EDITORIAL
Russian President Vladimir Putin Isn’t the Only One Who Knows Judo
Sept. 28 (EIRNS)—The circulation and organizing around EIR’s just-released dossier, “Robert Mueller Is an Amoral Legal Assassin: He Will Do His Job If You Let Him,” is placing the adversary in the position that, the more they try to frame up President Donald Trump, and the more extreme their slanders and denigration of him, the more they do our work for us! The worse they do, the better for us—the more they prove our case. No one who has followed the facts can doubt that President Trump has been getting “the LaRouche treatment,” as LaRouche organizers have been hearing for months from people they meet in the course of organizing. Now, EIR’s dossier puts together three of the great unexplained mysteries of the most recent past: first, the great frameup of Lyndon LaRouche; then Sept. 11, 2001 attack and its coverup; and now the frenzied witch hunt against President Trump. By following the trail of the “legal assassin” Bob Mueller through all three of them, dossier author Barbara Boyd shows who was really behind all three—and, even more important—why they’re doing it.
The threat against which the oligarchy has been deploying Bob Mueller all these years, is the New Paradigm embodied in the “One Belt, One Road” policy of President Xi Jinping, officially adopted by China just four years ago in 2013. But it’s much older than that. Lyndon and Helga LaRouche have been fighting for precisely this perspective since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. But it goes back much earlier still—back to statesman Lyndon LaRouche’s proposals of the late 1970s. Beginning then, he won the future President Ronald Reagan to his proposal of a Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which had precisely the same intention, given the different historical period, as the later LaRouche proposals for the “Productive Triangle,” and the “Eurasian Land-Bridge,” which themselves were the immediate precursors of the “One Belt, One Road.”
The attempted assassination of President Reagan and the wild slander campaign and frameup against Lyndon LaRouche—the “Donald Trump treatment” which LaRouche was given—were intended to destroy at that time the world policy which is today being led by China and Russia. Worldwide, the policy of Mueller’s employers has failed. LaRouche’s has succeeded.
But do the American people know this? They have no inkling of it. A whole different world has been inaugurated, a New Paradigm as different from the world of the 20th century, as was the European Medieval world from the Italian Renaissance, as Helga Zepp-LaRouche expressed it again today in an interview with Rogue Money Radio. This is a secret more carefully hidden than all the lies of Russiagate. But just follow the trail which EIR’s new dossier lays out, and it’s inescapable. This New Paradigm is already there, and the United States must join in. And, as the U.S. confronts a string of natural disasters which require LaRouche’s policy to overcome and to turn around the U.S. economy, while at the same time, President Trump prepares for a November state visit to China—this is the moment that must be seized to do it.
NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Helga Zepp-LaRouche Interviewed on ‘Rogue Money Radio’ Website
Sept. 28 (EIRNS)—Schiller Institute chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche was interviewed live for 45 minutes today on Rogue Money Radio by “V the Guerrilla Economist.” The first part was a full report, to present to an American audience how the dynamic of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, or the New Silk Road as it is also known, is bringing into existence a New Paradigm among nations in the world, and why this is a cause for optimism. Among the questions for her, she was asked why the trans-Atlantic elites oppose it; how can the Silk Road address the North Korea crisis; what is the European reaction to the New Silk Road; and her thoughts about the Donald Trump-Xi Jinping relationship?
Zepp-LaRouche concluded with an inspiring discussion of how cooperation among China, the U.S., Russia and other nations is the basis for creating a world in which humanity “grows up,” as she put it, and comprehends how to forgo the use of war to resolve conflicts, and thus to replace geopolitics with seeking the common aims of mankind: a world without war, and without poverty. The interview is posted on the Rogue Money YouTube site, https://youtu.be/RFxZHOlhGwo?t=26, and other related platforms. The transcript is being prepared for publication in EIR.
