WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Volume 6, Number 35

EIR Daily Alert Service

P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390AR

• Lyndon LaRouche and America’s Self Esteem
• Next Round of China-U.S. Trade Talks Will Be Held in Washington This Week
• British Empire Seeks to Sabotage U.S.-China Cooperation Using Huawei Matter
• Trump Assesses ‘I Think a Lot Will Come Out in Summit With North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un
• Peskov Tells Turkish Daily: Trump Says One Thing; His People Do Something Entirely Different
• Trump’s Speech to Venezuelan’s in Miami Fans the Flames of Regime Change
• Valdai Club Meeting Denounces U.S. Destabilization of Middle East Region
• The Belt and Road Comes to a Neighborhood Near You
• Clapper Threatens U.S. President Trump, Insulting Him As A ‘Threat to This Country’
• Patriotic U.S. Intelligence Official Offers McCabe, Rosenstein Advice For Their Coming Jail Time
• Roger Stone on LaRouche Impact on Trump Election
• Italian Senator Bagnai Blasts ECB Blindness on Derivatives Risk

EDITORIAL

Lyndon LaRouche and America’s Self-Esteem

Feb. 19 (EIRNS)—Following the Feb. 12 death of EIR founder Lyndon LaRouche, and the Feb. 16-17 international Schiller Institute conference which celebrated his life and work (which will be covered in full in the next issue of EIR, Feb. 22, 2019), it has become evident that LaRouche’s passing is awakening and deeply moving people around the world to discover what Abraham Lincoln referred to as “the better angels of our nature.” That is a force for the good which can help Americans regain their sense of self-esteem—largely lost over the 16 years of the Bush and Obama presidencies—and succeed in the central strategic tasks defined at that Schiller Institute conference: Get President Donald Trump to exonerate Lyndon LaRouche, and bring the U.S. fully into the New Paradigm that is being built internationally around China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

The central strategic mission of getting the United States to join the New Paradigm is in fact in sight. President Trump and Chinese President Xi are negotiating a broad economic agreement which can break loose from the British Empire’s collapsing financial architecture—despite the British efforts to use the Huawei issue to poison the prospects. President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will be meeting Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam, where the “Singapore Model” can advance greatly towards putting an end to the entire system of British geopolitics in international relations. And the British coup d’état against President Trump stands exposed in broad daylight, with the Andrew McCabe statements and the brazen defense of their sedition by Jim Clapper, Jim Comey, and others.

On the key issue of LaRouche’s science of physical economy, and the need to defeat the incompetent and genocidal Green New Deal, consider the following report of a new NASA study, which confirms that mankind improves the biosphere, as Lyndon LaRouche and Vladimir Vernadsky told you. New satellite evidence shows that mankind has been creating a greener Earth over the past decades.

China’s CGTN TV network reported that NASA satellite imagery shows that our planet is greener today compared with 20 years ago—with 5.17 million square kilometers of new vegetation, “equivalent to another Amazon rainforest.” It is reported that China and India account for “more than one-third of the greening,” and nearly half of China’s contribution came from programs to expand forests. As CGTN concludes, “This comprehensive study has broken a long-standing prejudice held by Western media that industrialization in developing countries will make the global environment more vulnerable.”

Although not mentioned by CGTN, it has been recently demonstrated that the higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have also played a major role in the greening of the planet in recent decades—most significantly in regions of high water stress, where the higher CO2 levels ensure the plants are more efficient with the water available. In addition to increasing natural plant growth, this has improved agricultural yields.

It would seem that the entire biosphere has already voted for the “exoneration” of Lyndon LaRouche and his ideas!

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Next Round of China-U.S. Trade Talks Will Be Held in Washington This Week

Feb. 19 (EIRNS)—The seventh round of the China-U.S. trade negotiations will be held in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 21-22, and they will be attended by Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, and the U.S. negotiating team including Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and Presidential advisers Peter Navarro and Larry Kudlow, according to official statements issued by both White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.

President Donald Trump told journalists today that he was optimistic about the talks, and that the deadline of March 1 was flexible. “They are complex talks. They’re going very well. I cannot tell you exactly about timing, but the date is not a magical date,” he stated. “So they are moving fast. We are going to see what happens.”

British Empire Seeks To Sabotage U.S.-China Cooperation, Using Huawei Matter

Feb. 19 (EIRNS)—This one is a classic, British/Venetian operation to destroy any prospect of U.S.-China cooperation.

