THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2019

Volume 6, Number 156

EIR Daily Alert Service

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

• British Scramble To Regain Strategic Initiative, Escalate Strategy of Tension Worldwide
• Tensions Heat Up Over Kashmir, China Urges Caution
• China, Russia Slam Bolton’s Threats Against Them, and Brutal U.S. Embargo of Venezuela
• Every Time They Meet, Putin and Trump Discuss Strategic Stability, Affirms Russian Security Secretary
• Beijing Warns It Will Intervene if Hong Kong Cannot Contain Riots
• Democrats Whip Up Hysteria Against Trump, Blame President for Mass Shootings
• Global Times Carries Article on New Tariff Threat by EIR’s Bill Jones
• U.S. Branding China a “Currency Manipulator” Will Hurt World Economy, Declares China’s Central Bank
• International FridaysForFuture Gathering in Switzerland Planning Future Anti-Growth Actions

EDITORIAL

British Scramble To Regain Strategic Initiative, Escalate Strategy of Tension Worldwide

Aug. 7 (EIRNS)—Ever since the Osaka G20 summit in late June, where President Donald Trump broke out of British containment and met with his Chinese and Russian counterparts, followed by the Mueller Meltdown and Trump’s renewed emphasis on the Artemis Moon-Mars mission in his July 4 speech and the wave of optimism that swept the country—and the world—around the July 20 fiftieth anniversary of the manned Moon landing, the bankrupt British Empire has been trying to regain the strategic initiative before they are destroyed. To this end, they are escalating their long-standing strategy of tension policy of destabilization, assassination and wars, to ram through their intended paradigm downshift, back to the Middle Ages and worse, with a pessimistic brutish population of no more than a billion human beings left.

That strategy of tension is in high gear on all fronts: Hong Kong, Iran, U.S.-China economic relations, Venezuela, North Korea, the U.S.-Russia—and emphatically Kashmir. The Indian decision to unilaterally eliminate the special status of the contested Kashmir and Jammu regions two days ago has opened a Pandora’s Box of conflicts in the region, with Pakistan announcing that it is breaking diplomatic and all trade relations with India, while Prime Minister Imran Khan addressed a joint session of parliament and warned: “This will be a war that no one will win and the implications will be global.” The government of China also protested India’s announcement, saying it affected its national sovereignty (China has a claim on part of the border area). Whatever the byzantine local and regional politics may be, this whole situation has all the smell of a British-orchestrated move.

Although the whole planet is in play, the British have reserved special targetting for Russia, China, India and the U.S.—the same Four Powers that Lyndon LaRouche identified years ago as key to leading a coalition of nations to put the trans-Atlantic financial system through bankruptcy reorganization, and replace it with a New Paradigm of science-driven economic growth, and an equally scientific classical cultural Renaissance.

The mass killings and reactive political insanity now sweeping the U.S. are part of this global process—they are not some U.S.-spawned national phenomenon. The level of induced lunacy is stunning: Former President Barack Obama likens President Trump’s “language” to that which produced slavery, the Nazi Holocaust and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans—and the media covers it as if that’s a rational thing to say. Rep. Cory Booker calls for the cancellation of all Trump rallies, de facto saying that neither Trump nor his followers should have First Amendment rights—and no one calls him out for inciting to rip up the Constitution.

Americans have to stand up and refuse to be part of this mass manipulation, and focus on the real issues that the British Empire so fears: international cooperation on a Moon-Mars mission for mankind, as elaborated by Lyndon LaRouche decades ago; and a classical cultural Renaissance to restore humanity’s natural state of optimism and joy.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Tensions Heat Up over Kashmir, China Urges Caution

Aug. 7 (EIRNS)—As could be expected, the internal situation in India-controlled Kashmir is heating up following the Indian government’s decision to revoke the state’s special status. The move not only has drawn strong protests from Pakistan but also from China, which neighbors both countries. According to press reports, thousands of additional troops have been deployed into the region which has been put under a lockdown with the internet and phone lines being cut.

Today, Islamabad announced it would be expelling Indian Ambassador Ajai Bisaria. Bilateral trade has also been suspended.

On Aug. 5 Indian authorities detained three political leaders in Kashmir, designating them a threat to peace and confining them to an official guest house. Those detained include former Chief Ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah, along with regional party leader Sajad Lone.

On Aug. 6, an estimated 500 people demonstrated in Muzaffarabad, the largest city in Pakistani-held Kashmir.