China’s Global Times: ‘Stable Sino-U.S. Ties Buttress of World Order’
Sept. 28 (EIRNS)—Yesterday, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson due to arrive Sept. 30 to prepare President Trump’s November visit to China, Global Times, owned by People’s Daily, the organ of the ruling Communist Party of China, published an editorial under the above title, which well captures its content. Excerpts:
“This year has been eventful in terms of international relations, but still sufficiently stable thanks to the overall constant Sino-U.S. relationship playing a key role as a buttress. Frictions between China and the U.S. have not undermined bilateral relations. While the two countries have experienced numerous problems, cooperation remains the theme. The major-power relationship built on this basis has affected how people look at international relations and brought a sense of stability to the world.
“The nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula seems to be evolving toward a showdown and the bellicose exchange of threats between Washington and Pyongyang is devouring room to maneuver. But there is still a last hope as long as China stands in between. Assume that China stops playing a buffer role and it will just be a matter of time before the U.S. and North Korea start a real war.
“So it is in the economic and trade front. As protectionism surges, the U.S. has openly bashed major economies and even conducted a Section 301 probe into China.
“But the two largest trading partners are not in a trade war with each other as expected. This inspires many people to remain optimistic that the international trading system will be sustained.
“Global issues must be solved, but not hastily. There must be perseverance and patience to seek solutions. This view adopted by many people is shaped by Sino-U.S. relations. The patient consultations between the U.S. and China over disputes have impressed the world.
“The China-U.S. summit won’t supply a panacea for the nuclear crisis or trade disputes. But the two leaders’ reciprocal visits have consolidated the belief of both peoples and the whole world that major issues must be solved through cooperation. They have helped find the common grounds of the two countries and thus enormously reduced the risks of strategic miscalculations accumulated due to impatience and lack of strategic trust.
“Many issues in front of China and the U.S. are impossible to solve, but still they need solutions made through cooperation. Since Trump took office, the way that China and the U.S. have adapted to each other serves the two countries’ interests well.
“Since Trump took power, Sino-U.S. relations have seen rising predictability and the two countries have been more capable in managing problems. What we want most is that the tendency can be strengthened and cemented with the two U.S. secretaries’ China trip and Trump’s state visit to China.”
Belt and Road Will Boost Steel Demand, Says Mining Giant BHP Billiton
Sept. 28 (EIRNS)—Mining giant BHP Billiton is looking with great anticipation at the monumental projects underway and planned through the Belt & Road Initiative. The company estimates that building the power capacity, railways, pipelines, and other transport project will make up 70% of the total investment for the Belt and Road project. This will translate to an increase in steel demand by 15 million tons per year, which they assume will be produced mostly in China. Last year, world steel production was 1,600 million tons. What is of interest to BHP Billiton, the largest mining company in the world, is that this would translate into a comparable interest in demand for iron ore. Last year, the company produced 231 tons of iron ore, “enough to build a railway to the Moon,” the company brags.
But while the Silk Road countries are indeed planning missions to the Moon, the steel will be used to reshape the Earth, so that this can be done.
U.S. POLITICAL & ECONOMIC
Bill Introduced To Stop U.S. Support for Saudi Genocidal War against Yemen
Sept. 28 (EIRNS)—Last evening a bipartisan group of four Representatives introduced legislation, H.Con.Res.81, which requires the “removal” of U.S. military forces from Yemen, unless Congress authorizes U.S. support. Ro Khanna (D-CA), Mark Pocan (D-WI), Thomas Massie (R-KY), and Walter Jones (R-NC) are the four sponsors.
As reported today by Foreign Policy, Democrats Ro Khanna and Mark Pocan circulated a letter to colleagues asking their support for a bill “to restore Congress as the constitutionally mandated branch of government that may declare war and retain oversight over it.” Pocan said that Congress should end the U.S. role in “this senseless, unauthorized conflict.”
The sponsors of the bill also stress that assisting the Saudi-led coalition that is bombing Yemen harms U.S. national security, leading to the expansion of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The bill includes assistance in “ending the suffering of millions of innocent people in Yemen.”
