EDITORIAL
Old Paradigm Dying in the Trans-Atlantic Region—British Are Panicking
March 5 (EIRNS)—Over the past week, President Trump has trashed the efforts by the British and their assets in the discredited Obama intelligence apparatus to invent a justification for war with Russia and China. The Western media unleashed a tirade of denunciations of China, and especially of President Xi Jinping, following the announcement that term limits were being dropped from China’s Constitution, calling Xi a ruthless dictator, a new Emperor for life, and a danger to the world. Trump responded at a private dinner with Republicans: “He’s now President for life. President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.” The pathetic media whores went ballistic.
Legal Assassin Robert Mueller’s coup attempt against Trump on behalf of British intelligence, aimed at stopping Trump’s cooperation with President Putin, is foundering. One of Mueller’s targets today said he was ignoring Mueller’s subpoena, calling it a “witchhunt,” adding: “Let him arrest me.” Two Republican Congressmen have called for a special prosecutor to investigate the crimes of the FBI in using the scurrilous report by British intelligence agent Christopher Steele to justify spying on the Trump campaign. Trump himself tweeted today that the witchhunt was on Obama’s shoulders: “Why did the Obama Administration start an investigation into the Trump Campaign (with zero proof of wrongdoing) long before the Election in November? Unprecedented. Bigger than Watergate.”
At the same time, Trump is demonstrating that he is fighting the neocons in the Republican Party as intently as those in the Democrat Party. Speaking at a Republican fundraiser in Florida, Trump called the Iraq invasion “the single worst decision ever made,” calling it equivalent to “throwing a big fat brick into a hornet’s nest. Here we are, like the dummies of the world, because we had bad politicians running our country for a long time. That was Bush. Another real genius. That was Bush.”
The British are panicked. The New Yorker magazine this week published a massive cover-up of MI6 official Steele’s role, titled “How the Ex-Spy Tried To Warn the World about Trump’s Ties to Russia.” The interview with Steele tries to cover up the role of the British in the treasonous effort to bring down the government of the United States and provoke a war with Russia.
The panic is also driven by the shock effect of President Putin’s announcement on March 1 of new Russian military capacities which render the U.S./NATO ring of missile defense systems around Russia impotent and useless, which Helga Zepp-LaRouche characterized as a new “Sputnik” wake-up call to the world. The systemic takeover of U.S. economic policy by Wall Street speculators since the assassination of President Jack Kennedy allowed the drugged-up boys in the City of London and Wall Street to wallow in their fake money, but it is now clear that the destruction of the Western productive and scientific capacities, in favor of funny money, has its downside in the destruction of any real wealth. Putin makes the same point by insisting that the Russian military breakthrough was the result of a complex that “includes science, education, personnel and modern manufacturing facilities,” precisely what the U.S. has abandoned in favor of quick profits through gambling. Putin further states: “It gives us great hope that all of that can be used and applied in civilian industries.”
Far from being a threat to the West, Putin has called for the West to finally reverse their unipolar fantasies, and to sit down with Russia and others and work out the means for global peace and cooperation.
Trump is also working with the South Korean President Moon Jae-in to create the conditions for resolving the North Korea crisis. A South Korean delegation to the North met today with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, to “deliver President Moon’s intent to maintain the flow of inter-Korean dialogue and improving relations to obtain permanent peace and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula …, as well as dialogue between the North and the U.S. and the international community,” as the head of the South Korean delegation told the press. Trump this past weekend said that there would definitely be talks between Washington and Pyongyang. The British and the neoconservatives are horrified, since the Korea crisis is their primary (artificial) justification for their military ring around China.
The old paradigm is crumbling. Italy’s national election Sunday threw out both branches of the established political institutions, just as the German elections five months ago left the traditional parties in disarray. After five months of squabbling, the has-been German parties (SPD-CDU-CSU) finally put together a government on Sunday, which is as stable as a two-legged chair. As in the U.S., the only path to growth and stability in Europe is to acknowledge the death of the old paradigm, and adopt the policies formulated long ago by Lyndon LaRouche—Glass-Steagall banking reform; establishment of Hamiltonian national banking institutions; massive sovereign credit generation for science drivers and infrastructure; and full cooperation with China and Russia in the New Silk Road. This is the moment of truth.
