are trying to survive the winter, and they don’t have enough food…. Trump also promised to implement Glass-Steagall, the banking separation law of Franklin D. Roosevelt; and around that there is a huge fight in the United States right now. It is very clear that the bosses of Wall Street are dead set against Glass-Steagall; they are moving like crazy to prevent it and keep control…. Mr. Trump has started to improve relations with Russia. There are very positive signals and that is one of the reasons why the representatives of the unipolar geopolitical faction are so absolutely upset; because they want to have regime change in Russia, and not U.S.-Russian relations. They are even pronouncing Mrs. Merkel now to be the leader of the free world; which is a sort of a joke…. If Trump would not have been elected and we would have a Hillary Clinton President, we were on a short road to World War III…. What about U.S.-Chinese relations?… It is very clear that the United States urgently needs a New Silk Road. If you travel over the American highways, if you are unlucky, you may end up disappearing into a pothole. If you look at the amount of miles of fast trains in the United States, you can’t find it. China, on the other side, already by the end of last year, had 20,000 kilometers of fast trains. By the year 2020, they want to have 50,000 km fast train, connecting every major city in China through a fast train system. You need to have a new fast train system [in the U.S.] connecting the North and the South, the East and the West. Why not build 50,000 miles of fast train in the United States? Then you could combine that with other large infrastructure projects, like solving the water crisis of Southwest America—NAWAPA; the creation of new water from ionization of the atmosphere; creating new water and weather patterns; build a couple of new science cities. For international cooperation, joint research in fusion power, space cooperation, and just have a completely different approach to the idea of collaboration among nations. This is where the cooperation with China and other nations comes in. China already offered cooperation in infrastructure investment in the United States. The United States could join immediately the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the AIIB. And if the present motion to implement not only Glass-Steagall, but to implement the Four Laws of Lyndon LaRouche: which is Glass-Steagall; a national bank which creates credit lines for these investments; create an international credit system for joint ventures around the world; and have a crash program for fusion power and space cooperation, then, the United States, China, and other nations could immediately start transforming the world…. Mr. Trump promised in the election campaign that he would invest $1 trillion in the infrastructure in the United States in the next ten years. He already met the CEO of Alibaba, Jack Ma, and Mr. Ma offered to create a platform for e-commerce of another $1 trillion investment for Chinese investors to invest in the United States, and American exporters to export to China…. The formulation by President Xi Jinping, that what we have to build is a community for the future of mankind, based on a win-win cooperation, is exactly how to look at this. This is not a zero-sum game where one nation wins and the other one loses, but it is a new perspective where all countries of this planet can work together in the benefit of each. We need a New Paradigm; and that New Paradigm must be as different from the present paradigm of globalization as modern times was different from the Middle Ages in Europe…. The New Paradigm which replaces globalization must exactly leave the wrong axioms behind, and by wrong axioms, I mean geopolitics, the neo-liberal idea of wealth creation, that it is the control of trade, free trade which generates wealth. It must be replaced by the idea that the only source of wealth is the creativity of the human being. And therefore, the common aims of mankind must focus on that, that what is unique about the human species is that we are the only creative species, and we can discover universal laws deeper and deeper. And we call that scientific progress, and when we turn that scientific progress into technology, it increases the productivity of the economic process; and that in turn leads to a higher living standard, a longer life expectancy, and prosperity for everybody. When we do this now, we can reach the adulthood of mankind…. I think if we can convince the United States with the Trump administration to cooperate with China on the New Silk Road, I am safe on the prediction that Mr. Trump will not be only a great American President, but if he can mobilize his country to join hands with China right now, he will go into history as one of the towering giants of all of universal history. U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMICTrump Tells Fox News—You Think American Leaders Haven’t Been Killers?Feb. 5 (EIRNS)—In an interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly to be aired on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, a preview shows that O’Reilly tried to challenge Trump’s support for Putin by saying: “But, he’s is a killer.” Without mentioning America’s most notorious mass killer, Barack Obama, by name, Trump made the implication quite clear by responding: “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent?” The neo-cons of both parties went nuts, screaming that one cannot compare a “democratic” American leader to a “killer” like Putin. If America is to survive, this veiled reference must be made explicit with a criminal prosecution of Obama for mass murder and crimes against humanity. Chinese State Councillor Yang, U.S. National Security Advisor Flynn Speak, Hope To CollaborateFeb. 3 (EIRNS)—State Councillor Yang Jiechi spoke today by phone with Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Yang said that the two countries have broad common interests and great potential for cooperation, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement released on the call. Paraphrasing Yang, the statement says Yang told Flynn, “China hopes that the new U.S. government can work hard together with China, to strengthen high-level and other exchanges, maintain the political basis for bilateral relations, expand cooperation bilaterally, regionally and globally in all areas, manage and control disputes and sensitive issues.” The two also exchanged views on regional issues, the statement said, without giving details. State Councillor Yang and Flynn had previously met for discussions in New York last December. Today’s Yang-Flynn call follows Ivanka Trump’s surprise visit to the Chinese New Year reception at the embassy in Washington, on Feb. 1. Russia and U.S. Ambassadors to the UN Meet Privately, Agree To Work TogetherFeb. 