First, the British used their assets in Washington, such as Vice President Mike Pence, to get the U.S. to launch economic warfare against the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, denouncing the world leader in 5G technology as a “security threat” to all the nations of the West, because it is supposedly handing over secret information to the Chinese government. Not only was Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou detained in (British Commonwealth country) Canada and threatened with extradition to the U.S., but every nation in the world was pressured by the Trump Administration to not make any deals with Huawei, or pay the consequences in terms of U.S. retaliation.

Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei Technologies (and father of the detained CFO Meng Wanzhou) was interviewed by BBC yesterday, and he was blunt: “There is no way the U.S. can crush us. The world cannot leave us because we are more advanced. Even if they persuade more countries not to use us temporarily, we can always scale things down a bit…. If the lights go out in the West, the East will still shine. And if the North goes dark, there is still the South. America doesn’t represent the world. America only represents a portion of the world.”

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang responded yesterday to Pence’s comments in similarly strong terms: “They use the issue as an excuse for suppressing the legitimate development rights and interests of Chinese enterprises, using political means to intervene in economic behaviors. It’s hypocritical, immoral and unfair bullying behavior.”

Once they had started the nasty strategic brawl, the U.K. National Cyber Security Centre turned around and issued a finding that, as far as Great Britain is concerned, they had determined that there are ways to limit the risks of using Huawei equipment, and so they will proceed to purchase equipment and work with the company. Some in China appear to have taken the bait.

Huawei’s Ren commented: “We still trust in the U.K., and we hope that the U.K. will trust us even more. We will invest even more in the U.K. because if the U.S. doesn’t trust us, then we will shift our investment from the U.S. to the U.K. on an even bigger scale.”

Trump Assesses, ‘I Think a Lot Will Come Out’ in Summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un

Feb. 19 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will hold their second summit on Feb. 27-28 in Hanoi, Vietnam. In a press conference today, President Trump was upbeat about the possibilities:

“I think a lot will come out of it. We had a tremendous first summit. It was really breaking the ice, but a lot of things came from that, including good relationships, and we are looking forward to having a very good meeting.” He continued: “Next week is going to be very exciting…. I think a lot can come from it, at least I hope so—denuclearization hopefully. I’m in no particular rush.” Trump further said that Kim was also looking forward to the meeting, and that “I think ultimately we are going to be very, very successful.” Trump also announced that he already discussed the summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, and will do the same tomorrow with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Kim will arrive in Vietnam on Feb. 25, two days ahead of the summit, and he will visit the Vietnamese manufacturing base of Bac Ninh and the industrial port town of Hai Phong, as well as a Samsung manufacturing plant. Media reports view this as an indication that North Korea wants foreign investment, like Vietnam.

Peskov Tells Turkish Daily: Trump Says One Thing, His People Do Something Entirely Different

Feb. 19 (EIRNS)—During an interview with the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News focusing mainly on Russian-Turkish relations and Syria, Russian Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov made some notable comments about the U.S. withdrawal from Syria in the context of the situation in Washington.

“Americans said that they will withdraw, but their President says one thing, people working with him do something entirely different,” Peskov said. “We do not know how they will proceed, because of this, there is uncertainty.” Without naming it, Peskov is actually identifying one of the strategic effects of the British-led coup against President Donald Trump, which is to continue the permanent warfare policy first brought into U.S. policymaking by the Cheney beastmen of the George W. Bush Administration after 9/11.

Later the interviewer asked him if he really believed that U.S. troops would be leaving Syria. “The U.S. has become the most unpredictable country,” he said. “For example, our President is the President, he does what he says, and he makes others do what he says. The U.S. is in a deep crisis, we do understand the hardships they are going through, but we are also impatiently waiting.” He listed the various questions about the U.S. withdrawal, particularly with respect to the support that the U.S. gives to the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces and when the withdrawal is complete, will there still be a U.S. presence. “All these questions are on the agenda, the presidents are talking about them,” he said. “The general attitude is the same, there is no reason for optimism, and uncertainty is troubling. And this situation is not helping the crisis in Syria and hope for a solution at all.”

