EDITORIAL
EIR Proves Bob Mueller Is an ‘Amoral Legal Assassin’; Bust Treason Gang, Make Way for New Silk Road
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—Today, EIR posted its weekly edition, featuring the dossier, “Robert Mueller Is an Amoral Legal Assassin: He Will Do His Job If You Let Him.” The 26-page dossier presents the traitorous identity and role of Robert Swan Mueller III, in terms of long-standing, dirty operations against the nation, against patriot-statesman Lyndon LaRouche, against the 9/11 victims and their families, and others. This report is ammunition to bust up the treason crowd of the neo-British Empire, once and for all, to make way for the trans-Atlantic to join in the New Silk Road era of development.
The fact that such stinking operatives as Mueller have been able to continue in their dirty work so long, is not for lack of “information” as such, among the public—though the population is deprived of knowledge. Instead, it reflects mind-control operations to divert and demoralize people into contrived grievances, such as condemning Christopher Columbus as an “oppressor.”
This cultural degradation is being done deliberately by Renaissance-deniers, to be able to perpetrate actual physical crimes against humanity. They are furthering a police-state dynamic to deter anyone from daring to object, or even question what is going on. But we can break the back of these treasonous operations.
One impetus favorable to this breakout comes from the human desire to save lives and build a future, seen in the victims and relief volunteers amidst the floods and rubble of the widespread disasters that have hit the Americas. As President Enrique Peña Nieto said in a speech to the nation last night, “I know that many of you feel fear and anguish, but let me tell you that we are going to devote special care to the task of protecting the population…. My greatest priority is to protect your life and that of your family…. We shall continue to show that we are a people who don’t give up in the face of adversity, and are prepared to move forward.”
Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean islands are still in the rescue phase of emergency operations; then comes the building-an-economy phase, which will require military-scale logistics. Florida, Texas, and other states, plus Mexico, face huge rebuilding, and building anew.
This reality calls the question on credit—where will the funds come from? The answer was provided, pre-disaster, from Lyndon LaRouche in his June 2014 “Four Laws,” on banking, credit, scientific and economic take-off. Now the reality of the disasters is driving home LaRouche’s point; We are human. We can create credit. We can build and create progress.
A glimmer of recognition came yesterday at a White House meeting on infrastructure and “tax reform.” According to attendees at the bipartisan session, President Trump said that Federal funding, not public-private partnership (PPP) funding, is the way to go for revving up infrastructure building. The Federal—plus state and local—government funding for infrastructure, may mean relying on tax revenue and more debt, but government partnerships with private interests “are certainly not the silver bullet for all of our nation’s infrastructure problems,” according to a White House official who participated in the bipartisan meeting. “We will,” he said, “continue to consider all viable options.” In particular, Trump spoke of “long-term” support for Puerto Rico. How to carry out this perspective—both short and long term—is spelled out in the LaRouche Emergency Plan of Action, issued by LaRouche PAC on Aug. 31, in the middle of Hurricane Harvey,
Beyond the immediate, emergency relief operations in Puerto Rico, we need to look “over the horizon,” is the way Gen. Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke of the military’s ongoing role in the Caribbean. Dunford was answering specific questions on military aid logistics at a hearing in the Senate yesterday.
But it is now overdue to look even higher and wider: the New Silk Road throughout the Americas is just “over the horizon”!
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Chinese Vice Premier in U.S. Forums Seeks for Increased U.S.-China Science Cooperation
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong is in Washington, D.C. for the Social and People-to-People Dialogue, one of the four high-level dialogue mechanisms agreed to by President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump in April. Her chief interlocutor in that dialogue is Secretary of State Rex Tillerson but it will also include Betsey DeVos from the Department of Education and Elaine Chao from the Department of Transportation. Among the Chinese delegation are Minister of Science and Technology Wan Gang, Minister of Culture Luo Shugang, and Minister of Education Chen Baosheng.
Prior to her Washington visit, Madame Liu participated in a forum at New York University titled “U.S.-China Relations in the Next 50 Years,” which attracted 200 attendees, including presidents and representatives of universities from the United States and China, senior American politicians, including the ever-present Henry Kissinger, and representatives from Columbia University. “Only by constantly releasing the positive energy of the people-to-people and cultural exchange between China and the U.S., enhancing the understanding and friendship between the two peoples, and consolidating the friendly public opinion foundation of the two countries can Sino-U.S. relations maintain a long-term, healthy and stable development,” Liu said.
