EIR Daily Alert Service,Wednesday, 23, 2019

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2019 Volume 6, Number 16 EIR Daily Alert Service P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390

Thirty Years Ago Today: Jan. 27, 1989 Jailing of Lyndon LaRouche Defined an Era, Which Now Must End

New Seymour Hersh Exposé of George H.W. Bush Vice Presidency Outlaw Wetworks Operations

Sixty Prominent U.S. Citizens Demand: Reinvestigate U.S. Assassinations

Israel Launches More Airstrikes Against Iranian Military Presence in Syria

New UN Envoy on Syria Talks Confirms Russia Is Playing a Key Role

Both Chinese and Americans ‘Have a Cooperative Attitude’ in Space

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EDITORIAL

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: U.S. Must Bring Back to Life the Ideas of ‘This Beautiful Country, America’

Jan. 22 (EIRNS)—Helga Zepp-LaRouche made the following (edited) remarks today to the U.S. branch of the international LaRouche Movement:

We are at the beginning of a completely new era in human civilization, and all we need to do is to get rid of the idea that geopolitical interests have to be defended by all means, even risking World War III and the extinction of civilization. There is another way and the other way is a New Paradigm of new relations among nations, win-win cooperation….

The only difference is that the purpose is to have the maximum excellence of the population. I read one article that all the people who say the only reason why China is leading in space is because the party controls science and technology.  And a Chinese scholar said, no, it is because we have an absolute focus on discovery, on excellence in education, and we have a very large, gifted population of 1.4 billion people, and you do not make scientific breakthroughs by dictatorship; which is what Friedrich Schiller has elaborated on many occasions….

There is no reason why the beautiful country, America, which was meant to be “a beacon of hope and a temple of liberty” for the whole world, there is no reason these ideas cannot be brought back to life.

Right now, this is not the case. You have a world in disarray. But if people have this idea that the United States is the key to resolving this world crisis—and in a certain sense, the best tradition of America can be brought back to life. But it needs to be a republic: This is what George Washington and Benjamin Franklin and many other great Presidents said, that “we give you a republic, but you have to defend it.”  And that is really what is at stake today.

So, I think that people should have a patriotic love for America, because that’s what you need, but you should also not be chauvinistic and focus only on one country: You should be what Friedrich Schiller called “a patriot and a world citizen,” and that this is absolutely not a contradiction. You have to be inspired by a passionate love for mankind, and then you will have the wings, you will be a warrior angel, with the wind under your wings, and you will be able to do miracles; and you will overcome the little voice inside, which says “oh, I don’t want to, and I have a different agenda, and it’s too difficult.” No! You will be a giant, and you will “jump over your own shadow,” as the German idiom goes. And you will be the warrior angel the world needs right now.

The ‘New SDI’ Must Be the SDE—Strategic Defense of Earth

Jan. 22 (EIRNS)—In light of President Donald Trump’s call for an R&D program for spaced-based anti-missile defense systems based on new technologies, it is important to recall that, with the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia and the U.S. had serious preliminary discussions on collaboration on such research, not only for strategic defense, but also—and more importantly, for a future world at peace—for the Strategic Defense of Earth against the very real threat of asteroids hitting the Earth. This proposal was revived by Russia in 2011, and is key to creating a new win-win strategic dynamic today.

There were a number of scientific conferences on asteroid defense from 1991 to 1995, following the collapse of the U.S.S.R., which featured top missile defense and nuclear labs related people from both the U.S.A. and Russia. In particular, there was a 1993 conference in Erice, Italy, “Planetary Emergencies: The Collision of an Asteroid or Comet with the Earth.” (This was a continuation of the 1980s Erice conferences focused on the threat of nuclear war, and the possibilities of SDI-type defense, chaired by Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, along with Edward Teller and Evgeny Velikhov.)

In a published report by one of the participants in the 1993 Erice conference (Dr. Canavan), it was noted that the head of the U.S. delegation, Henry Cooper (then director of the SDI Organization) “reviewed the … progress of the ‘high-level group’ discussions established by the Bush-Yeltsin summit to explore joint U.S.-Russian defenses, and invited participation in dual-use technologies for defense and warning of aggression.”

One of the participants told EIR in a private discussion years later, in paraphrase: “There was a quasi-government offer made in Erice. There was a parallel discussion: the issue of asteroid defense was the more open, public discussion; also a more private discussion on the issue of strategic defense—on behalf of the U.S.A., Ambassador Cooper, head of SDIO at the time, and for the Russians, the arms control advisor to Yeltsin, Evgeny Velikhov. When they returned to the U.S.A., the political environment had shifted, and the U.S.A. went away from the issue, even though there was still Russian interest.”