In response to a question on Turkish contacts with the Assad government, Peskov said: “Assad is the legitimate President of Syria; he is the leader of that country. You may or may not like him. He is a state leader, he has a people, armed forces and intelligence. If you want to be among countries that want to save the destiny of Syria, you should deal with Assad. There is no other way. Western countries are making mistakes all the time, but we should [not] make the same mistakes. There was … [Libyan Col. Muammar] Qaddafi. He was said to be a bad guy, he was killed later. The country was also killed along with him.”

Trump’s Speech to Venezuelans in Miami Fans the Flames of Regime Change

Feb. 19 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump delivered a speech to the Venezuelan community in Miami yesterday, which sounded very much like it had been written by National Security Adviser John Bolton or Special Envoy for Venezuela Elliott Abrams.

Speaking at Florida International University, the President called for regime-change in Venezuela, repeating, almost verbatim, the same points made in recent weeks by Bolton, Vice President Mike Pence, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to justify ousting President Nicolas Maduro. The President repeated this neo-con cabal’s line that Maduro’s “socialist dictatorship” is responsible for all of Venezuela’s ills, and must be removed as soon as possible—along with the two other governments of Bolton’s “troika of tyranny,” Cuba and Nicaragua.

Trump’s speech underscores the urgency of defeating the British-directed coup against him, of which Bolton, Pence, et al. are key agents, to free him to formulate a sane policy toward Ibero-America in alliance with Russia, China and others. The current policy is as much a trap for Trump, as it is a disaster for Venezuela.

“Socialism” is not the problem in Venezuela, but rather the British imperial Jacobin project known as “Chavismo,” put in place in the 1990s precisely to create the conditions of economic and political chaos now being used to justify regime change.

Trump described Nicolas Maduro as a “Cuban puppet” and went on at some length to describe Cuba’s alleged control over the country. He also offered fulsome praise for the self-proclaimed “interim President” Juan Guaidó, stating that within 30 minutes of Guaidó declaring himself President on Jan. 23, the U.S. was the first nation to recognize him. (Mike Pence had already offered that recognition to Guaidó in a phone call the night before.)

President Trump also appealed directly to the Venezuelan military to cease backing Maduro, and allow “humanitarian aid” to enter the country. He warned that should the military continue supporting Maduro, “you will find no safe harbor, no easy exit and no way out. You will lose everything…. We seek a peaceful transition of power,” he said, but added that “all options are open.”

Valdai Club Meeting Denounces U.S. Destabilization of Middle East Region

Feb. 19 (EIRNS)—This morning, the Valdai Club convened its 8th Middle East conference, titled “Middle East: New Stage, Old Problems?” Over the next two days, experts will be exploring Russia’s policy in the region, with a clear focus on Syria but also with the larger region in view.

In his address to the meeting, read out by Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov slammed Western-led efforts to redesign the Middle East. “The Middle East, which has been enduring a period of severe tests, still holds a central place on the global agenda. Both the future of the region’s governments, international security and stability hinge on how the situation will develop there,” he said. “The methods of geopolitical engineering, attempts at imposing foreign models of development and values on the people of the Middle East and North Africa, especially through the use of force, have led to the weakening or collapse of states and an unprecedented surge in international terrorism across a whole number of countries.” Lavrov further pointed out that “In addition, (it) has led to a massive migration crisis, destabilizing the ethno-confessional balance that had consolidated throughout the centuries.” He stated that, in contrast, Russia has always called for diplomatic and political means to overcome these crises.

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

The Belt and Road Comes to a Neighborhood Near You

Feb. 19 (EIRNS)—Here follow brief summaries of some of the discussions known to have taken place around the world just in the last two-three days on how to develop the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to benefit each participant:

• Myanmar: State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi chaired the first meeting of her government’s steering committee to coordinate implementation of the agreement signed last September between China and Myanmar for a “China-Myanmar Economic Corridor” stretching 1,700 km between the two countries from Kunming, the capital of China’s Yunnan Province, to Myanmar’s major economic centers, as part of the BRI. Since that time, the two countries have been discussing what projects should be prioritized along that route. Aung San Suu Kyi cautioned the meeting that the government has “to make sure that the selected projects are in conformity with national plans, policies and domestic procedures,” but, she emphasized, “being a country located at a strategic position for the BRI, Myanmar needs to participate in the initiative.”  The 25-member steering committee, which includes cabinet ministers, heads of regions, and other officials, will attend the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing this April, according to The Irrawaddy media group.