Madame Liu also spoke at an invitation-only forum at the Brookings Institution on Sept. 27, on the topic of China-U.S. Innovation-Driven Development Forum. Here she underlined the importance of the U.S.-China cooperation in the area of science, noting that the largest number of foreign students in the United States are Chinese nationals, more than half of whom are pursuing studies in science, agriculture, medicine, or other industrial fields. She said that the U.S. and China have had collaboration for the last 38 years, since the reform and opening-up policy of Deng Xiaoping, and the areas of collaboration are continually expanding. She cited, in particular, the U.S.-China project at an observatory in Tibet in the high Himalayas, which is studying gravitational waves. She also pointed to the U.S. Clean Energy Project and the establishment of a China-U.S. Agricultural Center. “A signature achievement in 2012 was creating a new model of oscillation,” she said.
She also pointed to China’s advances in space and high-speed rail.
“China has 158 sciences agreements with other countries,” Liu said. “China’s innovation is inclusive and shared.” While China has achieved tangible outcomes, she continued, it is also facing many problems, in the quality of the air and the soil, in the growing need for energy and in the aging of its population, Liu said. “Therefore China needs to embark on the path of innovation. This will be the primary focus of the upcoming Party Congress in a few weeks,” she said. Liu said that the theme of the dialogue on Sept. 28 with her U.S. counterparts will also be mapping the U.S.-China relationship over the next 50 years, a theme, the importance of which has been reiterated several times by Secretary Rex Tillerson. Madame Liu called for improving the cooperative science mechanisms, improving the communication in the area of science, and improving the ties between the universities and the scientific laboratories of both countries.
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
President Trump Says Public-Private Partnerships Won’t Work for Infrastructure Development
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—According to the Washington Post and other media, when President Trump met with a bipartisan group from the House Ways and Means Committee yesterday, he indicated that public-private partnerships, known as P3s, don’t work as a means of financing infrastructure development. An unnamed White House official told the Post that although the administration has researched these approaches, “they are certainly not the silver bullet for all of our nation’s infrastructure problems, and we will continue to consider all viable options.”
What the President determines now, as to how to finance the $1 trillion infrastructure program he announced at the beginning of his administration, remains to be seen. But, this puts on the table (where it has always been) consideration of the Hamiltonian credit policy that Lyndon LaRouche has proposed, as the only viable means to finance the country’s economic reconstruction.
Rep. Brian Higgins (D-NY), who attended the meeting, said he thought that the President’s remarks signalled an openness to working with Democrats on the plan, and even increasing the federal commitment. During the meeting, Higgins reported, Trump indicated he would seek to pay for infrastructure projects through direct federal spending, either by paying for projects with new tax revenues or by taking on new debt. In a telephone interview with Bloomberg, Higgins offered the view that after eight months during which the Senate and House leadership failed to work with the President on overhauling healthcare, he now “feels liberated to find partnerships different from the one that hasn’t worked in the past eight months.”
During yesterday’s session, according to those present, Trump pointed to one glaring example of P3 failure in Vice President Mike Pence’s home state of Indiana, to demonstrate that this approach on the federal level won’t work. After a private Spanish firm failed to complete a stretch of the Indiana Interstate highway 69, the state is now issuing public debt to complete the 40% of the project that the Spanish firm left undone.
Puerto Rico, Caribbean Islands, Require Military Logistics Operations over the Long Term
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—The scale of support for the millions of people bereft by two major hurricanes in the Caribbean requires a military-logistics effort. This is underway now in the emergency phase of food, water, generators, and medical support. But it also applies to the next phase of rebuilding basic infrastructure, and creating conditions for economic life.
This differs from Texas and Florida, where outside support can still be “plugged” into the commercial and institutional structures, however much they were physically broken down. But in Puerto Rico, for example, these structures are near non-existent.
A top electrical engineer with Virginia-based Dominion Energy, with decades of experience in disasters, stressed this aspect. He said that, clearly, brigades of out-of-state utility workers can go into Texas and Florida and assist. Dominion Energy’s relief crew, for example, just returned to Virginia from Florida on Sept. 23.
But in Puerto Rico requires a full-scale military operation there, in all respects, and over time. Send in cargo ships and planes, full of transformers, power lines, electrical fixtures and equipment of all kinds. There must be housing for the crew, and heavy construction equipment. On the ground, provide for the needs of the people, from food and water, to housing and work. There must be security.
Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford made the same allusion yesterday in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. He answered the Senators’ many specific questions about what aid the military is providing currently. But Dunford stressed that the military has to think of “next week,” and how to look “over the horizon.” Right now, “Northern Command continues to conduct 24-hour operations aggressively conducting search and rescue operations, bringing additional essential commodities to the islands, and restoring power at hospitals, ports, airports and other critical facilities.”
President Trump, at a White House meeting yesterday, said that there must be “long-term” support.
As of 5 p.m. Sept. 26, there were 3,800 troops and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) civilians at work in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The U.S. Northern Command announced today that it will expand aid to the island, sending in the Deputy Commander of U.S. Army North to oversee operations.