This background is key to understanding the 2011 Russian “Strategic Defense of Earth” proposal to the United States, originally presented by Dmitry Rogozin, then Russia’s Special Envoy to NATO (currently Roscosmos director), and supported by an array of high-level Russian officials—until the Obama-Clinton Ukraine coup killed prospects for positive U.S.-Russian relations.

With Trump’s election, we have a new opportunity to end geopolitics, and create a win-win strategic paradigm.

Recently, researchers from the Department of Celestial Mechanics at St. Petersburg State University reported that the 370-meter-wide asteroid Apophis will make several near-Earth passes, in 2029, 2036, and 2068, with the 2029 pass to be only one-tenth the distance from the Earth to the Moon! There are discussions of a mission to attempt diversion, with the U.S. and China to be invited to cooperate. The Russian team’s findings will be presented at the Korolev Readings on Cosmonautics to be held in Moscow later this month, according to RT.

Today, we should be focusing on upgrading the SDE perspective—starting with asteroid defense, and broadening the focus to other threats and challenges commonly shared by all inhabitants of our small planet (comets, solar flares, cosmic radiation, galactic weather, etc.). The solutions to these challenges require joint, open development of nearby space (as Lyndon LaRouche defined with his Moon-Mars mission design, subsuming the technology-driver aspects of the SDI), shifting defense-related investments and technologies towards space cooperation, situating missile defense as a subsumed component of that.

Daily Telegraph Unhinged by British Exposure, Invents Most Bizarre Narrative Yet

Jan. 22 (EIRNS)—The Daily Telegraph of January 22nd, 2019 conveys the most bizarre and fanciful “Russian green men under the floorboards” story yet concocted by an exposed British intelligence apparatus frantically trying to put at least a fig leaf on its naked self.  Here it is: “Well-placed sources now believe that the plot to kill Colonel Skripal may have included a black ops attempt to sow doubt on the veracity of the explosive dossier that claims Donald Trump received Kremlin backing.  The year before the attempted assassination of Colonel Skripal, a mysterious post on LinkedIn suggested his MI6 handler, who is not being named, worked as a senior analyst at Orbis Business Intelligence, the firm that produced the Trump dossier. But a number of sources have told The Telegraphthat the LinkedIn profile is false—if it ever properly existed at all—and that Skripal’s MI6 handler never worked for Orbis. It is now suspected that the LinkedIn profile was created by the GRU, the Russian military intelligence unit which tried to kill Col. Skripal with novichok nerve agent.”

The Telegraph rambles on: “A well-placed source said: ‘By creating this link, they are suggesting that MI6 are involved with the dossier or Skripal or both. It adds to the confusion and acts as a wedge between the White House and Downing Street. It is exactly the kind of operation the Russians would order to sow confusion.’ ”

So, here we go folks.  According to the logic of this absurd claim, the Russians actually plotted to assassinate Skripal a full 14 months before his Novichok poisoning, and, as part of the plot, in January of 2017 made up a LinkedIn profile linking Pablo Miller, Skripal’s MI6 handler, to Christopher Steele’s Orbis Business Intelligence, somehow to discredit Steele’s dodgy dossier against Trump.  Oh, those clever Russkis.

Overlooked in this paranoid claim is the simple fact that Steele’s dodgy dossier is self-discrediting.  Pablo Miller, a former MI6 agent, is part of the Integrity Initiative and otherwise involved in the close spy circle of the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, which includes Christopher Steele, the former head of MI6’s Russia desk.  Miller and Steele worked together in Russia.  Aside from the Integrity Initiative there are numerous overlaps of the Dearlove network and Hakluyt, the retirement home for MI6 spies who all engage in active operations.

The rest of the Telegraph screed is an attack on former British Ambassador Craig Murray, who decimated the U.K.’s preferred fable concerning the Skripal poisoning. Murray had suggested that it was possible that Skripal was poisoned by the Brits themselves to cover for Skripal’s knowledge of Steele’s dodgy dossier. The Telegraph article denounces this as a conspiracy theory and claims that Miller never worked for Orbis and Skripal was not a source for Steele’s fabricated Trump dossier.