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
Former Trump Aide Responds to Mueller’s Subpoena: ‘Screw It’
March 5 (EIRNS)—Former Trump aide Sam Nunberg, a friend of Roger Stone, told several media today that he has no intention of responding to a subpoena from Robert Mueller to appear before a Grand Jury, or to produce all his correspondence with ten former members of the Trump campaign or administration. “Screw it,” he said, calling the entire thing a witchhunt. “Let him arrest me,” he said of Mueller’s operation.
Nunberg is no friend of Trump, who fired him after a short period as an advisor. He said he has no idea whether Mueller has anything on Trump, but that he personally has no knowledge of any collusion with Russia, which he considers “ridiculous.”
Mueller, having been shown to have no evidence of any collusion, rather than shutting down the illegitimate investigation, is branching out to “investigate” any straws he can find. It was leaked last week that he is now investigating a supposed U.A.E. influence over the administration—proving once again that this is nothing more than a fishing expedition as well as a witchhunt.
While Netanyahu Meets with Trump, Bibi’s Family Spokesman Turns State Evidence
March 5 (EIRNS)—Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu met today with President Trump, and tomorrow speaks at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, (AIPAC, the right-wing Zionist lobby in the U.S.). But while meeting with Trump, Bibi’s personal family spokesman, who worked many of the corrupt deals for Netanyahu that are now being criminally prosecuted in Israel, announced that he was turning state’s evidence against Bibi and his wife, Sara. This is the third Netanyahu confidant to agree to testify against the Israeli Prime Minister in exchange for a lighter sentence.
In the case of Nir Hefetz, the family spokesman, he was told there would be no trial against him, no jail time, in exchange for his testimony. He agreed to turn over recordings of all of his conversations with Netanyahu and his wife in all three cases pending against the Prime Minister.
The daily Ha’aretz, in reporting the story, pondered, “Is this Netanyahu’s last AIPAC?”
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
Surge of Anti-Iran Propaganda Accompanies Netanyahu’s Arrival in Washington
March 5 (EIRNS)—With the arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today, a surge of anti-Iran rhetoric has been aimed, it appears, at the Washington, D.C. political establishment. Netanyahu himself told reporters before he left Israel that “I intend to discuss a series of issues with [President Donald Trump], but foremost Iran, its aggression, nuclear ambitions, and aggressive actions in the Middle East, including along our very border.” Netanyahu also warned that Israel could act on its own, in the wake of the Feb. 10 incident in which an Iranian drone flew into Israeli airspace from Syria, reported Reuters. Virtually declaring war, Michael Oren, a deputy Israeli cabinet minister and former Ambassador to Washington, said on March 4 on Israel’s Channel 13 TV: “We want to know, and we must know, what the U.S. position will be if we do enter into some wider confrontation with Iran.”
Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer told the AIPAC annual conference yesterday, that Iran “threatens the entire Western world, and not just Israel.” He attributed this not only to Iran’s military buildup in Syria but also to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, the international nuclear agreement with Iran).
“Iran is advancing its nuclear weapons program under this agreement…. Right now, as we speak, Iran is doing research and development into advanced centrifuges,” he claimed, in a direct contradiction of the reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is charged with monitoring Iran’s compliance with the agreement.
At least two major op-eds, and probably more, have also appeared in the last 24 hours, declaring Iran the world’s greatest threat and demanding that the U.S. do something about it. Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and now a visiting fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, demands in an op-ed in Foreign Policy that the U.S. provide backup to Israeli efforts to counter Iran in Syria, to include: defending Israel’s freedom of action to bomb Iranian targets in Syria; diplomatic support, by putting pressure on Iran, Russia, and Lebanon; participation in Israel’s missile defense; the rapid resupply of munitions, should it come to war; and readiness for offensive air action against targets in Iran, should things get “extreme.”
In Sunday’s Wall Street Journal two former Prime Ministers, Stephen Harper of Canada and José María Aznar of Spain, co-authored an op-ed, calling for Europe to show more “resolve” against Iran’s regional and nuclear ambitions. “If left unchecked, Iran’s aggression will ultimately threaten Europe and North America as well,” they conclude. “All should urgently work together to counter this threat to global security.”
Assad: Anti-Terrorist Operation in Eastern Ghouta Will Continue
March 5 (EIRNS)—Syrian President Bashar al Assad, in remarks reported by Al Masdar News (AMN), yesterday, stressed that the majority of citizens in Eastern Ghouta want to get out of the terrorists’ shadow “into the lap of the state,” and therefore, the operation against terrorism will continue in parallel with opening the way for the civilians to get out into the state’s regions.