On Aug. 5 Pakistan protested the move to revoke the region’s status declaring, “Pakistan will exercise all possible options to counter the illegal steps.”

The Indian opposition Congress Party declared the move a “catastrophic step.”

On Aug. 5 Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan declared he would challenge India’s move at the UN Security Council, stating, “I want tomake it clear that we will fight this issue on every forum, (including) at the UN Security Council.

“If the world does not act today … (if) the developed world does not uphold its own laws, then things will go to a place that we will not be responsible for,” Khan stated. He warned of the danger of the move generating a violent reaction from Kashmiris in India, which would lead to a dangerous situation between Pakistan and India.

Pakistan’s military issued a declaration as well. “Pakistan never recognized the sham Indian efforts to legalize its occupation” of the disputed mountain region, spokesman Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor said.

The Pakistani parliament is currently debating on how Pakistan should respond.

China has also attacked the Indian decision as affecting its own interests. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, “China is seriously concerned about the current situation in Kashmir.” She particularly expressed China’s opposition to India’s decision to remove the Ladakh region from Kashmir and designate it as a separate Indian Federal Territory. Ladakh borders Aksai Chin, which is a disputed territory between China and India and is currently occupied by China.  “China has always opposed the Indian side’s entry of the Chinese territory in the western section of the Sino-Indian border into the administrative jurisdiction of India,” Hua Chunying said. “This position is firm and consistent and has never changed. Recently, the Indian side has continued to damage China’s territorial sovereignty by unilaterally modifying the form of domestic law. This practice is unacceptable and will not have any effect,” she said, and urged India “to be cautious on the border issue, strictly abide by the relevant agreements reached between the two sides, and avoid taking actions that further complicate the border issue.”

Washington has urged respect for rights and called for the maintenance of peace along the disputed border in Kashmir.

The potential dangers inherent in this situation cannot be overstated. After all these three countries, China, India and Pakistan are all nuclear powers.

China, Russia Slam Bolton’s Threats against Them, and Brutal U.S. Embargo of Venezuela

Aug. 7 (EIRNS)—Both the Russian and Chinese governments have responded sharply to U.S. actions on Venezuela and to the specific threats issued against them yesterday by U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton as he announced the Trump Administration’s economic embargo of Venezuela. Bolton warned these two governments they would be subject to secondary sanctions, should they continue to “do business” with the Nicolas Maduro government.

In her press briefing today, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying charged that “what the U.S. said and did constitutes gross interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs and severely violates basic norms governing international relations. China firmly opposes that.” Whatever political party rules a country, she stated, is that country’s “domestic affair,” and only a country itself should decide with whom it chooses to cooperate. “China’s position on the Venezuela issue is clear and consistent. The China-Venezuela cooperation has been conducted with equality, mutual benefit, win-win results and market principles. Such legal and legitimate cooperation has delivered benefits to the two countries … and brooks no interference from others,” the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman underscored.

As for sanctions, “facts have proven time and again that sanctions will never help resolve the Venezuelan issue. Instead, they will only increase the risk of the situation getting out of control.” The U.S. would do well, Hua said, to face the reality of the Venezuelan situation, and “return to the right path of respecting international law, support the dialogue process of the Venezuelan government and the opposition…. We advise the U.S. to draw lessons from history and give up sowing discord immediately, and stop the bullying behavior of wantonly suppressing another country.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova labeled U.S. action against Venezuela “economic terrorism,” according to its website, and warned that the U.S. announced action against that country has “no legal justification from the standpoint of international law and domestic Venezuelan law. Obviously, the White House is guided by an ideology of intolerance and diktat that has been placed above the interests of the people of Venezuela.” Despite Washington’s pressure people continue to support “the legitimate president” while sanctions only harm ordinary Venezuelans. She quoted a report by economist Jeffrey Sachs, who charged that U.S. sanctions have killed more than 40,000 Venezuelans, whose only crime is that they support a leader “who is out of favor with Washington.”

Every Time They Meet, Putin and Trump Discuss Strategic Stability, Affirms Russian Security Secretary

Aug. 7 (EIRNS)—Nikolai Patrushev, the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, told reporters at a press conference in Moscow yesterday that Russia still hopes for a dialogue with the U.S. on strategic stability, despite the U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty. It is very important that Russian and U.S. Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump “raise the issue of strategic stability during each encounter or talk,” Patrushev said, reported TASS. “This gives the hope that this theme will be discussed and some positive steps will follow,” he pointed out. The leaders of both countries have given instructions to their diplomatic agencies to hold a dialogue on this issue, he reported, adding that instructions will also be issued to the security services of both counties to cooperate, Patrushev said. “They are not cooperating in all the areas but this cooperation is expanding and I believe will continue expanding.”