The real concern of the Telegraph’s spook informants is in the now-exposed fact, that MI6 was totally involved in both the Skripal poisoning and the debunked dirty Steele dossier.  Note the present tense in their follow-on statement: “it acts as a wedge between the White House and Downing Street.”  Apparently, we have drawn blood.  The Integrity Initiative, the now-exposed British military psychological and information warfare operation, has also wiped its website clean while the theft of its internal documents is being investigated.

Dems Go Berserk Against Trump on Martin Luther King Day

Jan. 22 (EIRNS)—At yesterday’s celebration of Martin Luther King Day at various locales around the country, sleazy Democrats issued a series of vile attacks on President Donald Trump, charging him with racism, bigotry, etc. etc.

Taking the cake was the attack by House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who told constituents in Harlem that “we have a hater in the White House; the birther in chief, the grand wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue”—a clear reference to the Ku Klux Klan.

Next in line was Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who told a NAACP gathering in South Carolina “that we now have a President of the United States who is a racist…. Trump is trying to divide us up by the color of our skin, by our gender, by the country that we came from, by our religion.”

Not to be outdone, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that Trump’s 2016 election had been “a giant step back” for all the things that Martin Luther King, Jr. believed in.

Wild Smear against Catholic Students—and by Implication President Trump—Exposed as Hoax