The U.S. National Guard Bureau’s priorities are moving food and water to those in need, augmenting local law enforcement to ensure community safety, and engineer support to help rebuild essential infrastructure. The Guard is also working alongside USACE and the Federal Aviation Administration to restore full operations at all of the airports in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, including providing emergency electrical power to control towers and radar facilities.
On the medical front, 11 of 69 hospitals in Puerto Rico now have fuel or power. USACE is moving forward with hospital power, using generators acquired by the Defense Logistics Agency and shipped by military air transport, while the Naval hospital ship USNS Comfort will deploy to Puerto Rico within the next few days, bringing in a 1,200-person medical staff, 1,000 patient beds, 12 operating rooms, and the full range of medical services.
Republican Legislators Renew Request for Sessions To Name Second Special Counsel
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—Yesterday, Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee wrote Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his Deputy Rod Rosenstein, formally renewing the request made last July for him to name a second Special Counsel. What the request reflects is a general sense, even if not clearly enunciated, that the Robert Mueller operation is rotten. Hence, the letter signed by Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and several other committee members states that a second counsel is necessary to investigate matters “which may be outside the scope” of Mueller’s investigation.
Specifically, the Judiciary Committee is furious at former FBI Director James Comey’s revelations that he had prepared a statement ending the investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, well before interviewing her and 17 other witnesses connected to the case. In effect, his interview with her was a mere formality, as he had already made recommendations against filing criminal charges against her.
Fox News reports that some lawmakers are demanding that Comey be brought back to the Hill to explain the discrepancies in his past statements. In addition, they want a special counsel probe that is completely separate from the one Mueller is directing, to deal with the many unanswered questions remaining from the 2016 campaign cycle, and that have been “pushed aside” amid Mueller’s “intense Russia focus,” Fox reported.
Goodlatte’s letter quotes one former career FBI supervisor, who characterized Comey’s action “as so far out of bounds, it’s not even in the stadium, clearly communicating to [FBI executive staff] where the investigation [of Clinton] was going to go.” The letter mentions that with his actions, Comey violated Justice Department policy, “potentially at the direction, tacit or otherwise, of President Obama,” when he declined to record the interview with Clinton or those with any of her associates.
Alabama Republican Primary Confirms Continuing Anti-Establishment Anger
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—The solid defeat of the Republican establishment’s choice to replace Jeff Sessions as Senator from Alabama in the Tuesday, Sept. 26 special primary election, confirms that the rebellion against neoliberalism, identified by Helga Zepp-LaRouche as also manifested in the Sept. 24 German elections—following the pattern of Brexit, and the Trump victory itself—continues to move voters internationally. The interim Senator named to replace Sessions, Luther Strange, had the full backing of the GOP establishment, with Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund giving Strange $9 million, and another $20 million-plus contributed to Strange by regular Republican establishment types.
Though Trump endorsed Strange in the primary, and spoke at a rally for him on Sept. 22, he admitted in his speech that he “might have made a mistake”! Strange lost by a 54.6 to 45.4 margin to former State Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, whom Trump has now endorsed against the Democratic nominee in the Dec. 12 election.
The Moore win is a victory for those from the “Bannon wing” of the party, i.e., the hard-core anti-establishment grouping which Trump appealed to in defeating the GOP establishment last year, to win the Republican nomination. Bannon, possibly with the backing of Trump, said he would work against McConnell and the Republicans in Congress who have opposed Trump’s “economic nationalism.” One of the supporters of this strategy said on background that it was necessary to “take a couple of Republican insider scalps” to show that Trump still has the support of the base, despite the efforts of the Deep State against him, with Russiagate, and the sabotage of the McConnell-Ryan leadership of his economic program. Moore campaigned as a Trump loyalist, hitting Strange hard as the choice of the “Washington swamp.” Another of those targeted Republican Senators, Bob Corker of Tennessee, who recently said Trump lacks the qualities necessary to be President, announced yesterday that he would retire at the end of his current term, in 2018.
In acknowledging the strength of this insurgency, Senate Majority Leader McConnell issued a statement after the vote, saying, “I share that frustration [which led to Strange’s defeat] and believe that enacting the agenda the American people voted for last November requires us all to work together.” McConnell must be held to this, beginning with the demand that Republicans in Congress get behind restoring Glass-Steagall banking regulation, and full funding for modernizing America’s crumbling infrastructure, which were central planks of Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign.
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
Ryabkov Tells Media, U.S. Has No Evidence of Russian INF Treaty Violations
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters in Moscow today, that the United States still has not provided any evidence of alleged Russian violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. His comments came following testimony of Gen. Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Sept. 26.
“We must continue to engage Russia, both directly and together with our allies, to encourage them to return to full and verifiable compliance with the Intermediate Range Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty.” Dunford made his replied in writing to questions submitted to him prior to the hearing: “The status quo, in which we are complying with the treaty and they are not, is untenable.”