Earlier in the press conference, Patrushev made the point that the U.S. has been unable to provide convincing evidence of any Russian violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear forces (INF) Treaty, while at the same time, refusing to address Russian concerns about possible U.S. violations. “I am unable to mention a single instance [of a violation] or piece of evidence they [the U.S.] presented to us. There has been nothing of the sort,” Patrushev said when asked if the United States had presented any proof of Moscow’s violations of the treaty. After meetings with U.S. counterparts, including National Security Adviser John Bolton, “We do not know what we have breached,” he said. “We know what the Americans have violated and we pointed to these three issues: missile launchers, target missiles and drones. But they refused to discuss their violations.”

With regard to the 9M729, the missile that the U.S. said is the culprit, Patrushev stressed that Moscow had invited Washington to take a look at the missile “behind closed doors” to get “thorough information about it” and see for themselves that this weapon does not violate the INF Treaty. “They refused,” Patrushev noted. Afterwards, when the Russians arranged for a demonstration of the missile in Patriot Park outside of Moscow, “the United States did not participate in this event and advised its NATO partners against going there, too.”

Patrushev attributed the U.S. withdrawal from the treaty to a desire to dominate the world. “As long as these treaties are effective, they [the Americans] won’t dominate any part of the world. But when treaties collapse, they will deploy any number of weapons to any region, against any country they will consider to be their adversary, seeking to ensure their dominance,” Patrushev said, observing that achieving dominance was the goal mentioned in many U.S. strategic documents. “It will lead to chaos because other countries will respond to these things and an arms race will go on,” he said.

Patrushev likely had in mind the Russian development of hypersonic weapons in response to the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in 2002 and the subsequent surrounding of Russia with ballistic missile defenses. The Pentagon and defense contractors are now grappling with the implications of Russian and Chinese hypersonic weapons specifically designed to make U.S. ballistic missile defenses ineffective, which was the topic of a missile defense symposium in Huntsville, Alabama yesterday. The military intelligence website C4ISRNet writes in its coverage of the symposium that hypersonic weapons completely up-end the assumptions behind the current U.S. missile defense architecture which is designed to track and intercept ballistic warheads but cannot track hypersonic warheads which fly on unpredictable trajectories at much lower altitudes.

Beijing Warns It Will Intervene if Hong Kong Cannot Contain Riots

Aug. 7 (EIRNS)—In a meeting of over 500 people from Hong Kong and the mainland held today in Shenzhen, near the border with Hong Kong, Zhang Xiaoming, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office in the State Council, warned that Beijing would intervene if the Hong Kong government were not able to restrain the violent riots, which have continued to escalate over the past two months. “If the situation worsens further, and there is turmoil that the Hong Kong government is unable to control, the central government absolutely will not just watch without doing anything,” Zhang said.

Last week the Chinese government broadcast video coverage of police exercises against riots.

“Hong Kong is facing the most severe situation since its return to the motherland,” Zhang said, as reported in Xinhua. “The most pressing and overriding task at present is to stop violence, end the chaos and restore order, so as to safeguard our homeland and prevent Hong Kong from sinking into an abyss.”  He warned that if the chaos continued, the authority of the Special Autonomous Region (S.A.R.) government as the core of the “one country, two systems” policy will be destroyed.

“Citizens of Hong Kong will not allow this to happen. The people of China will not allow this to happen,” Zhang said. He said the central authorities will never “sit by” if the turmoil cannot be controlled by the S.A.R. government. “According to the Basic Law (of the H.K.S.A.R.), the central authorities have ample methods as well as sufficient strength to promptly settle any possible turmoil should it occur,” he said.

He said the protests have now turned into a “color revolution,” clearly implying the role of foreign powers (see below).

“The turnaround in the Hong Kong situation will not come from retreat or compromise with the opposition,” Zhang said. “People can give up on the idea that the central authorities will make any concessions on issues concerning our principles.”

Wang Zhimin, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong said, “It is now a ‘life-or-death’ fight for the very future of Hong Kong. There is no room for retreat.”