Jan. 22 (EIRNS)—Over the past 48 hours, coming on top of BuzzFeed’s garbage story Jan. 18, claiming President Donald Trump told his lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, another fabricated story cropped up in a doctored video Jan. 19, purporting to show students from the Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky, wearing “MAGA” hats, allegedly confronting an innocent Native American, Nathan Phillips, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.The video went viral, was tweeted and gotten out nationally, if not internationally, by other social media as well, unleashing wild attacks on the students, including death threats and other harassment, such that the school campus had to be shut down to protect them. Frenzied media, Hollywood celebrities, talk show hosts, and other Trump-hating networks ran with the doctored video and concluded that the students were Trump supporters, and reflected his “racist” views.The whole thing was a lie. As a longer, accurate video subsequently showed, the students, who were waiting for their bus after attending the Right to Life March on Friday, were being harassed by wackos from the Black Israelite group, who called them “racists,” “white crackers,” “bigots,” “school shooters,” etc. The students responded with their school spirit chants, normally sung at sporting events. Phillips walked right up into the middle of the Covington group, banging a drum and chanting the entire time, into the face of Nick Sandmann, who was later accused of “harassing” Phillips. In a statement published by the Cincinnati Enquirer, Sandmann recounted that at no time did he, or any other student, respond to Phillips, even though Native American protesters yelled epithets at the students. Phillips lied to the press that the students blocked his “escape,” and chanted “Build the Wall,” both false, as seen in the full video. Sandmann decried the “mob-like character assassination” to which he and his family have been subjected.Trump tweeted this morning that Nick Sandmann and the students of Covington “have become symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be.” STRATEGIC WAR DANGER Experts Ritter and Jatras Urge Trump To Stay the Course on Syria Withdrawal Jan. 22 (EIRNS)—Arms control expert Scott Ritter, who oversaw the disarmament of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, penned a feature in The American Conservative, “Make No Mistake: ISIS Needs the U.S. To Survive,” countering the ravings of various Congressmen and assorted neo-cons who demanded that, in response to the Jan. 16 suicide attack in Manbij, in which four Americans were killed, President Donald Trump should reverse his plan to withdraw American troops from Syria.Ritter was seconded yesterday by former American diplomat and foreign policy adviser James Jatras, who wrote an op-ed for RT that so far, despite “expertise” from advisers, Trump appears to be staying the course. Jatras further says that the U.S. military presence in Syria was never really about defeating ISIS in any case, but rather, in the words of former Secretary of State John Kerry, to use ISIS as leverage against Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.Ritter argues that the ISIS suicide attack in Manbij was carefully calculated and planned, “to sow chaos in the processes associated with an American disengagement in Manbij.” The reality, he continues, is that ISIS needs U.S. forces there “in order to survive.” With the U.S. gone, once the Syrian government can turn its full attention on eradicating ISIS, the group’s days are numbered. The Iraqi government, with Iran’s help, is regaining control of its own territory, so the last bastions of ISIS are on Syrian soil in areas controlled by the U.S. military, Ritter observes. “A U.S. withdrawal from Syria would set ISIS adrift, allowing the Syrian government, backed by Russia and Iran, to defeat it and reassert its control over, not only the territory currently occupied by ISIS, but also the hearts and minds of the Syrian Arabs whom ISIS needs for sustainment.”Jatras rejects claims that the U.S. withdrawal from Syria will create the conditions for ISIS to reconstitute itself. Rather, he says, the terrorist group will be finished off, once and for all. The U.S. never wanted to see the complete elimination of ISIS in any case, he states, so that task was left to the Syrian Army and the Russian Air Force, with help from Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah. He quotes U.S. Army Col. Douglas Macgregor (ret.): “When the U.S. is gone, any element left of ISIS would be annihilated by Russia, Iran or Syria.” Trump, Jatras says, seems to understand this, but he warns that another incident can’t be ruled out in an attempt to get the President to change course.Will Pompeo’s Anti-Iran Meeting in Poland Be a Bust?Jan. 22 (EIRNS)—There are signs that the anti-Iran meeting that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to convene in Warsaw on Feb. 13-14, in cooperation with the Polish Foreign Ministry, may not be the confab that he hopes for. Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said yesterday that Iran is not invited (no surprise there) and that Russia has declined to participate. EU foreign affairs high representative Federica Mogherini said at the end of last week she won’t be going, and France is also unlikely to send its foreign minister, say unnamed European diplomats.Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Maciej Lang visited Tehran yesterday to try to explain the Polish position on the conference, but Iranian Deputy foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi, told Lang and his accompanying team that Iran will not allow a coalition to form against its interests by any country inside or outside the region, reported the Tehran Times. Araghchi said the crisis in the Southwest Asia lies in the occupation of lands by Israel. Araghchi said Israel, as the root cause of the problems, not being on the agenda in the conference shows that the conference is “one-sided.” It is clear that the U.S. is seeking other goals, he declared. “Another problem in the region is America’s adventurous policies. While America is after a complete demolition of the [2015 nuclear agreement] JCPOA, the sole fruit of diplomacy and dialogue in this region, how could it claim to be trying to solve the region’s problems?”Lang tried to claim that the conference “is not against any country including the Islamic Republic of Iran.” This was rejected by the Iranian side, as were the excuses for why Poland, which has had good relations with Tehran, is working with the U.S. on such a conference. ECONOMY Philippines Case Proves China ‘Debt Trap’ Is Fake News Jan. 22 (EIRNS)—A serious study of Philippines debt compared to the development of the real economy by a doctoral student in the U.S. has provided powerful proof that the hysterical campaign against the Belt and Road Initiative in the West—centered on the lie of China creating debt traps aimed at taking over nations around the world—is unreconstituted organic fertilizer.Alvin Camba, a PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University, has conducted in-depth research on the Philippines economy for several years. On Jan. 18 he published some of his findings, titled “Examining Belt and Road Debt Trap Controversies in the Philippines” on the Jamestown Foundation website. After reviewing the many articles claiming the Philippines is a model of China’s debt trap, he counters: “In the case of the Philippines, the country possesses economic fundamentals that mitigate against the danger of excessive indebtedness. Between 1999 and 