• Europe, U.S. Governments Are Paralyzed: Crisis Is a Time for Big Ideas, Those of LaRouche
• New York Times Wishfully Resurrects Fake Russiagate Narrative
• Walter Jones Has Died, a Most Unusual Congressman for the Common Good
• National Academy of Sciences Slams NASA Lunar Privatization
• NASA Seeks Cooperation With Russia to Protect Astronauts from Solar Radiation Hazards
• Former Green Policymaker Shows Schellnhuber Decarbonization Will Deindustrialize Germany

• U.S. Central Command Chief Declares U.S. Troops Could Begin Leaving Syria in Weeks
• U.K. Defense Secretary Says After Brexit Britain Can Expand Its Global Power and ‘Lethality’
• SPD Would Keep Hartz IV Workfare, Under a Less-Discredited Name
• Venezuelan Opposition’s Economic Model Is a Defense of the ‘Invisible Hand’

EDITORIAL

Europe, U.S. Governments Are Paralyzed: Crisis Is a Time for Big Ideas, Those of LaRouche

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—A crisis, of the failed British elite’s making, has seized the governments of the “major powers” of Europe, emphatically including that of the U.K. itself, eliminated their credibility and robbed their power to govern. It has left stable only Italy, because of its new government’s rejection of British geopolitics.

The British insistence on a NATO war confrontation with Russia, and the stubborn imposition of economic austerity since even beforethe financial crash, has blown up the coalitions and triggered mass protests against the governments of these “Western world-leading” governments which tried to ram through these policies. They are paralyzed, essentially vacuums of power, while their economies sink one by one back into recession.

But the British intelligence-led outright coup attempt against President Donald Trump, ongoing now since he first became a candidate three years ago, has also paralyzed the United States government.

With Trump’s intentions clear—to establish cooperative relations with Russia and China and to end regime-change wars—the British have furiously attacked him through NATO elites in Europe, through “legal assassin” Robert Mueller, through Democratic hacks and neo-con war-mongers, turning every small step of progress into a year’s work.

Despite Trump’s individual executive actions, in the eyes of Americans, the government has become unable to function. His peace and cooperation policy is blocked by British war policy.

In crises of this kind of vacuum of credible government, many thinking citizens begin to disdain the phrases liberals and conservatives read from their cue cards and talking points. They look for explanations of events on a higher, even a historical level. Thus, the growing success of the 18-month mobilization by LaRouche Political Action Committee to show Americans that this is, precisely, a British imperial coup attempt against President Trump. The campaign began in mid-2017 with mass circulation of LaRouche PAC’s dossier on “Legal Assassin” Robert Mueller [“Robert Mueller Is an Amoral Legal Assassin: He Will Do His Job If You Let Him”]. Americans now readily grasp this British intelligence attack; pro-Trump “pundits” reflect and accept it.

The real history of “how we got into this crisis” requires a still higher level of thinking, of which some are becoming capable. It is a furious British imperial reaction to the potential success, from 50 years’ organizing, of Lyndon and Helga LaRouche’s campaign to create an economic paradigm developing the underdeveloped countries with credit and machine-tool capabilities of the industrial powers.

The infrastructure “great projects” they called the World Land-Bridge have been brought forward along with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The potential exists for a Eurasian development “triangle” of Russia, India and China to join the United States in a new international credit system, a New Bretton Woods, as Lyndon LaRouche has specified for decades. And the British-instigated jailing of him 30 years ago, becomes the paradigm for the British drive to take down President Trump now.

In the recruitment for the national conference of the Schiller Institute over Presidents Day weekend there are welcome signs this new understanding can take hold. The LaRouches’ paradigm of economic progress led by science, and revived classical culture to restore people’s humanity, is the subject of the conference, “Let Us Shape a New, More Human Epoch of Mankind!”

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

New York Times Wishfully Resurrects Fake Russiagate Narrative

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—For this week’s regular Sunday Russiagate Meme, the New York Times focused on a heavily redacted transcript of arguments conducted before Washington, D.C. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, concerning Paul Manafort’s sentencing. True to form, Robert Mueller’s pitbull, Andrew Weissmann, is alleging that following his guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with Mueller, Manafort lied concerning five discrete topics to FBI agents and the grand jury. Although Manafort corrected his alleged misstatements, Weissmann wants Manafort to receive no reduction of sentence based on his cooperation with prosecutors. Of interest to the Times is the claim that Manafort “lied” about a peace proposal for Ukraine advanced by one of Manafort’s long-time business partners, Konstantin Kilimnik, which was originally broached to Manafort in 2016, and was continuing to be broached by Kilimnik to Manafort as late as 2018. When Judge Jackson asked Weissmann why this was even significant, Weissmann responded that this topic was at the “center” of what the Special Counsel is investigating. Hence, the new Times story about Mueller continuing to fan the flames of Russiagate.