• Malaysia: Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed announced that he will lead his nation’s delegation to that April Belt and Road Forum in Beijing. Malaysian Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng likewise emphasized at the Malaysia-China Business Council’s Chinese New Year luncheon that “the good relations between Malaysia and China will be continued and strengthened,” adding that Malaysia will continue to support the BRI.

• New Zealand’s Minister of Economic Development David Parker will attend the April Belt and Road Forum, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced, and Parker plans to take a trade mission with him when he goes. Ardern said conversations were ongoing with China about joint infrastructure projects. This decision brushes aside earlier criticisms of the BRI, which had been voiced by Foreign Minister Winston Peters.

• Lebanon’s role in the BRI was discussed when China’s Ambassador to Lebanon Wang Kejian met with Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Feb. 18, after the formation of his new government after winning a strong vote of confidence. China is willing to work together with Lebanon to consolidate political mutual trust and strengthen policy coordination within the framework of the BRI, Ambassador Wang told the Prime Minister, Xinhua reported. Hariri thanked China for its assistance to Lebanon in the political, economic, military and humanitarian fields, and said he looks forward to “more achievements in our cooperation with China on many levels.”

• Iran’s role in the BRI was discussed when Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing today. “The initiative is of special significance to both Iran and China,” Zarif told Wang, Xinhua reported. That discussion came within their broader discussion of the difficult situation Iran faces today. Turkey’s Anadolu Agency reported that Wang told Zarif that Beijing values Iran’s role in regional affairs and looks forward to a seeing that role expand further. He counselled that in the middle of a region and world undergoing major changes, Iran and China can maintain strategic strength, with the understanding that both China and Iran are countries with thousands of years of civilization and tradition. Notably, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman will also visit Beijing for high-level meetings within a few days.

• Spain’s public TV2 (RTVE) broadcast a 52-minute program on prime- time Sunday night (Feb. 17) on “The Iron Dragon”: the Yiwu-Madrid rail route of the New Silk Road. Notably, French and Swiss public TV networks were involved in producing the program, which told the story of Yiwu-Madrid through the eyes of 60 people who work on the railway in the eight countries through which it crosses, ranging from machinists to cargo inspectors, international trade experts, and businessmen.

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

Clapper Threatens U.S. President Trump, Insulting Him as ‘A Threat to This Country’

Feb. 19 (EIRNS)—Disgraced liar James Clapper, Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, threatened President Donald Trump in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper Monday night, Feb. 18, calling him a “threat to this country.”

Anderson Cooper: McCabe said that the President dismissed his own intelligence community’s conclusions, saying [according to McCabe] “I don’t care, I believe Putin.” It’s not hard to imagine him saying that, given that he essentially said the same thing in Helsinki at that press conference, where he talked about … Putin denying that there was any Russian involvement.

James Clapper: Well, I think the vignette that Andy [McCabe] was recounting was fairly early on in the administration. This was part of what has since become a pattern, where if the intelligence produced by the intelligence community doesn’t comport with President Trump’s worldview, that he rejects it, and, in this case, accepts Putin’s word over his own intelligence community—in this particular situation having to do with North Korea’s missiles, later he accepted Putin’s denials of any meddling in our election, over the coordinated and high confidence view of the intelligence community. It’s stunning.

Cooper: Do you think, given everything we’ve seen from this President, it’s reasonable to ask if he could be working on behalf of Russian interests and not the U.S.’s?

Clapper: Well, it’s a reasonable question. Whether wittingly or unwittingly, I think that’s an important consideration. I think that’s part of what drove Andy’s concern from a counter-intelligence perspective to initiate an investigation, which, in my view, is entirely appropriate. I think the FBI would have been accused of dereliction of not at least considering that very possibility.

Cooper: And lastly, Chris Ruddy, who was a friend of the President, who was at Mar-a-Lago this weekend, said that he’s hearing that there’s a general disappointment by the President with the current Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and that maybe there needs to be a change in leadership there. What kind of an impact would that have if Coats were in fact to leave? I feel like this has been simmering for a long time, based on a number of things that the President has said about Coats.