2014, Philippine debt increased from $51 to $77 billion. However, at the same time, the country’s external debt to GDP ratio (in percentage) decreased from 61.6% to 27.3%. The total amount of the country’s annual debt service during those years ranged from $6.5 to $7.5 billion, but the percentage of debt service decreased from 14.6 to 6.2%, indicating that less of the country’s GDP has been used for servicing debt.”Even more important, Camba writes that the opponents of the BRI “ignore the likelihood that projects that generate internal demand could successfully contribute to economic growth.” He points to the rise in overall productivity created by, especially, the two rail lines being constructed by China in Luzon.He also states that China is not the only investor in Philippine infrastructure, but that “more than half of developmental infrastructure projects in the country are funded by the Japanese International Corporation Agency and the Asian Development Bank.” THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER China Plans Biggest-Ever Investment in Rail in 2019 Jan. 22 (EIRNS)—Global Construction Review reports today that “China is planning to invest a record $125 billion in rail this year as the government looks to cushion the impact of slower economic growth. This would be 6% more than was spent last year, and 10% more than was originally planned, according to a report in the Nikkei Asian Review.”China is taking measures to stimulate the economy in response to the “slowdown” in growth, although growth is still one of the highest in the world at 6.6% for the last quarter of 2018. These include an “acceleration in construction projects, as well as cutting taxes and boosting the money supply by tweaking banking rules,” GCR reports.China Railways’ annual plan envisages a 45% rise in new projects, resulting in the addition of 6,800 km to the total network, GCR reports. High-speed rail will be expanded by 3,200 km, more than the total of high-speed rail in any other country. This will mean China will far exceed its previous schedule to build 30,000 km of high-speed railway lines by 2020.GCR lists several of the new routes on the agenda:• a conventional link through the mountainous terrain between Chongqing and Yunnan;• a second railway from Sichuan to Tibet, a 1,700 km line that poses huge engineering challenges, and may cost as much as $36 billion;• lines between Hunan and Jiangxi, Chongqing and Sichuan Province and the Xiongan New Area and Henan. OTHER Macron and Merkel Sign ‘Aachen Treaty’: Lame Ducks Attempt a Flight Forward Jan. 22 (EIRNS)—French President Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, two of the most unpopular government leaders in Europe, signed a friendship treaty between the two countries today that one person has described as the creation of a “single state.”The treaty, which is being presented by its authors as a “second Elysée Treaty,” referring to the historic friendship treaty in 1963 signed by Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle, in reality would make these two giants of statecraft roll over in their graves.This Aachen Treaty aims at forming a political bloc that dictates policy in the EU, builds up a “European” military force outside of NATO, and shape their economies according to a Malthusian blueprint. It is viewed with hostility by all the other 25 EU partners, and by the opposition forces in Germany and France, forces that could soon take power.As the Italian sovereignist website scenarieconomici.it put it, “The Aachen Treaty is, at best, irrelevant. At worst, it wants to recreate a sort of Carolingian Empire” which will collapse much faster than its ego ideal.Chapter 1, on “European Affairs,” says that “The two states will consult regularly at all levels before the major European [Union] deadlines, seeking to establish common positions and to agree to coordinate ministerial speeches. They will coordinate on the transposition of European [Union] law into their national law.”Chapter 2, on “Peace, Security and Development,” says that “The two states will deepen their cooperation on foreign policy, defense, external and internal security and development, while striving to strengthen Europe’s autonomous [i.e., separate from NATO] capacity for action. They will consult each other in order to define common positions on any major decision affecting their common interests and to act jointly in all cases where such is possible.” The two countries will also help each other “in case of armed aggression against their territories” (by which countries? Switzerland or Poland against Germany? Spain against France?)It calls for “the admission of the Federal Republic of Germany as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council” as “a priority of Franco-German diplomacy.” With this, the idea of a UNSC seat for the EU is thrown away.Chapter 5, on “Sustainable Development, Climate, Environment and Economic Affairs” calls for joint efforts in achieving climate targets and to “advance the energy transition.” Does that mean that France will adopt the suicidal German agenda and give up nuclear energy?It then calls for establishing “a Franco-German economic zone with common rules” and to “regularly coordinate economic policies” between the two countries “in order to promote convergence between the two states and improve the competitiveness of their economies.” This is typical EU language for balanced budgets and zero deficit policies. Hard to believe that France could survive such a “convergence” and the less credible as signed in a moment in which Paris is violating deficit rules. The Aachen Treaty as Seen from South of the Alps Jan.  22 (EIRNS)—The “new Elysée Treaty”—i.e., the Aachen Treaty—between France and Germany is hard to swallow even for Euro-fanatics in Italy, the third largest country of the 19 countries of the Eurozone and a founding member of that very 27-member European Union which is being disintegrated in its spirit (it was de facto in practice) by Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel. Views differ only on whether this is potentially the end of the EU or whether the EU is already dead. Exemplary of the comments are those in Il Giornale, which represents the conservative, pro-EU faction, such as former Premier Silvio Berlusconi, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, et al.“President Macron and Chancellor Angela Merkel are today signing a new treaty between the two countries which … outlines a future [European] Union without consulting the other partners. … It is clear that Macron and Merkel have decided to build a new world power, whose strength will play a role in the relationships with their EU partners.”More outspoken is the “sovereignist” site scenarieconomici.it. One analysis goes through all main aspects of the treaty and concludes:“The Aachen Treaty is, at best, irrelevant. At worst, it wants to re-create a sort of Carolingian Empire, in which Aachen was the capital. It degenerated immediately after its creation, becoming one of the most illusory creations in European history. If you want another historical parallel, we could see it with the Seven Years’ War and the Bourbon-French alliance in a major part of the 17th century. It was a period of bloody wars that led to the slow decadence of the two powers which, as today, tried to rule Europe with their agreement, succeeding only in rotting it and blowing it up with the French Revolution. ‘Jupiter’ Macron and the German housewife would like to enter history books. So did Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Bourbons and Habsburgs.”  Reach us at eirdailyalert@larouchepub.com or call 1-571-293-0935