THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2019

Volume 6, Number 86

EIR Daily Alert Service

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

Cheap-Shot Bob Mueller Shows His Real Colors, While Democrats Grasp at Straws

Pompeo and Bolton Seek To Drag Trump White House into Making Venezuela the Next ‘Libya’

Trump Files Suit against Deutsche Bank and Capital One, To Flank House Dems Fishing Fling

Poland Wants More U.S. Troops and F-35 Jets

Syrian, Russian Forces Readying Ground for Military Assault on HTS Jihadis in Idlib

Flooding Disaster Grows Worse in Mississippi River States, with Spring Planting Suffering

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EDITORIAL

Impact of Second Belt and Road Forum—The New Paradigm Takes Shape

May 1 (EIRNS)—The completion of the historic Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing has set into motion positive shock waves around the world, which can and must be an impetus to bringing the U.S. into the new paradigm. Governments across Africa, Asia, Ibero-America, and even Europe, are praising the now self-evident potential for all nations to participate in a development process beyond anything the world has ever seen. Malaysia’s Mahathir, who was held up as an example of the “debt trap” when he suspended a major rail line being built by China, praised China for renegotiating the contract, and expressed his delight at the Forum in seeing that the program is truly universal. Italy today held the second meeting of its Task Force China, where Michele Geraci, the head of the Task Force, made clear that Italy’s MOU with China on the Belt and Road “brought China nearer to Europe.”

Although the U.S. sent no high-level delegate to the Forum, President Donald Trump’s team has just completed meetings in Beijing in the current round of talks on a U.S.-China trade agreement, and Vice Premier Liu He and his team will come to Washington next week for further talks. The President has repeatedly said that the momentum is positive, and that a summit with Xi Jinping at the White House will be set up as soon as an agreement is completed. What is needed for a successful outcome, is that the political and economic blocks to Chinese investment in the U.S., from the Congress and from CFIUS (The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States), based on the fraudulent claims of Chinese spying and potential sabotage of infrastructure, be exposed and repudiated.

Trump agreed this week, in a meeting with the Congressional Democratic Party leaders, on a $2 trillion infrastructure package—not a bad start on the desperate shortfall in infrastructure across the nation—but without a clue as to how to obtain that sum. While overcoming the China-bashers’ resistance to Chinese investment would help, the only real solution is that contained in the Four Laws proposed by Lyndon LaRouche—in particular, the establishment of a Hamiltonian national bank. Chinese officials have repeatedly confirmed to EIR that they would be delighted to exchange their enormous holdings of U.S. government debt for equity in such a national bank, to fund basic infrastructure across the country. And of course, it is not only China that holds U.S. government debt, but other nations, and millions of citizens, who have been receiving close to zero interest on those bonds for the last decade, and would also have the opportunity to invest in a national bank.

While the Trump Administration is closing in on an “epic deal” (as Trump calls it) with China, relations with Russia are on a knife’s edge. Despite the failure of the British coup attempt against the President, which he, himself, identified as a British operation to sabotage his intention to establish friendly relations with Russia and President Putin, Trump has not yet taken advantage of the situation to reach out to talk with Putin, to move toward reconciliation, breaking through the neocon cordon around him, although he continues to insist that a positive relationship with Russia “is a good thing, not a bad thing.”

Meanwhile, the trio of Bolton, Pompeo, and Pence are doing everything possible to provoke a confrontation with both Russia and China over the situations in Venezuela and Iran, either of which could lead to a devastating war if not restrained. The attempt on Tuesday and Wednesday (May Day) to overthrow the government in Venezuela has so far failed, as the military remains loyal to the government. Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was interviewed by Fox News on Sunday, where he was asked if he thought the U.S. intended to impose regime change on the Iran government. “I do not believe that President Trump wants to do that,” he answered. “I believe President Trump ran on a campaign promise of not bringing the United States into another war.” But, he went on, there is a “Team B,” including John Bolton, who were pushing Trump into regime-change policies, and even war.

Clearing away the shadows of the British Russiagate scam is not yet fully accomplished, as long as the Mueller lie that Russia hacked the Democratic Party’s computers remains on the record. Just as LaRouchePAC exposed the charge of “collusion” between Russia and the Trump campaign to be nothing but an MI6 lie, so also we must expose and destroy the lie about the hacking, drawing on the courage of former NSA Technical Director Bill Binney to expose the truth. TheBaltimore Sun today published a long letter from a LaRouchePAC organizer on that lie, calling on the Congress to bring Binney in to testify, to present his proof.