Ryabkov said today, “We don’t know what are these accusations based on. What they told us via diplomatic channels on this issue does not allow coming to conclusions that the Americans have evidence substantiating their claims,” he said, reports TASS. “Let me stress the fact that Russia is committed to the INF treaty and it has taken no steps to violate it. We have no intention of quitting the treaty.”
Ryabkov went on to say that the Russians have a list of complaints against the U.S. about which they’re explicit.
“Our main demand is [that] the United States should get back to compliance with the treaty, which it violates by placing anti-missile systems Aegis Ashore in Romania and planning their deployment in Poland,” Ryabkov said. The launchers for these systems, he pointed out, are capable of firing Tomahawk cruise missiles as well as anti-missile missiles and therefore, according to the Russians, are prohibited by the INF Treaty.
Joint Chiefs Chairman Dunford Confirms Iran Is in Compliance with 2015 Nuclear Deal
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—During testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford confirmed that Iran is, indeed, in compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 deal by which Iran renounced the pursuit of nuclear weapons in return for the lifting of UN sanctions. Director General Yukiya Amano of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) this week has issued the same confirmation.
Dunford told the Senators, “The briefings I have received indicate that Iran is adhering to its [plan of action] obligations,” in his written testimony. “The [plan] has delayed Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. Iran has not changed its malign activity in the region since [the plan of action] was signed.”
During the hearing, Dunford said that the deal was specifically designed to address only Iran’s nuclear program and not the other four threats he sees emanating from Iran: its missile program, its maritime threat, its support for proxies, and its cyber activities. Dunford wouldn’t say what his advice to Trump was on whether or not to recertify Iranian compliance to the U.S. Congress on Oct. 15, but he did say he thought that a U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA deal would have negative repercussions.
“It makes sense to me that our holding up agreements that we have signed, unless there’s a material breach, would have an impact on others’ willingness to sign agreements,” Dunford said.
IAEA head Yukiya Amano confirmed, again, that Iran is implementing its nuclear commitments under the deal. He said that complementary access—often consisting of short-notice inspections carried out under the IAEA Additional Protocol, which Iran is implementing under the accord—was going smoothly. “Complementary access in Iran is being undertaken without problem, and the number of accesses is quite high,” he told Reuters in an interview.
SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE
International Roadmap Lays Out Lunar Exploration; Will the U.S. Join?
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—The International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG), an informal organization of 14 space agencies, which develops global roadmaps for future exploration missions, has recently released a new and updated plan. It is based on the new capabilities that NASA is developing, combined with a manned lunar exploration program, which is a goal of all of the other national agencies.
For the past 10 years, the ISECG has had to cope with the Obama policy of scrapping a manned return to the Moon, promoting in its place Buzz Aldrin and Bob Zubrin’s fantasy plan for a manned mission to go directly to Mars. No other space agency in the world agrees with this perspective.
The head of the European Space Agency has specifically proposed a “lunar village” as the next goal. While the anti-lunar U.S. policy will, hopefully, change with the Trump Administration, the ISECG has put together a roadmap that they propose (hope) accommodates both lunar and Mars approaches. It would use NASA’s SLS heavy-lift launcher and the Orion crew vehicle, which are ostensibly being developed for the Mars mission, with a NASA-proposed Deep Space Gateway in lunar orbit. NASA’s bare-bones Gateway would be augmented through contributions by other nations, and add, most importantly, surface exploration by crews. NASA awaits administration approval for the Gateway project, which was not included in the administration’s FY18 NASA budget request.
Specifically proposed so far, reports Mark Carreau for Aviation Week, Japan could provide descent vehicles to land crews on the lunar surface. Canada could provide two-person rovers for surface exploration, and Europe would contribute a reusable ascent vehicle to take crew from the surface of the Moon to the orbiting Gateway. The roadmap envisions five surface landings, each with four astronauts, each lasting 42 days. The experts estimate that the cost, exclusive of U.S. hardware, would be $24 billion, with missions starting in the late 2020s.
Supporting the crews with the supplies they would need, the roadmap suggests, could be “shouldered” by the commercial sector.
The “commercial lunar mission” idea is being heavily promoted in the U.S. Congress and by NASA, wherein the space agency would “buy a ride” to the Moon on a commercial vehicle, a number of which are under development by semi-credible and not-so-credible companies.
At a hearing earlier this month before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology on Private Sector Lunar Exploration, Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX), who chairs the Committee space subcommittee, observed: “There’s no guarantee that the private sector will be successful. To the contrary, there will certainly be failures. But, the failures and successes should be determined by the free market.” To be clear, he stated: “the private sector should not be artificially subsidized by the government,” which should be not be picking winners and losers. How one could be confident there would ever be a program is unclear.
Two years before the 50th anniversary of the first manned landing on the Moon, President Kennedy is likely turning over in his grave.