U.S. Military Response In Puerto Rico Shifts To Longer-Term Effort
Sept. 28 (EIRNS)—A major shift is under way in the military response to the horrific disaster in Puerto Rico. “Given the changing scope and conditions, DOD [Department of Defense] will adjust its concept of operations in Puerto Rico and transition from a short-term, sea-based response to a predominantly land-based effort designed to provide robust, longer-term support” to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and to Puerto Rico, Pentagon spokesman Army Lt. Col. Jamie Davis said, yesterday. U.S. Northern Command is deploying greater command and control as well as logistical capabilities to the island, as a result. This includes the deployment of a land-based headquarters, headed by Brig. Gen. Richard Kim, the deputy commanding general of U.S. Army North, who arrived on the island, yesterday.
Elaine Duke, the acting Secretary of Homeland Security, called General Kim’s deployment a “big step forward,” and, in testimony to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Sept. 27, that his presence will help accelerate decision-making on the ground. “What DOD is doing is helping us get the supplies there, but also helping us open the access roads,” Duke said. “They also are leading the debris removal, which is huge. We still have areas that we cannot access by roads.”
According to a Sept. 27 Pentagon news release, fuel distribution remains the top FEMA priority. Fifty-nine of 69 hospitals are operational, although at what level is unknown. Roughly 44% of the population remains without drinking water, and addressing that deficit is an urgent priority.
A Sept. 27 FEMA release heavily emphasizes power restoration, which involves the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as part of a task force that also includes representatives of the Department of Energy, the power industry, and the government of Puerto Rico, which “is working aggressively to develop a holistic plan to assess damage, build power resources, and restore power to the grid.” The focus of that effort, the release says, “is restoring power to critical infrastructure including hospitals, airports and seaports, water treatment facilities, and communications.”
Surprise! Russia Did Not Hack California Internet Election Infrastructure and Websites
Sept. 28 (EIRNS)—California Secretary of State Alex Padilla issued a scathing attack yesterday on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for lying to citizens, telling them that Russia “hacked” their state election infrastructure. “Last Friday, my office was notified by [DHS] that Russian cyber actors ‘scanned’ California’s Internet-facing systems in 2016, including Secretary of State websites. Following our request for further information, it became clear that DHS’s conclusions were wrong,” Padilla wrote in a press release.
DHS confirmed that the alleged scanning activity had occurred on the Department of Technology network, and no election infrastructure and websites involving the Secretary of State were affected. “California voters can further rest assured that the California Secretary of State elections infrastructure and websites were not hacked or breached by Russian cyber actors,” said Padilla’s statement.
“Our notification from DHS was not only a year late, it also turned out to be bad information.” And by the way, the Secretary states, the Associated Press reported that DHS has now “reversed itself and ‘now says Russia didn’t target Wisconsin’s voter registration system’ which is contrary to previous briefings.”
Stupidity and incompetence on the part of DHS can only go so far. Could it be that election infrastructure in “liberal” states is under attack, not by Russia, but through dirty tricks by an anti-Trump cabal in the Administration?
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Germany: The Fall of Wolfgang Schäuble
Sept. 28 (EIRNS)—The German general elections have an illustrious victim: Wolfgang Schäuble will no longer be Germany’s powerful Finance Minister but will move to the almost insignificant post of president of the Bundestag, the lower house of Germany’s Parliament. The decision is seen as opening the door for the Free Democratic Party (FDP) to again participate in the government. In fact, FDP head Christian Lindner—who campaigned in favor of Russia and against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s anti-nuclear, pro-climate hoax energy policy—had said in advance that should the FDP become part of the government, it won’t take the Foreign Ministry portfolio as the FDP has traditionally, but wants the Finance Minister post.
With Schäuble out, two important figures of the previous Berlin government won’t be in the future government, assuming a government is formed at all. The second figure is Christoph Heusgen, Merkel’s neocon strategic policy advisor who has been co-architect of the EU foreign and security policy. Heusgen in fact had announced long ago that he won’t be in the new government but will go to the United Nations.
Should a CDU/CSU-FDP-Green coalition be formed (CDU is the Christian Democratic Union; the Christian Social Union is CDU’s partner in Bavaria), a Finance Ministry under the FDP could make French President Emmanuel Macron’s dreams of further EU integration last as long as a snowball in Hell.
However, those four candidates for a coalition have so many conflicting issues, that reaching any agreement looks as difficult as squaring the circle and, should one be reached on a government program, the voters would punish them.