The British intent in this operation was made clear in an Aug. 6 article by the Guardian’s Beijing bureau chief, which argued that neither side wants to compromise and therefore “find themselves in a stalemate where the possibility of a peaceful resolution has become more and more unlikely.” The Guardian cites Adam Ni, a China researcher at Macquarie University in Australia, who “believes that the protests will continue to escalate, growing more violent, until another inflection point is reached—probably the death or serious injury of a protester, police officer or bystander.”

(EIR has reported on the funding and direction of this color revolution by the National Endowment for Democracy, the “regime change” headquarters in the U.S., of over $1.75 million over the past three years, with the most recent grant aimed at the “growing threat to guaranteed rights” in Hong Kong. Over the same three years, 2016-18, NED issued grants of over $29 million to groups in China and opposition groups abroad of the same ilk: freedom of information and expression, open debate, rule of law, “citizen’s journalism,” democracy radio and journals, religious freedom, etc. A massive $4.135 million went to Tibetan opposition organizations, and $2.742 million to Uighur opposition groups around the world and in Xinjiang—which the NED refers to as “East Turkestan.”)

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

Democrats Whip Up Hysteria against Trump, Blame President for Mass Shootings

Aug. 7 (EIRNS)—As President Donald Trump prepared to visit Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas today—the sites of the horrific mass shootings that occurred Aug. 3 and 4—Democrats in Congress and elsewhere were going off the deep end in whipping up maximum hysteria against the President, blaming him for the shootings and inciting violence. A few examples:

• Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) demanded that the President’s scheduled rally in Manchester, New Hampshire next week be cancelled, along with all future rallies. First Amendment rights? Booker claimed that Trump’s rallies are “despicable and have no place in New Hampshire or anywhere in our country. That’s why Trump must cancel this rally.”

• Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX), published a list of the names and employers of 44 Trump donors in San Antonio, accusing them of fueling racism, but provoked a big backlash from Democrats, Republicans and even liberal journalists, who charged him with putting peoples’ lives in danger with his “hit list.” Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), who was gravely wounded in 2017, when a man opened fire at a Congressional charity baseball game in Washington, D.C., blasted Castro, saying “people should not be personally targetted for their political views. Period. It isn’t a game. It’s dangerous. Lives are at stake.”

• Former President Barack Obama, who generally refrains from public comment, issued a statement, never mentioning Trump by name but clearly targetted him. “We should soundly reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist sentiments,” he intoned. He called on Americans to reject leaders who “demonize those who don’t look like us, or suggest that other people, including immigrants, threaten our way of life, or refer to other people as sub-human, or imply that America belongs to just one certain type of people…. Such language isn’t new—it’s been at the root of most human tragedy throughout history, here in America and around the world. It is at the root of slavery and Jim Crow, the Holocaust, the genocide in Rwanda, and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.”

• Joe Biden spoke today in Burlington, Iowa with a violent diatribe against Trump, accusing him of “unleashing the deepest, darkest forces in this nation,” and describing his candidacy as “a battle for the soul of this nation.” He ran through a list of incidents purporting to demonstrate how Trump “fans the flames of white supremacy” in the United States. Trump, he said, “has more in common with George Wallace than George Washington.”

• The failing New York Times for a brief moment put an honest headline on its coverage of Trump’s Aug. 5 speech on the shootings, with “Trump Urges Unity vs. Racism.” But, after an enraged outcry from anti-Trump sectors, the headline in the second edition became, “Assailing Hate But Not Guns.” Trump tweeted, “Radical Left Democrats went absolutely CRAZY! Fake News—That’s what we’re up against,” adding later, “after 3 years, I almost got a good headline from the Times.”

Global Times Carries Article on New Tariff Threat by EIR’s Bill Jones

Aug. 7 (EIRNS)—Global Times today carried an article by EIRWashington Bureau chief Bill Jones on the new tariffs threatened by President Donald Trump. With the Global Times title of “New U.S. Tariffs Cannot Trump China,” the article was published essentially as Jones had written it, although eliminating a section on how China’s “industrial policy” was similar to Alexander Hamilton’s, which the U.S. has itself abandoned, to its detriment. The article states that the tariffs will hurt the U.S. economy and will essentially be paid for by U.S. consumers, particularly the lower 80%. Furthermore, the atmosphere created by “playing hardball” with China could poison the atmosphere of U.S.-China relations in many ways.

Jones also observes that the tariff war can easily lead to a blowout of the world financial system, given the fragile nature of what has become a “casino economy.” If the U.S. President “really wants to rebuild the flagging U.S. economy, its industries, infrastructure, and manufacturing capabilities, he must return to the orientation that characterized the U.S. in its more productive days. Let’s move forward with the Moon to Mars program of NASA as outlined in the Artemis program. Bring back the spirit of progress and a belief in new scientific achievements.”