4 (EIRNS)—Addressing the United Nations Security Council for the first time since her appointment as U.S. UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley said the United States wants to improve relations with Russia. In response, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said he would do his best to establish a “good working relationship” with the United States. Both countries are permanent members of the UN Security Council. After the UNSC meeting, Churkin noted a “change of tone” by the U.S. envoy to the UN and later in the day he met with Haley at his residence in New York, according to Churkin’s spokesman. “Both sides expressed the intention to closely cooperate at the UN in accordance with the intentions of their respective capitals,” the spokesman told journalists on Feb. 3. ‘No Need for Dramatic Military Moves in the South China Sea at This Time,’ Says MattisFeb. 4 (EIRNS)—Speaking at a press conference in Tokyo, Secretary of Defense James Mattis said that there was no need at this time for any “dramatic military moves” in the South China Sea. While criticizing Chinese construction and other operations in the region, which the Chinese consider an integral part of Chinese territory, and saying that China “had shredded the trust of nations in the region, apparently trying to have veto authority over the diplomatic and security and economic conditions of neighboring states,” he nevertheless brought the issue down a notch from the statements of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who, in testimony before Congress had indicated that the U.S. should be prepared to defend “international territories” in the South China Sea. Mattis said, “What we have to do, is exhaust all efforts, diplomatic efforts, to try to resolve this properly, maintaining open lines of communication. And certainly our military stance should be one that reinforces our diplomats in this regard. But there is no need right now at this time for military maneuvers or something like that, that would solve something that’s best solved by the diplomats.” While Mattis’ comments have been viewed positively by Chinese scholars, his reiteration during his trip to South Korea that the U.S. and R.O.K. would move forward on the THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense) deployment and his reconfirmation in Tokyo that the Diaoyou/Senkaku Islands, contested by China, but placed under Japanese “administration” at the end of World War II, would be subject to Article V of the U.S.-Japan Defense Treaty, caused a great deal of concern. Article V would require the U.S. to come to the aid of Japan if there were a conflict between Japan and China over the islands. Replying to Mattis’ statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in a statement, “We urge the U.S. side to take a responsible attitude, stop making wrong remarks on the issue involving the Diaoyu islands’ sovereignty, and avoid making the issue more complicated and bringing instability to the regional situation.” Fascist Gangs Deployed in Color Revolution against U.S. GovernmentFeb. 5 (EIRNS)—Overtly fascist gangs have been deployed against speakers backing Donald Trump, in Berkeley, California, and in New York City. In the case of UC Berkeley, on Feb. 1 the university reported that “violence was instigated by a group of about 150 masked agitators who came onto campus and interrupted an otherwise non-violent protest.” Black-clad anarchists used molotov cocktails to set fires, threw firecrackers at campus police, and used bats and steel rods to smash windows. “They didn’t come to lock arms and sing ‘Kumbaya,’ ” said Dan Mogulof, assistant vice chancellor and spokesman for UC Berkeley. “They came to fuck things up.” The Los Angeles Times and other area media identified them as “Black Bloc” operatives. At New York University on the following day, violent protests were launched by self-proclaimed “anti-fa” anarchists against another conservative speaker. Eleven people were arrested. “Anti-fa,” for anti-fascist, is the name used in Germany for the same brand of anarchist thugs. While chanting against “fascism,” these gangs are fully fascist in thought and action, and the national coordination of this fascist wing of the color revolution against the U.S. government, like their brothers in the Maidan, are deployed in order to save the British effort to get America to again perform as the Empire’s “dumb giant” in a war on Russia, which Trump has severely disrupted. COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEMBritish Banker, Former MP, Issues Strong Call For Glass-SteagallFeb. 4 (EIRNS)—John Browne, a banker who was a Conservative MP in the Parliament (1979-92) and later a vice president in U.K. Independence Party (UKIP), was interviewed on Fox Business News on Feb. 3, strongly identifying the takedown of Glass-Steagall as the cause of the current financial disaster and calling for its reinstatement in the U.S., the U.K. and elsewhere, to end “universal banking” and separate retail lending banks from investment houses. A loose transcript: “At the root of the crisis is that America abolished Glass-Steagall, when banks, which had to be secured for their depositors, began to get involved in investment banking, getting them into highly speculative instruments. I think that the reintroduction of Glass-Steagall, which separated banks from investment banks, should spread to Britain and other countries. Because it takes speculation out of banking, and hence the need for government to stand behind them with taxpayers’ funds, which leads of course to more speculation, gambling with clients’ money, and leads to taxpayer bailouts, and more huge profits at these banks. “The prices of banks are so high today because they reflect these exotic instruments which have such high returns. And to get back to dear old banking will be tough on earnings, so it is not popular, but it is the only solution.” Asked by Fox if another crisis like 2008 is in the works, Browne responded: “Oh, yes. You see all this gambling—billions and trillions of dollars get wiped out. It is disastrous for families. There has to be a strict division of these industries. I’m for deregulation, but the crisis is entirely due to the fact that Glass-Steagall was abolished.” THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDERFormer MP Galloway Exposes British Empire’s Using U.S. in Imperial Operations, and Trump’s RejectionFeb. 