The CSU which historically has historically ruled Bavaria, for instance, is facing existential competition from the Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) party in Bavaria, and sent an ultimatum to party leader and Minister President Horst Seehofer at yesterday’s meeting of the Bundestag faction: unless he imposes an immigration quota as a condition for joining the government, he will be dumped at the Nov. 17 party congress.
As for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), it looks like Chancellor candidate Martin Schulz, who lost to Merkel, is finished. After the electoral defeat, Schulz wanted to be parliamentary leader of the SPD, but he was convinced to give that up in favor of “leftist” Andrea Nahles. This is the first time that an SPD chairman has had no political role.
The SPD is coming under attack from all sides, including former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who yesterday criticized the SPD decision to a priori refuse a coalition with the CDU. “Was it particularly smart for the SPD to announce they will be in the opposition?” asked Schröder, adding that he would have looked at what the conditions would be.
The situation is extremely fluid and government negotiations will last several weeks if not months. The EU elites are anxious, because with Germany ungoverned, or ungovernable, the EU is ungovernable.
Study Shows Direct Correlation in U.S. Joblessness, Poverty, and Opioid Death Rates
Sept. 28 (EIRNS)—In a recent study, Ohio State professors Mark Partridge and Mike Betz found a direct correlation between joblessness (including low-paying, low-quality jobs) and the rate of deaths from opioid overdose in rural Ohio. In 2015, there were 3,050 overdose deaths in Ohio. The professors made clear, however, that what is happening in rural Ohio is typical of the pattern in small towns and rural communities across the United States.
According to the Sept. 26 daily Record Herald, in a presentation Sept. 21 at the Farm Science Review forum near London, Ohio, “Despair in Rural America—Opioid Problem or Symptom,” Betz pointed to recent research showing that for every 1% increase in the unemployment rate, the overdose death rate increases by 3.5%. The type of jobs that people have is also a factor, he said. The good manufacturing jobs that used to pay $25/hour no longer exist; they’ve been replaced by retail jobs that earn $12/hour or less. In the study he and his co-authors conducted, Betz explained, they found that for every 1% decrease in wages, there is a 3.5% increase in overdose death rates. The availability of prescription opioid drugs compounds the problem.
For rural whites, the percentage is even higher: if there were a 3% decline in wages in the county, there could be an almost 15% increase in drug overdose deaths. Partridge calls this the “Depths of Despair.” A recent study has shown that particularly among white middle-aged males, life expectancy is falling. Partridge also compared urban and rural suicide rates. The latter are about twice that of urban suicide rates for males and females. “This is a striking contrast that rural young people are killing themselves at twice the rate than in urban areas,” he said.
Since 1973, median household income has barely budged in the United States, Partridge reported, noting that the group that has suffered the most in terms of lack of growth has been white men. Relating this to the opioid crisis, he pointed out that people may have aspirations that they’ll do as well as their parents, but then those aspirations “are completely dashed, and it creates a lot of problems.” People feel like failures, and this leads to drug abuse, he concluded.
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
Saudis Trying To Obstruct UN Human Rights Investigation into Yemen War
Sept. 28 (EIRNS)—The Saudis are obstructing the establishment of a commission of inquiry to investigate war crimes and violations of human rights in their war in Yemen. The Associated Press reported Sept. 26 that the Saudis have circulated a letter, known to have been received by at least two foreign governments, threatening that if those governments support a Dutch-Canadian resolution in the UN Human Rights Council to set up such a commission, economic retaliation will follow. The letter also emphasizes the “importance of adopting a unified stance to face the conflict in Yemen.” The Saudis, as they have been doing for the past two years, favor a Yemen commission they control, that is supposedly conducting an investigation. According to the AP report, the United States has not taken sides publicly about the competing resolutions.
Georgette Gagnon, head of field operations at the UN human rights office, pointed out that Yemen’s own human rights commission was “established by, is funded by and reports to a party to the conflict” and said it was way past time for an effective probe, Reuters reported on Sept. 13.