The danger is great, but so is the potential for the new paradigm. If President Trump were to respond to the call for him to exonerate Lyndon LaRouche, the British Empire and the neocons would go ballistic, but the entire beautiful array of LaRouche’s ideas would suddenly be before the citizens of the world, and the new paradigm would surely follow.

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

Cheap-Shot Bob Mueller Shows His Real Colors, While Democrats Grasp at Straws

May 1 (EIRNS)—The Senate Judiciary hearing with the Attorney General of the United States, on May 1, concerning the Mueller report, proved that every single Democratic Party Senator presently serving on that Committee is not qualified for office by reason of not understanding one wit about the fundamental Constitutional principles they are sworn to defend. They utterly fail to comprehend the presumption of innocence and the Article II powers of the President of the United States.

The setting for the hearing itself was created by Bob Mueller, demonstrating to all, just what a jarhead thug he is. It appears Mueller or someone working for him, deliberately leaked to the Washington Post a March 27, 2019 letter which he wrote to Attorney General William Barr, complaining that Barr had not released Mueller’s 19-page executive summary of the Mueller report, but instead, publicly outlined the report’s bottom line conclusions himself, while working to ensure that the full, almost completely unredacted, report, including the 19 pages, would be available to the public rapidly. Mueller complained in the letter that Barr’s March 24 recitation of Mueller’s verdict—that President Trump had not conspired with Russia to get elected and that he could not charge the President with obstruction of justice but could not “exonerate” him—confused public perceptions of his investigation.

According to Barr’s testimony today, Mueller clarified to him that he was concerned about press coverage of Barr’s recitation of Mueller’s bottom line, but did not disagree with Barr’s description of his conclusions. Barr had offered Mueller the opportunity to review Barr’s March 24 letter to the Congress and to the public outlining Mueller’s conclusions, but Jarhead Mueller declined. At the end of his testimony, Barr described the March 27 Mueller letter as being a little “snitty” and probably written by one of Mueller’s staffers. He described Mueller’s complaint as a little like a prosecutor coming out after a jury verdict had been delivered in a trial and protesting that his superb cross-examination and trial preparation were not going to be featured in the news.

Former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy summed up the Mueller letter accurately as “Diva Noise.” The general thrust of the RESIST attack, is that delay of the release of the full report for a little over three weeks, gave the President a PR advantage in spinning it because of the Attorney General’s spoiler report of its ultimate conclusions. Mueller lost control of the “narrative.” For that, the Democrats yelped, Barr should be forced to resign, because he had already demonstrated a predisposition to protect the President and act as his lawyer rather than acting “independently” in a Department of Justice completely unmoored from the Presidency, something the founders clearly rejected in our Constitution.

Barr, at points in the hearing, indicated that he thought Bob Mueller was a weeny, despite their years of friendship. He never spoke the word “weeny” but spoke in Washington legalese to the same effect. He indicated surprise and incomprehension that Mueller had refused to make a prosecutorial decision regarding obstruction of justice, pointing out repeatedly that that is what a prosecutor is supposed to do. He testified that when he had asked Mueller why he could not make a decision, Mueller had replied that his staff was still formulating the reason. He indicated that he had pre-discussed with Mueller getting the report out quickly and writing it in such a way that necessary Rule 6E grand jury redactions were easily segregated from text. But the report arrived with 6E material fully integrated into text, necessitating a lengthy redaction process. He criticized the obstruction segment of Mueller’s report and its reliance on a “pattern” of obstructive activity as being, in effect, a legally unmoored narrative, rather than reciting a crime to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. He repeatedly warned against the prosecutorial function being used to settle political differences as the process surrounding this investigation had become.

Barr stressed again and again that the prosecutorial weapons of the Department of Justice, such as subpoenas and grand juries, are not instruments to be used to get out information for political use. He also stressed that the claim, that Mueller was charged with exonerating the President as opposed to deciding whether or not there was sufficient evidence of a crime, represented an attack on the constitutional presumption of innocence.

Various Presidential candidates took turns at who could take the most effective shots at defaming both Trump and Barr. They were all trumped, so to speak, by Mad Mazie Hirono, she of the theory that if I say the Moon is made of green cheese, and science proves otherwise, we have, simply, a difference of equally valid opinions. As with the Kavanaugh hearing, Hirono and her antics would be a shameful embarrassment to Democrats if they did not rake in so much cash from the Party’s mad donor class based on her performances.