The Times’ fevered story followed, of course, Sen. Richard Burr’s statement from the Senate Intelligence Committee last week, that the committee had seen no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians to date. Burr’s statement was a big downer for Resist partisans. Otherwise, media heavies, who claim “to know,” have pronounced that Mueller will reveal lots of smoke but no smoking gun in his final report about Trump and Russia. It also underlines what should be a troubling question for Judge Jackson. Why, exactly, is a peace plan for Ukraine; an end to sanctions against Russia; a hard-nosed pursuit for peace, something which qualifies for criminal investigation?

This news service has repeatedly emphasized that Russiagate began with the Ukraine coup in 2014 as a conspiracy between British intelligence and its lackeys in the U.S. services to create regime change in Russia. The British elements used, including Christopher Steele, were knee-deep in the operational aspects of the Maidan events. The British deployment included the 77th Military Brigade and the Integrity Initiative, as well as longstanding Ukrainian neo-Nazi elements with both a British and an American intelligence pedigree. This slow-moving attempted coup had the complete and full backing of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and would surely have moved the world much closer to outright war had Donald Trump not been elected.  Since the election, the Russiagate operation has largely concentrated on putting Trump into a box where he cannot implement any of his rational campaign pledges to pursue peace with Russia, because of political and legal peril stemming from mass hysteria.

The Times has utterly failed to tell its readers that Manafort’s alleged convictions have nothing to do with Russia. In fact, Manafort was working with the State Department and various Democratic Party operatives, including the Podesta brothers and former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig, within Ukraine’s incredibly convoluted political sphere, to steer Ukraine into signing a political and trade association agreement with the EU, which Moscow opposed. In this, he worked with Serhiy Lovochkin, chief of staff to former President Viktor Yanukovych. After the coup that overthrew Yanukovych, Manafort continued his Ukraine consulting work, which included the campaign of the current President Petro Poroshenko, according to Rick Gates’ testimony at Manafort’s Virginia trial. This is the picture which emerged at Manafort’s Virginia trial. It is also the picture recounted in September by former Fusion GPS researcher Graham Stack in Kyiv Post, who states that the fabricated Steele dossier and other Fusion GPS products about Paul Manafort got it “all wrong.”

Walter Jones Has Died, a Most Unusual Congressman for the Common Good

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina died on Feb. 10 at 76, after an illness complicated by a recent fall. He was a Member of Congress always driven to think of attempts he could pursue to get that body—or even a few of its Members—to assert its constitutional duty against the regime-change wars and the devastation they cause to American service personnel, their families, and to foreign populations. The most truthful of his many truthful acts was his reversal of his initial support for the Iraq War, when he found that President George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had lied to Congress and the people in order to start the war, and that it was a deadly fraud killing thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis. Congressman Jones said “I will go to my grave regretting” that vote, and constantly tried to awaken the conscience in his colleagues.

Days before his death, on Feb. 6, Rep. John Garamendi of California, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, honored Representative Jones by introducing H.R. 966, the Walter B. Jones Restoring Power to Congress Act. It would repeal the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF).

Congressman Jones himself had been stripped of committee positions by leadership, despite 25 years’ seniority, because of his independence of thinking and voting. He was a truly non-partisan legislator who did not vote for fakery by either party. He was a prime sponsor, and for a time the only Republican sponsor in the House of the vital “Return to Prudent Banking Act” to restore Glass-Steagall bank regulation, and argued strongly for it in press conferences with Democratic Reps. Marcy Kaptur, Tim Ryan, Tulsi Gabbard and others. It appears that no press obituary has mentioned his Glass-Steagall advocacy—although when Wall Street candidates were being recruited to try to unseat him, the reporting of it would become quite prominent.

Walter Jones had sent videotaped messages to conferences of the Schiller Institute, and endorsed the work of the Institute.

Representative Garamendi’s statement said, “Congress has a Constitutional responsibility to debate and declare war, and we have abdicated that responsibility for far too long. That is why I am introducing this legislation to repeal the 2001 AUMF within one year of enactment…. I am also grateful to recognize the leadership of my dear friend, Walter Jones, who is currently in hospice care. Walter has championed this cause for years, I have worked with him closely on this issue in Congress. I am grateful for his wisdom, passion, and advocacy.”

Hopefully in death Walter Jones’s name can win the constitutional check on war, which he strove so hard for in life.

SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE

National Academy of Sciences Slams NASA Lunar Privatization

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—In two studies released last week, the National Academy of Sciences questions what, if any, U.S. priority science investigations will be possible, if it uses the lunar landers that private companies might come up with. NASA recently awarded contracts as seed money to companies which will compete to carry NASA payloads. And while some science could be done, the Academy states that these missions “do not replace missions recommended in the National Academies’ most recent planetary science decadal survey….” These ten-year studies are guidelines for NASA to prioritize science missions.

They point out that it may not be possible for these commercial landers to take complex science payloads to the Moon, and that the payloads will be unable to survive the lunar night—i.e., they will last two weeks!

In fact, the entire public-private partnership (PPP) program is exactly backwards. NASA’s science missions, for 60 years, have started with recommendations from the scientific community, with the Academy, on the priority scientific questions to be addressed. Then, analysis of what instruments should be deployed to provide the appropriate data is carried out. They determine from there what spacecraft capabilities, and which rocket launcher to use, are needed to carry out the mission. The current PPP lunar mission starts with what capabilities private companies can provide, such as how much payload they can carry, and then NASA will tailor its science policy to that, seeing what instruments they can fit inside.

Space.com website reports the scientific community has, for 15 years, had its priorities for lunar missions. One is to bring back samples from the South Pole-Aitken Basin (where China’s Chang’e-4 is now exploring). The other priority is a network of landers to understand the Moon’s interior. Neither mission is being planned by NASA. Nor could either be implemented using the commercial landers being developed.

NASA Seeks Cooperation with Russia To Protect Astronauts from Solar Radiation Hazards

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—A letter has been sent by NASA’s Johnson Space Center inviting Russian scientists to jointly develop a system of forecasting radiation hazards during solar flares in order to protect the crew of NASA’s prospective lunar-orbit space station Gateway.

TASS quoted Mikhail Panasyuk, the head of the Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics at Lomonosov Moscow State University, as saying, “We have recently received a letter from our U.S. colleagues working in the field of radiation safety at the Johnson Space Center with a proposal to discuss creation of a system to predict radiation hazards from solar flares for long-term interplanetary flights. And, first of all, we are talking about the lunar near-Moon station. Russia has created a system of radiation control in the near-Earth space at different orbits, from lower to geostationary ones. It is a big achievement.”

The Russian scientists are already cooperating with European partners in research on space radiation effects within a project on Cosmic Rays and Radiation Events in the Atmosphere (CRREAT), Panasyuk said.

Former Green Policymaker Shows Schellnhuber Decarbonization Will Deindustrialize Germany

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—In an interview, Fritz Vahrenholt, himself one of the prominent figures in German green policies and formerly a leading promoter of wind power, charges the Coal Exit Commission which set the final exit for 2035-2038, with having chosen its members predominantly from the radical green camp. Varenholt attacks one of its members in particular: Chancellor Angela Merkel’s science advisor on climate issues, Sir John Schellnhuber, CBE.

Schellnhuber’s “Great Transformation” plan of 2011 seeks the so-called “total decarbonization” of Germany, which—since wind and solar alone will not supply enough to power the country—will lead to its deindustrialization, Vahrenholt states. Moreover, it will install a social model of ecological absolutism, which discards science, proclaims decarbonization as God-given, and dictates reduced lifestyles to the citizens. The rest of the world are shaking their heads over Germany’s stupidity to sacrifice its energy supply for greenie pipedreams, argues Vahrenholt.

The interview appeared on the eifelon.org news website in the Eifel region in North Rhine-Westphalia and the German-speaking community in Belgium.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

U.S. Central Command Chief Declares U.S. Troops Could Begin Leaving Syria in Weeks

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—Gen. Joseph Votel, the commander of U.S. Central Command, told reporters traveling with him in the region yesterday, that the U.S. pullout of troops from Syria could begin within weeks. Asked whether the withdrawal of the more than 2,000 troops would begin in days or weeks, Votel said: “Probably weeks. But again, it will all be driven by the situation on the ground.”

“In terms of the withdrawal … I think we’re right on track with where we wanted to be,” Votel said, according to Reuters. “Moving people is easier than moving equipment and so what we’re trying to do right now is again (to) kind of clear out those materials, that equipment, that we do not need.”

Votel also indicated that it’s also not simply a matter of moving troops from Syria to Iraq. “I think it’s going to remain more or less steady,” he said, referring to U.S. troop levels in Iraq. “This isn’t just wholesale ‘Everybody in Syria move over to Iraq.’ That doesn’t make sense,” he said.