“There is no contradiction between the truce and acts of combat: The advance achieved yesterday and the day before in Eastern Ghouta by the Syrian Arab Army was achieved under this truce,” said Assad, because the truce did not include the terrorist organizations. The advance that Assad referred to has liberated about one-third of the jihadi-controlled territory, including several villages in the east of Eastern Ghouta.
AMN reports this morning that a humanitarian aid convoy consisting of 46 trucks arrived in jihadi-held parts of Eastern Ghouta, today. The convoy, organized by the UN, Red Cross, and Syrian Red Crescent, was carrying food parcels, flour bags, and medical supplies. The humanitarian effort is large enough to provide assistance to almost 30,000 civilians within militant-held Eastern Ghouta and comes amid promises by rebel factions that people wishing to leave the embattled region for government-held areas will be allowed to do so, Al Masdar reports. According to the Associated Press, the convoy was in Douma, in the northern half of the enclave, at midday today.
However, the arrival of the convoy was preceded by claims from the World Health Organization that Syrian officials had removed medical supplies from the convoy before allowing it to proceed. “All trauma (kits), surgical, dialysis sessions and insulin were rejected by security,” an unidentified WHO official told Reuters by email, and saying that some 70% of the supplies loaded on its trucks leaving its warehouses had been removed during the inspection. Nonetheless, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross called the arrival of the convoy a “positive step,” though more needs to be done.
Russia Responds Harshly to Lying White House Statement on Syria
March 5 (EIRNS)—Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Defense Ministry, and elected officials responded swiftly today to the White House statement issued last night, which accused Russia of “ignoring” UN Security Council Resolution 2401, killing innocent civilians “under the false auspices of counterterrorism operations,” targetting infrastructure and medical facilities in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta, and abetting the Assad government’s alleged use of chemical weapons, among other charges. The statement claims that Russia and Syria have resorted to the same allegedly “brutal” strategy in Eastern Ghouta as was used in the city of Aleppo—ignoring the fact that Aleppo today is in the process of peaceful recovery, thanks to actions taken by Russia and the Syrian Arab Army to clean out the terrorists.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in remarks today from Windhoek, Namibia, following his meeting with Namibia’s Foreign Minister, TASS reported, identified what’s behind the U.S. statement: The U.S. is attempting to protect the Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist group from air strikes and to “save” it, should they decide to go for a Plan B to carry out regime-change in Damascus. Russia has accumulated significant evidence to this effect, Lavrov warned, charging that both the U.S. and its Western partners want to take the heat off al-Nusra, which has changed “its brand name” but not its character as a vicious terrorist grouping. Lavrov warned that the ceasefire established under Security Council Resolution 2401 does not include Jabhat al-Nusra, and thus, “it is absolutely legitimate to fight it.”
The U.S. statement comes right out of the playbook of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, said Leonid Slutsky, chair of the Russian State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee. There are no facts to back up the U.S. accusations, he told TASS, and saying that the real U.S. goal is to cover up “its own responsibility for the deaths among the civilian population killed by terrorists of the Islamic State,” in whose creation the U.S. played a role.
Russia’s Defense Ministry, in its response, asserted that it is “Washington-controlled armed groups that have been attacking the Syrian government forces’ garrison” in Eastern Ghouta to try to change the de-escalation zone’s border—a violation of the agreements reached in the Astana meetings. It is instructive, the statement argued, that neither Washington nor its Western partners have said a word condemning massive militant attacks that have occurred over several months; it was only when Syrian government troops successfully fended off the pro-U.S. armed groups, that the West started to yell about “bombing of medical facilities” in Eastern Ghouta, and spread rumors of chemical weapons attacks.
It’s the U.S. That Is Meddling in Russian Elections, Not the Other Way Around
March 5 (EIRNS)—The interim Commission for the Protection of State Sovereignty and Prevention of Interference in Russia’s Internal Affairs, created by the Federation Council (the upper house of Russia’s bicameral Federal Assembly), has just issued its annual report documenting the extent of U.S. interference in Russia’s elections going back as far as 2011.