5 (EIRNS)—George Galloway, the fiery former British MP who has a habit of upsetting the political establishment in the U.K., directly identified the fact that Trump has disrupted the British Empire’s historical use of the U.S. as the dumb giant to carry out its imperial wars, in a Feb. 4 interview with RT. Responding to a question about British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon’s remark at St. Andrews University, on Feb. 2, in which he claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin has brought the world into the “post-truth era,” Galloway said that Fallon “is of course the defense minister of a small and semi-detached European power with not much military prowess and which wants to feel big about itself.” Fallon, Galloway said, along with other European powers, got used to “going around the world, threatening people with America’s army. Now America’s army is not quite so reliable, because America has a President who might not want to use the army in the way that these people want him to, at least one hopes not.” They “seek to continually exacerbate the existing tensions with Russia to defend their own relevance.” The truth is, Galloway says, “the European Union is having to come to terms with the fact that the U.S. now has a President that doesn’t want war with Russia,” which is a challenge to the whole basis of their existence. On the NATO buildup on Russia’s borders, Galloway points out that “Russia has no tanks in Poland, but Britain does. Russia has no tanks in the Baltic States but the NATO countries do. It’s the NATO countries that carried out the coup in Ukraine, and moved their political, strategic and military force into Ukraine on Russia’s border. The Ukrainian coup government is the one that’s bombarding Donbass right now, as we speak, and shedding civilian blood, and rivers of blood are running down the streets. So it’s quite Orwellian, actually, it’s the complete reversal of the truth.” STRATEGIC WAR DANGERZarif Passionately Proclaims that Iran’s Missile Programs Is for Self-DefenseFeb. 4 (EIRNS)—Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif passionately defended Iran’s missile program, in two videos that he posted on his Twitter account, yesterday. In one of the videos, which is circulating widely on Facebook, he was participating in an event where he was challenged by someone in the audience asking him why Iran insists on developing and deploying ballistic missiles in the face of international sanctions. “You were not the subject of war, where your cities were showered with missiles carrying chemical warheads, and you didn’t have a single missile to retaliate, so that maybe Saddam Hussein would stop,” he said, referring to the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq War in 1980-88. “We went to one country after another, begging—I insist, begging—for a single Scud missile to defend our people. Now, you want us to get a few dollars, and to abandon defending our people,” he goes on to say, adding that Iran is “entitled to the rudimentary means of defense.” The text, as reported by RT, does little to convey the passion of Zarif’s response. He speaks as someone who must have fought in that war and was forever changed by what he experienced. It should be remembered that the United States openly backed Saddam Hussein in that Iraq-Iran War. In transmitting the videos on Twitter, Zarif said: “Iran unmoved by threats as we derive security from our people. We’ll never initiate war, but we can only rely on our own means of defense.” SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURERussians Optimistic about Increased Space CooperationFeb. 3 (EIRNS)—Roscosmos Director General Igor Komarov said today on Rossiya-24 TV that the investigation of the cause of the Progress cargo vehicle launch failure on Dec. 1 is an example of the successful cooperation between Russia and the U.S. “Now the example of the Progress [cargo ship] crash shows very close cooperation” today’s TASS quotes Komarov. “We are working together on solving our joint problems, including ensuring the work of our joint crews” aboard the International Space Station. Komarov expressed hope that space cooperation will broaden under the Trump Administration: “We hope that common sense will prevail and cooperation in the space area, first of all, the peaceful use of space, will be expanded,” he said. It was reported earlier in Izvestia that Roscosmos had invited U.S. experts to join the Progress launch failure investigation. Komarov announced today that the Russian space industry has developed a “special program” to improve the quality of the Soyuz rocket, which failed to successfully launch the Progress supply ship. He outlined a list of specific inspections that will be done of the manufacturing process. Optimism regarding cooperation was also expressed by Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak, who spoke Jan. 31 at a Washington meeting of the American Physical Society. Reviewing recent events, Kislyak said, “We were notified that NASA wouldn’t be working with us” in 2014 after Crimea voted to unify with Russia. “That was a very bizarre situation. I didn’t understand that.” But later, NASA “corrected that issue and the collaboration is still continuing pretty well.” He was referring primarily to the exemption from the Russia ban for the ISS. Jeff Foust reports in SpaceNews that Kisylak said that there are areas where U.S. and Russian space interests “overlap,” such as lunar exploration and space medicine. “I think it would be premature for me to speculate as to whether this zone of overlapping interests will increase or decrease. We haven’t heard a new policy yet from the United States.” He continued that “there’s always been a lot of overlap that provides room for serious and significant cooperation.” He held up the ISS as “the model we need to strive for.”
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