U.K. Defense Secretary Says after Brexit Britain Can Expand Its Global Power and ‘Lethality’

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—Her Majesty’s Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson gave a speech today at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London on how Great Britain will increase its “lethality” after Brexit, which includes sending its new aircraft carrier, the Queen Elizabeth II, to the South China Sea (if they send it before 2021, it will not have its air squadrons but only helicopters). But according to some reactions, the only casualty in the speech, was that he shot himself in the foot. “Brexit has brought us to a great moment in our history. A moment when we must strengthen our global presence, enhance our lethality, and increase our mass,” Williamson said, reported Sputnik.

“We can build new alliances, rekindle old ones and most importantly make it clear that we are the country that will act when required. And, a nation that people can turn to when the world needs leadership,” Williamson said.

Williamson announced that the first mission of the HMS Queen Elizabeth will include tours in the Mediterranean, Middle East, and Pacific, with the vessel carrying two squadrons of British and U.S. F-35 jets (but not until 2021).

The speech sounded like Anthony Eden on the eve of the 1956 Suez crisis, saying Britain must stand up to alleged Russian “provocations.” “Such action from Russia must come at a cost,” he demanded and claiming that the cost to Britain of non-intervention has often been “unacceptably high” and that “to talk but fail to act risks our nation being seen as little more than a paper tiger.”

Following the speech, the Guardian’s Simon Jenkins wrote in an op-ed: “The defense secretary’s brain has gone absent without leave…. If history teaches us anything, it is that vanity defense procurements merely incite ministers to reckless interventions, afterwards bitterly regretted. Williamson’s speech reads like the pompous rantings of a 1950s Tory on the make. It cannot conceivably have been cleared with colleagues, let alone the Treasury. It is best forgotten.”

The former Labour Party shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Chris Leslie also ridiculed the speech, warning, “In fact the economic damage that Brexit threatens is what will most quickly weaken our forces. The Treasury’s own forecast is that Brexit will leave us £100 billion worse off and the experience of recent years is that the Treasury is never slow to pick on defense when it is looking for cuts. In the economic mess that will follow Brexit, hopes of East of Suez could be the first to go.”

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

SPD Would Keep Hartz IV Workfare, Under a Less-Discredited Name

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—The German Social Democratic Party (SPD) executive approved a proposal by Chairwoman Andrea Nahles to replace the discredited 2005 Hartz IV “workfare” scheme with an ostensibly more social “citizen pay.” This would however not give more income to the present welfare recipients forced to work under the Hartz IV scheme, because the monthly pay would be the same as before—recipients would only be less harassed by controls, decrees, sanctions for the first two years. So far, this is just a proposal, however; a change in the law has been rejected by the government coalition partner, the Christian Democrats.

The SPD apparently still does not intend to scrap the basic cost-cutting concept behind its Agenda 2010 which is the framework for Hartz IV, and won’t go for a new concept of decent incomes from decent well-paying jobs for citizens instead.

The Agenda 2010 has impoverished millions of citizens, costing the SPD half its vote in national elections, charged Simone Lange, who challenged Nahles for party leadership at the April 2018 SPD national convention, calling on the party to dispense with the concept and even apologize for it as a “grave mistake.” Nahles, nonetheless, defended the Agenda 2010, brainwashing the convention delegates and defeating Lange in the vote for SPD leader.

Venezuelan Opposition’s Economic Model Is a Defense of the ‘Invisible Hand’

Feb. 10 (EIRNS)—The alternative economic model proposed by Venezuela’s opposition was spelled out in a neo-liberal treatise, including the currency board so beloved by the British Empire for its colonies, whose implementation would mean disaster for an already collapsing economy. The plan, presented last December, is the brainchild of Ricardo Hausmann, the Venezuelan economist who runs Harvard’s Center for International Development. He calls it the “Day After” plan, to be implemented immediately.

According to the Feb. 2 issue of the City of London weekly, The Economist, Hausmann has identified certain “binding” constraints that must be loosened immediately, which, The Economist happily notes, means reviving “the invisible hand”: restoring property rights and the dominion of the free market over all else, eliminating any centralized controls or regulation. Despite the humanitarian crisis, austerity will be imposed.

Measures to be enacted include:

• Eliminate all price and exchange controls, and set a timetable for “adjustment” (increase) in fuel prices and utility rates;

• Guarantee complete independence of the Central Bank, and establish a “monetary anchor” or currency board, by which local currency can only be issued, if there is an equivalent amount of reserve dollars to back it up. This is the same policy used so disastrously in Argentina in the 1990s, which eliminates all sovereignty over monetary policy;

• Restructure state-sector companies to prepare for their eventual privatization;

• Enact “significant” fiscal expansion to address the humanitarian crisis and collapse of public services, but finance this with foreign funding—the IMF, etc.—to eliminate any monetary financing of the deficit. Social expenditures will be “compatible with fiscal sustainability in the medium term.”

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