Speaking at a meeting of the commission at the Federation Council, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov described that the Foreign Ministry has consistently collected intelligence on U.S. meddling in Russia’s internal affairs, including elections, saying “I support the need to zone in on efforts by our opponents to sway young people and work in the regions,” reported TASS. He particularly referenced “information warfare,” which, he predicted, will grow more bitter, “and something we will have to live with during the upcoming [electoral] period.” Washington, he continued, “not only interferes in Russia’s internal affairs through various channels and in various forms, but also tries to blame Russia for pseudo-interference in America’s domestic affairs.” Ryabkov said that the Foreign Ministry has streamlined efforts to collect relevant information on foreign meddling.
Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, asked about U.S. election interference responded, “That the United States has a rich tradition of meddling in the internal affairs and electoral processes in many countries throughout the world, including our country, is not a secret for anyone. This was acknowledged by the Americans themselves,” but then directed the questioner to the Foreign Ministry for a response.
Ryabkov, in his remarks at the Federation Council, also warned that U.S. “hotheads” are attempting to create an atmosphere of chaos in Russia, methods already tested in Ukraine, Libya, and Iraq. He stated that for the last 20 years, the U.S. has tried to achieve its political goals “under the guise of the struggle for democracy … causing wars and destroying a number of countries. Yugoslavia is no more, Iraq and Libya are bursting at the seams,” not to mention Ukraine.
Commission chair, Sen. Andrei Klimov, said that foreign interference didn’t influence the course of elections, thanks to Russia’s social and political stability, and to the measures taken by Russian authorities to protect citizens’ constitutional rights. The Commission report also details the deployment of the U.S. embassy’s and consulates’ Russian employees to different regions of the country to profile voters on their perception of the country’s economic and social situation, and effects of economic sanctions.
Aside from outside financing of Russian political opposition, the report also pointed to the “training” of promising Russian political figures abroad.
“Such sort of ‘training’ is normally of an anti-Russia nature and is hosted, in particular, in the Baltic countries and in the U.S. with the participation of officials of these countries,” Klimov said.
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Russian President Discusses Civilian Applications of Advanced Weapons Technology
March 5 (EIRNS)—At the March 2 meeting of the Truth and Justice Forum of regional and local media with President Putin, one journalist expressed amazement at seeing the videos of advanced weapons technology, missiles, etc. that President Vladimir Putin showed during his March 1 State of the Nation address, and asked whether it’s possible “to apply those advanced military technologies in everyday life in the foreseeable future, maybe to improve people’s quality of life?”
In responding, Putin emphasized the contributions to the development of technological breakthroughs of research institutes, design bureaus and industrial enterprises “practically throughout the whole country” and that this is a complex “that includes science, education, personnel, and modern manufacturing facilities. All that is cutting edge. It gives us hope … that all of that can be used and applied in civilian industries…. Of course, this requires effort, and we will be working towards it. Perhaps not everything can be used immediately.”
In the case of the Avangard system, which travels at Mach 20 in dense layers of the atmosphere, and new laser weapons, “all these technologies can certainly be used” in the civilian economy, Putin said. As for the manufacturing of the TU-160 military supersonic jet, “of course it can be converted into a civilian version. I have already talked with aircraft manufacturers, and they say ‘Yes, sure, additional research and calculations are needed.’ ”
The reality, Putin said, is that “all of that can be done, and we will definitely be doing it, gradually, but surely. We have the foundation and that is what matters. We have the people who can do that—that is crucial. We will be doing [the civilian applications], by all means.”
‘Korean Investor Day’ Hosts Some Hundred Major South Korean Firms in Vladivostok
March 5 (EIRNS)—“Korean Investor Day” began in Vladivostok today, as did the first meeting of the Russian-Korean Council for Business Development and Investments Support, according to the Russian Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East, reported TASS.
“On [March] 5, Korean Investor Day will be held. About 100 major Korean companies that may account for more than half of the Republic of Korea’s gross domestic product will come to us. Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Northern Economic Cooperation Song Young-gil, who visited Russia as the Republic of Korea’s special presidential envoy, will come,” said Alexander Galushka, Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East.
Business deals and agreements on cooperation between the committees for northern cooperation and the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East will be signed.
The first Korean Investor Day was held in June 2017 in Khabarovsk and involved Hyundai, LS Networks, and other companies, resulting in over $250 million in deals being signed.