Clapper: As far as the impact on the intelligence community, I think it would be pretty devastating. Dan Coats is regarded as an honorable man who is the right guy, he has the right standards, and wants to do the right thing, believes in the truth, and telling it. And that’s precisely what he did at the open Worldwide Threat Hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee recently. He said some things—and he wasn’t making that up, he was representing the coordinated views of the entire intelligence community, when he says that North Korea is not going to give up its nuclear weapons, and that’s right; and ISIS has not been defeated, and that’s right; and Iran is in compliance with the JCPOA [2015 nuclear agreement]. Apparently the President didn’t like that, because that didn’t comport with his worldview. Why this is really serious, Mr. Anderson—if a really serious event, of the magnitude, God forbid, of a 9/11, or another, God forbid, of a confrontation with the likes of Russia or China, a serious one, the President and the country are going to need the intelligence community. Relying entirely on his gut poses a real threat to this country and to his presidency.

Cooper: Yeah, his gut and whatever Vladimir Putin is whispering to him and showing him.

Clapper: Yes, exactly.

Patriotic U.S. Intelligence Official Offers McCabe, Rosenstein Advice for Their Coming Jail Time

Feb. 19 (EIRNS)—Citing the statute which prescribes fines and/or imprisonment of up to 20 years for anyone convicted of seditious conspiracy, highly-decorated retired U.S. Army Col. Pat Lang (ret.) yesterday offered his advice to ousted FBI Acting Director “Andy” McCabe, et al., following McCabe’s admission that he, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and others in the FBI/Department of Justice coup plot had discussed how to bring down the elected President, Donald Trump.

“Club Fed won’t be all that bad. There are lots of opportunities for self-improvement,” Lang wrote on his Sic Semper Tyrannis blog. “McCabe and Rosenstein could study American Government in a seminar made up of their fellow conspirators with a few Bubbas and Bros thrown in for ‘seasoning.’ That would be a good way to meet new friends to help pass the time in jail….”

Roger Stone on LaRouche Impact on Trump Election

Feb. 17 (EIRNS)—In the middle of a typical slander of Lyndon LaRouche by AP on Feb. 15, they include the following revealing comment about an informed insight by Roger Stone:

“Stone, the longtime associate of President Donald Trump who has alleged the ‘Deep State’ is trying to kill him, has said he was ‘very familiar with the extraordinary and prophetic thinking’ of LaRouche. He added that LaRouche’s ideas had an ‘important backstage role’ in electing the very untraditional Trump.”

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Italian Senator Bagnai Blasts ECB Blindness on Derivatives Risk

Feb. 19 (EIRNS)—In a debate in the European Parliament, Italian Senate Finance Committee Chairman Alberto Bagnai confronted European Central Bank supervisory board head Andrea Enria with ECB’s blindness on derivatives risk. Bagnai was present in the context of the “European Parliamentary Week,” in which leading members of national parliaments are invited to take part in several panels in Brussels.

Addressing the roadmap for the completion of the banking union, which foresees an EU Deposit Guarantee Scheme only after banks have gotten rid of non-performing loans (NPLs), Bagnai exposed such a scheme as a fraud.

“It has been said that risk reduction paves the way to risk sharing,” Bagnai said. “This is a two-stage approach: First, we reduce risk, then we share risk. Seen from an Italian perspective, it looks as if we are proposing this program: First, we reduce our risk; then, we share yourrisk—which would be a very unfair deal for us.”

Bagnai was pointing to the large imbalances between the large derivative risk of northern European banks (Level 2 and 3 for over €6 trillion) and the relatively minor credit risk of southern banks, especially Italian banks (between €300 and €500 billion). The ECB is concentrating on the latter, while neglecting the former.

“I have a precise question to Mr. Enria,” Bagnai insisted. “It was mentioned that we need to establish a plain level field. So, what is the role of level 2 and 3 assets in the bank balance sheets? You did not mention them, but they are often mentioned in the debate as a potential threat to financial stability in the Eurozone.”

Enria was defensive in his answer and claimed that during the ECB stress tests, it was checked whether such level 2 and level 3 assets are covered by enough liquidity. He did not say, however, that the models used for such tests are fake. He then defended the rotten ECB policy of forcing commercial banks to sell their NPLs on a deadline, thus forcing the banks to give them away to vulture funds for next to nothing. The more quickly they get rid of the NPLs burden, the more quickly they can resume credit to the economy, was Enria’s rationalization—disregarding that many of those banks won’t be able to raise enough capital and will die along the way.

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