Barr said little today about the investigation of the investigation, and what he did say seemed to indicate that he is proceeding, as of now, in a very limited way. There continued to be bipartisan consensus on the “Russia did it” nonsense and the looming danger of China. Again, this is why our continuing intervention to demonstrate the British Empire source of the coup is an imperative for the future of the United States, and the world.

Pompeo and Bolton Seek To Drag Trump White House into Making Venezuela the Next ‘Libya’

May 1 (EIRNS)—Channeling Hillary Clinton’s disastrous role in the Libyan debacle, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo today called up Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, to threaten conflict with Russia over Venezuela, and announced to U.S. media that the United States will deploy military troops to Venezuela, if Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is not ousted—a big step beyond the usual “all options are on the table.”

Pompeo’s actions go in tandem with National Security Advisor John Bolton’s deliberate steps to drive Venezuela closer, not to a new government, but to final chaotic breakdown. If they are not stopped, they will create a “Libya” in the Western Hemisphere, with global strategic implications, by baiting U.S. military intervention as terrorism spreads across the region and the current flood of refugees out of Venezuela becomes a tidal wave.

This lunatic British policy is meant to sink the Trump administration as much as it is designed to blow up the region.

Pompeo blamed Russia for the failure of Bolton’s Venezuelan “President” Juan Guaidó’s promised military rebellion yesterday against Maduro. Pompeo asserted that Maduro had been ready to board a plane to flee to Cuba, until “Russia” stopped him from leaving, a preposterous claim which he repeated everywhere, and which Russia, of course, denied.

Pompeo today called Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, and, according to the State Department, stressed “that the intervention by Russia and Cuba is destabilizing for Venezuela, and for the U.S.-Russia bilateral relationship.” Lavrov replied that “Washington’s intervention in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state and threats against its administration are the rudest violation of international law,” the Russian Foreign Ministry reported.

“Military action is possible. If that’s what’s required, that’s what the United States will do,” Pompeo told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo today. “We’d prefer a peaceful transition of government there … but the President has made clear in the event that there comes a moment—and we’ll all have to make decisions about when that moment is, and the President will ultimately have to make that decision—he is prepared to do that, if that’s what’s required.”

There are serious Americans who are warning against these nuts. Retired Col. Pat Lang slammed the “duo” in his Sic Semper Tyrannis blog today.

“The attempt to portray the Communist government of Venezuela as a Russian or Chinese bridgehead in the Western Hemisphere is just absurd,” he wrote, and “there is no evidence that First in his Class [Pompeo] and the ‘Stache’ [Bolton] have persuaded the Commander-in-Chief to commit U.S. military support in any way to the Venezuelan project of regime change.” (Emphasis in original.)

Trump Files Suit against Deutsche Bank and Capital One, To Flank House Dems Fishing Fling

May 1 (EIRNS)— President Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to keep Deutsche Bank and Capital One bank from responding to Congressional subpoenas, setting up a legal showdown with Democrats eager to investigate his finances, National Public Radio reported yesterday. The suit, filed April 29, says the subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Capital One have no purpose but “to rummage through every aspect of personal finances, his businesses, and the private information of the President and his family, and to ferret about for any material that might be used to cause him political damage. No grounds exist to establish any purpose other than a political one.” The suit was filed by the President, his three oldest children, and the Trump Organization, reported NPR.

On April 15, both banks were issued subpoenas by the House Intelligence and Financial Services Committees to hand over information on Trump’s finances, chaired respectively by Adam Schiff and Maxine Waters. Investigators demanded that the bank hand over documents related to Trump’s companies, such as “parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, branches, divisions, partnerships, properties, groups, special purpose entities, joint ventures, predecessors, successors or any other entity in which they have or had a controlling interest,” Newsweek reported. Deutsche Bank has promised to cooperate with the investigation, according to NPR.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Poland Wants More U.S. Troops and F-35 Jets

May 1 (EIRNS)—Poland is taking more steps towards vastly increasing the U.S. military presence on its soil, including the purchasing F-35 jets for its air force. Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said in a TV interview on April 29 that the Polish government aimed to sign a deal to station U.S. troops in Poland this year.