And, he continues, “let’s do it together with China. They have landed where no one else has, on the far side of the Moon, and they are willing to share the knowledge they have gained in this endeavor. And let’s get our roads, our highways and our rail systems back in shape. And in this endeavor, China can help as well. Follow Hamilton’s lead and create an infrastructure bank or infrastructure fund to promote investment in infrastructure. I’ll bet you can bring Chinese investment into such an undertaking. They have created more infrastructure than any other country in the world at this point, and I’m sure they would be willing to share their knowledge,” Jones writes.

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

U.S. Branding China a ‘Currency Manipulator’ Will Hurt World Economy, Declares China’s Central Bank

Aug. 7 (EIRNS)—The People’s Bank of China scored the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s designation of China as a currency manipulator. “Such actions will not merely inflict serious harm on the international financial order and lead to turbulence on the financial market, but will also significantly hinder recovery of the global economy and international trade. The U.S. will eventually bear consequences of their actions,” the central bank statement said yesterday, reported TASS.

“Such unilateral behavior of the U.S. undermines the multilateral consensus on key currency issues,” the PBOC stated. “China urges the U.S. to return to the right path and be fair. … In its turn, China will continue focusing on the floating exchange rate mechanism, keeping the rate of the yuan against the dollar at a reasonable and balanced level.” The People’s Bank of China reduced the yuan rate against the dollar by 458 basis points on Aug. 6 to the level of 6.9683 yuan per dollar.

The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported on the currency manipulation charge as a “new weapon” being brandished against China. The article cited Ronald Wen, “a Hong Kong-based senior banker, who said the alleged currency manipulation is a new weapon used by the U.S. in the trade friction with China, sending a signal that the U.S.-waged trade war is being expanded to more fields, including forex and financial markets.”

From British Empire side, the Guardian chose to present the last week’s escalation of tariff and other economic measures between the U.S. and China, as indicating that “Trump is ready to dig in for the long term” in the trade war with China, and favorably cited a Goldman Sachs economist saying that “the standoff could continue until after the U.S. presidential election in November 2020.” The Guardian cited as an indication that this is the case, President Trump’s Aug. 6 tweet: “As they have learned in the last two years, our great American Farmers know that China will not be able to hurt them in that their President has stood with them and done what no other president would do—And I’ll do it again next year if necessary!”

OTHER

International FridaysForFuture Gathering in Switzerland Planning Future Anti-Growth Actions

Aug. 7 (EIRNS)—About 450 youth from all countries are gathering in a five-day camp which started yesterday in Lausanne to discuss future activities under the banner of “Smile for Future.” Guest of honor was Greta Thunberg, who apparently has used up her batteries and did not say much. She appeared on a panel together with Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker and Jacques Dubochet, according to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

The youth section of the Swiss Volkspartei (People’s Party) has attacked the camp as “hardcore youth socialism” spreading “dangerous slogans for system change.”

Direct action instruction at Dortmund F4F Congress: The Swiss input has played a role in recent F4F illegal actions in Germany. Whereas most of last week’s F4F movement “climate protection summer congress” in Dortmund was characterized as having a playful summer camp atmosphere involving most of the 1,700 predominantly juvenile participants, there have been several instances of direct action. For instance, the entrance to the Dortmund office of the RWE utility was blocked by a group of activists, whose action was supposedly not coordinated with the coordination team of the congress.

At least one of the Dortmund workshops, reportedly well-attended, gave instructions on how to prepare and carry out effective blockades of roads and bridges, how to occupy machines at lignite mines, and other related facilities. It is worth noting that the instructors were from Switzerland.

After the Dortmund congress ended on Aug. 4, a group of activists occupied a coal excavator at the United Schleenhain Coal Mine, near Leipzig, on Aug. 5. Among others, a group called “degrowth,” in English, claimed responsibility for the action. The “degrowth” (or “décroissance” in France and French-speaking Switzerland) movement campaigns for a society with no economic growth, to be achieved by abandoning (sabotage) processes and things that stand for growth in the present industrial society.

Meanwhile, the head of the German public workers union, ver.di, Frank Bsirske, has called on union members to join the F4F day of action on Sept. 20. “Probably not everyone can interrupt his work, but those who can, should do it and join the action,” Bsirske said.

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