China’s Belt and Road Is More ‘Magnanimous’ than Pax Americana or Pax Britannica
March 5 (EIRNS)—In an op-ed published in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, Friedrich Wu, an adjunct associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, wrote: “It is disturbing that commentators in the West apply double standards to prejudge China’s global intentions and behaviors—Pax Britannica and Pax Americana are considered inherently benevolent, but when Beijing (or Pax Sinica) embarks on the same path, it is derided as insidiously conspiratorial.”
However, Wu noted, such ill-informed diatribes are generated by “critics in Washington where the profligate and cash-strapped government needs to borrow 45 cents for every dollar it spends, is beleaguered by periodic shutdowns and debt-ceiling crises, yet still insists on funding protracted, strategically goal-less and unwinnable conflicts in far-flung corners of the Earth.”
In reality, Wu continued, “Beijing is actually behaving more magnanimously toward its borrowers. According to the most comprehensive data set on China’s development financing on a global scale, compiled and released by AidData at the College of William and Mary, about four-fifths of China’s development lending is on concessionary terms ‘at below-market interest rates.’ ”
Wu cited David Dollar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former U.S. Treasury official, pointing out that the “Chinese lending in recent years is indiscriminate in terms of geography and quality of governance, suggesting that it is demand-driven rather than supply-driven by a Chinese master plan.”
Wu also wrote that “an examination of loans disbursed by the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in the first two years of its operations further confirms the absence of a political agenda in China’s development financing.”
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
South Korea Delegation Meets with Kim Jong-un
March 5 (EIRNS)—A South Korean delegation met this evening with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un—the first meeting with leaders from the South since Kim Jong-un took power in 2011.
Before the meeting with Kim, the head of the Seoul delegation, National Security Council chief Chung Eui-yong, told the press: “I will clearly deliver President Moon’s intent to maintain the flow of inter-Korean dialogue and improving relations to obtain permanent peace and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. To this end, [we] plan to discuss ways to continue inter-Korean talks, as well as dialogue between the North and the U.S., and the international society.”
Following the meeting, the North Korean news agency KCNA reported: “North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has told a visiting delegation from South Korea that it is his ‘firm will to vigorously advance’ inter-Korean ties and ‘write a new history of national reunification.’ ”
Prior to the delegation’s departure, South Korea’s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told a conference of journalists that Seoul hopes to further explore the possibilities of U.S.-North Korea dialogue. He said that without progress in North Korea’s denuclearization, inter-Korean dialogue cannot take place.
“We are well aware that inter-Korean dialogue and improvements in South-North Korean relations cannot proceed in the absence of progress in the efforts to peacefully resolve the North Korean nuclear issue,” she said, and that such progress requires “direct talks” between the U.S. and North Korea. “Inter-Korean dialogue and U.S.-North Korea dialogue must advance in a mutually reinforcing manner,” the minister said.
President Trump, asked about the Korea situation over the weekend, said that there would be talks between the U.S. and North Korea, and that he would be willing to meet Kim Jong-un. Despite his tough talk over these past months regarding “rocket man” Kim Jong-un, it should be recalled that he said during the campaign that he would like to sit down over a hamburger with Kim.
SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE
Jan Woerner: European Space Agency ‘Bridges Earthly Crises’ Through Cooperation
March 5 (EIRNS)—In an interview published in the March issue of Aerospace America, European Space Agency (ESA) Director General Jan Woerner describes ESA’s role in the international space community as a kind of mediator or buffer, among the world’s other space powers.
“The most important reason for us to do cooperation is to bridge Earthly crises,” he says. “We are working with Russia intensively together for launch. In a tiny Soyuz capsule, you have American astronaut, Russian cosmonaut, and European astronaut together. Then you have some warm feelings so that it’s still possible, even in times of sanctions and so on, to do something together … and therefore we are also cooperating with China. Some of our astronauts are now learning Chinese in order to be prepared if we can have in the future together, some human missions.”
On Woerner’s proposal for a “Moon Village,” he explains that it is meant as an “umbrella” for an “open concept,” where ESA could, for example provide transportation, logistics, and navigation on the surface, and other countries, commercial entities, universities could contribute other components.
Woerner proposes that on the far side, “the Moon can be also a very nice place for planetary defense of the Earth, as an outpost to observe the universe, as an early warning station for asteroids, meteorites coming toward the Earth and, in the far future, also to use the Moon as a base for some countermeasures.” As far as deep space exploration is concerned, Woerner imagines “using the curvature of space and time to get faster through the universe, it would be really nice.”