“We can say: the decision to increase the number of American troops in Poland has been made,” Blaszczak reportedly said. He also said, reported Defense News, that a contract to purchase F-35 fighter jets was “not far away” from being signed. Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, who was in Warsaw a few days earlier, said that a U.S. Air Force team was to be sent to Poland in May to demonstrate the capabilities of the F-35 to Polish Defense Ministry officials.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, during a joint press conference yesterday with Foreign Minister and Defense Minister Luis Filipe Tavares of Cabo Verde, responded to Blaszczak’s remarks by reiterating Russia’s view that stationing NATO combat forces on the territory of its eastern members is a violation of the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act. Blaszczak’s statement “reflects the U.S. policy of ruining any agreements on ensuring security in the Euro-Atlantic region,” Lavrov said. “In this case we’re talking about the erosion of one of the basic provisions of the Russia-NATO Founding Act, under which any significant number of troops may not be permanently deployed on the territory of the new NATO member countries.”

“Russia has no plans to attack Poland or any other NATO member country, for that matter,” Lavrov confirmed, continuing that, “However, the countries that desperately try to please Washington by excelling in Russophobic rhetoric will not stop short of taking these types of steps to realize a confrontational approach to security.” Russia, instead, tries to work through the NATO-Russia Council to reduce tensions. While some NATO members agree in private with the Russian approach, in public they stick to the NATO line in order to maintain consensus.

“This is sad. Hopefully, the understanding of the futility of approaches like these will, ultimately, make headway,” Lavrov remarked.

Iran Preparing for U.S. Military Attack

May 1 (EIRNS)—An analysis yesterday in Al-Monitor, by Saeid Jafari, one of its Iranian correspondents, concludes that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s recent change of leadership at the top of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps does not signal a change in policy, but, rather, is preparation for what the Iranians believe inevitable, a military attack by the U.S. Hossein Salami, the new commander, is well known for his tough rhetoric against both Israel and the United States, but he doesn’t appear to be given to flagrant threats and has not threatened pre-emptive or preventive war against Israel. Rather, Jafari writes, he issues warnings against both countries for what they might do against Iran.

At the same time, Salami rarely ventures into domestic politics.

“He has largely placed his focus on boosting Iran’s defenses [at the international level] and responding to foreign threats,” said Mehdi Bakhtiari, editor of the defense and security desk at the IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency.

As Trump Administration policy, particularly the designation of the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, has increased the risk of a military confrontation, Salami seems to be at the forefront, now, of defending Iran.

“With Tehran and Washington inching closer to a critical crossroads of their decades-long hostility, the Islamic Republic is sending every signal to the United States that it has no intention of taking a single step back and will thwart with steadfast resistance any foreign aggression,” Jafari concludes. “While no one in the Iranian ruling elite seems to favor military confrontation, the country is gearing up to face off all threats that lie ahead.”

Syrian, Russian Forces Readying Ground for Military Assault on HTS Jihadis in Idlib

May 1 (EIRNS)—The ground for an assault to at least reduce the territory controlled by Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), the terrorist group in Syria formerly known as Jabhat al Nusra, is being prepared by both the Syrian government and the Russian forces deployed at Syria’s request. An assault on the terrorist-controlled province was averted last September, when Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed on the creation of a de-escalation zone. Erdogan promised that Turkey would convince HTS and other jihadi groups to evacuate from the demilitarized zone that would be created as a buffer between the jihadis and the Syrian army. Instead, the Turks pulled out the Arab militia groups that they control so that they could be deployed against the Kurdish groups that they regard as the PKK in Syria. As a consequence, HTS gained control over the entire province of Idlib and adjacent areas of the surrounding provinces, all the while launching attacks on Syrian army positions and residential areas in western Aleppo, creating what has become an intolerable situation.

“We see what is happening. We cannot say for how long this status quo in Idlib can last,” Russia’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Vladimir Safronkov told the UN Security Council on April 25. “It is not viable at all; on the contrary: It is dangerous for Syria and the region.”

Putin and Erdogan spoke by phone on April 30, during which their discussion “highlighted the need to continue closely coordinating the activities of Russia and Turkey in Syria’s Idlib province and take effective measures to suppress terrorist groups,” the Kremlin press service said in a statement. At the same time, the U.S. State Department issued a statement demanding that all parties “including Russia and the Syrian regime” avoid any large-scale military offensive, return to de-escalation and allow for unhindered humanitarian access.