On Sept. 5, the UN Human Rights Council issued a report charging that human rights violations and abuses continue unabated in Yemen, along with unrelenting violations of international humanitarian law, with civilians suffering deeply from the consequences of an “entirely man-made catastrophe.” According to the report, more than 60% of the known 5,144 civilian casualties resulted from Saudi air strikes. “In addition to markets, hospitals, schools, residential areas, and other public and private infrastructure, the past year witnessed airstrikes against funeral gatherings and small civilian boats,” the report says, according to a UN press release. “The humanitarian crisis with nearly 18.8 million people in need of humanitarian aid and 7.3 million on the brink of famine is a direct result of the behavior of parties to the conflict, including indiscriminate attacks, attacks against civilians and protected objects, sieges, blockades and restrictions on movement.”
SCIENCE & INFRASTRUCTURE
Puerto Rico Needs Modular Nuclear Reactors, Says Energy Secretary Perry
Sept. 28 (EIRNS)—“Wouldn’t it make abundant good sense if we had small modular reactors that literally you could put in the back of a C-17 [military cargo] aircraft, transport it to an area like Puerto Rico, and push it out the back end, crank it up and plug it in?” So remarked Energy Secretary Rick Perry at a Sept. 26 panel discussion at a National Clean Energy Week event in Washington, D.C.
In fact, Puerto Rico has a history of experience with nuclear technology. In the 1960s, it hosted a U.S. government test reactor under the Atomic Energy Commission. The program was to test the Boiling Nuclear Superheater (BONUS) reactor design, and investigate its technical and economic feasibility. Construction of the 17 MW reactor began in 1960, and it achieved a chain reaction four years later. The reactor was shut down in 1968 due to technical difficulties and the high cost of needed modifications. The sponsoring agency in Puerto Rico was the Water Resources Authority. Also in the 1960s, Puerto Rico was one of a number of developing economies for which Oak Ridge National Lab designed Nuplexes.
Today, the first floor of the BONUS reactor building is a technological museum, with an exhibit explaining the BONUS project, one titled, “Albert Einstein and Nuclear Energy,” another on “Space and Nuclear Energy” and a third on the science of nuclear energy. The motto of the museum is: “Dedicated to the memory of those who have devoted their lives to the generation of electricity, for a better quality of life to all.”
High-Energy Cosmic Rays Are Extragalactic in Origin
Sept. 28 (EIRNS)—Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays have been observed for more than 50 years, but scientists could not determine where they came from. Low-energy cosmic rays we know are produced by the Sun. A study published Sept. 22 in Science by a group of some 400 scientists from 18 countries, presents evidence, based on 12 years of collecting data, that high-energy cosmic rays do not come from the Milky Way, as previously thought, but are extragalactic. The observations were made at the Pierre Augur Observatory in Argentina. The scientists measured an asymmetry in the distribution of the direction of the cosmic particles arrival as they approach the Earth.
They found that the most prominent arrival direction is from about 120° away from the direction of the center of the Milky Way. Gregory Snow, physicist and outreach coordinator for the Observatory, explains that “the particles we detect are so energetic they have to come from astrophysical phenomena that are extremely violent. Some galaxies have an explosive, massive black hole in their centers, and there are theories that these very violent centers accelerate particles of very high energy that eventually reach the Earth.”
Snow says that cosmic rays are a clue to the structure of the Universe, and can answer some of the most important questions in astrophysics.
Former U.S. Energy Secretary Promotes Small Modular Nuclear Reactors along the Silk Road
Sept. 28 (EIRNS)—Nuclear physicist Ernest Moniz, who served as Secretary of Energy under Barack Obama’s second term, gave a presentation at the Kazakhstan Future Energy Expo 2017 in early September. The Expo was focused almost exclusively on “green energy,” but in response to a question from a friend of EIR attending the Expo, about the role of nuclear energy in the Belt and Road Initiative, Moniz was emphatic that the use of small modular reactors (SMRs) would be critical in building the industries and new communities along the Silk Road. He said that the U.S. has the most advanced designs for these SMRs, although there would be competition from other nations.
Moniz, a professor emeritus at MIT, former head of the Physics Department, has been a strong proponent of nuclear energy throughout his career. He has also collaborated with the American Committee for East-West Accord, and has advocated a saner policy toward Russia than the Obama regime.