The situation on the ground will develop regardless of any such U.S. statements, however. Al Masdar news agency reported yesterday afternoon that the Syrian army has, in fact, been given the green light for an offensive, and that it has moved reinforcements, including elite troops of the Republican Guard, the Tiger Forces and the 4th Armored Division, up to the Idlib-Hama axis, in preparation. A military source told Al Masdar that Russian government officials will meet with their Turkish counterparts before the offensive, to discuss the situation in the Idlib Governorate and its corresponding demilitarized zone. Al Masdar stresses, however, that, at least for the time being, any offensive is likely to be limited to clearing jihadis out of the DMZ.

Trump Tweets on ISIS Prisoners Held by Syrian Democratic Forces

May 1 (EIRNS)—The problem of what to do with the large number of ISIS prisoners in the hands of the Syrian Democratic Forces threatens to become intractable, with most European countries refusing to repatriate their citizens who joined ISIS.

“We have 1,800 ISIS prisoners taken hostage in our final battles to destroy 100% of the Caliphate in Syria. Decisions are now being made as to what to do with these dangerous prisoners … European countries are not helping at all, even though this was very much done for their benefit. They are refusing to take back prisoners from their specific countries. Not good!” President Donald Trump wrote in a two-part tweet yesterday.

The French newspaper Le Monde has reported that 800 Western men, 700 women, and some 1,500 of their children are estimated to be held in SDF camps.

ECONOMY

Flooding Disaster Grows Worse in Mississippi River States, with Spring Planting Suffering

May 1 (EIRNS)—Events are playing out in the Mississippi and Missouri River Basins, with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration expecting “high risk of flooding” in its March three-month Spring Forecast, showing high rainfall and snowmelt. NOAA’s National Weather Service this week issued a flood watch, including flash flood warnings to specific sites, for all 10 states along the Mississippi River, from Minnesota and Wisconsin, southward to Louisiana and Mississippi. Some points over the next 10 days may experience a record flood cresting. In Davenport, Iowa, the limited, temporary levee breached on April 30. In Davenport and Muscatine, downtown riverside streets are closed off, with sandbagging underway.

Barge traffic is disrupted. In particular, fertilizer shippers report they have “fleeted” a couple hundred barges in St. Louis, unable to move because of dangerous waters. This threatens conditions for crop yields this year. In any case, spring planting is going slowly, and in some areas, it will not take place at all. One shipper asked EIR, “Can you use some P [phosphorous] or K [potassium] back East?” The answer: “Dump a couple barge loads on the House of Representatives!”

In the Missouri Basin, high water is still wreaking havoc. A land reclamation expert in Kansas told EIR today that heavy rains on top of saturated ground are causing terrible sinkholes to form in the onetime coal-mining region in eastern Kansas, when the ground collapses into the old underground mines. He was at a site today in which a baby calf was caught in a sinkhole 15 ft deep and 30 ft across. When it rains hard, the sinkholes can then fill up, which forces the water underground through the old mining tunnels, which can then start a chain reaction of causing more collapses, more sinkholes, and more underground flooding.

OTHER

U.K. Dumps Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson, Accused of Huawei Leak

May 1 (EIRNS)—Gavin Williamson, the twit U.K. Defense Secretary who famously told the Russians they should “go away and should shut up” when they said they had nothing to do with the Skripal poisoning; and who deployed Britain’s aircraft carrier to the South China Sea, saying that the U.S. F-35 fighter jets onboard HMS Queen Elizabethwould enhance “the reach and lethality of our forces,” just as the U.K. was holding trade talks with China, leading to the talks’ cancellation, has just been dumped by Prime Minister Theresa May. Williamson was considered a possible replacement for May if she stepped down.

However, Williamson wasn’t dumped for his political incompetence, but because he is accused of leaking to the Daily Telegraph that a security council meeting last week had decided to allow the dreaded Chinese electronics firm Huawei to participate in the U.K.’s 5G networks. The Telegraph reported that May had overruled objections from some senior council members to allow Huawei to participate, leading to howls from the neocons on both sides of the Atlantic. So embarrassing….

May released her pink slip letter to Williamson to the public, saying there was “compelling evidence suggesting your responsibility for the unauthorized disclosure.” Williamson responded that he “strenuously” denied the accusation. There seem to be an increasing number of limp upper lips in jolly old England these days.

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